Odaiba and beach quidditch

Since I’ve been back from Korea I’ve not done loads but I thought I’d just blog about a couple of things.

Last Thursday I went over to Odaiba for the first time. It’s an artificial island in Tokyo Bay that has a host of shopping malls, museums, and other attractions. I met my friend Sophie there. We met whilst studying Japanese together in Norwich a few years ago, and she’s currently on a 3 week study program over here. She had great fun showing me round as she loves Odaiba.

Proof that Japan has vending machines for everything!

We took in a few of the malls, checked out some of the Fuji TV building (most of it you had to pay for and we were trying to save money), walked down to the Bay front where the fake Statue of Liberty is, and also went into Joypolis, an inside VR amusement park (but again we went on no rides cause money, haha).

Met Sonic in Joypolis. He kept asking for chili-dogs…

We found a nice, cheap restaurant for tea that gave us amazing views out over the bay as the sun set. Also, tempura was had. It’s the first time I’ve had a decent amount of tempura since I got here. I love tempura! Haha.

So all in all it was a lovely day and so nice to catch up with Sophie.

On Saturday it was time for beach quidditch! We decided to have our first practice back after Korea on the beach as a fun, post tournament thing. So we all met up on Yuigahama Beach, which is next to Kamakura. Some of the Azabu Stirrings joined us as well, which was really cool! Camila got there early and snagged us a brilliant spot to play near the water (the sand higher up the beach was like stepping on hot coals if you were barefoot!)

So we played some quidditch but it was really too hot to play for too long. Then the majority of us took to the sea to cool off (though the sea was actually more lukewarm than cold). Much throwing and catching of the snitch (tennis ball) happened, which resulted in many fun short distance swimming races.

Lunch was had at some point and then in the afternoon eight of us decided to brave the high seas on a banana boat! Oh man, it was so fun but also really tiring! My group (we went in two groups of 4) got chucked off the boat no less than 6 times! The first time being before we even started, haha. The seawater seemed to be much saltier than I’ve ever experienced before and I swallowed a whole lot of it by the end. But so worth the experience!

We packed up shortly after that and after queuing up just to wash the sand off our feet, headed towards Kamakura station in search of food. We found a place that served up Unagi (freshwater eel), as per Miyu’s request, and oh my god, I’m so glad we did because it tasted amazing!

Rice, unagi, and a poached egg – sooo good!

I was really tired at this point so, despite much urging to join the others in some karaoke, I headed straight back home after eating.

So a very very fun day at the beach. Unfortunately, I am still paying for it now as my shoulders and back got badly sunburnt and I can confirm the so-called ‘Hell’s Itch’ from sunburn is worse than what I imagine hell to be. Also, to add to my woes, I developed an eye infection yesterday and ended up down the hospital to get prescribed a ton of eye drops and ointment. I apparently can’t have fun without some sort of repercussions. Equivalent exchange, I guess.

Until next time! ❤

Asia-Pacific Quidditch Cup 2019, Korea.

I’m just going to start this entry with a quick, unfunny joke. What do you get when you mix heat, travel and me together?

Drama! Of the ‘I’m feeling very sick and ill today’ variety. But there were no hospitals involved this time, so that’s some sort of saving grace, I guess.

Anyways, let’s start from the beginning before the ‘getting sick’ stuff happened. So on Friday I caught my flight from Tokyo Haneda airport at 12:20pm. A nice easy flight over with Korean Air. I arrived in Gimpo airport around 3pm and met one of my teammates, Dora, there, and we walked to our Airbnb together. It was basically a very spacious apartment with 4 bedrooms in it. Dora sorted monetary things with the owner and I got changed ready for our quidditch practice.

The bedroom I slept in, or, the cool room! 😉

Dora and I then got the train to the tournament venue where we met some of our teammates for a quick practice session. It was a nice venue and seeing all the other teams assembled there made it all feel very real! I scored two goals during our session and felt awesome! 😀

We then headed back to our airbnb and then went out to get some food. Morgan found us this nice Korean BBQ place pretty much next door, which worked out great! Some of the meat was sooo tasty!

Korean BBQ! (Try and find the spicy dish in this photo – it’s the obvious one)

We found Capri-Sun in the CU convenience store across the road from our Airbnb!

Ice-cream, showers, and general silliness followed food. We gradually had the rest of our team show up as well and then eventually sleep was had.

Saturday morning started the whole ‘Catherine is sick again’ cycle. Typically, I woke up with a bad headache and it persisted to the point that I had to admit I wasn’t going to make it out of bed at least for the morning. It was a very early start with everyone having to leave at about 7-7:30am ish, and also extremely hot outside. So I, unhappily, waved everyone off, telling myself that I’d be able to join them later on once I’d banished this headache.

Naturally, the headache got worse, not better, and I spent the full day in bed feeling sick, miserable and full of FOMO. I got occasional messages throughout the day from Morgan, who was also not playing due to an injured thumb. The other teams were very strong but we did manage one win out of the four matches, which cheered me up a lot!

I did manage to shower and eat some toast about an hour before everyone arrived back, so when going out for food was mentioned, I decided to go too. We ended up spread out between a couple of different restaurants. The one I was at had no English menu or speakers so the power of Google Translate was utilised to the max!

Yasmine shared the translation results because, as you can see, they are hilarious!

Top left = If You’re Old, next to it with the chopsticks = Osteoporosis, lol.

It was a very interesting experience, haha. We then all met back up at the Airbnb and more silliness ensured, as well as some games and chatting and generally staying up too late.

Unfortunately, my Saturday evening socialising was either a huge mistake or just a little reprieve from the being sick. I got up no less than four times in the night to um… empty my stomach. So Sunday morning I felt tired and miserable and wondering why the world seemed to hate me so much. Luckily, we weren’t due at the venue until 1pm, so I quietly willed my body to behave itself enough so that I might at least go and support my teammates, even if I couldn’t actually play, and happily this is what I managed.

So day 2 of the tournament was just the afternoon. It was the final placing type matches. So we were to play at least one match to see where we would come in the final standings. I had the very important job of being the camerawoman for our live stream. It was tiring but also really fun and I actually learnt a lot about quidditch that I didn’t know before whilst doing it. It was also nice to finally get to meet and chat with some of the other teams and volunteers.

We ended up winning our match 140-30. It was amazing! I was so proud of my team! We didn’t, unfortunately get to play our second match due to a combination of time constraints and injuries to the other team. The overall tournament winners were, unsurprisingly, the Sydney City Serpents. I believe they had the most experienced players by a big margin. The Tokyo Penguins gave their all in the final against them though. It was a great match to watch (whilst expertly filming it, haha). It all rather descended into a mess of shirt swapping, photo taking chaos after that. I got a Serpents shirt thanks to a prior arrangement. I’m so happy with it! 😀

Miyu looking after the sickly camerawoman

Some shirt-swapped Monsters! (or, The Coolest People You Will Ever Meet!)

Very happy with seventh place. So proud of my team! 😀

After the medal ceremony and many more photos, plus clearing up, we all headed to the tournament social venue. Those poor people working at that restaurant had no idea what was about to be unleashed on them. We basically had this whole big restaurant booked out for the night and sat in tables of 5 people. We had paid up front for it so just ordered food and shared it amongst our table. I managed to eat little bits and pieces despite my sickliness. Much drinking was also done by most people so the night naturally got quite rowdy. It was so fun!

Pork and cheese fondue (the pork was spicy, so I dipped omelette in the cheese instead, haha)

We all got up to leave at around 11pm, although we had to find Morgan’s bag first. When we arrived we all stowed our bags inside our chairs. Unfortunately, the night very much became a game of musical chairs so at the end of the night trying to find your bag was something of a challenge for some people, lol. There was also some dilly-dallying at the entrance, which enabled me to enjoy one of my best moments of the night. I suddenly heard the Virgil van Dijk song being sung and was like ‘omg!’ so hurried off to find my apparent fellow Liverpool supporters. There were three guys (one from Malaysia, one from Australia, and the other possibly from Hong Kong) with their arms round each other singing Liverpool songs, so I immediately joined in, much to their delight, and we gave a nice rowdy rendition of Allez Allez Allez. Unfortunately we did leave after that, so it was very short-lived, but it was so awesome! 😀

So we decided to get taxis back, which was an experience. Our taxi driver took a while to comprehend where we wanted to go but got there in the end. He also spent the ride trying to teach us Korean, which was nice. The group that came after us had a taxi driver that apparently pulled over and rang the Airbnb owner to get the directions, hahaha. Then we all stayed up late into the night. There were drunken, naked shenanigans (I won’t name names here, haha), and much talking and lamenting the fact we would all be parting ways in a few hours.

Despite the late night, I got up at 7am (well, 7:20am, ahem) as Miyu and I wanted to squeeze in some sightseeing before our afternoon flights back to Japan. The majority of our group had left even earlier than that for early flights from Incheon airport. So we got ready and then caught a bus to the Gyeongbokgung Palace, so we could at least say we saw something other than the quidditch pitch in Korea, haha.

A shop that rented out traditional Korean dresses

We met up with Dora in Myeong-dong after that for a quick look at the famous, cosmetics shops heavy shopping street. Then we had to catch the train back to the airbnb as Miyu had to leave for the airport.

After saying a heartfelt goodbye to Miyu, Morgan, and Stephen, there were only three of us left. Dora, John and myself hung about chatting for a while and then eventually went out to get lunch at the Lotte Mall next to Gimpo airport. Convenient for me as I had to rush off to get my plane straight after we ate our lukewarm burgers from the bad imitation of McDonalds we ended up in, lol. Was so nice to hang out with those two though. I will see Dora again for sure, but I hope I get to meet John again because he is lovely!

My flight home wasn’t too bad and so concludes this monster entry about my trip with the Kaminari Monsters to Korea. Thank you to my teammates for an amazing time (despite the being sick part) and thank you to everyone else involved in the tournament. I didn’t technically become an international quidditch player in the end because of illness, but it was still so great! 😀

Quidditch, Chinese food, and karaoke!

So yesterday was our last quidditch practice before we jet off to Korea to become international sports stars! We did our usual practice in the morning, which I was unfortunately late to as I had been out late the night before at an end of term drinking party with some of my teachers. We played a practice match, did some tackling practice, and some other strategy type stuff.

We went for lunch at this cheap but nice Chinese place nearby. I can’t lie, going for lunch together is always my favourite part of quidditch practice, haha.

Food!! With my favourite almond dessert 🙂

After lunch we killed a bit of time at Stephen’s place and then made our way towards the afternoon’s venue. We were going to meet with the other three Tokyo-based teams, along with a couple of guys from the Japan Quidditch Association, to go over the official rules and play some practice matches. This venue was seriously in the middle of nowhere next to a sewage plant. Very bizarre!

So the rules were explained in Japanese and Camila did an excellent job at translating for us foreigners with little to no Japanese skills (thank you, Camila!). Then we played some short matches against each other. One of the teams only sent a small handful of their members, so they were split between the other teams so they could join in. We welcomed a lovely guy called Kento to be an honorary Monster. We narrowly lost both our matches but it was a good experience, which I enjoyed. Then we gathered for some photos before leaving.

Kaminari Monsters! (with Kento and our Korean spy Yujin 🙂 )

It was really good to hang out with the other teams and I’m looking forward to hanging out more in Korea, as well as meeting the teams from the other countries.

A small group of us rounded off the day in true Japanese style at karaoke. Much hilarity was had as we whiled away a good few hours singing everything from Eminem to One Direction. Yujin raps really well! 😀

So yes, an epic day! So, not surprisingly, I have done very little today. The next few days will be a last minute panic to sort stuff ready for Korea. Then this weekend I get to go play a sport internationally for the first time, haha.

The ‘I haven’t updated for ages’ guilt blog

So, um, I haven’t updated in ages and feel bad so thought I’d just post a quick little update on what I’ve been up to lately.

It’s mostly been a good mix of school and quidditch. School the last few weeks has been very speaking test heavy. I have spoken individually with all of the second and third graders now. Some have a good grasp of English and we had nice conversations, others… not so much. I actually had one girl walk up to me, give me her evaluation sheet and then walk off again. She didn’t even try! And I still had to grade her a C because it was A, B, or C. Should have given her a U…

But it is the official last day of school tomorrow and then summer vacation! Hooray! Freedom until August 26th (well apart from the three mandatory speech contest days). Must make some plans…

Quidditch wise… we have been practising hard no matter the weather. It’s rainy season currently so we have mostly been playing in rather wet, miserable conditions. But… a week tomorrow I fly out to Korea and we are going to be participating in the Asian Pacific Quidditch Cup against nine other teams. It should be a great experience! Also, today we featured on page 7 of The Japan Times!

A lovely article about my team and quidditch in general

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/community/2019/07/18/issues/inclusivity-quidditch-produces-pure-magic-field/?fbclid=IwAR37o2an5GCIbjr9xqeO9rBKTP5zxY3V4lSfDTmwsYkVfHsxjQHapvzWUwc#.XS-7CtiRXYU

I showed some of the teachers at my school and they were very impressed! 😀

Apart from school and quidditch… I had my first proper night out in Tokyo last weekend. I went with some of the quidditch guys to Shinjuku’s gay district and we found a club with a pole, which was very amusing when you’ve had a few drinks, haha. Also, went to an Okinawan restaurant a couple of weeks ago. I would like to say I was enticed in by the promise of spam, but it was more Stephen saying ‘you have to try it, you’ll love it’, lol. It was, different… haha.

I believe this was tofu and egg… the pink stuff moved like it was blowing in the wind…

But yes, so concludes my ‘I’m not dead, honest’ blog. I promise to update more regularly from now on, haha.

School Sports Festival

So last Wednesday saw my school’s long awaited Sports Festival. In Japan the Sports Festival is one of the biggest events in the school’s calendar. They practice for it for weeks and weeks. They even have a full school dress rehearsal! (Or my school did; I’m just assuming all schools do, to be fair). It most definitely dwarfed all the school sports days in England I’ve ever been to.

The festival started at around 8:45am. There were marquees set up for first aid, special guests, and the elderly. Everyone else (the students and their families) were left out to the elements for the day, which was hot sunshine with a refreshing breeze here and there. The students were sat in their year group by class on the opposite side of the playground to the marquees. The families were dotted around behind the students and had turned out in good numbers.

First on the agenda was the opening ceremony. All of the students (there are roughly 850, I think) stood in formation in the middle of the playground and marched in sync to music and a whistle. It was quite the spectacle to behold. This was followed with what they call ‘radio exercises’. It’s a Japanese tradition that they first learn in elementary school and basically involves stretching the arms, legs, and torso. It’s meant to promote healthy living and long life, I believe. Then there were some speeches by the principal and some of the third year students, which I didn’t understand, of course, haha.

Then finally the actual sports part started! The students generally competed within their years groups, and there were some familiar races and some not so familiar to me:

50m and 100m sprints
Adventure race (an assault course, essentially, which included a short sack race, a forward somersault on a mat, jumping over a hurdle, ducking under a hurdle, and crawling under a net).
200m
Relay races
Whole classes (so 35+ students) jumping in sync with one large skipping rope – this had been practised a lot, but was still only met with marginal success. Not that you can really blame them, cause that is hard!
A wooden pole relay race (four students held onto the pole and ran together around some cones with it before running back and having to get their classmates to jump the pole four at a time, before handing it off to the next four to go – very odd but fun to watch!)
Tug of War

I spent the majority of the day ‘doing the rounds’. That is, I walked back and forth among the students chatting to as many of them as possible. It was so good! I hadn’t really done much mingling outside the classroom before, which is pretty bad of me, but better late than never! The kids seemed to love having the novelty of me sitting with them and practising their English. One first grade class even practised a relay intro game we had done the day before, which made me so happy!

We broke for lunch at about 12:20pm, which was very welcome as I was starving by this point! The teachers had special Yokohama bentos (lunch boxes) to mark the occasion. It’s called the Shumai Bento and is the most produced bento in all of Japan!

Rice, beef dumplings, salty fish, chicken karage, and many other wonderful treats!

Lunch finished promptly at 1pm and the sports festival resumed. The members of the various school clubs assembled in their outfits on the track: Football, Track and Field, Tennis, Baseball, Kendo, Basketball, Volleyball, Drama, Art, and others I’ve forgotten. I felt sorry for the Kendo Club as it was far to hot to be wearing full kendo gear. The Brass Band club were also representing and playing some good music. Then the clubs did a fun relay race to some music (including YMCA, lol), incorporating their club activity into the relay. It made for a rather amusing watch! They followed this up with a a more serious relay between the sports clubs. I think the Football Club just beat out the Track and Field club, which must have grated on the latter a bit, lol.

There were some more relay races, including one that involved some of the teachers, and then it finished and we had the closing ceremony. This involved more speeches and prize-giving. Until eventually it was all finished and the big clear up process began. It finished at about 3:20pm, so a real full school day event.

I’m so happy I got to experience a proper Junior High School Sports Festival. My Japanese teacher in England told us about them and it was one of the reasons I was so adamant I wanted to teach within a public school over here. I’m also really happy about how much time I got to spend with the students. I definitely feel more like I belong at the school now 🙂

A weekend of two halves

So last weekend saw Morgan, Miyu and myself go on a little road trip to the east of Chiba (the most eastern point of this part of Japan, I believe). We just wanted to go exploring and eat seafood, so why not!

It started off with me staying at Morgan’s on Friday night as he lives a lot closer to Chiba than me. I have to include this bit in here because I’m still, nearly a week later, so impressed with ‘Hotel Morgan’!

See, a towel, bar of soap, and even chocolates on the bed! We just shan’t mention the fact the airbed was nearly completed deflated by morning, haha.

We met Miyu at around 10am (10:20 maybe) the next day and the road trip started! The weather was utterly atrocious; the rain lashing down across the windscreen, but it was a pretty fun hour and a half or so in the car. I’m trying to remember if we stopped anywhere along the way, but I am struggling.

Our first destination was a seafood restaurant Miyu’s friend had told her about. It was a nice traditional place where the tables are low, you take your shoes off, and sit on cushions on the floor. The seafood was so fresh! (okay, they had open air tanks in the middle of the restaurant, so that’s how fresh! – sorry vegetarian friends). I ordered a 1000 yen set meal plus a 650 yen bowl of sashimi, which are amazing prices for what I got!

Soooo much food! (There is rice under all that battered fish)

Sashimi (raw seafood) I liked the tuna best!

Restaurant selfie with the lovely weather in the background, lol.

After lunch we drove a very short distance and then stopped to go run on (or near?) the beach in the rain (because we are actually 5 year olds >.>).

We drove to Inubosaki lighthouse after that and debated going in but decided we would come back the next day as the weather was going to be much better. We did take some photos outside though (not of the actual lighthouse though, bizarrely) and go for a walk down to the beach despite how rough the waves were (we’re so brave, or maybe just stupid).

After a quick look inside the shops and bakery here, we drove onwards towards our Airbnb about a 40 minute drive away. It was a little hard to locate amongst all the other ornate looking, traditional houses in the area, but eventually we found our lodgings for the night. It was a huge house owned by an older couple (I think they advertise 7 bedrooms on the Airbnb site). They had two dogs, who I had been excited to meet, but it turns out the younger, male dog was a bit bite happy. He managed to bite both me and Morgan, so yeah, not so good.

Our room – note the traditional sliding doors and tatami mats

Room selfie! (does it count as a selfie if the camera is on a timer?)

There was a break in the rain so we decided to walk down to the beach (it was a very short walk from the house) Unfortunately, only Morgan was clever enough to bring a coat, so when it inevitably started raining again, Miyu and myself got absolutely drenched!

A random sign that was tucked away so nobody could see it – it amused us greatly.

Walking in the rain (and eating ice-creams >.>) ^^;

After trying our best to sneak back into the house without the owner seeing how soaked we were (we totally didn’t succeed), and subsequently getting showers and putting dry clothes on, we spent the rest of the evening eating snacks and playing a card game called Fluxx.

Further hilarity happened at bedtime when we found out Miyu is deathly scared of, well, just about everything. I’m guessing it is mostly the darkness though. She especially didn’t like ‘zombie face Morgan’ and clung very close to me for a while, haha. We did all eventually fall asleep though…

…Well, until the thunder storm woke us around 2am. The loudest thunder! Miyu is very scared of thunder, of course. We had to all go to the toilet together because she needed an arm to cling to, haha. Again, eventually we all slept again, though not for as long as we would have liked because the room was very light so when the sun came up, that was about it for us sleep wise.

We started Sunday with some breakfast and showers and packing our stuff up. Then we went for a nice sunny (finally!) walk down on the beach. The storm had washed up many different things, including but not limited to, oodles of scurrying crabs, a dead fish. a dead bird, and a dead dolphin. Yeah, not the most pleasant of viewings. The combination of sun and wind made for some good photos though!

We went back to the Airbnb to pick up our stuff and then headed off with plans to do many things that day. And here is where the second half of the weekend comes into play. Anyone that knows me well, knows that I get sick pretty easily, and unfortunately this is what happened here. I started getting a headache as we were packing up to leave but I didn’t think anything of it, but then it suddenly got a whole lot worse, and I was physically sick. This, without going into too much detail, descended into being very very sick and dizzy and pretty much passing out in a convenience store toilet, leading to Morgan and Miyu calling an ambulance.

So, in short, because I don’t fancy going into too many details here because it’s bad memories for me, I got my first experience in a Japanese ambulance (I remember thinking it seemed pretty retro) and 6 hours or so in a rural Japanese hospital. They were extremely thorough, doing a CT scan and an MRI because of my seemingly unending dizziness. Everything turned up fine, of course, and it was all just put down to heat, dehydration, lack of sleep, and stress. Typical me really.

Two things I do want to mention though. Morgan and Miyu were absolute superstars! I’ve only know them for a few months but I could not ask for better friends. They looked after me amazingly and, particularly with the language barrier, were the most helpful they could possibly be! Also, and this takes me onto my second point, they bailed me out when it came to paying my hospital bills. So I, stupidly, didn’t have my health insurance card on me, so had to pay for the full bill up front (health insurance covers 70% and I will be getting it back). I didn’t have the 30,000 yen as it was a few days before payday, so the two best people ever covered my back for me! (Thank you 6,000!!) But yeah, this really highlights how bloody important the NHS is. I’ve never sat feeling absolutely awful in hospital and had to worry about money before! The NHS needs to be kept safe from the Tories!

Anyway, rant over ^^; So yes, the rest of the weekend was spoiled by my stupid ills and spills. We never made it back to the lighthouse, but we made the most of the sunny weather on the drive home. Stopping for photos here and there and seeing a gorgeous sunset!

Sunshine selfie! (excuse my face, I had just spent 6 hours ill in a hospital)

So yes, in conclusion, despite how Sunday turned out, I had an absolutely brilliant time in Chiba and can’t wait for the next trip somewhere! Also, thank you again, Morgan and Miyu, for everything. The -good- memories will stay with me forever! 😀

Quidditch, a Sri Lankan feast, and more footie celebrations!

So another fairly epic weekend has passed. Coming to Japan has definitely given me something to talk about on a regular basis, which was the plan, so yay!

Saturday started bright and early as we are now being even more dedicated and starting our Quidditch practice an hour early in preparation for the Asian Cup at the end of July. I had to leave my apartment at 7:30am (actual leaving time was about 7:47am >.>) and arrived at our training ground raring to go at just after 9:30am. It was an extra physical session. I think because there were less of us than there has been recently. I got bludgers (dodgeballs) to the face at least twice, and our lovely captain tackled me twice in quick succession during one of our practice matches. I now have some lovely bruises and aching muscles as souvenirs. I really enjoyed the session though! 😀

After practice we were all cordially invited to Ranil’s (one of our beaters) apartment for what turned out to be a Sri Lankan feast! He and his amazing wife cooked some of the most delicious dishes, and there was so much variety. Every mouthful was a new taste and sensation! I honestly can’t thank the pair of them enough for this brilliant experience! 😀

Nicest mix of so many different dishes I’ve possibly ever had!

A well fed team! Compliments to our hosts on the far left and right!

So we ate and drank until we nearly popped and then played a card game, the name of which I forget. ‘…… Night’ (maybe ‘Every’ or ‘One’ or something similar). It took a couple of games for me to really get it (as seems to be the case with me and card/board games) but it was good fun! Then eventually we all dispersed back to our individual abodes scattered across Tokyo and (well for me) Yokohama.

Sunday started off in the usual way for me: lazily! Then I did my ironing and other Sunday chores. And then at about 4:15pm I left my apartment and headed for Ebisu to go join the Official LFC Supporters Group Japan in Epilogue (the pub) for a few hours of Champions League winning celebration fun!

The pub was crammed full of fanatic Japanese Liverpool fans. It was awesome! I couldn’t speak with many of them because of the language barrier but there were a few people there who could speak at least some English. Also, once the singing started the language barrier was all but forgotten. As I said to somebody there, ‘football has one language’. There was a guy there playing guitar, and another guy who made the trip to Madrid in hopes of getting a ticket. He didn’t get one but had a blast with some Australian people in a pub there, and got some amazing photos and videos of the atmosphere there.

The last hour or so was just us all singing and jumping around and having a great time! I will definitely be joining them next season for some matches! May there be many many lunchtime kick-offs!

Hopefully if you click on the following link it will take you to the Facebook post from the LSCJ and give you a little taster of how Japanese fans celebrate a big trophy win. There’s three videos including the ones in the comments. My personal favourite is the rendition of We Are The Champions! 😀

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=393596037910736

So yes, another fun weekend. Oh and just quickly… On Friday I had my first earthquake drill at school. It was the most bizarre thing. I’m used to fire drills back home that are very quick and efficient. This one seemed to take forever. We all went to the gym (and I’m sorry but I don’t really fancy standing underneath those big basketball hoops during a big earthquake). We had to take our shoes off before going into the gym (oh no earthquake is happening and I have to stop to remove my shoes and carry them. Ehhh??) And then lots of Japanese spoken through a megaphone and then we all got to leave. Oh well, yet another experience for me to write about, huh, haha.

We won it 6 times! :D

As you can probably tell from the title this is going to be a rather self-indulgent blog entry, so apologies in advance!

For the last week or so the one thing that has been pretty much dominating my thoughts has been ‘where oh where will I watch the Champions League final?’. I thought I would watch it at Epilogue with the Official Japan LFC Supporters’ Club, but I found out from the JT journalist that they had sold 70 tickets in 5 minutes so there would be no room at the inn, as it were.

After several messages and phone calls to different people/places, Shyam and I decided on Legends Sports Bar in Roppongi. This appealed to me because I used to frequent a sports bar of the same name in Prague back during the Champions League campaign in 2004/05. This was further endorsed by my friend from home, Nicola, who had been there before.

Anyways, after a chill Saturday day time spent hanging out with TJ and family in Tokyo, followed by trying to sleep a bit during the afternoon/evening, I got the train to Roppongi, arriving a little after 11:30pm. Shyam and I went to the midnight showing of Detective Pikachu at the cinema, which turned out to be a great way to kill a couple of hours before the match! Random fact, drink/popcorn combos here are way cheaper than they are back home.

Then it was onwards to Legends bar (after a little walk around trying to kill more time before the bar opened at 3am). We paid our 2,000 yen entrance fee (this included two drinks so more of a guarantee than making money off us as drinks were around 1,000 yen each anyway) and got some nice prime seats in front of a screen.

There was a good mix of both Liverpool and Spurs fans in by the time the match started. We had a couple of Liverpool fans sharing our table and it turns out one of them was a JHS ALT in Yokohama just like us. So that was a fun coincidence! The match itself was not the best. You could definitely tell the season ended 3 weeks ago. They all looked very rusty! But the main thing is…

WE WON!! :DDD

Haha, yeah, I said it was going to be self-indulgent. Winning number 6 after the disappointment of last year’s final was amazing! And to share it with all these new people I’d just met in a bar in the middle of Tokyo made it even more special. There was much high-fiving, singing, clapping, and just general jubilant celebrations going on long after the final whistle. It was after 6am, we’d had no sleep, but we were all happy. Well, the Spurs fans weren’t, but I made sure to shake the hands of at least one of them. They were very nice people and I hope they win something next season.

I eventually left the bar and made my way to the station to go home and finally sleep, but not without getting in some more high fives along the way from fellow fans leaving other bars.

What a night!! :DDD

My first Enkai (and other weekend adventures)

I’ll just start with a quick explanation as to what an Enkai is. Put plainly it is a traditional office party here in Japan. They hold several throughout the year but the main, big one, at least in schools, is the one held at the start of the school year to welcome new teachers and say goodbye to departing teachers. What I knew of them before my first experience on Friday was that they are expensive and consist of a whole lot of drinking.

So my first Enkai was held at a relatively posh hotel in the middle of Yokohama. There were around 60 teachers (current and past) in attendance and we were placed at several well dressed tables in this large event room. I arrived with the Japanese English teacher who’s unfortunate job it is to look after me for this year, haha. I was placed at a table where there wasn’t a massive amount of English ability but the ladies I was sat next to were lovely and we managed to communicate just fine with a little bit of English and Japanese on both sides.

I must have only been there for a maximum of ten minutes when I had to go up onto the stage with all the other new teachers. One by one we had to make a short speech to the whole room. This would have been nerve-wracking enough in itself apart from I had to do it in Japanese. So, second to last of about a dozen or so teachers, I was finally handed the microphone. I gave a nice cheerful ‘konbanwa’, which was merrily parroted back to me. Then I stumbled through a basic self-intro in Japanese, finishing with ‘Watashi no Nihongo wa warui desu. Sumimasen! Yoroshiku onegaishimasu’ (Sorry, my Japanese is bad. Pleased to meet you.) This got a good laugh, so I handed the mic to the last person feeling rather proud of my efforts, haha.

So the rest of the night was a nice mix of lots of different ‘a la carte’ style courses of food, plenty of wine/beer, and lots of individual speeches from the departing teachers. I didn’t understand most of what was said but impressed myself with the little bits I did pick up. I also had a good chat with a couple of the Japanese English teachers as well as the aforementioned ladies on my table.

Overall it was a very good experience, made even better when they said that just for this one I didn’t have to pay. 6,000 yen saved that will definitely help come the last week before payday ^^;

I took it easy on the drinking at the Enkai so that I was okay to go to Quidditch the next morning. So glad I did because it was a good session! We had a reporter from the Japan Times there. A lovely American chap who usually covers Japanese football (so naturally I had a good chat with him about that!) who is going to write an article about our team! I even did a video interview with him, so we shall see if any clips from it get used (probably not as it wasn’t the best) but I’m looking forward to seeing the Kaminari Monsters in print!

It was so hot we utilised the shade as much as possible!

We went for our usual post-Quidditch curry afterwards. There were a record 17 of us crammed into the restaurant. I’m still undecided if the owner/waiters love or hate us for invading them at the tail end of their lunch sessions most Saturdays, haha. It was here that I experienced my very first Japanese earthquake! We were all happily sitting there, chatting and eating, when everything starts shaking rather vigorously. I didn’t have time to really register what was happening before someone helpfully said ‘oh an earthquake!’ and I was like ‘oh wow, it is!’. I don’t really know how to explain it, but it’s a very surreal sensation, Luckily it wasn’t a big one and there was no damage/injuries. But I’m glad I was with my team because if I’d been on my own it might have scared me more ^^;

After curry most people went their separate ways, but seven of us headed to a park nearby to hang out for another couple of hours. We got a surprise chocolate cake for Camila as a late birthday surprise, which was yummy! We also acted like the big kids we are on the kids playground (because you just have to) and played a fun game called Psychiatrist, which I definitely want to play again because it was hilarious! The only downside to our park adventures were the swarms of mosquitoes. I didn’t realise it at the time but I got bitten about a dozen times. They are so itchy! >.<

So yes, a very eventful Friday night/Saturday. Yesterday was calmer but sooo hot! Consistent temperatures in the late 20s/early 30s when it’s still only May is madness to me. Here’s hoping for it to cool down a bit over the next few days!

Quidditch tournament!

So I’ve already been back at school for 2 weeks since Golden Week. Time is flying as per usual. I’ve mostly been teaching first and second grade classes and I definitely prefer the former. The second graders are… difficult. But I was warned this would be the case. 13/14 years old is a funny old age to be. Hopefully things will improve.

Outside of school, this weekend just past I attended my first Quidditch tournament! Our team hosted two other Tokyo-based teams at Edogawa rugby ground on Saturday. We had to get there bright and early (my alarm was set for 5am!) and we turned out in our numbers! I think there were about 17 of us, which is fantastic considering you only have 7 in a team. The more the merrier as Quidditch is played at a frenetic pace and you can have roll on/roll off subs.

So we all gathered and helped set the pitch up. We had two official IQA officials in attendance. Two lovely people from Germany and Norway who are currently travelling over here. They both play for the German National Quidditch team and were very knowledgeable and strict with their refereeing.

A glorious photo (haha) of me before any matches were played.

The other two teams played the first match and it went on for a whole lot longer than the 20 minutes a match is supposed to last. The conditions were pretty difficult with high winds forever blowing the hoops over, not to mention the dusty ground combining with the wind to create billowing clouds that reduced visibility to ‘very poor’. There were one or two injuries but eventually the snitch was legally caught and the game finished.

Then it was our turn! So we decided who was starting and distributed the relevant colour headbands (white for chasers, green for keepers, black for beaters, yellow for seekers). I started on the bench and, I’m sorry to say, only actually played for about 5 minutes as I went walkies during the match to find the loo (so typical me). But yes, it didn’t go amazingly unfortunately. We got soundly beaten as there were a lot of us and a many of us were very inexperienced, whereas the other team had much more experience. But it was a good taster for us all and will definitely help going forward.

Pre-match fingernail check – can’t be scratching up our opponents!

Miyu and I getting pumped for the start of the match!

An incredibly fine looking substitute bench!

The one photo of me in action – shame we had just conceded a goal ^^;

We had a picnic lunch afterwards, with much food sharing and lively chatter. Unfortunately we naively left the remnants out when we went to partake in the Quidditch training workshops and the huge crows descended! Cheetos everywhere! ^^; But yes, the workshops were run by our new friends from the IQA and were extremely helpful! We did some general drills and position specific ones and learnt some excellent defending strategies.

By 5pm I was absolutely shattered so left a bit earlier than everyone else who had stayed for the workshops. It was a fantastic day out though, but next time I will definitely remember to reapply my sun-cream more than once as the back of my legs are still bright red and sore now ^^;

Until next time! 🙂

(Photos taken by Vimmy ❤ )