Second weekend with my mama

So my mum had a really great time in Kyoto and I definitely need to go there before my time in Japan is through (should have gone with her, damnit!). We were to have a rather dramatic start to our second weekend together though. In true ‘me’ style, I ended up in hospital again on Friday. Carted off in an ambulance direct from school. So very very dramatic. I was perfectly fine but then all of sudden I got very very sick. Turned out to be a bad infection in my intestines. Not pleasant. So mum’s first duty upon arriving back in Kanto was to come pick me up (and initially pay my hospital bill – I need to start carrying emergency cash on me for these hospital trips >.<).

Our plans for the weekend had to be moved around slightly because of this. I was in no fit state on Saturday to go to the Enoshima Spa. Instead we ended up having a nice slow start to the day. Early in the afternoon we walked to the shrine near my apartment I’d never been to. It’s a tiny, backyard type shrine, and I didn’t take photos, but I’m glad I finally saw it. We stopped back at my apartment again for a bit, and then we went out to China Town in Yokohama.

It was actually only the third ever time I’d been into China Town, for some reason. We had a good wander around and bought a few bits and pieces. Then we walked all the way down to Minato Mirai just as the sun was setting. It was beautiful!

I was feeling a lot better on Sunday and we headed into Tokyo in fairly decent time. I took mum to Asakusa to see the temple and market there. She was very impressed and really enjoyed trying out various street food, including some karaage and cheese mochi.

A rather awkward selfie just outside the temple, lol.

Cheese mochi! I finally tried it, though only a few bites of mum’s one.

We then headed to another yarn shop that mum had listed as wanting to visit. It was nearby in Asakusabashi. She, of course, made another purchase. This time a skein of local hand-dyed yarn. Very nice! The staff were very friendly and helpful.

From here I made a bad decision to take us to Ginza. Really wasn’t the sort of shopping we were after, so after some fruitless walking around we hopped on the Yamanote Line to Harajuku. We did a bit of shopping and then caught the train back. We stopped in a Nepalese curry place that’s in my local area, and had a very nice late dinner. (Yeah. curry maybe not the best thing for me but I only ate a little and it was very mild).

Mushroom and spinach curry, and garlic naan!

Monday, our last day together, was to be a very busy day. We were essentially cramming two days together on this day because of my ills and spills upsetting things. So we got up and out early and headed to Kamakura. Mum wanted to see the Great Buddha and the bamboo gardens at Hokokuji temple, which we dutifully did. The bamboo gardens were very small but very beautiful, so worth the bus ride out. The Great Buddha, or Daibutsu, was as it was when I saw it before, though minus the cherry blossoms. I think mum had a very nice time!

Caves that are tombs connected to the temple.

Mama with a purple sweet potato ice-cream, after I raved on about them.

We went from Kamakura to Enoshima to go experience the spa resort there. Mum really wanted to go, so I’m glad we made it in the end. No photos as you’re not allowed to take any, which was a shame because there is an outside heated pool where we were able to watch the sunset from. It was absolutely beautiful! We could also see Mount Fuji from there. The Spa was https://enoshimaislandspa.com/enospa/facilities/ and it was the perfect way to spend our last afternoon/early evening in Japan together. I definitely want to go there again at some point.

We got back to mine about 9pm and had some sushi and other snacks. Then we had cake and I opened my birthday presents a day early so that mum could be there for it. I got some amazing gifts from family and friends and am truly the luckiest British girl in Japan, haha.

Mum left Japan yesterday lunchtime. It was a bit of a teary goodbye as I left my apartment to go to school, leaving mum to pack up her stuff and find her own way to the airport. She managed fine! We had a great time together and I’m sure the next few months will go by so quickly I’ll barely blink. I’m so glad she came over and had such a great time! 🙂 ❤

First weekend in Japan with my mama :)

Last Friday I took the day off school and went all the way to Narita airport to meet my mama off the plane. She was coming to visit for 12 days and I was very excited since I hadn’t seen her since February! She eventually made it through the arrivals gate after I’d been waiting for about an hour. After much hugging we headed to Starbucks as, to quote mum, ‘I could drink a gallon of tea right now’, so we did.

I didn’t get the full cups in, but they were the biggest sizes available, haha.

Then we, in hindsight regrettably, took the same route back to mine that I’d used to get there, but the trains took extra long and we seemed to be on them forever. Definitely getting mum the limo bus back next week. Much easier for her. She was impressed with my tiny apartment and I was very impressed with the haul of goodies she brought over for me. Tea and biscuits!! 😀

Also note the mincemeat. Mince pies will still happen this Christmas! 😀

After some time to relax, we headed out to Yokohama to get some food. We eventually ended up in this ramen place under Yokohama station, where we had big bowls of ramen each and shared some dim sum. It was pretty good!

Yeah, mum’s looks more interesting cause of the egg, lol.

The next day we headed out, not as early as planned, to Gotemba, where we had a hotel booked for the night. The plan had been to get close to Mount Fuji and take photos and stuff. Unfortunately we a) didn’t arrive very soon, and b) the weather was rubbish, so no Mount Fuji to be seen. Also Gotemba is a bit of a nothing city. There’s not really a lot there. We ended up in a Jonathan’s (family style chain restaurant) for food, and spent most of our time in the hotel. But luckily the hotel was very good!

The next morning we had breakfast at the hotel. It was a Japanese breakfast, so rolled omelette, sausage, natto, okra, and various other bits, plus curry and rice. Mum tried most of it and seemed to enjoy it 😀 Then we headed over to Hakone. Or should I say we tried to. The plan had been to get the bus at 9:20am, but no bus turned up until 10:30. There were many of us all very frustrated waiting for this bus to turn up, but eventually it did, hooray! The ride was incredibly scenic and eventually dropped us off by Lake Ashi, where we were going to go on a pirate ship cruise across the lake.

The cruise was about 35 minutes and took us from the top of the lake down to the bottom. We got some amazing photos along the way of Mount Fuji and the Hakone Shrine Torii Gate in the water.

Mount Fuji being all mysterious in the distance

When we got off the ship we went for a wander and eventually ended up in a tiny cafe (only 5 tables!) where we had karaage (Japanese fried chicken) and chips. It was served with cream cheese and ketchup and the combination was surprisingly amazing!!

Yeah, I was a bit eager to eat, so had already started before taking this photo ^^;

Next up was a walk up to Hakone Shrine. We went up several steps and a hill only to find there were a billion more steps to climb to get to the actual shrine. I wasn’t feeling great so we decided to turn back and give the shrine a miss. I will take mum to many a shrine in Kamakura this weeknd instead.

The steps we did climb (there were many many more to the actual shrine).

One last pic of Lake Ashi before we left the area.

We got on a bus then and headed towards Gora Park. It was already past 3pm at this point so we knew we wouldn’t have too long, but what we did see of Gora Park was very beautiful. I’m sure when there are more flowers in bloom it is even more beautiful.

We got a train back to Yokohama after leaving the park, where we met Shyam for some okonomiyaki. Mum had a great time sampling a few different kinds, and they both laughed at me for being terrible at cooking my okonomiyaki. I will never get good at it, haha.

Then on Monday, which was a holiday, mum and I went into Tokyo. We found a yarn shop in Shimo-Kitazawa called Puppy. Mum is a keen knitter, so she was in her element and bought some yarn and was very happy, haha.

We then headed to Shinjuku and to the Government Metropolitan Building, where you can go up to the observation deck for free and get great views of Tokyo. That was a really great experience and I’d love to go again in the evening and get the night time views. Then we went to Harajuku and witnessed a fun music group singing and dancing on the street there, before going to a tempura restaurant for food, which was very nice. We walked back to Shibuya so mum could get some night photos of the iconic crossing, before getting the train home.

Yesterday mum went to Kyoto for a few days since I have school and she seems to be enjoying it. Really wish I’d taken unpaid leave and gone with her now. Oh well… We have lots to squeeze in this weekend, so expect another blog about it sometime next week 🙂

Quidditch water fights, typhoons, and British food.

Ahhh I haven’t updated in a while, sorry! I blame school starting again and life just seeming to hurtle by at 100 miles per hour.

So, briefly, the last weekend before school started was great! I spent Friday night/Saturday with TJ and family. We went to see the Nagareyama Fireworks Festival. So glad I finally made it to a Summer festival. The fireworks were amazing! It was basically two displays in one as Saitama and Chiba prefectures put on a display either side of the river. Saitama won, as they always do apparently, haha. TJ also treated me to Custard Creams and Bourbon biscuits since her dad had brought, like, a suitcase full of them over for her. British biscuits!! 😀

School started back on the 26th August. Well, the teachers were in but the students didn’t start back until the next day. Much lesson planning and English Board content updating happened. I also found out I had to work on Saturday, which was fine, but wow 6 days in a row straight off the bat after 5 plus weeks off was hard! Especially when I then only had Sunday off before another 5 day week again. But I survived it! It was so parents had the chance to come in and see some lessons in action. It was pretty fun really.

Which brings us nicely round to the weekend just gone. So it started out with Quidditch practice, as always. We had a decent turnout despite how hot it was and managed to play a couple of games and do some drills. The best part, though, was the water bomb fight at the end. So epic!

We all got totally drenched, which was the perfect way to cool down. So glad I had the brilliant idea to bring them 🙂 After that some of us headed off to Morgan’s for lunch and board games. It was going great until we played Secret Hitler and I was exposed for the terrible liar that I am. Never playing that game ever again

Sunday was a quiet day playing video games at Shyam’s, awaiting the incoming storm, Typhoon Faxai. It was pretty bad. Apparently the worst one in Japan for years. We were awoken by the storm, and then again by emergency alerts, which are sent through to your phone, telling us areas nearby were being advised to evacuate. It was all very dramatic. But the real drama started in the morning when the trains were all cancelled and people were trying to go to work still. I was lucky that I didn’t have to because of working that Saturday before. But yes, mayhem for many.

We waited until lunchtime before heading out and were able to catch the Keikyu line with no problems at all. It wasn’t quite so straight forward for Miyu coming all the way from Chiba side of Tokyo, but eventually she joined us and we went shopping in Minato Mirai. The usually busy shopping centres were so quiet because of the storm. I’ve never seen it that quiet before.

A very healthy lunch before we started shopping >.>

After we’d had our fill of shopping we walked back to near Yokohama station and went to a British pub there called The Tavern. I’d promised Miyu we would do this as she was craving a meat pie, haha. I have to say this was easily the best British pub I’ve been to here. The decor, the staff, the food, it was all brilliant! I had fish & chips and it was almost like being back home eating them. And Miyu loved her pie so much she wanted to eat it again straight away, haha.

So yes, a very eventful weekend. Now I just have two more days of school and then on Friday I’m going to pick my mum up from Narita airport. I can’t believe I haven’t seen her in over 6 months. That is so mad to me! I can’t wait to see her ❤

A trip to Mori Art Museum

Okay, so pro tip, most museums in Tokyo are closed on a Monday. However, after much searching we found one that was actually open: The Mori Art Museum in Roppongi Hills. So with no other plans for the day, Shyam, Miyu and I decided to go check it out. They had two special exhibitions on: The Science behind Pixar and Shiota Chiharu: The Soul Trembles. So for a fairly reasonable 1,800 yen each, we got to travel to the 52nd floor to the observation deck, which is where the Pixar exhibition is, and get some amazing views of Tokyo as well, plus go up one more floor to see the other exhibition too.

Miyu and I found a bunch of Doraemons near the museum. He’s a very popular character in Japan.

View from the deck – not the best because glass and bad weather, but still pretty amazing!

Some little monsters posing with Mike and Sully.

I think we did a pretty good job of impersonating Mr Incredible here.

Why yes, that is me impersonating a fish believing Miyu was doing likewise ^^;

So as you can probably tell from the above photos, we turned into big kids for the Pixar exhibition. It was, no doubt, a very interesting look at animation and how these popular characters were brought to life on screen, but unfortunately we spent far more time taking photos than reading up about any of it. Very guilty about that now, but it was so fun at the time.

The Soul Trembles exhibition was very interesting. The artist, Shiota Chiharu, is based in Berlin and definitely seems to have a very keen fascination with the macabre. Some of her pieces made me feel like it could be good inspiration to write some dark literature. I got a feeling of emptiness and neglect from a lot of her work. It was very thought-provoking.

One of the first pieces we saw. With the lighting, the room felt very alive.

I loved this room! This is where I felt the neglect. It felt almost post-apocalyptic.

These suitcases were randomly moving, which really added to the overall effect. Made me think of Harry Potter.

So yes, we thoroughly enjoyed the museum! I 100% recommend it to everyone, though they change the exhibitions fairly regularly. We went for lunch afterwards and ended up in this rather nice Italian place. I had a really good lasagne and some Italian bread. Still no garlic bread though ;_;

We walked to an import supermarket in Azabu after lunch and a miracle happened. We actually found halloumi cheese! A feat I believed to be impossible in Japan. We didn’t buy any as it was very hot and we weren’t going straight home, but we shall go back for it!

Halloumi! Yes, it is about £5.70. Sooo worth it!

Shyam also treated us to some British chocolate cause he is the best! ❤

Then we hung out in Shinjuku for a bit in a Jonathan’s. One of the many wonders of Japan are these restaurants where you can go in there, order a drinks bar (all you can drink soft drinks) for like 350 yen and just stay in there hanging out for hours. Jonathan’s is one of these restaurants. So yeah, we just chilled there for a bit before deciding it was time to go home. A very lovely day had by all three of us, I think 🙂

In conclusion… if you want to go check out a few museums in Tokyo, don’t go on a Monday. That is all.

Quidditch birthday and dancing Pokemon.

I’m rather late with this blog but here is what I got up to last weekend…

So last Saturday was the one year anniversary of Edo Quidditch (this is the group name for my Quidditch team) and we celebrated in some style. We started with our usual practice. It was boiling hot so it was a rather um… slow practice, haha. We did some drills, notably a beater drill that was basically a one v one face off with a bludger each. Good fun once I got into it! Then we played a game or two with some tackling practice thrown in somewhere in between.

Then it was time for the Potluck Picnic! We had all made/bought something and had been generously invited round Camila’s friend’s apartment to enjoy the food away from the midday heat. My contribution was some homemade Rocky Road, which somehow survived the journey from Yokohama without melting into a chocolatey mess, phew! Much yummy food was eaten, games played, and heartfelt ‘see you for now’s’ as it was Loan’s last session before she had to leave Japan.

Group pic with our hostess front and centre. Thank you, Dikhita! ❤

After we all went our separate ways after the picnic, a small group of us went to Asakusa to see the Floating Lantern festival. Unfortunately it was rather a let down, with lots of people but not much direction, and so we were on completely the wrong side of the river to see the majority of the floating lanterns. But essentially it is an annual festival where people write messages to loved ones who have passed away on paper lanterns, and then they are set alight and drift across the river.

We salvaged the rest of the evening by heading to a KushiKatsu place in Ueno and enjoying some more yummy food together. We also found a huge panda in Ueno station, which was very exciting obviously, haha.

Sunday was the day we had decided to go see the Pikachu Outbreak parades in Yokohama. It’s an annual event that takes place over a few days and basically Pokemon fever sweeps over Yokohama. There are Pikachus everywhere: huge statues, smaller ones, people wearing hats, tails, cloaks. Just Pikachu heaven, haha.

The big Pikachu guarding Sakuragicho station

Throughout the evening there were various parades dotted around the Minato Mirai area of Yokohama. Mostly Pikachu ones that were themed differently with various light shows and things, but also a dancing Eevee parade! Now, unfortunately, it was incredibly busy, and so the only one we actually managed a decent view of was the Eevee parade. It was awesome though!

We rounded off the evening with some ice-cream sundaes. So all in all a very good weekend! 🙂

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 🙂