Happy Valentines Day

Sometimes students bore me or frustrate me so much it's a real challenge to keep interested in what they have to say. Or you just stick to the text book. Most students, though, are fine. And some you adore.

Today I gave a lesson to a more advanced floating student. Floating students don't have a regular teacher or regular time slot. The one I had today was a gem. We spent most of the lesson laughing. For example, after she told me she has a 13 month old baby and an almost full-time job:

Me: Does your husband help?
Her: Yes. He cleans. He cooks. He helps with the baby. He washes up. He takes out the garbage. He buys the groceries. He does the laundry.
Me: [look of utter stunnedness]
Her: [pause] He's not Japanese.

Okay, if this doesn't make sense to you, Japanese men, generally, do fuck all to help and the average Japanese wife gets up early to make him breakfast, lunch, etc. The average female student/receptionist also admits they prefer their husband working long hours so they aren't around so much.

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In Musashino City, where I live, I keep seeing LILAC bulldozers. Bulldozers have to be cute now as well, do they?

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I got post from the post office today. It was misaddressed. Although the information they sent me inside the envelope did have the right address on it. On the down side though, they also sent a letter to say the cost of sending money back to the UK is increasing 3.5 times from April. Guess who's not very happy, considering I have to send money back every month?

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This year I got very excited before the beginning of the Olympics. I'm not really sure why, as I've never really done this before.... only to discover that Japanese terrestrial telly is only showing a limited amount. And a lot of that is the boring ones....

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Valentines Day in Japan involves WOMEN giving chocolates to their boyfriends, male work colleagues, male bosses, male friends, female friends, etc. MEN reciprocate on 'White Day' which is March 14th. I wonder why Thorntons hasn't cashed in on this idea around the world. Be a hugely profitable adoption for them. But then I guess, in the UK anyway, they have all the Easter egg sales that start soon after Valentines to look forward to. Oh, and I got chocolate from both my receptionists today.

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Last week we had two extra days off work, which was awesome! Or would have been if it hadn't been just before pay day. Nikki and I went sightseeing on Thursday to Nihon Minkaen - a Japanese Open-Air Folk House Museum near Mukugaokayuen station, where we saw lots of 17th century onwards houses reconstructed. The kind of thing Dogs and Demons laughs at - ie how museums 'preserve' the heritage but how, in situ, it no longer exists anywhere in Japan. It was very enjoyable anyway.

In the same park is the Taro Okamoto Museum of Art holding lots of modern art, Picasso influenced art, etc.

Then we headed to Shinjuku and went up the Metropolitan Government Building to the 45th floor, after collecting loads of stuff from the Tourist Office on the first floor (the first tourist office I've seen since getting to Japan), where we had a truly amazing view all over Tokyo. I think Nikki may have been more interested in the toyshop than the view though....

Naturally I have photos. Predictably it may be some time before I sort them out. My photos are currently offline as they need editing. Also I'm in the process of getting around to losing the msn photo album and using Flickr instead as the MSN capacity is crap.

The rest of the weekend was pretty non-existant due to total lack of funds. Luckily pay day was yesterday.

And last night was lovely. I met up with the receptionist, a couple of ex-students and the girl who took over the day I gave up, for some drinks and food. My favourite cute waiter wasn't there to ogle, but it was a good fun night anyway.