Maybe I've Been In Asia Too Long...

...or are fanny packs really back?

If anyone could help me out with this, please, I could really use some answers.

No Time To Write More, But...

...I just want to let it be known that I'm safe, despite the political situation in Thailand at the moment. Luckily I made it out of Bangkok by plane just hours before the closed the airport, and I'm currently chilling at a quiet beach town in the south. And my next flight is from Phuket, so unless things really really escalate, it shouldn't be a problem. As Natalie would say, no worries!

I Meant To Post This A While Ago...

...it proves that both the Japanese and my dad can sleep absolutely anywhere.

Itinerary

So my time in Japan is winding down really, really quickly. I've moved out of my apartment and into a hotel for the last week, and I'm training my replacement teacher - very surreal, all of it. To answer the many questions I'm getting about where I'm going and when I'll be home, here it is, my schedule for the next few months:

November 24th - fly to Chaing Mai, Thailand
ride some elephants and hang out on the beach

December 6th - fly from Phuket, Thailand, to Singapore
do anything other than spit or litter

December 10th - Singapore to Perth, Australia
meet all of Natalie's friends from high school, perhaps throw another shrimp on the barbie?

December 23rd - Perth to Brisbane, Australia
meet Natalie's family, go to the beach for Christmas

January/February (undetermined end point) - Daintree Rainforest, Australia
stay with Natalie's dad, get a backpacker's job picking fruit or something
eat bananas all day and sit on the beach at night

At some point, yes, I will make my way home. Natalie will go back to school at the end of February, at which point I will most likely go see Sydney and fly home from there - more updates on that will come. At the moment, though, I have a hotel breakfast to eat and a lot of goodbye cards to write : (

Bouncy Parks Are For Kids...And Foreigners

This might not look like much, but this park may be the happiest place in Japan. It's like a the combination of a Moon Bounce and a trampoline - smiles guaranteed all around.

Keeping It Professional

Every once in a while I am asked to help my boss interview a prospective new teacher. This is mildly interesting and only takes about 20 minutes of my time, but can end up being incredibly stressful and, at times, aggravating.

First, I always feel a little awkward because the only reason I am qualified to do this is because I can speak English fluently. And the other person can't. I also feel awkward because my boss sits in the corner and watches....judging. No smiles.

Before each interview, my boss, Chuckles, likes to come into my classroom, close the door, and tell me in broken English her fist impressions of the interviewee. And her "first impressions" are actually just reasons why she doesn't like the person - and why I shouldn't like them either.
[To clarify, my boss is also the person who voices her disappointment each year when she receives information about the incoming foreign teacher and they aren't blonde. And straight up doesn't like non-Japanese Asians.]

So before the last interview Chuckles cornered me alone in the office and tells me, "He is a man."

Yes, this is her opening statement. I am supposed to infer that the "he" in question is the person I will later interview.

"...Oh really?"

"I have never hired a man."

"...Oh really?"

"Yes!" she says proudly. Short pause, then she adds, "I don't like him."

"Because he's a man?"

"Ahahahahaha. No!"

End of conversation. Like most with her, I am not sure what to take away from it, other than I think she doesn't want me to say his English is good. Later, my Japanese co-workers come into the office and we begin discussing the situation. The both tell me that Chuckles told them he smells funny, and so she doesn't want to hire him.

For a woman over 50 she has really mastered the art of sounding like a girl in junior high school.

So I go into the interview and talk for 20 minutes with a really nice man who did not smell funny at all and had perfect grammar, but was so nervous he constantly had to pause mid-sentence to stop shaking. He asked me great questions, and was obviously eager to be a teacher. At the end I shook his hand, said good job, and went back into the office.

Chuckles comes in with a disdainful look on her face. She starts speaking Japanese to my co-worker and in there I hear, "blah blah blah Leah-sensei 'Good Job' AHAHAHAHA!"

"What? I wasn't supposed to say good job? He was trying so hard!"

"AHAHAHAHAHAHA!" She's laughing too hard to respond to me now.

Thanks boss.

She looks at me and manages to say between bouts of laughter, "Don't recommend."

So there it was, my decision was made for me, by the worst English speaker in the whole school and (I can't help but feel like) for all the wrong reasons. But then, such is business in Japan.

Part 3

I was lucky enough last month to see Ethan, who I usually see once a year if we're lucky, not once but twice. He made Japan the first stop on his trans-Asiatic tour, and it was absolutely wonderful to see him. And as usual when we are traveling together, things never quite went as planned, we didn't see the conventional sights, but we had a GREAT time.

We started in Kyoto, where we bypassed the temples to check out the Astroboy Museum. We got a photo with him, and got to watch a sweet anime film that we didn't understand a word of.

Shortly after we hopped on the train to Osaka to meet Shohei, who we stayed with. The one thing we wanted to see in Osaka was the Cup Noodle Museum, and we were pleasantly surprised to find that Shohei not only "LOVES NOODLES!" and works at a ramen shop, but that he had never been to the museum and really wanted to go. So at the crack of noon the next day we made our way through the beautiful outskirts of Osaka to the place where it all began (or at least the place commemorating the place where it all began).

Tunnel of Ramen

I learned many things that day. One, Instant Ramen has been around since 1958, and Cup Noodle since 1971; two, astronauts eat Cup Noodle in space; and three:
Three reasons to eat Cup Noodle:
1. cheap
2. safe
3. delicious!!

Then, glory of glories, we made our own.

Designing

Anything (Dried) Our Hearts Desired

Shrink-wrapped for Freshness

After that excitement we hung out in Osaka, ate, drank, and sang karaoke.


We ran into this guy and his girlfriend at an arcade. The guy had spent months and over $500 on this one machine in order to win this stuffed animal. Talk about priorities.

Ethan almost missed his flight, but we managed to make time for Purikura.