One of the nicer touches of teaching in an international school is the international community of the kids. There is a day to celebrate this each year on 24th Jan, and the friday nearest to it is one world day at school. All throughout the week, the students can wear accessories from different areas - monday was asia and oceania, tuesday africa, wednesday europe and thursday the americas - until it all culminates in a big party on friday. Everyone wears their national costume (or colours if you don't have one) and the kids perform different acts from all over the world, then have a "parade of nations". The kids all come onto the stage in alphabetical country order and say hello in their native language. The reply is displayed behind on a screen, and the audience all shout back. There are around 50 countries represented at the school so it takes a while, but its really nice, especially seeing them all in their costumes. I took lots of photos and there will be a dvd towards the end of the year so I will try to get that.
Will had to work really hard for one world day to set up all the AV equipment and help with the music and lights etc. Unfortunately, the older kids who were hosting the event don't know who he is, so when they read out the thank-you's from a sheet they assumed it was a misprint and thanked me instead. Oops. He got a special mention later on though and it was nice for me!
Over the christmas holiday was a strange time in japan. The decorations all go up and the japanese people are really into the idea of christmas - but they all go to work on christmas day and there is no holiday until new year. So on christmas day we went out to a friends house, and all the shops were open, people were milling around, busy as ever. It was a very strange feeling. At Karens it felt very christmassy, and we had a huge dinner and a really good time (I had my nails painted by a 4 year old and came away looking like a quentin blake monster), but as we left it was rush hour and the trains were packed. It all felt a bit surreal.
On the 27th we went to Nagano prefecture to go skiing at a little resort called Nozawa Onsen. We were a long way from the lifts but there was a free bus, and there really is nothing like getting into an Onsen (natural hot bath) after a day skiing. As we arrived there was no snow at all in the village and we were worried, but just as we got to the top of the mountain it started to snow and didn't stop the whole time we were there. That meant it was cold and blinding, but we could ski ok and had fun.
We tried a red run on the last morning there, but red runs here are different to red runs in europe! We got very stuck. I came down on one leg, Will gave up and walked down, and Megans sat on her skiis like a toboggan. The food was all japanese - rice soup and fish every meal. I was the only one who managed to eat every meal, the others were all wimps and had enough. We have booked to go to Hokkaido In february for 4 days where the snow is supposed to be amazing, and there is a much bigger group going this time so I am really excited about it.
I will add some photos later.
Sunday, January 28, 2007
Monday, January 22, 2007
Visitors
Just before christmas my parents came to visit with my Nan. I drove some of my friends to the airport to go off for the holidays and then waited for my family. It took ages for them to come through, and I was starting to worry. I even went to the information desk to ask if everyone from their flight had come through, but they said to wait a bit longer (they had landed and hour ago). Eventually they came through, but their luggage didn't. They had been delayed and had to run for their connecting flight, and the bags didn't make it. Fortunately here there is a fantastic service called Takubin which will deliver anything, anywhere in japan the next day very cheaply. The airport rang us to tell us that the luggage had arrived that night and it would be delivered at ten to twelve. I thought that meant between ten and twelve, but it came to the door at 11.47. We couldn't believe how spot on they had been! None of this waiting in all day business, just pure efficiency. So Mom, Dad and Nan had their clothes again.
Unfortunately, Dad had also left his wallet in Paris. That took a bit more sorting out. Over the next 6 days, we lost so many things it was untrue: my scarf, mom's gloves, bag of souvenirs, dads hat (repeatedly) . We did eventually find every item before they left, but not without much running around and fortunately a lot of laughing. We went to the same shrine four days in the week - first to see the shrine, second for mom to buy some charms, third to look for the bag of charms went it disappeared, fourth to buy some more charms to replace the first lot. On the last day we asked at a hotel we had bee to just on the offchance and found the original bag. I hoped it would all end when they went home again, but I lost my train card the next day. That one never showed up.
The bad luck didn't just apply to personal property. We took our visitors to Ueno to see all the museums on monday - The one day of the week when they are all closed. We took them to Oriental Bazaar (a brilliant place for souvenirs) on thursday - the one day of the week it is closed. Even a hotel bar we tried to go to for a drink turned out to have a special act and an expensive cover charge which only happens two evenings a week for a couple of hours. We managed to go another time. We walked around the city so much my Nan's feet were bleeding by the end of the day, we ate out so much we were very poor, but we all had a good time and they saw a lot of the city. On one of the days we hired a car and went out to see Hakkone, (a pretty little tourist spot in summer but dead at the end of december) and wandered around a sprawling shrine and the lake. We went to Kamakura on the way back which was great - I have made a note to go back sometime and really explore as it was after dark when we arrived so we didn't see much - the top of the head of the golden Buddha was the highlight there. We nearly lost dad when he tried to get out of the car at traffic lights to take a photo, and we had lots of fun with the Sat Nav too!
Unfortunately, Dad had also left his wallet in Paris. That took a bit more sorting out. Over the next 6 days, we lost so many things it was untrue: my scarf, mom's gloves, bag of souvenirs, dads hat (repeatedly) . We did eventually find every item before they left, but not without much running around and fortunately a lot of laughing. We went to the same shrine four days in the week - first to see the shrine, second for mom to buy some charms, third to look for the bag of charms went it disappeared, fourth to buy some more charms to replace the first lot. On the last day we asked at a hotel we had bee to just on the offchance and found the original bag. I hoped it would all end when they went home again, but I lost my train card the next day. That one never showed up.
The bad luck didn't just apply to personal property. We took our visitors to Ueno to see all the museums on monday - The one day of the week when they are all closed. We took them to Oriental Bazaar (a brilliant place for souvenirs) on thursday - the one day of the week it is closed. Even a hotel bar we tried to go to for a drink turned out to have a special act and an expensive cover charge which only happens two evenings a week for a couple of hours. We managed to go another time. We walked around the city so much my Nan's feet were bleeding by the end of the day, we ate out so much we were very poor, but we all had a good time and they saw a lot of the city. On one of the days we hired a car and went out to see Hakkone, (a pretty little tourist spot in summer but dead at the end of december) and wandered around a sprawling shrine and the lake. We went to Kamakura on the way back which was great - I have made a note to go back sometime and really explore as it was after dark when we arrived so we didn't see much - the top of the head of the golden Buddha was the highlight there. We nearly lost dad when he tried to get out of the car at traffic lights to take a photo, and we had lots of fun with the Sat Nav too!
Phew
I have discovered that as long as I sign in at work, the site comes up in english, so I will try to catch up on posts with lots of little ones whenever I have a spare 5 minutes.
In december the tokyo metropolitan police band came to play for the kids. They did a 5 minute presentation on traffic safety with a very strange looking rabbit suited girl being naff at traffic rules, but that was really just a reason around a reason to visit. The band was fantastic and the kids loved it. They even had some dancers who did flag and baton twirling and were really impressive. The band played Sleigh ride - exactly the same version as we played in Met wind all those times, so I was chuffed and hummed along to the piccolo part all the way through.
Grade 6 time, more later.
In december the tokyo metropolitan police band came to play for the kids. They did a 5 minute presentation on traffic safety with a very strange looking rabbit suited girl being naff at traffic rules, but that was really just a reason around a reason to visit. The band was fantastic and the kids loved it. They even had some dancers who did flag and baton twirling and were really impressive. The band played Sleigh ride - exactly the same version as we played in Met wind all those times, so I was chuffed and hummed along to the piccolo part all the way through.
Grade 6 time, more later.
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