Summer Nights

My JET status has officially changed from "newbie" to "veteran" with the arrival of all the new Yamaguchi JETs last week. As the only person who stayed in Tokuyama, there are 3 new people alone in my town. It's a strange time- I'm still feeling sad after saying goodbye to good friends but have to be in "friendly meeting new people" mode.

Fortunately, Hikari's resident veteran, Tammy, was on the case and organised an ace beach party yesterday. We spent the afternoon swimming, relieved that the jellyfish hadn't arrived yet, that was until both Marko and Brett got stung...twice each...one of which was on Marko's face! Ouch! As Marko pointed out, we should have all been outraged at the local jellyfishes audacity at swimming/ floating ?! (whatever jellyfish do) into "an allocated swimming area with young children"- unbelievable!

We then joined Tammy's j-friends- a group of young 20 somethings from the area who were back for the holidays- and perhaps some of the coolest Japanese people I've met. Just really easy-going and great fun. We hung out at the beach as the sun set, listening to music, eating meat and drinking chu-hi (a sickly sweet fizzy canned drink concoction claiming to be pinot noir chardonnay flavour- surprisingly satisfying).

The marines were obviously out in force and a few joined us- they were being bearably obnoxious until one decided to unzip his shorts and piss on the fence- nice!

We then watched this trippy laser light show which was going on called "magical fantasy" or something equally exciting which was accompanied by some awful heavily synthesised musac.

I could have been at an outdoor David Copperfield show...unfortunately the sultry magician was nowhere to be seen. However, it was brill just feeling like I was on holiday..as Keith said... feeling super relaxed and not thinking about tomorrow.

I realised how lucky I was to be living somewhere where you get this feeling at the weekend and it re-affirmed that a 2nd year on JET was definitely a good idea.

Heaven Is A Place On Earth...just not in England

Had a funny linguistic blip the other day. My gym is frequented by the local obachan (elderly women) contingent and they always seem bemused/ intrigued by the presence of a half naked foreigner (me).

The other day one of the ladies started talking to me about how hot it was...I nodded and agreed. She then continued into unknown vocab territory and started talking about "tengoku". I continued to nod. She then asked me if I understood and without thinking I replied with a hearty "yep, sure do!".

She then asked me "So, how do you say it in English?". Fearing I would look ridiculous if I was honest (" Oh actually, I lied, I can't understand a ruddy word your saying, lady ") I opted for the language learner's "Get Out Of Jail Free Card" and mumbled something about it being difficult to translate because it didn't really exist in England.

She laughed, I laughed...we were internationalising on an epic scale.

I got home to discover that "tengoku" actually means "heaven/ paradise" - qeul idiot!!!