Last night we were watching a game show. It consisted of four celebreties eating. They each ate four dishes, three of which they liked, one they hated, but made "yummy" faces for all of them. Then the other contestants had to guess which of the dishes they hated.

IT LASTED TWO AND A HALF HOURS.

Today Hiromi and I were poking about in an accesories shop, and it would seem that the big thing for this season is fur. Fur necklaces, fur bracelets, fur (I wish I was making this up, I really do) rings, and my personal favourite, fur earrings. If you wear the stud kind as opposed to the dangly kind, it looks like you have really hairy ears. Because what 16 year old girl doesn't want to look like an old man?

Merry Christmas, all!

This is just a quick post, as the Sasaki's computer has a tendancy to seize up every five minutes, which requires unplugging it and starting over from scratch. So, not many posts from me as long as I'm here. And how long will that be? I dunno. Until I get tired of having breakfast served to me, I guess.

Virtual snowflakes! Fun AND for a good cause.

Ah, what a good day at work today was. Andrew brought us lots of fun stuff, including tidings of a new bagel shop in the station (BAGELS! Hi bagels! I missed you!). Rather more to the point, he brought actual bagels. With maple walnut cream cheese. Normally I like my cream cheese to be savoury, but this was gooooooood. He also brought tea, and cookies, and chocolates filled with whiskey. Then he topped it off with money. (Payday! And it's Christmas, so I get extra money! Whee!)

After three days of making the Christmas craft, we finally figured out the best way to put it together. Which kind of sucks for the Monday kids, who spent half an hour trying to glue it together (turns out double-sided tape is MUCH more effective), but made today go buy all that much faster. We played Old Maid with Christmas flash cards, and memory games. Also one particularly entertaining round of charades with the 10 year old boys.

Then I let my little girls smash the gingerbread house.




(I was gonna let Reiko and Yuko do it, since they put it together, but then I figured that the younger kids would enjoy it even more.)

I think next year I'm either gonna have to learn to make one from scratch, or else my mother is going to have to send another kit. It was a really big hit.

Chocolate-covered seaweed: a prime example of Foods That Taste Just Fine Seperately, But Should Never Be Combined. Ever.

I'm a bit worried about the fate of the gingerbread house. I want it to last until Thursday, so that all the kids (and moms) have a chance to see it and be awed at a culture that came up with an entire house made of candy. However, this will require some diligence on my part.

General reaction: "Oooh, is that CANDY? All of it? Even the house?"

Me: "Yes."

GR: "Ooooh. Can I eat it?"

Me: "No."

GR: "How about now? Can I eat it now? I really want to eat it! Can I eat it? Huh? Can I? Can I?"

Me: "NO!"

I actually hadn't thought about its eventual fate. Perhaps I'll let the last class on Thursday - the girls who made it - smash it in. Because really, that's the true joy of gingerbread houses.

We had our Christmas party for the adults on Sunday. There were no presents, but there was lots of beer, and that's always good. The izakaya had some of the best sashimi I've ever had, and a very tasty version of shabu-shabu with fish instead of beef.

Not exactly a traditional Christmas dinner...

I was totally fine with staying Japan for Christmas. Ok, a little bit "ack, what am I gonna do for two whole weeks?!", but overall, fine (and thinking gleefully of all the travelling I will be able to do next year), when my mother sent me these.




*sigh*

Today I met up with Pauline and Simon for dinner. We were planning to go to the Indonesian restaurant, but it was booked for a year-end party. We tried a couple of izakayas, but they were all full/booked, too. So instead of going from izakaya to izakaya in the hopes that one, somewhere, might have room for us, we just decided to go eat at MOS. Mmm. Onion rings.

Nothing screams "positive role model!" quite like Barbie knockoffs exercising.



Lord knows the only reason I work out is to stay pretty. Because boys, they like the pretty.



I suppose for 100 yen, you can't really expect the correct use of the letter "l"...

Christmas in downtown Hamamatsu.

The gingerbread house went over well. The girls had fun decorating it, and I had fun eating the Skittles as I reminded them to speak in English, not Japanese. Truly a win-win situation.

Oh, and I forgot to mention! The telegram-heralded parcel from Amazon finally arrived Sunday night, and it was the first season of Dead Like Me from Kim. It looks like a fun and possibly addicting show. Whee!

Oh, random online quizzes. I would like to sneer at you, but so often you prove to be true. How do you do that?

What type of person do you attract? Your Result: You attract geeks!   Your stunning intellect and love of sci-fi and video games allures the geeks like nothing else. Maybe it is the sparkle in your eye that makes them want to text you, who knows. Geeks make good partners, but tend to be arguementative. If you are a TRUE geek magnet, you will know if that was spelled correctly, and actually care. If it is a bad-boy/bad-girl you are seeking, you are barking up the wrong tree, unless they are just 'bad' behind a PS2 console.
You attract Yuppies!
You attract artsy people!
You attract unstable people!
You attract models!
You attract rednecks!
What type of person do you attract? Quizzes for MySpace

If you haven't received a postcard/letter/package of oddly-flavoured kitkats from me this year (Mmm, tastes like cherry blossom!), and you didn't receive an email from me recently asking about your address, and you want to receive a Christmas card, you might want to email me your current mailing address. Also, your current email address. *coughhiMollycough*

I will be kicking off the MI Christmas week tomorrow night by devoting an entire lesson to making a gingerbread house. Well, "making". It's pre-made, and my mom brought it all the way from Costco when she was here last month. I just have to ice it together and decorate it. And by "I", I mean I'm enlisting the help of my last class, which consists of two sisters, aged 12 and 14. And by "enlisting the help of", I mean handing them each a bag of icing and letting them do pretty much whatever they want. That's gonna be the entire lesson. Decorating a gingerbread house. I get paid for this.

Sunday night, and I'm still waiting on that parcel delivery. They were supposed to come yesterday morning but never showed up, so today Tomoko called them and they said they'd come by tonight. She also said that the parcel is not from America, but Canada. So now I'm hopelessly confused as to what it is, or who could have sent it.

My Christmas party went well, although it was even smaller than normal. There were a couple of last minute cancellations: "I have to help my parents move house." "I'm hospitalized with pneumonia." Blah blah blah. The remaining three guests and I then sat around all night, chatting and eating our own body weight in cookies. We never did get around to making pizza. (There were a few other, healthier options. Like the approximately 600 oranges I got for an insanely cheap price.) We ate, we watched some Christmas moves (Tomoko had never seen Rudolph, and boy, did she take to it. Good girl.), we went to bed, got up, ate some more cookies and muffins and watched cartoons, went downtown, had curry, did a bit of shopping, the end.



Although it has been an unusually warm weekend, Tomoko was still cold. Even the Australian thought she was nuts.



Cookies!

My mystery telegram is, apparently, an announcement that I have a dvd from Amazon. From America. The mystery deepens. Who is sending me Amazon dvds from America? I have to wait until Saturday morning to find out. Gah!

Hmm. The telegram mystery deepens. It's just a code and a phone number. I still suspect it's money from my aunt, but my brother received his in a Christmas card. That plays music. So if it is my aunt, she either a) doesn't trust the Japanese postal service (which is nonsense, as the Japanese postal service is the best postal service EVER [sorry, dad]), or b) she really wants to make sure I get the cash, but doesn't care much if someone steals it out of my brother's envelope.

Hmm.

Christmas clickables!

Bored? Don't feel like doing anything productive? Simon Sez Santa 2.0

Don't click on this one if you are at work, even if you have headphones. Just...don't. Unless you want your boss and coworkers to think you are insane as you react. O Holy Crap!

I was all excited earlier today, because I, apparently, have a telegram waiting! I found an unfamiliar notice in my mailbox on Sunday and brought it into work today, where Miho told me it was a telegram and arranged to have it delivered on Thursday when I'll be at home. I was intrigued...who sends telegrams in this century? Then I realized that it is most likely my aunt in Sweden, wiring me money. Which is nice, but slightly disappointing. No more mystery telegram.

And speaking of money, I have about 20 000 yen more than I was expecting to this week. See, last month I decided it was time to get new lenses for my sunglasses. So I went to the shop I patronized last time I needed glasses, and she explained that for my lenses, it would be 34 000 yen. Sigh. But whatcha gonna do? However, she also said that they were closing the following week and would reopen in December, so I decided to wait until then. So this Monday I went in, ordered my new lenses, and paid a grand total of 13 440 yen. When the clerk quoted the price, I thought at first he was making a horrible mistake and was going to set me up with some inferior lenses the thickness of an encyclopedia, so I questioned him about it. To which he responded with a smile and the English word "Lucky!" So either they've drastically cut their prices, or I lucked out on some sort of grand re-opening sale. Either way, wheee! I'll have new sunnies on the 15th. In the meantime, I'm just gonna squint.

Ah, the zoo. It all started at 7:30 on Sunday morning, when I woke up to an apartment that was a mere 10 degrees. Really, really not fun, although once I worked up the courage to toss the covers off, I damn well woke up in a hurry, which was a blessing.

I ended up with the 7 year olds as my group. They were fairly easy to keep track of, which made my job a lot more fun. As with last year, the petting zoo part was the most popular part...who cares about stupid old elephants when you can pet a guinea pig? Then the kids got hungry, so the actual zoo animals were greeted with a sort of "yeah, yeah, ok, there's the hippo, very nice, can we eat yet???" attitude.



Sadly, Liam didn't come, but Andrew brought his baby girl, and she was pretty cute. Andrew forgot to bring her gloves, so I ended up lending her mine. She seemed to think this was pretty neat...she kept waving her hands about and crowing, all "OMG, you guys! Look at my giant hands! HA!"



She only knows one animal word so far: wan-wan. (This is baby talk for "dog", since "wan!" is the sound a dog makes in Japanese.) So she spent the entire day pointing gravely at various animals and saying "wan-wan".

Sayana, face to face with an emu: "Wan-wan!"

Sayana, pointing at an animatronic dinosaur: "Wan-wan!"

Yes, a dinosaur. Part of the zoo houses a movie theatre that shows educational films about dinosaurs (they're really big. Did you know?) and a dinosaur-themed play park. The kids liked this way better than the actual zoo bit, and can you blame them? I mean, given the choice between gazing at sad lions in itty bitty concrete enclosures, and watching CGI dinosaurs lumber about, the choice is obvious. And I'm not just saying that because it was warm inside the theatre.

Ha. Nunchucks!

I was a bit worried earlier today when it started to rain. But it has since stopped and the sky has cleared up, so it looks like we are on for the zoo tomorrow. It's odd. This trip contains a combination of things I dislike, including 1) getting up early, 2) getting up early on a weekend, 3) zoos, and 4) being trapped on a bus for an hour with 28 children. And yet, I'm looking forward to it. Last year's zoo trip was a lot of fun (although a lot warmer, since it was in October). I'm still not sure which group of kids will be my responsibility...Masami has me down for the cute and generally obedient 7 year olds, but Andrew might be bringing his baby, and he's not sure how much attention she'll need. So I might be landed with the slightly unrulier 10 year old boys. It's all good, though...any misbehaving will be met with threats of being, literally, thrown to the lions.

Now my only problem will be getting to bed at a reasonable hour. I'm aiming for midnight, but I suspect I may end up laying awake for a while.

And in conclusion, strawberries in December almost make up for the fact that I have to live in an unheated, uninsulated building. Yay Japan!

I went with the fake tree. Pretty good value for 100 yen, I'd say. Also, no needles dropping all over the place!



Oh, and about the gloves....I'm not actually wearing them in PUBLIC. Heavens no.

And so the downward spiral that is winter begins...it is 13 degrees in my apartment. I finally got around to buyiing fingerless gloves, so hopefully this winter I can still do stuff with my hands. Like type, or read, or eat.

And then, if I still get bored, I can go hang out with punkish teenagers.

ps. It's December already. Eek!

I really have to stay away from travel sites when I'm not planning on going anywhere. I just popped into IACE to see what specials they have...you know, just browsing. Now I'm feeling all antsy and stricken with the need to go somewhere. Anywhere.

Rationally I know that my current plan is the best one...stay in Japan this Christmas, hang out, save my travel money (20 000 yen a month is earmarked for travel, and it never ever gets used for anything else. Except this month. I think I'll buy myself new lenses for my sunglasses in lieu of travel. Because being able to see is good, too.), and then go NUTS next year. Everytime I get together with Liz and Pauline, someone brings up Italy. Italy sounds nice. I could live with going to Italy. Also, Liz and I still haven't made it to Thailand. Which is amazing, considering you can get tickets from less than 30 000 yen. Bad us.