Stress!!!!!
31 March 2004, 18:37
Everything has been seriously piling up this week. We have a ridiculous amount to do by Friday and no time to do it in. We’ve had to apply for Chinese visas, but our passports were only returned yesterday, just in time for our appointment with the Australian Embassy at 10 a.m today to have our Application for Marriage duly noted (for which they charge 1,700 yen per signature), just in time to send it to Cairns before the cutoff date. We’ve had a sayonara party to plan, boxes to send home, traveller’s insurance to get, the last day at our company being today (I won’t say “yay!” but “f**kin’ yay!”. No work for 2 blissful months!), final reports to do, medical claims to get processed, vaccinations to get (no easy task in this land, may I assure you), rehabili appointments to attend, damn, I’ve even had classes to teach. And the sick pleasure Japanese companies seem to get out of their petty bureacracy is sure as hell not helping. There is a barrier to everything.
And don’t even start me on the lobotomised princesses swarming the land. Don’t get me wrong, I dig a lot of Japanese chicks, but there is an annoying breed out there who ditz around like there is nothing upstairs.
You know the ones I mean. They spend half an hour on the train doing their makeup, vacantly stare off into space with their lipsticked mouths hanging open, walk soooooo slowly and erratically that you constantly trip over them and they don’t even notice, prance around like spaced-out chickens, hands all aflutter, toting their Louis Vuitton handbags and dreaming of their next blonding appointment with their hairdresser.
They’ve really been pissing me off lately, I guess because I’ve been rushing around and have no patience for the flocks of LPs barring my path. Yes, I know, patience. If only I had time for it…
Permanent Link | Comments [9]You can't stop at just one...
29 March 2004, 19:37
OK. Cut the crap and just give me an intravenous beer drip, already.
Yesterday we had another Hanami Party, this time in Shinjuku Gyoen with our friends Reika, Taka-chan and Nabe. Matt and I swore that, after Saturday’s binge, nary a drop of amber fluid would pass our lips. Hardi har har. Why do we toy with ourselves thus?
“Arguably the most divine cherry blossom tree in Tokyo (‘cos I’ve probably seen them all by now)
Although the blossoms did not disappoint, we were thoroughly shafted with the yatai sitch, or lack thereof. Where Inokashira Park had yatai and stalls set up just outside the park to keep one plied full of beer and food, Shinjuku Gyoen had a paltry stall selling beer (OK, so it wasn’t all bad) and crapola sandwiches and oden. Ugh.
If you decide to go a-hanami-viewing this week in Shinjuku gyoen, take your supplies…
You want more sakura photos. I know it.
Permanent Link | Comments [6]Perfect Party
28 March 2004, 21:45
The first beer was sunk at 10.30 a.m. The last at 10.30 p.m.
It was sunny. Warm.
The blossoms were back, baby, and people were not afraid to view them.
Kat secured us a top-shelf possie next to Inokashira Lake. She didn’t sell her soul to get it.
34 of our combined friends came.
We had ourselves a very-Japanese mini BBQ.
We were organised. But not as organised as some.
No-one remembered much after 2 p.m.
No-one vomited.
A perfect Day.
“What can I say? I’m a babe magnet.”
Some people just can’t handle their liquor…
Hanami Party Photo Gallery
Pinku’s Hanami Photos
Permanent Link | Comments [3]Bellybutton gazing
27 March 2004, 19:18
Today is Hanami Party day. 16 degrees and sunny. We’re all congregating at Inokashira Park in Kichijoji for a day of cherry blossoms, cricket (assuming we can set up stumps among the cast of thousands) and libation (watch this space for dodgy drunken photos)...
Have been busy organising the China trip (6 sleeps!), getting visas, tickets, accommodation. Thank you to everyone who recommended stuff to do - it pretty much cemented the ideas I already had in mind. Staying at the Grand View Garden Hotel for the first few nights, and playing it by ear after that.
As our tenure in Japan is coming to an end, everyone invariably asks me, “So what are you going to do for a job in Australia?” My response is usually, “Ummmmm, not HR?” Because really, that’s all I’ve come up with. I’m toying with the idea of going into Corporate Training, a strange hybrid of HR and teaching I guess, but I know I will probably not get the same 1) salary or 2) level of enjoyment.
There has been a bit of a tendency among the non-teaching ex-pats in Japan to look down on English teachers. Comments like “Do a grad degree and get a real job in Japan” have been bandied around on some forums I’ve read, but man, I had a “real” job in Australia, and it kinda sucked. English teaching fuckin’ rocks the house. We’ve had a great lifestyle, and for what we’re doing we’ve been paid damn well for it.
And there’s no way in hell I’m going into the Australian Education system which was another possible avenue, and truth be told I quite like the corporate atmosphere, as long as I don’t have to do the suck-suck job of mediating between management and employees (‘cos we all know who gets shafted).
There’s always writing and photography, my two main passions, but I can’t imagine doing either for a job. It would just take all the fun out of them if my livelihood depended on them. And I’m not prepared to sell my soul to compromise on either.
So quandary, people, quandary.
Maybe I should just pop out a couple of bubba-cheetas and be a stay-at-home mum, catching up for coffee with our other thousand friends who’ve decided to get preggers in the last year. Or not.
Maybe I need to think about this some more…
Permanent Link | Comments [4]Please. Make it Stop.
26 March 2004, 04:14
Japan’s seasonal “treats” are both the love and the bane of my very existence. I am urged, nay, compelled to view every single flowering cherry or maple, whether it kills me or not.
So welcome to my Madness. For the next week this is what you’ll get. Cherry blossoms. Lots of ‘em. If you don’t like them, then move it along. Nothing to see here.
Today’s expedition took me to Yasakuni Shrine, the Imperial Palace…
and Shinjuku Gyoen…
In Shinjuku Gyoen I encountered 3 foreigners who I’m fairly sure were fellow Japan bloggers, but I wasn’t sure so we had one of those awkward “You look awfully damn familiar, but I won’t betray my cool and come out and ask you where I know you from” moments. If any of you guys are reading this, put me out of my misery and tell me who the hell you are!
Permanent Link | Comments [3]
