Who knew Santa was Japanese?

Christmas came and went. And to be honest, it was great!!! I thought i'd be all lonely without friends from home or family to play with on Christmas, but it was okay, and i survived.

I had to work on Christmas day, but it wasn’t as bad as it sounds. I just had two great days off. On my first day I went to a museum with my Japanese friend where one of my students runs a children’s program. Her kids were putting on an actors studio Christmas show. Of course every single person was Japanese, and the play was in Japanese, nevertheless still really cute. And I got to have my picture with Santa, who knew he was Japanese? I played badminton the next day at a place called Kinkou no Mori, which means sports forest. And then of course I had to rent a Christmas movie for Christmas eve, and pop a bottle of red. On Christmas morning I got up early and biked to the gym where I am a new member, yeah yeah!! funnily enough it is the place where I have felt most at home here. It is in this really fancy hotel with a pool, and onsen, and yoga studio etc. (it is my Christmas present to myself).

My Christmas corner....with muffy and my stocking a'la Lesley, and S-in-S

At Angleland Fukui.
Japanese Santa....

Amber and i in front of the giant tree in town.

I am super excited for New Years holidays! I have 10 days off, where I intend to travel around quite a bit. I am going to Osaka (big city) for new years to stay with my friend Jill, and hit the crazy Japanese clubs. I have to dust off my high heels, seriously they have grown cob webs. Then on to Hiroshima for two nights to see the sights and go to Miyajima. And then to Kyoto for one night. Should be fun, and so so so expensive, oh well.

My new apartment is really cute, it feels more like home now that I have decorated it. I will put up pictures ASAP.

Well I hope everyone had an amazing Christmas with family and friends, and I am thinking of everyone a great deal this holiday season!!!!!!!!!!!!

Fall in Fukui

These pictures were taken on a day off in November. Fall hit Fukui very slowly, and was a beautiful sight. Most of these were taken in a garden, and some near a local shrine.

Fukui castle walls.

me looking pretty dorky! hahahah

Last one standing.....

I feel like the last one still standing. The past four months has blown by. I've barely had time to think about it.

Everyone who was leaving is now gone. My roommate Amber left last Monday. My friend circle here has vastly decreased. It is also hard to meet new people because of my crappy hours. Seriously, who finishes work at 10pm on a Saturday night? But I do need a little break from drinking and partying.

Before Amber left we went to an Onsen together as a day trip. An Onsen is a large bath (kind of like a hot tub) that is filled with mineral water. It is very hot, and extremely relaxing. But it is otherwise known as a public bath. What you do is get totally buck-naked, shower in the open space, and scrub down. It you don’t scrub hard enough, you will get many evil eyes from old naked Japanese ladies. And then you soak in the hot lovely water. First of all, Amber and I knew only half of this before we went. No body spoke English, and we pretty much were laughing from the minute we arrived. They were also playing cheesy Christmas music which added to the hilarity of it all. Ever try getting naked in a Japanese locker room listening to Rudolf the Red Nose Reindeer? Ahhaha. We also met our first actual Russian! If you don’t know already we (as in Amber and myself) always have to have ID on us in case we get stopped by the police. The Japanese people think all blond haired people are Russian prostitutes here to corrupt their men. (ONLY partly true, hahaha). So anyways, the day was great. But I must say.... I have never seen so many naked old Japanese women in my life. Amber left the next day. Cane and all, hahahah. She sprained her ankle so I made her buy a cane for the rest of her travels. She looked pretty funny hobbling around like an old lady with a cane. The cane lasted six days, i just got a text from her telling me that she finally ditched it.

This is the address of my new apartment and my new school (just in case you want to send me anything over the year, or send lovely postcards from far away places)
To send packages or anything, my school address:
Bailey van Waterschoot
DonDo 2D, Omiya 6-15-26
Fukui-shi, Fukui-ken,
Japan, 910-0016

To send postcards/letters, my apartment:
Bailey van Waterschoot
Villa N.N 103, Omiya 6-11-10
Fukui-shi, Fukui-ken
Japan, 910-0016

So I haven’t moved into my new apartment yet. I keep putting back the moving date. I took one look at the new apartment and decided I should stay in the old one for as long as possible. It is tiny, I’m talking my whole apartment is the size of a regular sized bedroom. I am not looking forward to moving, but I’m sure with some tender love, my apartment could be cute. I had a Zoolander moment when I saw it....” What is this....an apartment for ants??? It needs to be at least....THREE times bigger...”
Not to mention that the apartment is also completely bare, and I’m taking everything from my current apartment. It didn’t even have curtains! No stove or frige or anything!

Teaching has been going okay. I like it for the most part. Except when I am horribly hungover, like I was last Friday. I woke up still extremely drunk, and proceeded to teach my first lesson still very drunk (not recommended). I also woke up with a solid wood bear in my backpack, and found one of my gloves stuck in some plastic on the stairwell of my apartment building. I guess that’s what happens when you leave me to sing Karaoke until 5 in the morning with one other person drinking the strongest long island ice teas possible. (hence the break from partying)
One of my students couldn't’t come to class one day, and he sent a note with his friend. It was so cute. Started with calling me miss bailey, and then told me how sad he was to miss my class, and how he promises to come next week. Those are the good students.....then there are the scary ones who tell you that it was their day off and they drank beer before coming to class.

Last week we also had a photo shoot to be in a magazine to be sent around our city. Pretty funny moment when I offered to pose in front of a globe, bad suggestion on my part. The picture in the magazine is funny, I’ll try to take a picture of it and post it.

Well, not too much else is new. It is Christmas soon. I am totally boycotting Christmas this year. My entire family will be in Florida in the lovely heat, while i am here alone in the rainy winter of Fukui. I even have to work on Christmas day! So sad! Even the few friends i have left here are going home to visit their families. This is the reason Christmas doesn't exist for me this year, except for my work christmas party where i have to be extremely genki, and festive.

On a side note........I LOVE living alone! It is great. When i clean things, they remain clean when i get home from work, it's great. I definitly need to live alone for while.

A Whole New World......

So, this is the last of the crazy karaoke nights for a while. It was Nick and Owen's last night out in Fukui. And boy did we sing up a storm. I will never forget Amber singing 'a whole new world' (from Alladin), she really wasn't getting the concept of the boy part girl part, so shreeked the whole thing. Gotta love her for givin' er though, hahahahah.


Misato

action shot of singing

I had a couple of great days off where i was actually able to go running in a tank-top. Beautiful sunny weather. Loved it!

BYE BYE Ryan

So people are dropping like flies in Fukui. These are some pictures from Ryan`s going away party. We went to Bears Bar like usual. The days are getting much colder here. Good thing i had room to pack my winter jacket and boots.....not. So with the days getting colder, and my bank account not growing fast enough, i will have to layer like it`s my job.

The whole gang including our Japanese staff (ex-staff)

Japanese Staff. Megumi, Tomomie, and Emi

Lesley and I.

So everything is good right now. Minus the fact that it is freezing. I am still living in my Nova apartment, but we got some questionable mail. It said that we haven`t been paying our electricity bill, so they are going to turn it off soon. I hope they don`t turn it off before the end of the month because that is when i think i will move out. It is all in Japanese Kanji, and like everything else in this country i can`t read it.

Amber, one of my roommates has to go home soon. She couldn't find a job, so she finally had to make the decision to go home. It will be very sad when she leaves.

We are going to Karaoke tonight, so that should be fun. I won`t ride my bike there, i promise!

Folk Museums/ Food/ New School

Helle Helle,
So the hat and i would like to apologize for not writing enough. We will get on it.

Life in Fukui has been good. Very busy with work, but good. I have been working for about two weeks now. My hours are from 1 pm to 10 pm. But i have also been coming in earlier because there is so much work to be done. My lessons are good for the most part, but they take a long time to prepare for. Of course there are bad lessons too, where the hands of the clock don`t seem to move fast enough. The atmosphere at work is really great. Episodes of Friends are played on repeat, or jazz music is played through one of the computers. Although sometimes i hear music that i don`t like. Like that stupid song that haunts me " i`m going to miss you like a child misses a blanket", i don`t know why but it follows me around the world like a bad hangover. Damianna you would laugh still at my reaction. My boss is really nice. Last week i had a cough. He came back from the store with six different kinds of cough drops. Needless to say that none of them worked. Japanese medicine sucks! I need some Fishermans Friend, or even Halls would be better than the candy they call medicine. My boss also got me my own computer for my little classroom. Although i think it was cheap for a reason. It doesn`t work too well, but does the job for making lesson plans and using e-mail. I usually teach at the school, but once a week i go to a business and teach old men there. I am the first female teacher they have had. It is weird there, i have to where old slippers after i walk in the front door. They are nice though. I ride my bike to work everyday. Which is good except when it rains, or when it is super cold out at night.

This is the folk museum on the mountain Noriaki and i went to. It is called Osagoe Folk Village Museum. It is a collection of ancient traditional Japanese houses that apparently help us to imagine the old style of life. They all belonged to different prominent families who lived in Fukui. They have been reassembled here, and made into a little museum. It was pretty cool. We got there half an hour before closing, so we didn`t have to pay to go in.

View from inside a house.

Me in front of a water wheel.

This was some of the food at the restaurant we went to that night. We ate delicious food, and played with the cutest Japanese kid alive. He loved me. And naturally i wanted to take him home, but he didn`t fit in my purse. These shrimp look like they could crawl off the plate.
Cutest child ever!

This is the view from on top of Fukui castle walls. Fall is beautiful, but cold.

And this is my new school!!!! I think it is really cute. And about a million times better than Nova. It is a lot more work than Nova, but i have more say into the design of the lessons, which in the long run will be more rewarding, and give me a better idea if i like teaching or not. Most of students are pretty cool, and in their mid 20`s, so that makes things more fun.

My room!!!!

The whole place, minus teaching rooms that you cannot see.

This is the toilet at the school. And i mainly put it up for Cheryl because she was scared for me that there would only be squatting toilets in Japan. And now i have to squat everyday. I am mostly successful...

Other than teaching, not too much else has been going on. There have been quite a few going away parties. Last Saturday night there was a karaoke going away party at a place called Cote de Azure. It is always a bad thing when i feel the need to catch up in drinking with my friends. I got off work at ten and rode my bike to the place. We sang a lot of fun songs, and drank about a million whiskey colas, Amber, Lesley or i would order them three at a time every chance we got. Thank Buddah for Nomihodie (it means all you can drink while you are there for a set price). Or Nomiho-dizzle as we like to call it. Anyways, i ended up having to ride my bike home. I not only was lost and fell off my bike three times, but it was also raining. So needless to say, i was crying the whole way home, and will never drink as many whiskey colas again. I was all banged up the next day and my stocking were a little ripped and bloody, hahahaha, I am such a loser, i mean seriously who falls off their bike three times, you think after the first time one would get off and walk. Good news is, that the bike was okay! hahaha But my basket is a little scraped.

Until next time............

The Past Few Weeks........

Maybe So it`s been a while since i`ve updated everyone on my situation in Japan! It has been a little crazy\confusing\rocky here, I feel like i`ve been in the twilight zone for the past couple weeks, and need to give a huge update.

The company i chose to work for was probably the worst company to choose in all of ASIA! They have been having financial problems since last febuary. However my recruiter seemed to think this was not going to be a problem. I knew of the troubles before i left, but didn`t think it would ever get this bad. Well it did.............

First my school branch near the station was going to close down and i was going to have to move to another location which was going to be a lot further away AND it was going to be in a mall (hello i`m 23 and working in a mall!!).....So the teachers at my school were very upset by that news. The school was supposed to close on the 31st of October.

Second, we were not going to receive a paycheck this month (by the way i have never received a paycheck to this day) So now i was going to be 23yrs old and working in a mall for free. Sounds good hey?. The mall would also take an hour by bus to get there, and cost $250/mth in bus passes.

But before all this could happen, we got `the call`. I woke up one morning and got `the call`. All of NOVA has been shut down. Not just my school, ALL schools in Japan. The company i have been working for completely closed down every single school. They filed for bankruptcy. This puts me as one person out of 4500 foreigners without a job in Japan. Good luck me!

So needless to say it has been rough. No paycheck, and no place to go. We don`t think our rent has been paid, but we are still staying there until they physically remove us from the building. We still have electricity, but we don`t know for how much longer. Alot of people we know have had theirs turned off or been evicted.

So the day we found out was definitely a drunken one. We all got together around 1 pm and started the drinking fest. Everybody grouped all the alcohol they had in Japan together and began. It was pouring rain all day. Yeah, really added to my good mood, especially with a broken umbrella.

But i had been applying for jobs for a while. And i had a lead on a good one, but the guy hadn`t gotten back to me yet.

However the next day came, and reality set in. BUT that day was also the Halloween train. We all got dressed up and hit the train like it was our job.

Anyways............The day we found out about Nova will be known as `the day i lost my job, and also got a new one` The guy got back to me that night. It is a little English school that needed someone ASAP, so naturally i jumped on it. I signed the papers the next day. So i am officially the new teacher for `Will Be English School`. Ahahahah, that`s right Will BE.
I have been working for four days so far. It could not be cuter!!!!!!!!!! It is rustic looking with tacky decorations up everywhere. In my teaching room there is a sign that says "BEER- the only reason i get up in the afternoon". And it has a ton of other cheesy placks like that. AND it plays Full House on repeat, as well as other tv shows and movies BUT so far just Full House (the beach boy episode). I think it will be much better than Nova. And i can use the internet anytime! So there shall be many more posts!!!! I will put up pictures soon.

But the job is alot different. I basically have to make up all the lesson plans myself from scratch. This is alot different from my last job which had a million resources. But there is a computer to use. And i can use the knowledge of my last job. No money from my last job but many hours of experience.

So basically life has been extremely stressful, yet very fun at most times. I will be super busy with my new job, planning lessons and getting used to my new hours of 1-10.

I have to move apartments soon. Yes, i have to move from my beautiful big apartment into a little box apartment. I`ll put up pictures when i do. I am a little scared of being lonely because i have gotten used to roommates, but i`ll deal with it. I have made alot of friends here so far. Some are being forced to go home because of lack of money/job, but a few are staying.

Oh and my new boss bought me a bike!!!!! It is gold and sooo ugly, but i love it!!!

That`s all for now. I am alive............