Engrish anyone????

So i was marking some 1st year (grade 10) exams the other day and i found some amazing new ways to spell some English words. I thought i would share them with you.

Apologised became acorozied
Sold became salled (not bad)
Persuaded became parseaded

I can only imagine what my Japanese must look like to a native speaker.

Waiting around in the school gym

So in Japan, each employer and school provides a health check each year. This includes weight and height checks, x-ray and a range of other check ups. It is a good idea i think. But on the otherhand, they arent given immunisations at schools here. So they have to get them from the doctor. I think a happy medium would be having both in Australia schools.

I helped out by checking weights. It was amazing how heavy some of them are and how light others were. THere were girls who are in grade 11 who were 80kgs and others who were 32kgs. The girls were so proud if they lost weight and not so happy when they didnt. I was abit worried that it made them focus too much on weight and if this were part of school life in Australia, that we would have more problems with eating disorders.

The things i see when i am riding to school and my meetings

This is the bridge that i have to ride up each time i go to MH for a meeting with my supervisor. It may not look so steep but it is when you are riding a bike with no gears.

Elvis had an apartment in JAPAN?????

Talk about fitting houses wherever they can. These houses have driveways that stretch across the river.

Love Hotels - a Japanese original

Love Hotels are the another wonderful cultural adventure in Japan. Because so many young people live with their parents till they get married, these hotels have sprung up everywhere. Many of the websites that i have looked at also say they are used for men who want to meet their mistresses. Because the divorce rate is low here and Japanese just suffer through bad marriage (this is what one website said), these hotels are very useful.

Love hotels are also famous for their themed rooms. One of them has a playboy theme and others have hello kitty theme or knights theme. U name it, you can probably find it.




I love this one. It says HOTEL A MAN. HAVE A GOOD TIME.....do you get it?



Many of the love hotels are in the shape of European castles.



I love this one too. A castle with a sign that says HOTEL FOCUS!!!!! That's right, FOCUS on what you are doing.

The Japanese love ceremonies........

There are ceremonies for everything here in Japan. At the start of each of the three terms, there is an opening ceremony and then at the end there is a closing ceremony. They are actually really boring but are a part of the culture so we all do it. These photos are from the closing ceremony in March.


I actually find the students to be abit rude in these ceremonies. Often they talk while the person on the stage is talking. And usually the teachers do nothing about this. The students at my school in Australia would never get away with that.

Unlike in western school, the students face the person presenting them with the award. And not just when they are being handed to them. They stand there while the award is being announced. It is very different to my school in Australia.

Such a learning curve!!!!!!!!!!

Random school stuff

The front school gate that was locked after the principal was arrested

The shoe lockers. The students wear black formal shoes to school and then change them over to tennis shoes when they arrive at school. Here is where they switch them.

Some of the student's cleaning stuff. They clean each afternoon

These are to organise classes. They dont use computers like we do. It was quite strange. Each teacher gets a ring of these with their class names on there. And then the department uses them to work out the class schedule.

Craziness of Harajuku

These kids come to Harajuku to express themselves.......to break out of the chains of looking like everyone else and having to conform.

Random Festival that was going on near the station when i arrived. You should have seen the dancing horse. I actually felt sorry for it. And those old ladies that were dancing.... you should have seen the sexy hip moves and the bunny hops. It was so strange.

Kawaguchi Ichiritsu Brass Band performs at Kawaguchi Station

Yeah, with the Saitama mascot. The little kid was so afraid of him.
Warming up
Some more of my students
They were awesome

So the Brass Band from my school were asked to perform at the first promotion of the this huge sports festival that is happening in Saitama in August. And so i went along to support them.

Please do it at home.........

What was your first thought??? I thought immediatly of the sexy thing that you
should do only at home in private.......but it is talking about putting makeup on while on the train. I guess people have poked their eyes out or something. Seems abit strange to me.......

Fishing metropolitan style

I guess you just rent a place in here and then you can fish to your hearts content. This was right across from a train station in Tokyo.

Perfect English..........hmmmmmmmmmm

After a blow up with my teachers over me leaving early, which included cancelling my classes for the whole month that i had left in Japan, this is the sign one of them put on the computers. I spent the whole day on there doing emails etc. And they didnt like it. Even though that was what the principal told me to do because i didnt have anything else to do cause classes cancelled. I think it is meant to mean Dont use it for personal reasons if someone wants to use it for test making. But who really knows. And i actually think it is abit rude. Why couldnt they just talk to me about it.......rather than post a stupid sign that makes no sense.

Aussie fun in a 3rd year class at school (year 12)

TV screen in the car

So one of my teachers came to pick me up in May when we had a typhoon and the train system had stopped. And while we drove to school we watched TV and when she reversed the screen showed the view behind the car. It was really cool!!!!!!! I have never seen this in Aussie cars.....

Its amazing what pollution does to a sunset.....

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Taken from 10th floor of my building in May. Very beautiful!