Sega World

It was a rainy day in Himeji and was way too cold to go out anywhere in the open, so Shinya suggest to take Tina, Kyosuke, Lauren and I to Sega World. Well I don't think we could have done anything better because this was just fantastic. It is like a games centre where you pay for every ten minutes you are in there, but you can go on anything you like within the centre for free. They had all sorts of things including pool tables, table tennis tables, car games, segway, massage chairs, tennis, squash courts…you name it, they had it! It was a great place to go to pass the time away with your friends and be entertained for a few hours. It was lots of fun!

The best part of this centre was the segway. They used these on Big Brother one of the years. You have to stand on it and control it by pushing and pulling the lever to move, change direction and alter the speed. It was hard to get used to at the start, but it was lots of fun nevertheless!

Farewell Party…Goodbye us ☹

Tina, Steve, Lauren and I decided to have a small farewell dinner with the close friends we made whilst living in Japan. Firstly, we went out for dinner at the Blue Plate restaurant in the Miyuki Dori. This is equivalent to Rundle Mall in Adelaide. We loved going to this restaurant because for about $16, you could get a salad, soup, bread rolls, main, dessert and a coffee. It was good value for money and the service was really good and the food was really tasty. So this was our very last time eating at one of our favourite restaurants, Blue Plate.

After dinner, we went out for some karaoke because that is just what you do in Japan! It was lots of fun and we sang our little hearts out! This is Tina and I at the karaoke bar.


This is me, Lauren, Tina, Kyosuke and Makoto enjoying karaoke.


This is us doing the jazz hands!


Lauren, Hiromi, Fumiyo, Yoko, Tina, me and Shinya all feeling a little sentimental towards the end of karaoke.


Hiromi and Fumiyo gave us a little present each which was really nice of them. We were really sad to leave the karaoke bar after that because we knew that it would be the last time for a while before we could see them again. They were really good value and were always happy and cheerful when we saw them. I hope that we can always stay in touch with those girls because they were worth their weight in gold!

Shinya and I at the Tiger Bar.

Luminarie

Just over ten years ago, there was a terrible Earthquake in Kobe which ruined the entire city, killed many people and left the rest homeless as their houses and properties were destroyed. It was a big mess to clean up, but Kobe was up and running again soon after. As a celebration of the rebuilding of the city after the earthquake, once a year, the people of Kobe put on a display of lights called Luminarie. This light display is just magnificent and has a whole heap of beautiful colours and looks outstanding. Thousands of people go to this light display every year around Christmas time to see the beautiful lights.

This is just so that I have proof of actually being there!


After walking through this huge tunnel of lights, you get to a mass of lights that are in the shape of a castle. It is so beautiful.


This is Lauren, Steve, me, Tina, Richard and Yoko posing in front of the castle lights.

My Last Day at the Elementary School

All up, I had three elementary schools to teach at which were rotated once a week. I loved all of my elementary schools, but the teachers at this particular elementary school made me feel really welcome and special. One of the Grade Five teachers got her kids to make me 1000 paper cranes and they joined them all together so it looked like a colourful bunch of perfectly folded paper. It was so cool. They also gave me heaps of origami and little messages and letters. I will never forget how cute those kids are!

After my classes, the principal and I had a big chat in her office for about two hours about all the places I have been to. Then she gave me a present which was a shyuji set (Japanese calligraphy set) so that I could practise my shyuji. It was a really good present because I really enjoy doing calligraphy as I used to do it in Australia too. I also really like the look of Chinese characters (kanji) so it will be good for when I want to practise it in Australia. She gave me a bit of a lesson and I practised writing things like Himeji and Love in kanji.

These are some of the teachers I worked with at this school.

My Last Day at the Junior High School ☹

Today marks my final day at my second Junior High School. Things were certainly starting to sink in that I was soon going to leave Japan which I was really sad about. I think that my second Junior High School was my favourite one because the kids were so friendly and always used to come up and have chats with me during their lunch breaks and after school. This particular school has a name for being a bit more of a challenging school, but I thought these kids had lots of character and they were so much fun.

This is a picture of me with my most favourite bunch of kids. Every lunch break, I would go out and talk to them about my most recent travelling adventures. They really liked hearing about the Koda Kumi Concert the best of all because they absolutely LOVE Koda Kumi. She is like the Delta Goodrem of Japan!

This is them doing the famous, trendy Japanese phrase that all young kids like to say: “Don Dake!” They always used to say it to me and make me say it too! It doesn’t really mean anything, but they just like to say it!


This is my favourite group of first grade kids Year 7's). I used to go and eat with them in their classroom occasionally and have chats with them about their favourite cartoon characters and they taught me how to do some origami, too!

These are the kids I taught. At this time, they were all writing me goodbye messages, so they were trying to think of what they could write in their cards. Some wrote a message in English and some wrote in Japanese, but it took me a little while longer to figure out what they wrote to me when I read the Japanese ones!

Enya-Kyo

This was such a beautiful spot to see. There was a huge lake and we went at just the right time of day when the sun was just beginning to go down. What a beautiful view, don’t you think?


Just a little bit further down the path, was a big, red bridge that crossed the lake and it looked so cool that we just had to take a photo of it.


This time of year was just when all the Autumn leaves had fallen off the trees, so there were so many dead leaves on the ground. We had fun throwing them up in the air and letting them fall down back to the ground again. It also made for a good photo!

Tsumago

This is another traditional Japanese village that has been here for many years. There are many Japanese restaurants and souvenir shops to look at.


This is the traditional Japanese restaurant that we went into for lunch. I ate some really nice Japanese food there which consisted of forest vegetables and it was so tasty and really healthy too! I also had miso mochi which is sticky rice with a miso flavour on the top. That became my new favourite food that day!


This is the traditional village street in Tsumago. It was lined with all the beautiful and traditional Japanese style houses.


The funniest part of the day was when we stumbled across this sign that said “bus porking”. I’m pretty sure they meant to say “bus parking”, but got it slightly wrong! It was pretty funny to see though!