UBE... & Onoda

Well, it's Sunday night and once again - I have a 3 day weekend : ) Although, I didn't realize it was a 3 day weekend until Friday afternoon. Friday was a weird day. It was the 90th Anniversary Celebration of the founding of the school (Ube Nishi High School - my base school). I had this confused with the school festival... it was definetely not the school festival. It was kind of pointless actually. Everybody assembled in the gym. It was all done up for this special event - flowers on the stage, the floor completely covered with mats so the students had chairs to sit on instead of the floor. Since there were mats we didn't have to change from our indoor slippers to our gym slippers. I'm serious. You can't wear your indoor slippers in the gym... why? I have no idea. Also, there are slippers that you have to change into in the bathrooms. But anyway. There were speeches by important people for about 45 minutes and the playing/singing of the school song. Then a professional orchestra - consisting of 4 people - played for about an hour. Everything was over and done with by 11:15am. All the teachers got a fancy Japanese style lunch - complete with sashimi (raw fish). ..... Then that was that. There weren't any classes the rest of the day and nothing else was planned. WEIRD. But whatever. I'd also like to point out that EVERYONE - teachers and students - wore their nice jackets... yet I was not informed of this. They could've just said, "hey, by the way, wear a jacket on Friday"... but no. I was the only one not wearing a jacket. Oh well. I had a sweater on. It looked nice anyway.

I found out that the school festival at Ube Nishi is actually next Saturday and Sunday... which is when the school festival at Ube Shogyo (my commercial high school) is. ... and I'm expected to go to both. Ok. I'm actually looking forward to going though... I hear they're a lot of fun. The reason I have tomorrow off is because of the school festival at my base school next weekend. The following Monday is also a day off - but the midyear Yamaguchi JET seminar is next Monday and Tuesday. That's crap. I totally just got jipped out of a day off next Monday! Also. Since Ube Shogyo's school festival is also next weekend - this Wednesday is a day off for them... and Wednesday is when I teach there. BUT, instead of me having the day off as well, I have to go to my base school. Now that is crap. But whatever. My supervisor said there's a class he teaches on Wednesdays that is dissapointed that I don't get to teach them since I teach at the commercial school on Wednesdays... so they're at least excited that I'm teaching them on Wednesday. But still...

This weekend I stayed in Ube. Friday, a bunch of us went out to dinner and then went for drinks afterwords. I stayed over at Meng's and slept on her couch - the tiniest couch in the world!... because there wasn't room on the floor to put out her extra futon... because she JUST got back from visiting the US and her crap was everywhere. ha. But at least she has a couch! Man, I'd take that couch over no couch.

Yesterday I went to this super store... kind of like a mini Walmart... called Super Trial. They get most of their products from China - so it's SUPER CHEAP. I found this peice of cloth for only 399 yen, so I bought it to hang on my wall in my tatami room. I found this padded futon thing there for around 3,000 yen that I would've bought had I not ridden my bike there... or had a car to take it in. My futon is pretty thin... and a little uncomfortable sometimes... so I'm totally going back to buy it. It beats buying a completely new futon which starts at around 7,000 yen. Meng has one of these padded things and it's so comfortable. So next time... I'm so buying it. I also purchased what I thought was Dove lotion... but ended up being body wash when I got home. Note to self: read the ENTIRE label before purchasing something. I just looked at the bottle, saw the word moisture, and assumed it was lotion. Nope. I was looking for contact solution too... but couldn't find it. Weird. I still need contact solution.


Today Meng and I ventured over to Onoda to hit up Sun Park Mall - a really big, fancy, mall in the middle of nowhere. A few weeks back I rode my bike there... from my apartment... and it took about an hour one-way. Anyway, it's really new - just opened this summer... or at least was newly remodeled and majorly rennovated this summer. It's home to 1 of the 2 Starbucks in all of Yamaguchi Prefecture - the other is in Shimonoseki... which is the biggest city in Yamaguchi. Once Halloween came and went it got all decked out for Christmas. There's Christmas all over that place. But it's nice. I like it. Patricia met up with us and we had dinner at this really good okonomiyaki place. It was good.

I found this website where I can watch basically any tv episode I want. It's nice because it streams on your computer and you don't have to download ANYTHING. My friend Nathan told me about it and now I'm hooked. I can even watch the new episodes of Grey's Anatomy and The Office! There are tons of movies to choose from too! Last night I watched Juno AND Across the Universe. After I finish this entry I'm gonna watch Kung Fu Panda!

It's pretty cold in Ube now. Ok, well it's warmer than if I were in Indiana... but there's no such thing as central heating or climate control in Japan. I heard that as it gets colder, it's not uncommon for it to be colder in your apartment than it is outside... I am not looking forward to it. I have two air conditioning units that also work as heaters... but that's probably the most expensive way to heat up an apartment. I have a kotasu... table with a heater under it... but I don't have a cord to plug it into the wall... nor do I know if it even works. I've been using the heater in my bedroom at night when I sleep... but it is so hard to get out of bed in the morning! Seriously. Once I walk into any other room in my apartment - IT IS SO COLD... because only 1 room benefits from the heater. At work it's even colder. Those buildings are not insulated AT ALL... not to mention... the rooms aren't heated... AT ALL. I have noticed these old school heaters sitting in the corner of some classrooms - so perhaps they use them when it gets REALLY cold outside. I feel bad for the girls. They have to wear their skirts to school year round. Now that would suck. It's going to be an interesting (cold) winter...