Tasmanian Christmas

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Good Golly!!! It's been almost a month since I last posted!!! I had no idea... where did all the time go?

Well, I'll tell you.

About two days after my last post, I took a bus to Osaka where Nick and I caught a plane to Australia. Did anyone know that you needed a Visa to get into Australia? Yeah, neither did I. Almost didn't make it (^^;) Luckily, our plane was 4 hours late. That was an international flight too. We took JET Star which is an Australian company. It's the cheap spawn of a very wonderful company known as Qantas. Basically, JET Star is super cheap (kinda) but I think with every single one of the flights we took which totaled to about 6, they all had problems including but not limited to, late flights, missing bookings (as in we weren't given a seat on the flight because they didn't know we were coming despite our printed receipts) and extra charges for things like food, blankets and pillows.

The flights weren't all that bad though. They had larger seats than expected and the staff were very kind and patient while they sorted out everyone single one of our problems. (^u^)

And we even got to Tasmania on time!

Even though it was summer there, Christmas day weather was very similar to Florida's so it felt nice. After that it heated up and I felt right at home!

Nick's family is wonderful as well. I met all 3 million of them! Hahahaha! I don't think a day went by that I didn't meet a new person.

Since most of the time was devoted to family and friends, I really didn't mind that we didn't go to many touristy places. I enjoyed everyone's company and we never sat around doing nothing so it was fine that I didn't get to buy little trinkets that had Tasmanian Devils painted all over them.

And speaking of which, I got to see a Tasmanian Devil. They're small, kind of ugly and look nothing like the Looney Tunes Taz. I have no idea how those two are anything alike! Also, the Tazzie Devil has the worst growl I've ever heard! It is very well named for it :-/

In other animal news, I got to see lots of Australian animals! I even got to pet a kangaroo!!! That was really awesome (^u^) But Nick's camera died that day so there aren't any pictures which is really too bad (ToT)

In closing, Tasmania was gorgeous and I loved every minute of it!


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Once I got back, I really did hit the ground running like I thought I would. Thank god there wasn't any jet lag!

We got back into Osaka on Sunday night and spent Monday getting back to Kochi. On Tuesday, I was right back to work. Wednesday I made a special trip to give Kae and the family the souvenirs I bought for them, then raced off to get the next thing done. Friday night was spent at an Ex JETs English conversation school. We drank lot's and had some crazy fun with her adult students!

Actually, we had dinner at an Izakaya (Japanese pub) and the ladies decided that they wanted to dress up in costumes. Since it's the new year and also the year of the rat, they decided that should be the theme. I was donned with mouse face paint and everything! It was a lot of fun.

Later in the night when I had forgotten I was actually wearing anything, I walked out of our private room (there were a lot of us) to use the toilet and another customer came walking up the stairs just then. He stopped dead in his tracks and wouldn't stop staring at me. I brushed it off and thought he was a jerk for fully gaping at me just because I am a foreigner. That is until I took a look in the mirror. I fully burst out laughing!!!

(Will post pictures when I get them from Nick)

I went from that party to having a morning party with Sara's little kids (she's the woman that runs the English conversation school). After that, I went home, and cleaned up for another party I was hosting with a couple of friends that I had missed since I wasn't here for New Years.

Now the weekend is over, and I'm back to classes. But tomorrow I'm actually skipping class to go to the Wonderful Mid Year Conference of which all JETs will attend. It's a great time of the year because it means I get to see friends that I haven't seen for months since they live so far away at the edges of the prefecture. You can guarantee that many parties will be had ;)

And so it continues.....

(I always write about how happily busy I am and how many parties I have every weekend...but still, I'm debating if I even want to recontract. It's a decision I have to make in the beginning of February. I'm actually not sure if another year will do me any good.... parties? or the real world.... not as easy a decision as you'd think)