Japan: Akemashite omedeto gozaimasu!

Or, a big Happy New Year from us!

For our new year, we started with a free soba (traditional new years food, a type of noodle) and sake (unfortunately not for us, as the drinking age is 20!) evening at our hostel which was fun and very
yummy. Talked with some friendly graduate TEFL teachers who had come to Tokyo to meet up from schools across Japan and the lovely people who work at the hostel.

After this, we headed to Senso-Ji Temple, the oldest temple in Tokyo and only 15 minutes walk away. The atmosphere in the temple grounds was spectacular with food sellers everywhere hawking their goods, lucky charm merchants and groups of people all amongst the old temple buildings which had been lit up. After getting a sweet dinner of a cute fish shaped pastry filled with sweetened red bean paste we joined the masses who were queuing for entry into the temple shrine. It was surprisingly hard to know it was actually new year as there wasn't a big countdown! But at midnight, the crowd started moving and the flow of thousands of people started to move into the shrine!

It was all incredibly efficient with the police moving everyone into the shrine in groups and constant Japanese instructions being shouted out, all very calm....until you entered the shrine! Suddenly it was a
flurry of people, pushing and shoving and everyone was trying to get to the front to chuck money into the donation area and say a prayer! After finally escaping the throngs of people we were surprised to see the TEFL teachers we met in the hostel earlier also struggling out the crowds, stroke of new year luck!

On the first day of the new year we got up pretty late (!) and so seeing hatsuihinode, the first sunrise was a miss, but I have a feeling it was for most of Tokyo too. We made our way to Harajuku where we went to the Meiji Shrine, a huge Shinto shrine right in the middle of Tokyo's most bustling shopping districts. After queuing up and praying I wrote my new year wishes on a slip on paper along with a donation to be put into the shrine. Dinner was at the masses of festival hot food sellers all around- I only wanted to try foods on a stick! Kare age (fried chicken), takoyaki (octopus balls) and..... (this is the problem with not being able to read!) deep fried potato with bacon and sugared butter! Such an unhealthy start to the new year!

From Meiji Shrine we made our way into Harajuku to a massive, famous department store called Laforet. The clothes are for teens and they're all one size- tiny! On the top floor, shop assistants were screaming how good their sales were to try and beckon you inside into girly, affordable brands and on the bottom floor are Japan's famous, expensive alternative fashion brands who made the Harajuku girl
internationally famous. I have an utter love for Japanese fashion and have many tomes of imported fashion books and Phaidon photo books of street fashion photography, so going to this teen fashion Mecca was incredible! Getting to see and touch the clothes in real life of brands I've studied each new collection of since I was 14 was very, very cool.

We spent the evening playing video games in one of Tokyo's numerous multi floor arcades before having a second dinner of convenience store food and hot drinks from vending machines. Vending machines are EVERYWHERE and they sell hot and cold drinks of every description - hot pancake syrup for 120Yen anyone? The machines are also very polite and say thank you to you, are VERY quick and let you pay by your train pass, notes or old fashioned coins. Convenience stores are also everywhere and are amazing! They even have 100Yen convenience stores where it's like a tiny supermarket where everything's 100Yen. The staff are so helpful and polite and there's so much interesting (and dubious!) snack food that we won't have tried 1% of what's on offer despite going into them everyday. Also, everything's cute.... I absolutely love it! Peanut butter sandwiches have little smiley faces on them and all the packaged food has cute (or kawaii) mascots akin to
Hello Kitty. Life should be cute!!! ^_^

On the 2nd we went to the Ginza area to the Imperial Palace as it is one of the two days of the year (the other is the Emperor's birthday) where the inner palace is opened to the public. We went through vigorous security checks before being handed Japanese flags to wave as Emperor came outside to wave and say a speech. What's interesting is that the Ginza area is full of glass and steel tall buildings and right next to it is an ancient palace. This rings true for all of Tokyo and incredibly modern building will neighbour very old structures, the roofs are all at different heights and it doesn't feel like any of the woes of UK planning permission exist in these streets!

On the 3rd we made our way back to Harajuku, but this time, we were there early, map in hand and ready for the quest! The quest for Lucky Packs! As we walked down Harajuku's busiest street, it was crowded and very, very noisy. Girls with megaphones would be screaming sale prices and hinting to the contents of their lucky packs in their shops and it felt like every teenage girl in Tokyo was there! By the end of the day I was absolutely shattered. We'd shopped Harajuku and Shibuya and seen
some crazy shops on the way. 400Yen vintage clothes shops were something I thought was very cool where all the clothing is one price, ranging from packs of buttons to bomber jackets. A Second hand
Vivienne Westwood, a shop where only girls are allowed in with photo booths, dressing up tables and a cake shop so you can preen yourself, take photos with your friends in your new clothes before having a rest stop from shopping and 4 floor 100Yen shops which sell crockery, plants and everything
else you can imagine (with cute faces on! ^_^).

One floor of the 100Y shop-Not a thing like Pound Land!!

Shop girls shouting with megaphones to beckon you into their sales... almost every shop on the street had someone doing this (deafening!). This girl has a pretty cute heart shaped megaphone!

Takeshita-dori - Harajuku's coolest street with the craziest clothes and even more crazy crowds!

At the end of the day I had 2 lucky packs clutched in my hand- a 300Y bag from the accessories shop Paris Kids which is filled with necklaces, a bracelet and exciting hair stuff and a huuuuuge 3000Y bag
from Swimmer, a home and accessories shop which sell very, very snazzy designs. Inside my bag is too much to list (!), it's absolutely stuffed and the shop said each bag would have around 15,000Y worth of goods inside. My favourites are a strawberry printed flask and a cream printed lunch bag but I also have bags, shoes, earrings, key rings, stationary etc. etc.! My desk at uni will be kawaii-d out!

After the mammoth shopping day, we decided to eat in a restaurant for the first time. Convenience stores, street food and (amazingly tasty and impressive!) Japanese fast food chains are all brilliant, but
after 8 hours of shopping it is nice to relax properly! I had a whole grilled mackerel with miso, pickles, radish, seaweed and rice whilst Ems and Antonia had different breaded chicken dishes with the same set of accompaniments. Pretty good for around 2000Y between us! It's now the 4th which means it's back to work for most of Japan. Museums are open again, lucky pack sales are over and most of the New Year traditions have been done. It's been a definite cultural start to 2011 and my prayers for the rest of the new year are that it continues in the same way!

Happy New Year everyone, hope your days to 2011 started with a bang ^_^!

Japan: It's like a dream.

Morning all! Or, ohayo gozaimasu ^_^

6am from our hostel after our first (very early!) night. Managed to beat the weather and me, Emma and Antonia have reached TOKYO, Japan! When we landed we were greeted by beautiful winter weather- clear blue skies and very bright, warm sunlight. Really lovely change from the current drizzle and darkness from the UK... I only saw the sun in England once in the two weeks I was back from Fiji on Christmas day.

So far, Japan is really exciting and a has lots of things we expected and lots of things unexpected. Initial toilet experience - crazy electronic Japanese toilets! Even in our youth hostel the loos have heated seats (which was quite surprising) and about 12 different buttons which look terrifying and we're avoiding!People are extremely friendly and I'm really surprised at how far my broken Japanese is getting us. It's really, really fun getting to speak Japanese and I'm really glad People are responding! There's lots of English signage which is amazing as otherwise the trains and roads would be impossible- it's just huge here! However, it's interesting (and confusing) as only main roads are named. Other streets aren't named and buildings are given numbers according to when they were built, not ascending along the road. So, maps can be very confusing, but the plethora of 7/11 convenience stores, tiny family-run restaurants and shrines make navigating from landmarks a bit easier.

I'm aware we've only been here less than 24 hours, but we haven't got lost on the trains or roads yet!! As we got the train from Narita, where the airport is to Tokyo it was so amazing looking out the window. It's strange, it felt similar but not quite. There's squares of farmland like England and I guess the climate is the same, but dotted in-between the fields are houses built in Japanese style. The architecture of the domestic houses is really lovely and looks so archaic and old fashioned. We slowly saw the city build up into a metropolis as the train gathered ground and the in-between houses turned into cylindrical apartment buildings and the fields replaced by taller and taller buildings fronted with neon adverts. It was interesting to see Shinto cemeteries which would be in the towns and also, just seeing living Japan all around. On our train people were watching tv on their phones and outside on the roads would be lots of Toyotas and bicycles!

It's strange, after years of watching Japanese films and anime and reading manga and Japanese novels, the scenes around me didn't feel that foreign at all. In fact, I felt strangely at home. Even the sounds of the numerous level crossings were familiar (they feature very importantly in a great film that's a favourite of mine 'The Girl Who Leapt Through Time'). I've been a Japanophile for more than 10 years, when I was 6 I first asked if we could go on holiday to Japan (!), and so being here feels a bit like a dream and a lot like the culmination to a massive achievement.... But to summarise 'Suki desu!' - I love it!

UK: Home

So... after 3 and a half months, a 42 hour journey I've finally been back at home for a week or so. Getting back into UK life has felt very weird and actually... very foreign! Reverse culture shock is a very scary thing and strangely worse than normal culture shock. Everything's so clean, everything's so dark (I haven't seen the sun yet at all here!!!), everything's SO COLD!!! It's strange how everything just works differently again and it does feel comparatively unfriendly and stressful compared to Fiji island life!

So far I've already rang and texted my friends and family in Fiji and popped a chocolate package in the post for them :) So, so, SO MANY photos to sort through (2000+) as well as Christmas and UK life getting back underway. The other day I met up with my school friends and it's relaxing that life's always the same with good friends, no matter where on earth you've been! Just to make sure they knew where I'd been, I wore a sulu (yes, in the SNOW!) when I went to meet them :)

There's definitely no place like home, but I didn't think going away and being on my own would give me so much to think about, so much more understanding of the world and so many friends who are now so far away. I never want to forget the memories and hope to bring together the island friendliness, the enthusiasm of my fellow volunteers and all the passion I had for life into my everyday life here. The world's a big place.... you just have to be there to see it!

What I've definitely learned from being right on the other side of the world is that the world is an absolutely incredible, beautiful and amazing place. The world is never a boring place, you just have to be in the right place to see it. In the morning in England when everyone's groggily waking up for the day to start, kids in Fiji and running around gathering friends together to go swimming for high tide and jumping into the ocean in the sunset. Fiji is a tiny country and I learnt so much from being there, the world is just an absolutely amazing, absolutely huge place. I don't think I could ever say life is boring again because I'll just imagine everything that's happening on the other side of the world.

From going away I've grown so much and really feel like a 'proper' adult now. It's strange being back and not being known as a teacher! But it's also relaxing not having to be so responsible anymore! I also definitely want to continue with volunteer work in England, I absolutely love it! I already volunteer with Guides and my local libraries in Berkshire, but doing the same thing abroad just makes me want to do more here and also take on new projects. I'm definitely planning on taking up regular volunteer work once I'm at Uni in London, hopefully working in a refugee center doing some conversational English work or maybe work with Shelter. I also can't wait to study Anthropology, I wrote an essay the other day on just a few of the many things I thought about whilst in Fiji.... voluntary essays for fun? Get me to Uni quick! So many questions to ask and so much I want to study and understand.

One day I'd love to go back to Fiji, who knows whether it'll be in 5 or 50 years but I've definitely made some truly awesome friends along the way and memories and experiences that no one can ever take from me. I was terrified I'd forget the life I had and all the things I did, but from being back this short time and just talking about it and remembering it all the time has made me think the experience really has become part of who I am. Fiji definitely wasn't a holiday, but it was an incredible experience that you had to work very hard to become part of, what you put in really gets given back to you. There were times I was stressed, times I was sad and also times were I was just incredibly happy, so content and couldn't imagine feeling the same anywhere else.

I'm happy to be back. Mostly because I know my new memories will never leave!

And I'll leave with a quote that I had in my mind when I left...

Journeys are measured in friends

Definitely true.

  

South Korea: "Au sa sega na via lako" (I don't want to go)

Well, the last week was emotional... and the day I left my village I don't think I'd ever felt so sad and flat whilst being in Fiji. It was very strange to see my rucksack and think that everything was in there, nothing was left in the my home and that the next few days would be spent in Nadi.... not Viro, Ovalau.

I left on the 9th with Miss Jessie from Uluibau, Moturiki and took a very rainy fibre boat journey to the mainland. From there we had a 3 buses and an 8 hour journey round Viti Levu back to Nadi where we met up with the other volunteers for a farewell. As well as making such great relationships in Fiji, I've made some incredible friends with the other volunteers and it feels so great that I can really say I have friends all over the world :) No trip to Australia will ever be a lonely one, not with my fellow island girls! A amusingly large part of our farewell consisted of checking for nits, an inevitable consequence of living and working with school kids for the past 3 months!

During the next few days in Nadi I saw a lot of friends off at the airport and also found quite a bit of satisfaction at getting the locals rate at the tourist places showing them my work visa and also by just being dressed up in my sulu jaba - I loved being able to say "No, no, I live here." and seeing the price drop! It was always fun meeting people from Ovalau (MY HOME!) and even getting to show off by speaking a bit of Lauan dialect (different to to the widely spoken Fijian dialect) which I learnt from living in Viro.

Fiji's an incredibly friendly place and I always felt like I could go and talk to anyone. In the departure lounge, the first time I was totally alone in Fiji I chatted to the shop staff about life in Viro which was really comforting.... especially as I found out these guys were the ones in charge of giving out free samples. I had my first taste of CHOCOLATE in 1/4 of the year and it was possibly one of my most amazing moments!!

On the plane it really hit me that I was leaving Fiji and I was glad to have my diary. I just consolidated my thoughts and remembered how scared and nervous I felt before I came... not knowing what awaited me, worried about who I was living with, what work in the school would be like and worrying about meeting the Australian volunteers. After I finished writing, I realised I'd written over a page of things starting with the sentance "I'll miss...." I really did have a wonderful time and experienced so many emotions over the whole trip. There's so much I'll miss though, I really feels like I have an entire life in Viro, Ovalau. But I feel happy, really happy that I did it all and now I'm so excited to be going home.... home!

20 hours in transit before my flight back to England, luckily the airport is rather snazzy and there's lots of recliners to sleep on! I also managed to leave the airport, it's dark and the city's an hour away so I went on a bus ride around the airport area before buying some exciting and mysterious (I've no idea what's in it!) Korean food from a convenience shop. It's cold here in South Korea, good practice for England. Very pleased that my passport got stamped here and I'm even more amused that it shows me entering and leaving Korea on the same day! Hopefully if I get up early tomorrow I can go on a morning temple tour before my flight. I'm finding Korean language incredibly hard to pronounce so I'm communicating with lots of smiles and thumbs up!

Moce!

Fiji: The End of Term

It's now hit December and school term finishes this Friday, after that I have my last week in Fiji before flying out from Nadi on the 13th December and arriving back in the UK on the 14th!

The last week has been completely crazy and busy! The joint Viro and Rukuruku Guide Camp went off, my library is finished and the school has been dolled up for prize giving and we're having a school picnic at a beach tomorrow! On Friday I'm going to a Fijian wedding the village (all the teachers were invited so the school is closing on Friday) and I've had a new sulu jamba (Fijian dress) made for the occasion!

Don't have time to write a long report on the guide camp (there's a lot to say, and stress wise from a teacher's point of view, I'm glad it's over!! It was a blast though!) as I want to get back to Fiji life, I'll elaborate on this post once I'm back in the UK :(

The pictures are of my girls swimming in the river after playing volleyball, the Rukuruku school girls going back to their village on a fibre boat through the mangroves after the camp (with their Lattitude volunteer teacher, Miss Kiarah), the camp programme (!) and a few pictures of my FINISHED LIBRARY!!! :D

The two last pictures are from when another volunteer and I went to Suva (the capital of Fiji). We went to visit another volunteer there who's working in the Hilton School Early Intervention Centre. It was really eye opening to see another, such different placement and we help out in the morning we were there. The Special School was a really beautiful, happy place and I absolutely loved the kids there!

Just a quick set of photos and info.... will write more when I'm in Nadi (!)

Moce!

Fiji: Busy, busy, busy!

Bula!
After an amazingly relaxing Diwali bank holiday weekend with the other volunteers it's back to school. We went to a tiny island beach called Cagali (pronouced THANG-A-LIE) and had a Diwali bonfire, white sand
and volleyball! But being the dedicated volunteers we are, all of us teachers brought some work to do! Miss Jessie from Uluibau was planning class 8 maths lessons, Miss Sarah was writing out the blueprint for annual Class 4 exams (see the top 2 photos!) and Miss Parry and I were stressing and planning for the weeks ahead. The volunteers from Vutikalulu building project were really appreciating electricity which they don't have at their placement! I was a bit worried I'd have to start teaching full time as a pregnant teacher was having to take extra leave and was possibly going to start her maternity leave a month early, however, the doctor said she was fine and it means I'm still free to finish making the library at Viro Primary.

Above are some progress shots. I've collected all the books the school has and have opened every single one, cleaned it, fixed it and rubbed out any pencil marks (and I tell you, EVERY SINGLE BOOK needed to be fixed). Unlike England, the classrooms are very open and there are insects everywhere. Almost every book had some sort of mite which would crawl out when I opened it and some books actually had nests
built inside them. It's taken me weeks to clean and fix every book, but I finished at the beginning of this week. I've rearranged two of the classrooms in the school so that I could get 2 bookshelves for the library and you can see I've been working on the from the photos above. The bookshelves ALSO have nests built in them which make them all very muddy and so first they were cleaned and rusty staples and pins were removed. I then papier mache'd the holes up before painting them so they're in much better condition! SO PLEASED when they were finished, I was very, very stressed over the weekend that I wouldn't finish and have to start teaching full time!

I've read and categorised all the 'easy reader' books and sorted them into 3 reading levels and am in town at the moment to get labels for every book laminated so they STAY organised on the shelf! The kids will pick them up and move them around otherwise and everyone will forget which book is in which level when I'm gone! The second shelf has had all the fixed and cleaned books shelved alphabetically and
looks a bit fuller thanks to an amazing book donation from The Children Of Fiji charity who came to visit me a few weeks ago. Also, I have to thank my Aunt who is a Librarian for donating a lot of excellent picture books which have been really loved by the kids. When I first came, I brought a lot of books to donate myself, but there was no library to put them.... so it's really satisfying to finally see my books shelved! As well as the books and the shevles, the actual library building is very old, over 20 years old and has had to withstand tropical cyclones and rain in its lifetime. The floor has A LOT of holes in it and I've been finding pieces of wood to cut and hammer down. I'm glad to say it's now safe to walk on the floor without fear your foot will drop through!

I'm now working on all the non-fiction books and also.... another Guide camp! I really didn't want the last camp I took the girls on to be their first and last after seeing how much they enjoyed it, so I've met up with Miss Kiarah in town, another Lattitude volunteer at the neighbouring school to organise a joint camp between Viro's Guides and Rukuruku's Guides. I love working with the Guides and last picture is me with Railala and Unaisi - I had a lady from the village come and teach the girls mat weaving and whilst they were doing it I also
taught them how to use my camera (they were excited to say the least!). The mat we're holding that says "Fiji 2010" is one that I wove a few weeks ago! I've also got the girls to write letters to my Guides in England, a Guide is a sister to all other Guides, no matter if it's the other side of the world!! They're really excited to hear
from their penpals :)

SO! BUSY BUSY BUSY! Not much left of my time in Fiji.... School term ends on December 3rd and then I fly out on Decmber 13th. Golly gosh I'm going to miss my island home, my friends and family here and all
the kids :(

Fiji: A Busy Week!

Ahhh the last week has been really busy but really interesting :)

I spent the weekend in the village - well Saturday was spent painting a bookshelf for the library in school, going on walks and hanging with other teachers and their kids in the school compound and on Sunday I spent my day in the village having lunch and tea at different people's houses after Church. I spoke to an amazingly hardworking woman who wakes up at 1:30am everyday to bake bread to sell to people in the village, cook and do all the laundry for her family because at 6:30 she takes the carrier truck into town to work at another job at the tuna cannery. I really enjoy going down into the village and talking to people, everyone has a story!

Late on Sunday evening, a visior (to stay!) arrived. We have a trainee teacher who's come to Viro School for her practical training and it's really great to have someone my age here! It's also nice to have someone here who's newer and fresher than me! Her family all came up with her and I helped serve tea and dinner to them as they were guests in the school compound and it was a great compliment when one her aunts asked me how long I'd been at Viro and I said "2 months" and she said "and so which school were you teaching at before?" - she told me she thought I'd been living here for around a year because of the way I acted, the language I was speaking and the clothes I was wearing! It was really nice and made me feel very at home. I know all the kids names, I know when they're about to be naughty ;) and I can speak enough Fijian to give them instructions. I now know all the etiquette of the home -not to sit with your legs up, not to point your feet at the Chief or the tanoa bowl, not stand up straight without saying "Tilou, tilou" and that it's normal dress to wear something ankle length.

Over this week I've been teaching classes 3 and 4 since their teacher has had to take some leave as she's pregnant. They're a great two classes and are very fun to teach! We've been diligently finishing maths problems in the morning, doing some english composition after recess before doing Fijian, science, sports and art and craft in the afternoon.For their Fijian lesson I had them get into groups and teach ME Fijian words on the topics I gave them since... well... it would be pretty interesting if I was teaching THEM Fijian. The picture above is the join venture of a health science class followed by an art and craft lesson.

The only downside is that my library hasn't been getting much attention and I'm praying I'll finish it up in time... Also, I gave the kids a maths class this morning and had to handwrite every test paper - which meant waking up at 6:00am to ensure they were finished in time!

Anywho, my the pick up truck back to my village is leaving soon, gotta rush! Hope everyone's well and HAPPY DIWALI (it's a bank holiday weekend here, yes!! Holiday time!! I'm going to the beach with some other volunteers! :D)