May 2007

We've made it in 1 piece to Japan, and after a very long flight followed by several trains, we arrived in our small but perfectly formed apartment in the Kanagawa Prefecture in Greater Tokyo (just West of Tokyo itself). We haven't quite explored our area completely, but we found a sushi place, various authentic looking japanese restaurents and a 99 yen shop - amusingly enough we didn't realise it was a 99 yen shop until by the 2nd aisle it dawned on me that everything cost exactly 99 yen (plus tax). FYI 99 yen is about 41p and 60 eurocents. Other than that, yesterday we went to the city council to sort out alien registration cards etc. It also gave us a chance to meet some of the company's other instructors who live in the same area - most of them are around our age and seem like a nice bunch, certainly a very different group from most of the teachers we met in Thailand!!

We've only been here 2 days now but so far we love it - although we'll have to get used to not being able to read anything, people cycling on pavements and car parks that whisk cars away instead of people driving to a parking place (watch Tokyo Drift, you'll understand). The campus that we will be working in, along with another guy called Ricky, seems nice enogh. Fairly modern and green.. and it has a resident goat for some random reason. We'll tell you more once we actually start work there on Monday. Tomorrow and Saturday we've got training so we'll have to wait until Sunday to do some more exploring!

Matt and I just spent a lovely month back in Europe.. as the old adage (and the not so old song) says "you don't know what you've got til it's gone" and we certainly missed our friends and loved ones when in Thailand!

Our trip back home took us on a quick detour to Sri Lanka - just one night but Sri Lankan Airlines were kind enough to provide us with a room. We arrived late at night and were leaving the next morning at 10am so we just headed straight to bed. When we woke up the next morning we discovered the hotel was right next to a beautiful beach! Unfortunately we didn't have time to explore as we were had to get back to the airport - although the short time we spent there definitely made us want to go back one day (not least because we were charmed by the fake Tescos, Asdas and McDonalds we saw on the way back to the airport). The airport itself was an interesting experience: due to recent airstrikes by the Tamil Tiger there were machine gun emplacements outside, there were soldiers in urban camouflage (purple, grey and green - very cool) and, on a lighter note, the duty-free shops sold things like fridges and ovens!

We made it safely to London where we spent a lovely few days enjoying Damian's hospitality and meeting up with a few other friends too!

Next on the whirlwind tour was home for both of us - Brussels for me and Amsteram for Matt. We both got to spend time with our families as well as friends from back home. I then went to Amsterdam to see Matt and his family, and then we jetted off to Bristol to see my brother Stephen and his fiancee Hasna. We had a wander around Bristol, went for a picnic, played basketball and generally just enjoyed each other's company

From Bristol we headed to Bath just in time for the BUSA Karate Championships so that we could cheer for the Edinburgh Squad and catch up with them too. The squad lived up to our expectations and showed us some awesome performances.. as well as some awesome banter. We then hitched a ride on the "BUSA bus" back up the Edinburgh - you'd think a 9 hour bus ride after a long day of competition wouldn't be much fun, but we ended up having a great time - I guess there are worse things than being cooped up with good friends and a few drinks!

The next few days were spent catching up with more friends and sleeping on various people's spare rooms and floors (a big thank you to H, Ger and Nessa, Sinead and Sarah!).

I won't bore you with all the details of our shenanigans but it was absolutely lovely to spend time with friends in Edinburgh and elsewhere in the UK.. we look forward to seeing you all again as soon as we're back in your neck of the woods!

Matt spent some more time in Edinburgh than me (I headed back home), partly to go his Aunt's birthday party, and then he headed back to Amsterdam. After a few more days in our respective homes, Matt hopped on a train to come see me, and a couple of days later we both got the eurostar to London to catch a plane to continue our TEFL adventure...