my car. wanna buy it? hehe

Chasers War on Everything - Piss Funny Clip on the Apec Security

this is a piss funny clip from The Chasers War on Everything, a really funny show in the abc in oz. the APEC summit for climate change was being held and security was supposed to be tight as due to have world leaders such as george w himself in the country. so the boys from chasers decided to test out the security and made themselves a fake motorcade with osama bin laden in the car. they managed to get through with ease which is quite scary when u think about it. anyways, its all pretty self explanatory so enjoy.....

They finally meet each other on Christmas Day in Japan.

My parents came to Japan to spend Christmas with me so i thought it would be a good opportunity for Mika and my parents to finally meet each other and have a nice Christmas dinner together. The thing is though that both my parents and Mika's parents cant speak the others languages so it was left up to me to be the translator for the night. It went pretty well. except for a couple of times when i started speaking in Japanese to my parents and in English to Mika's parents.....hehehe.

Stephens Choice Song of The Week

Maximum the Hormone - Koi No MegaLover

Heres an awesome Japanese band that i have just come across and seen live in august. they are part metal/punk/hip hop and are a great act to see live!! And their name is "Maximum the Hormone" so what else needs to be said?

Last Day in Japan with Adam

Here are some final picks with Adam before going our separate ways. Mate, it was awesome to have u over here and hopefully i can make my way over there to see ya in England soon.

Heres a pic with Mika's brothers Hide (left) and Kengo (right....and also the older brother). Dont know why Kengo found he needed to make that face.
this is at Mika's place
Mika's parents. Her dad had just woken up (it was late at night) to take that picture with us.

Saying goodbye to Adam in central Kobe
we went and had a beer before seeing him off

then off Mika and I went to enjoy our 4th Year Anniversary in style!!

Safe Travels ADAM and see you soon!!!

Adam in Hiroshima

So we got up on Wednesday and headed towards Hiroshima. Thankfully, I have an awesome road map so we got around ok. This foto was only part of the long, huge bridge that joins Shikoku to Honshu (the main island of Japan).
after a couple of wrong turns, we found an awesome free park right in front of the Peace Park.
This is an awesome sculpture that is designed so u can see both the everlasting flame and the ABOMB DOME.
a close up. under the marble is the register for all those who have died from the bomb.
here we are. NO, WE ARE NOT AMERICAN!!! HEHEHE!
Childrens Memorial Statue of Sadako, the poor little girl who died from radiation poisoning and tried to make herself better by folding over 1000 paper cranes.



The A-Bomb Dome

This is inside the Peace Museum. Heres a before shot of Hiroshima.

And here is the after shot. It was pretty intense in there. You really need to go in and check it out for yourself.
Afterwards, we went to check out Hiroshima Castle. Obviously, it was destroyed in the blast and they did pretty well to restore, but compared to some of the other castles that both Adam and I have been to, this was pretty average.

Before getting back in the car, Adam and I went walkabouts in the city. We came accross this girl who stood outside a chemists and quite literally screamed out in a high pitched voice for people to go into the store. We both found it quite amusing and annoying at the same time. and then after a bit more wandering about, we jumped back in the car and head back to Kobe to stay at Mika's so Adam could catch the Shinkansen on Thursday to get him to Tokyo.

Adam in the Inaka pt2

So, on last Tuesday, I made Adam get up early and come along with me to work for the day. My school allowed me to bring my brother to class with me so he saw what i do most days..... which isnt much, ay? hehe. welcome to the JET programme!!

Anyways, Adam came to school, met all the teachers and the people from the Board of Education in the morning and then came along to my classes with the 3rd graders (who are awesome compared to the 2nd graders) and they had some telephone conversation skits to perform in front of everyone and Adam. Then, Adam gave a little Self-Introduction in front of everyone and they asked him a lot of questions. The first question was, "Do you like your brother?" hehe. Adam said, "Sometimes!" hehe. Adam did well coz it is very hard getting up in front of a whole bunch of people.

After the classes, all the 3rd grade girls came running up to Adam and pretty blatantly flirted with him. They asked him if he had a girlfriend and he said YES. In an hours time after lunch, almost all the girls at school knew that he had a girlfriend much to their disgust. they told him to break up with her and go out with them. so there u go Adam..... if things dont work out for kate u have some 14-15yr old girls waiting for ya back in the sticks in japan. AHAHAHAHHA!!!

At the end of the day, Im in charge of the English Club so i got adam to cook something up for the kids and to try speak in English with him. We wanted to make ANZAC biscuits but we couldnt find all the ingredients here so we made choc chip cookies instead. they went down a treat.. VERY NOICE!!

Unfortunately, no fotos were taken by me that day so apologies. After work was over, we went to the big shopping mall and bought some presents and went home to organise our trip to Hiroshima.

On Wednesday, after sleeping a little bit longer than we shouldve, we got all our shit together and jumped in the car and drove to Hiroshima. It was a pretty ordinary day and thankfully we didnt get lost. more to follow this post.