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.

Adam's trip to Urban and Rural Japan (Pt. I)

It's been ages in posting but hopefully heres the start of many more posts to come. this week has been a busy week....... but not workwise. My brother, Adam, came to see me for a week in Japan on his way to live in England (yet again). I wasnt able to pick Adam up from the airport when he touched down in Narita (Tokyo), but he did an amazing job of getting to Kobe. We were a little bit worried coz we hadnt heard from him before he got on the Shinkansen but we figured hed already gotten on it in a hurry. but we didnt know which station he was gonna get off on so Mika and I went into central Kobe for a couple of cheeky beverages before finally getting a call from adam to tell us where he was. He wasnt hard to spot once we picked him up coz he looked like a hobo waiting outside a convenience store with a couple of empty beer cans on the ground and was getting waived at by various japanese people. hehe.

so we got him back to mikas house where he said gday to her family before crashing from exhaustion. The next morning we had to take the Highway Bus back to my hometown in Kochi Prefecture and arrived there just after lunch. at home, we had a bit of time to spare to kick back and relax before going to an end of year party and welcome to kochi party for Adam with my English Conversation students.

My English Conv. class had prepared questions and something to present to him all in english with me before he came. they were amazing. we had the party in a private room at some nice hotel on the ocean and they had some really nice fresh food waiting for us once we arrived. Adam digged in and tried everything and i just told him the way they drink with each other over here whilst my students tried chatting to him about different things.

They even got him dancing their local tradition dance.....AHAHAHAH!!!

The next day, we were a little hungover so we had a sleep in and then i showed him the village i used to live in. i was expecting a bigger reaction as to how rural it was but he seemed to like it, although he probably could never live in a place like that.

But the scenery here is really beautiful.

This is the Nagase Dam which u could see from my old apartment everyday. unfortunately its not as green as it usually is and the water level has dropped down a bit but its still a good pic!

I took him around my town in about 5 mins....yes, its that big! but we popped in at my old Junior High to say gday. it was cool to show off my bro for a day....

Then, after checking out where i used to live, we drove into the main city in Kochi and checked out one of the main tourist attractions, Kochi Castle.

I actually forgot to take a pic of the castle itself coz ive been here so often. the view from the top is pretty good.

That bloody hat of Adams never came off his head! but i spose he got his 9 bucks worth!!

Outside the castle gates

Then we went to Katsurahama Beach.

They have a statue for their local hero, Sakamoto Ryoma.

He was a General (i think) of Kochi Pref. and protected them from many invasions.

Thats the beach.

You're not even allowed to swim in it!

Much to Adams disgust.

Theres a little temple up on that mountain.

Theres also a small aquarium which has some cool dolphins and whatnot in it.

Anyways, after that, it got dark and we went back home to get some rest and so i could cook up Adam some food i usually have for dinner in Japan. I got a good review.

anyways, i will write more soon coz, Adam went to my school the next day. post laters!!