I have completely neglected my blog since December and since I am, once again, sitting in the staffroom all day long with nothing to do, I thought I’d try to make up for that with a few posts.

When I wrote my last post I was counting down the days until my Christmas holidays and my journey back to Ireland. I spent my last few days in Japan doing some Christmas shopping for family and friends in the covered shopping mall in Okayama City. The day before I left, I was picking up some last minute things in the mall and was stopped by a man and his daughter. The man said ‘Sumimasen’ (‘Excuse me’ in Japanese), and when I turned around, nudged the little girl who was holding a little notebook and shaking with nerves. The little girl cleared her throat and then said in English ‘May I have your autograph please’. Needless to say I was a little taken aback but took the pen and wrote my name. I still have no idea who they thought I was, or if they were just so excited to see a foreign person they wanted an autograph- either way it was very cute!

Myself and Bren left for Ireland on December 22nd. Our journey was very long and took almost 24 hours to get from my apartment in Okayama to Lusk. It was definitely worth it though when I arrived home to a house full of food, presents and proper Christmas decorations (not like the weird Japanese ones).  The Christmas holiday was a really nice break and I managed to eat all the food I’d been missing (I had heartburn for a month afterwards!) and meet most of my friends and family.

We returned to Japan on 7th January and were straight back to work on the 8th. In the time that we had spent in Ireland, it had become much colder in Japan. So, we returned to our ancient apartment with no heated plumbing, central heating or insulation and were forced to work our way through the jet lag.

Although Okayama is famous for its good weather they do get a few weeks of cold weather around January or February. This winter was colder than usual (lucky us!) and we had a week or two of cold/snowy weather. The temperatures in Okayama were probably about the same as Ireland but the cold has so much more impact here, since the Japanese obviously don’t believe in central fecking heating!

My typical winter’s day in Okayama would consist of waking up at 7.45/7.15 (depending on which school I was teaching at) and trying to get dressed under the covers so as not to expose myself to the freezing air outside the bed. I would then run in and make a nice bowl of porridge to heat myself up .

Before leaving I would stick heat patches on my feet, back and stomach. Heat patches are very popular in Japan. They do exist in ireland but are very expensive and are used only for medical reasons. They are very cheap in Japan and are designed to stick on the skin for a full day and release heat slowly. The are pretty effective and probably saved me from frostbite on a few occasions

On very cold days, I would have to leave early as it is almost impossible to cycle in frost or snow without skidding, so everyone has to go at an absolute snail’s pace. As well as this, fields in Japan are very different to those in Ireland. Rice fields are flooded with water in the summer so that the rice can grow. As a result, rice fields are usually a few feet lower than the road, so that the field can be easily flooded.  These fields are very common where I live and, for some reason, there are no fences around them making them very easy to fall into, even in the best weather conditions. In snowy weather, trying to avoid falling into the rice fields was quite the challenge and defnitely did a good job waking me up!

When I arrived in school, I would usually have a cup of tea to warm me up and then head off to the classroom. The language lab in my base school is very big and has no heating whatsoever. Myself andthe Japanese teacher I taught with, took to running around the classroom with students in order to generate some warmth. We eventually managed to procure a little electric heater to put beside our feet, which helped a little, but mostly just meant that I had burnt legs while the rest of my body was shivering. At least I finally know what my Mam is talking about when she refers to chillblains when she was a little girl

It’s now the beginning of April and the weather has warmed up a lot. The cherry blossoms are blooming and the sun is shining. I’m really enjoying the weather at the moment, it is pleasant and sunny but not hot or humid yet and as of yet the feckin’ insects have not returned………