G'ah...lateness.

Hi ho, sorry everybody for the incredible slowness of my updates. I haven't been feeling so hot in the last week or so thanks to what I believe is a slight iron deficiency, so my energy has been just totally shot. As such I'm still kinda drowsy today, though this time from a busy weekend full of awesome! This'll be short and sweet as a result, but I promise that I'll write the long epic that was this last weekend. ^^

Today I'll just tell y'all about my first trip to Fukuoka, that I took with my supervisor Ogawa-sensei LAST weekend. Ogawa-sensei is someone I'm still trying to 'figure out', she's quite quirky. One minute she's racing around, completely wrapped up in her own dealings, seemingly oblivious to my attempts to say good morning or send her a smile, and the next she's offering to drive me all the way to Fukuoka! She tends to keep to herself, but when I need something she races out to get it, even if I was just asking for ADVICE, not the actual action of getting me something.

"Ogawa-sensei, my drain is clogged, what's the name of a good de-clogging liquid?"
"Oh rearry? Hmm...well, maybe bahblahblah, you can buy it from the blahblahblah store." "Okay thanks!"
-45 minutes later-
"Kate, here, try this for your drain." *plonks draino stuff into my hands*
"Buh?"

So this is kinda what happened with Fukuoka. She asked me if I'd been to the Costco yet and I said no but I'd really been wanting to, and she then promptly offered to take me up on the weekend! Its a 2 1/2 hour drive, mind you, and though I didn't know it at the time and only discovered on the way there, about $75 in toll booth fees has to be shelled out along the way! By the end of the trip I was just offering to pay at the tolls 'cause I felt so awful at how much money she'd spent just to travel on the highways!

Much of the trip was spent in (what I assured myself was) comfortable silence, with a few opportunities to chat here and there. Though I have lots of questions I'd like to ask Ogawa-sensei to get to know her better, I'm still too unsure about Japanese etiquette to go asking more personal questions, I don't want to come off as a gossip or something!

One thing I did notice though was the severe difference in highway speeds from here and home. At least in Ogawa-sensei's car, the highway is ROCKET time! At point she was frustrated because we were behind a small truck that was going slower than us, and she apologized to me for our slowness. I checked the spedometer and we were going 100 km/hr! I was like....wha? Once she was able to pass the truck and get back to her 'comfortable' speed, we averaged about 130! I started to slowly sink into my seat and enjoy the ride, like I was at an amusement park or something. Either way, we got there in good time! *laughs*

The trip to Costco was relatively uneventful, it was just like the Costcos back home really. A huge warehouse stuffed with goods and people, all in portions large enough to feed a small army. I was there primariliy for Halloween candy to give my students, but I ended up getting some bagels and a small pumpkin that I managed to carve out and show to my classes - which was a fab idea, the kids go nuts for the little dude. I took this picture of him on my phone:

WHY did I take the picture on my phone? Because I, the smartest girl in the world, had left my camera in a bathroom at the mall where Ogawa-sensei were last at. Thankfully, Japan is completely awesome and someone turned it in, and the mall offered to mail it to me. Sometimes I love this place. *laughs*

As I mentioned, after Costco we went to a mall which was part of the Grand Hyatt hotel downtown. Fukuoka actually reminded me of Toronto, in the way it was laid out. A big city, but not so SMUSHED as Tokyo. I realized that if I'd been placed there, as I had initially requested, I might not have felt like I'd come to someplace quite so 'new'. I'm actually really enjoying the smaller-city life!

The hotel/mall was mostly outdoor, but it was such a nice day it didn't matter to us at all. We did a bit of light shopping, I bought a cheap sweater from the GAP (I can fit into their Large size shirts now, woo hoo!), and a pair of walking around shoes. Men's shoes of course, but they're a cool pair of runners that look great but are a bit of a pain to put on. D'ah well, live and learn.

The mall was actually somewhat decorated for Halloween, which really surprised me, and they were doing this promotion where they'd hand you a small orange balloon that you could draw on an throw into the pool to make a wish. Ogawa-sensei asked me if I wanted to, but even after I found out it was free I declined. If I'm going to have wishes come true, its not because I took part in some gimmicky Halloween event. *laughs*

They had real pumpkins in nests around some of the trees too, and I was so tempted to just swipe on and stuff it under my shirt so I could smuggle it home and carve it out. >.> Too many witnesses. <.< So we shopped around for a little while, and ended up going to see a movie! Movies here are incredibly expensive to see in the theatre, we're talking $18 before 7 p.m., but cheap to rent, and they seem to come to DVD and video much faster here than back home. Kinda kooky.

After we finished with "Snake Flight" (aka "Snakes on a Plane"), and our laughter at how bad it was died down, we had some incredibly nummy crepes and readied to go home. As we passed a lit-up Halloween display Ogawa-sensei offered to take my picture so I agreed. Ta daaa.

So that was pretty much our trip to Fukuoka! Did some good shopping, finally got myself a bookshelf, and learned that I am not yet ready for Japanese pants sizes. I've entered that awkward/frustrating phase now where the ones I have are all too big (not by TOO much but noticeably so), but the pants on sale here are still too small, as I learned when my big thighs laughed at me as I tried to pull on the largest pants-size they had at the GAP. I need to find me a tailor!

Anywhoo, that's about it for today, I shall update with the stuff from the most recent weekend soon, so I've been so lax!



Thanks for comin'! Happy Halloween!! Rrr.