and..

I forgot to mention, the temperature has dropped significantly.

and my house is not insulated.

most mornings, downstairs, the temp is between 9' and 12' C.

also, its been grey and rainy for the better part of two weeks, but today is warm and sunny at last.


and........ watch "Koi ...mil gaya". It is a wonderfully silly Bollywood movie that deserves to be viewed by you.

more November stuffs

There's been lots of Kagawa this month.
I had to go to Takamatsu to get my re-entry permit for my VISA. This allows me to leave the country and return, and without it there would be huge problems at the airport (basically, they would not let me back into Japan and would send me back on the next plane to Canada). So, I have my permit.

I was in Takamatsu on the 17th, and as a birthday treat stayed at the Hotel Clement. The hotel is fairly new, and the rooms were beautiful. I watched the sunset over the city from my 16th floor suite, had a long, luxurious bath, and drank at the sky bar with Evan, Angelina and Megan. Evan and I wandered about the city a bit, earlier, and I was introduced to the 390Yen shop. The GREATEST SHOP in the history of the universe. From vintage clothes, to knick-knacks, to housewares, they have it all. It's funky, it's fresh and it's really really cheap (390Yen=$3.90CAD roughly).
The next day...
I went to Naoshima with a bunch of Kagawa-ken ALTs as part of "Naoshima meets the world", a half day internationalization celebration at the Naoshima shougakko. I worked with the 6-nensei, and had a blast doing activies, playing games, and listening to their prepared presentations. The morning ended with everyone having a big disco dance party in the gym. Strange, but wonderful.
The afternoon was filled with art... art.. and more art. The Benesse group put loads of cash into funding the fine arts on Naoshima, and as such they have a formidable
arts scene. With two modern art museums, boasting small but prestigious collections, random outdoor installations all over the island, and the Art House project (where commissioned artists were given free reign over whole buildings, inside and out), Naoshima was a dream come true.

Then it was back to Mino-cho.

The following weekend was my birthday. On the Wednesday my eikaiwa had a big party for me at "Zexy", an izikaiya in Mikamo-cho. There was food, and far too many presents. Fujimoto-sensei and Julie also joined the festivities, and drunken kareoke. Oh, and they had a killer selection of songs, with more bad Cher songs than any other Japanese kareoke establishment I've been to.
Friday I was back in Takamatsu for birthday bliss with Angelina. I was treated to dinner at Sea-Dragon with Ang and Megan, where the happy hour wine was 250Yen a glass. Happy birthday indeed. Then we headed back to Angelina's place in Higashi-Kagawa for the night, where we watched ridiculous things on youtube, drank odd healthy tea and crashed.
The next day was back to Takamatsu for shopping and the Kagawa-RFilmFestival. We met up with Dustin, Grant and Ben for lunch, and then checked out the festival's selected shorts. P-lica
chan was the best showing by far. Smitha, Julie and Ashley came up in the evening, and we all had Indian, then Ang headed home and I went out clubbing with the girls. We had a blast.
Smitha and I crashed in Ashley's car and took the very early train home in the morning.

On the 27th, Fujimoto-sensei and I had a demonstration lesson to present. We used class 2-A and presented on comparative forms of adjectives. The class went fairly well, and we received some great positive and constructive feedback. I was so nervous going up to it, but 5 minutes into the class I fell into routine and it was a lot of fun.
and that was November.

November is pretty.... pretty NICE ! ha ha ah ah oh boy

November.... so much in so little time

aside from the Tokyo bitterness...

This has been a month of poverty, pleasure and PRESENTS!!!!

I've almost finished paying off my car, which has been sucking up alot of my money. December will be the last payment. OSAP payments kick into effect this month, but they're much lower than those on the car. Ahh OSAP, I will finally feel your cruel burn which I've heard so much about.

At the start of the month I was in an art show in Kamiyama from Nov 8th to 12th as part of KAIR (Kamiyama Artist in Residence). I was invited to participate by Chalice and Joe, two other alts who are artists. My showing was small, and relatively mediocre due to limited time and resources (I know.. excuses excuses) but I've already started preparing things to show in the spring, and I have no excuse for not making mind-blowing works by then. Regardless, the show was a lot of fun, had a great turn out, and it was a great chance to go see Kamiyama, a small town nestled in the mountains. On the way home from installing my pieces on the 8th, Julie and I stopped in a deserted spot, layed out on the hood of the car, drank chocolate milk and looked at the stars. There wasn't a cloud in the sky and it was breathtaking, with the dark sillouhettes of mountains all around a twinkling lights in the huge night sky. Sugoi.


... and i'm heading home for the day.. more on tuesday.