Last Friday I was hit by something viral, or maybe I ate something bad the previous day. At any rate, I slept most of the day and had an extremely quiet weekend. I didn't realise how much I'd needed the weekend until my body forced me to take it. Felt much more composed and together the following Monday.
I want to update with some interesting things we did prior to last weekend, because sickness isn't terribly interesting!
We went to see the boredoms play live in Shinagawa, they're a Japanese band that Jason and I both really like. We managed to see them last year in Tokyo, and Jason saw them in Melbourne before that. They're all classically trained musicians who have gone off and turned everything hey learned on its head. Lots of drums (6 drumkits), lots of guitars, lots of noise, awesome in short.
Here's a photo, more photos and some videos can be found at this link.
We also went to Yoyogi park for a picnic another weekend. Yoyogi park is a big park right in the centre of the action in Tokyo, near Harajuku and Shibuya. It's comparable to New York's central park in terms of its size and proximity to the city. We had a nice laidback afternoon, watching dogs being walked, kids running around and paddling in the water.
The best part of our Yoyogi Park visit was taking advantage of what happens on Sundays, that is, different social groups get together and do what they do, in public. The best examples of these groups are the rockabilly dancers.
A lot of the men in the groups had Elvis-style pompadour hairstyles, and were dressed in denim or leather. Three separate groups of dancers were there on the Sunday we had our picnic, all dancing in the same public area, and it was awesome.
Obviously, the pictures are great, but nothing compares to seeing these groups in action. Here's a link to more pictures of Yoyogi Park, and videos of the rockabilly dancers: LINKY LINK LINK
Apart from the things we've been doing over the weekends, things have been good. Crazy busy, but good. Jason's work is keeping him busy, as is mine. I have to create a lot of the resources/curriculum as I go for two of the classes that I teach, so that has been really heavy going as I have a full teaching load as well. It can be frustrating at times and it feels like I am standing in place even though I'm running at a full sprint.
With that being said, the work is enormously rewarding, the kids are great, and it feels like I'm contributing something valuable as a member of the small team at the school.
This is all the update I probably have time for right now. We just had a weekend in Chiba, did some shopping at tech shops in the area and went around town on the monorail. Next weekend we're off to Chiba again, but with people from work for a beach weekend. Looking forward to it. Hope to update again soon.
Until next time!
