August in the City

Saw Spiderman 2 last week. Was a little disappointed cos of the slow bits and the pretty crappy CGI actors for some of the action scenes. I`ve uploaded some new pictures which may or may not be of interest. They should have some captions by now so if you want to take a look click. Lots of work related pics, especially of posters advertising the new Irish web school. Of course I found out that none of the teachers there are even feck Irish! Whats the about!? Went out with some school staff for the first time last weekend. I sort of felt obliged to as I`d been really late to work the previous week and the staff freaked when I got there because there was a student waiting. So there were five of us, me the only westerner, and we went to some small local restaurant, the kind of place that I'd never usually go to because of the walking-through-saloon-doors feeling as everybody turns around to stare. And the staff didn't really make it any easier, speaking in local Japanese almost the entire time and throwing me a bone of the odd English word here or there. But to be honest after a while I started to pick up on words I recognised and having to cope with situations like that would probably do me the world of good. But anyway, they ordered a few dishes, chief among them being raw chicken liver. Now its already difficult to deal wit how meat is hardly cooked here, but raw meet is quite another. Needless to say, I wasn't going to be able to get away with not trying some. So I did...and it was /vile. There was some really salty tasting sauce with it that was just as bad..choke it all up to experience though. There was another typhoon this week, mildly more exciting than the last one but still nothing like some sort of hurricane or anything. The news was saying it was really weird to get so many typhoons this early in the year and hitting this part of Japan - theres another one due next week I think. Went to south Osaka on Sunday to see the PL Fireworks festival with some other teachers as a kinda belated birthday thingy. I'd already been told by a couple of Japanese people that it takes absolutely ages to get back afterwards. But we still went and, not knowing quite how far it was, only saw about 15 minutes work before it was finished. When we got there people were already leaving, trying to avoid the crowds. So after it finished the whole area near the train station (which was where we were standing) was jammed with people and it took us 2 and a half hours to walk through the crowd and then on to the next train station. But at least I can say that I say the largest fireworks display in the country. Saw the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen on video during the week. Not so impressive really. It seemed like the movie was really rushed together or something. Got to try my hand at some Japanese calligraphy last week, as I'd finished the textbook. Its actually really difficult. Not only do you have to hold the brush vertically, which feels very unnatural (and even more awkward lefthanded) but you have to twist the brush in your hand as you draw a line.