Ah, Japan in winter - that heady aroma of a million bakeries and udon noodles on the air. This time I'm here slightly earlier in the year, early enough to see the maple leaves change colour and early enough not toast my legs under a kotatsu while the rest of my body freezes. Of course I've also arrived months after one of the strongest earthquakes in Japanese history, and with the nuclear situation in Fukushima, posters are everywhere encouraging people to save electricity. But despite huge natural disasters and next to no economic growth, there's still stuff going on. Since being here last time the huge train station complex of JR Osaka in Umeda has had what looks like an airline terminal built on top of it. I went out to to Den-den down to see all second had video games and music shops and still busy game arcades with huge Gundam pods to step into and strange multi player online games with cards. There was even Christmas Gundam.. I went out to my old neighbourhood in Kobe of course to see what else had changed - plenty of places closed down, new towers in their place, and Harbourland looking pretty empty. Just as in Sydney at this time of year, Christmas lights were up everywhere but the background music featured many more explicitly Christian Christmas songs, presumably because no one listening can understand the lyrics. I've made sure to enjoy some proper ramen and also tried some cheap (but by far the highest quality I've had in ages) conveyor belt sushi, ordered from touch screen tv's at our table. The coffee is crap, but you can sit down in a big comfy chair in a chain cafe and fall asleep for a few hours without looking out of place!

Had my first week of classes for the new kids year and got to meet all of the kids that I'll be teaching/babysitting for the next 35 odd weeks - 10 hours of classes. Unfortunatly, because it was the first class, all the eager parents have their faces pressed against the glass and pretty much watch everything that I do. Of course to make me feel better the school staff did this as well. I was not pleased as this did nothing to ease my nerves. Neither did the fact that in one of the classes a kid fell asleep on his cushion. I tried to wake him up, and all the other kids were shouting at him to wake up but nothing worked. I looked pleadingly out the class window for help and no one came in. Man, how boring was the class if he fell asleep? On Thursday I had the youngest kids of all - 3 years old - and in this one the parents actually sit in on it and do all the jumping and running around along with me in an effort to keep the kids amused. For this class there were only two students - one boy who just kept wandering around and lifting stuff up and one girl who actually got in on the act and began to take part. I was soo feckin' knackered after it despite the fact that it was only two students for half an hour. That's going to be a tough class when its over 30 degrees and theres rivers of sweat coming out of my shirt. On a better note had my first tiny bit exercise since I got here yesterday. Went out to Osaka-jo where there are actually small parks around the castle with, wait for it, actual grass! Grass, I tells ya! Thats an actual treat Played frisbee for a few hours while the light lasted. It was probably the hottest day since I've been here and was still 21 degrees after 10pm. Of course this is nowt compared to what its going to be like when summer comes. Going to have my first proper Japanese class this evening after having a short model lesson last week to see what it was all about. I wasn't very impressed by the free model lesson - it consisted of the teacher shouting "Kore wa A des!!!" while pointing at the whiteboard like some fascist salute while I was the only one in class. Hopefully this evening it'll be a little more involved and a little less like some military drill. For two hours and the crap load of money I'm paying it better be...