Ok, sorry.... I know, I know... sorry... but I have started a new blog. The link is Please check it out. I think it is much better... sayonara

today is very hot. I don't like it. I just wish they would open a WINDOW!!!! FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!!!!! but some things are just not meant to be, I guess. Perhaps I could be permitted to take off my tie??? NO!!!!! Can't wait to get home and have a cold shower and drink tall drinks with ice in them.... mmmm... ice

This afternoon I got a text from one of my 14 yr old students (not a strange thing here in rural japan, like it would be back home...). It simply said (in Japanese) "come over now." so I texted back and asked where and why. It transpired that he wanted me to go round to his house to help him and another boy study English for the mid-term test next week. I reminded him that I wouldn't go to his house unless his parents were home, and so he got their permission and off I went.... on my bike. Now, this boy doesn't live in my town... he lives a good 20 minute bike ride North in an ancient fishing village. So, with no idea where his house was, I had arranged to meet him at the village elementary school. Got there, met him and the other boy, and we all biked off together for his house. On the way, he turned to me and said "Now, Thomas-sensei, you are not allowed to be surprised at my house when you see it"... which made me think that he must be from a poor family and was perhaps a little embarrassed about me seeing his house... so I assured him that sort of thing didn't matter at all. Anyway, we finally got to his house. It sure was not your average house... his mum was outside talking to someone. She waved out to me, and we exchanged greetings. She apologised for the hot weather, and I agreed that it was hot, and apologised for commiting the rudeness of entering her house. She apologised for imposing her child's education on me, and I apologised for my lack of Japanese proficiency. Once we had apologised enough, and sufficiently humbled ourselves, I excused myself and let the kids take me by the hand and lead me to the house. Well, as I said, it was no normal house... the boy lived in a very old and beautiful Buddhist temple!!! Well, the house was attached to the temple. His father was the priest, and so had his grandfather been, and his great-grandfather, and his great, great-grandfather and his great great great grandfather, and so on. The temple was hundreds of years old, and so was the house... and I got the impression that it had been in the family all that time. It was without a doubt the most beautiful home I had been in, and the most "in Japan" I have felt so far!! The boys led me in through the entrance way, where we removed our shoes and stood up onto the raised tatami mats. I was lead through to the "reception room". there was a square room at the other end of this room, and at the other end of that room was the temple. In old houses like this there are no real walls, but instead there are sliding doors which can be closed for privacy, or opened to join all the rooms together. Today these were opened so I could see right through from where we were seated to the temple. The sliding doors were all hand painted with traditional japanese designs (willow trees, stalks, tigers, mountains, cherry blossoms and so on) and there were old calligraphy scrolls and stuff on display. It was hot, so my student opened up the walls (that's right, the outside walls are also sliding doors made of wood and rice paper), so the breeze could come in. The room looked out over the temple garden and across to the great ornate temple gate. It was a really trippy experience! I had been there before taking photos of the temple, and had no idea that my student lived there!! As we studied, his mum came in and gave us drinks and snacks. I don't know how to describe the fantastic sense of time, history, now, and of how priveleged I was to be experiencing that moment. I really am lucky to be here, in rural Japan, and gradually being accepted by more and more people as a member of society, and so lucky to be able to experience tutoring english in a an old temple owned and operated by my student's family. Just think what his great great great great grandfather would have thought if he had seen me in his reception room, teaching english!!!!

Sorry, it has been an AGE since I last wrote anything here... Well, today I went for a walk. It is Sunday, and a beautiful day too, so I took my camera with me and off I went. Today's route took me along the sea-front and then up through some terraced rice paddies and then back home. It was really beautiful. Now is the season for planting the paddies, so they are filled with water, and one by one are starting to get planted with tiny wee baby rice plants... really pretty stuff. In the evenings there is an almost deafening chorus of frogs...having big froggy parties in the paddies. I love the frogs. Anyway, one today's walk, I was walking down a narrow street, when all of a sudden I heard my name called out. It seems I had passed the home of one of my 14 year old students, and he was helping his mum bring in the groceries. He waved and so did his mum. I waved back and called out hello, then continued on my walk. a few seconds later the boy came running down the road after me calling my name. I stopped and turned around, just as he reached me and handed me a bottle of oolong tea. "Here, this is for you. It is a hot day." he said. "It's ok, really. We have HEAPS of them at home, so please take it." So, I was rather moved by that gesture. Not many 14 year old boys would do that back home. Later on the walk, I saw a snake in a rice paddie. It was a pretty snake, reddish brown with lines running the length of its body. I stopped to watch it escape for a while, and then continued home. Well, that is all for now. mata ne!

Yes, the time arrived. I came to realise that I needed a haircut because I would wake up in the morning, have my shower (which in itself baffles my neighbours... they can hear the sound of the shower (thin-walled apartment block) and Japanese people do NOT have showers in the morning! they have a bath at night... so an altogether baffling concept for them)...anyway, i would have my shower and then get dressed for work and try to do something about the mop I call "hair". I had it cut a few months ago, and at that time, all I had to do was work in a small amount of wax/"product" and hey presto...the perfect shaggy rough-edged look (and if you knew me well enough, you would know that this in itself is laughable! I am far from shaggy or rough-edged... though i do try...). However yesterday i woke up and went through the usual routine, only to find that no matter how much "product" I threw at my mop, it made not difference... it just became a sticky mop. Well, to be honest, it had been like this for a couple of weeks, and I had just turned a blind eye and hoped that it would cut itself... but alas. So, I vowed to go to bed that night with shorter hair. I texted my mate Toru, and he booked us both into some place in Mineyama town (a 15-20 minute drive from here).The booking was for 7.30pm. Great! Went to work yesterday with a feeling of relief, and accomplishment... I WAS GETTING MY HAIR CUT... yes, no more procrastinating, the booking had been MADE! As the day progressed... this positive feeling was replace with butterflies in my stomach, fear, panic, worry. Why? Well, there is a certain degree of horror and fear associated with getting your hair cut in the Japanese wop-wops. A quick glance at the hair of the local population validates this. Haircuts (male haircuts) range from the skin-head look, to the overgrown skin-head look, to the bowl cut, and my personal favourite: the "my mum cut my hair and made a mistake right here... and here... and here too... oh and here..." look. This final look is usually accessorised with a hat. now don't get me wrong, the skin-head look, and the overgrown skin-head look REALLY does suit the Japanese. They look cool and sporty. I, however, would look ridiculous. It was with this in mind that I suddenly grew afraid of my approaching appointment. Well, cutting the story shorter the time came. We drove over to Mineyama and then my heart skipped a beat. We had arrived. Walked up the staircase (felt like walking the plank) and went in. The place fell silent. Tumble weed might as well have rolled past, and the music might as well have stopped with a squeal! All faces, staff and customers turned and stared... they stared at me, the white thing that just walked through the door. There was a look of panic. Now, let's just pause here for a moment... FREEZE FRAME!!!!!!!!!!!! ...so, recall that I am in fear, wishing I had worn armpit sweat pads... in fear of a bad haircut... and I look in the eyes of the man holding scissors, who is about to cut my hair, and I see every inch of my panic reflected in his eyes! NOT reassuring!! So, what felt like a lifetime of staring ended in a few seconds, and we were invited to take a seat and fill in forms! FORMS!!!! for a bloody haircut! Now this is where the panic rating sky rocketed off the scale! the form started off fine: 1. NAME...actually, that is where normality left the room. 2.DATE OF BIRTH... Ok, I though, perhaps this is a marketing issue... I can handle that. 3. ADDRESS... Hmmm.... not so usual... but I wrote it down anyway, but no house number. next question 4. PHONE NUMBER... completely unnecessary, so I wrote down a fake number. 5. (and this was the cruncher...)BLOODTYPE... well, that made me really wonder if i needed a haircut afterall. I mean, people happily went without haircuts in the 70s, so it CAN be done... 6. HOW DID YOU COME HERE 7. HOW DID YOU HEAR ABOUT US? 8. WHAT IS YOUR OCCUPATION and so on. Well, after Toru had calmed me down over the whole "Blood type" thing, I was invited to look through some magazines and find the style I wanted. I had already clearly stated how I wanted my hair cut, but the guy was adamant that I had to point to a picture to confirm what i had said (which I suppose is a good thing on his part). So, I pointed to some shiny model guy in an expensive suit, standing at a train station, looking at his watch. His hair was, of course, nothing like mine, but it was the closest to what I was after that I could find (the magazine was full of ourtrageous haircuts). First, I was escorted to "the chair" to have my hair washed. In NZ, the shampoo chair is a reclined number, rather awkward to get into, but on the right angle for the shampooer. In Japan, this is like a dentist chair. It looks like an innocent, black leather chair, but once you are seated and lulled into a false sense of security, the chair makes that robotic "nnnnnnn" sound and starts reclining. I found this a bit unnerving, because i was remined of drills, cotton wool and all manner of shiny metallic instruments being shoved into my mouth. THEN, when fully "reclined" the shaggy-yet-effeminate guy looming over me started chatting generic chat, and then placed a white paper sheet over my face! Heart rate accelerated. I was trapped. The water started "is that too hot?" No, it's fine...(tried to make that sound convincing...) So, after the shampoo (and all the while I was trying not to blow the paper off my face with my breath!) the chair went "nnnnnnn" and moved back into its upright position. I was taken "the OTHER chair" where I was dressed in an old halloween ghost costume... i think it was acually more of an oversized bib/smock... you know the kind they use at hairdressers everywhere... and my "hair technician" put down his style magazine and descended from his lofty couch, thanked the shaggy-yet-effeminate shampooer and began his creation, which, unfortunately, happened to be attached to my head. He was chatty too. "So," snip-snip "what brings you to Japan?" snip "Oh, so you like hamburgers?" snip-snip... "Really?" snip-spray "Sheep, you say?" snippidy- snippidy and so it went. This part was rather normal, and was not too stressful. Then he finished his masterpiece, and I thought I could go... but unfortunately the only place I was going was back to the dreaded SHAMPOO CHAIR!!! It was aparently time for my second shampooing. This was not too scary, since I had done it earlier and knew what to expect, and besides, not only do they shampoo your hair, but they massage your head too! That aint too bad! So, I sat myself down on the dentist chair, and waited for the "nnnnnnnnn"... but instead, I heard a woman's voice. "You have such beautiful eyes!"... "Oh, thanks" I replied "blue eyes are fairly common in New Zealand, nothing special at all". It appears Shaggy-effeminate guy was shampooer number one, and shampooer number two was Giggly girl. So, she giggled and the chair went "nnnnn" and all seemed strangely familiar. She put the nightmare white paper sheet over my face and just as I was expecting the water to start, she pulled the sheet down a bit revealing my eyes! Wow, I thought, she must REALLY like my eyes! then she told me to close my eyes and "sleeping-sleeping" (she threw that bit of english in there). So just as I was closing my eyes i noticed something metalic head towards my eyes, I opened in a panic to find scissors headed right for me! "Are you afraid?" she asked me. "Yes" I proclaimed, "what are you doing?" Oh, I am just going to trim your eyebrows" she said in a voice as plain as day. "You what?" I gasped. "Eyebrows?" she panicked, and tried out some more english: "er... eye hair?", "yes, I understand 'eyebrows' but why are you going to cut them?" She seemed confused..."Don't you get your eyebrows cut in NZ?"... "NO! men don't" I said. This was like a revelation to her. "Aaaaaah... sooooo desu ka???.....ja....rerakusu ne!" (just relax)... snip brush brush snip brush snip snip... I was trying not to move or breathe or tremble in fear. It was strange. I honestly don't think I even notice the difference, but hey, it was done, and I survived. Then she shampooed and giggled her way through more conversation, and then it was back to the master chair for a second cut and styling. The whole process took about 40 minutes or so, and when he asked if he could put some "product" in my hair, I said yes. he showed me how to use it, as if we don't have "product" in NZ, and then he started his artistic magic. I looked up into the mirror and was horrified to see the Pet Shop Boys styling he had given me! "oh, you look so cool, so manly, so hot" cried everyone in the "studio". I swallowed my pride and nodded in thanks. Paid, recieved three business cards, a thousand bows, and a handshake from the lofty master craftsman. Toru and I headed to the car. Once out of sight, I did the "scruff it up and make it more ME" thing I always do after a haircut. It worked. I actually really like my new haircut, just so long as I am working the "product"... Oh, the bell has rung for lunch... I must go eat.