Japan University Entrance Exam

The Japanese University Entrance Exam was on this weekend. The exams are the first step in a two step process. The students take exams in a range of subjects with limited choice. These exams are all multiple choice and determine if a student can go to uni and consequently the uni individuals entrance exam. This is the second step.

Shepards Pie

The Okayama - South Australia Friendship Association held an event on Sunday 20 January. We made shephards pie. It was great fun. I also made some new friends. I worked with Kohara san, Nishida san, and Moriyama san. Here is a photo of our pie. Thanks to Cain and Katsu San for organising a great event.

Ken Cho First Day

Yesterday, I spent the day in KenCho.
It was a bust day meeting many new people and having a formal meeting with the head of the Prefectural Board of Education.

The meeting with the Head of the Prefectural Board of Education was nerve wracking and my Japanese wasn't the best. However, I had a very interesting conversation with the Kyoiku Cho about global warming. He is an ex-social studies teacher.

I was very fortunate to be taken out to lunch to a very nice Japanese restaurant for lunch, where I was able to eat some mackeral cooked in the Japanese style, it was very delicous. The Prefectural Education Department has taken extremely good care of me since I arrived in Okayama.

Momoji

I was very thankful that Akagi San made me an excellent Japanese Business card that contains the Okayam Prefecture mascots (Momoji and ijuchi).  I'll post a photo later. This is Momoji. He has a girlfriend and alot of animal friends.

Okayma Day 1

I arrive back in Okayam on Friday the 11th of Jan and was met by Yumie Sutou from the Okayama Prefectural Board of Education.

We went to the apartment, dropped off the luggage, organised my new address on my Alien Registration Card, registered our families address, got National Health Insurance organised, opened a bank account at the local Post Office, had the gas connected, organised direct debting for the gas with the Post Office bank account and we went to Softbank to talk about mobile phones and Internet connection. You can say it was a very busy day. Miss Sutou was extremely helpful and patient. She took me out to lunch and we managed to talk about many important things to help me settle into my new work life in Okayama.

Tomorrow, I am going to meet the Head of the Prefectural Board of Education and have some more orientation. It will be another busy day.

I ended organising my phone through softbank, which has a tethering system so my internet access is also through my phone. It cost $500 not cheap but not too dear. It is a Motorol RAZ M, pretty neat looking, so far so good.

Looking forward to tomorrow.

Japan

We left Singapore lunchtime on the 8th and flew to Japan. Once again the service was excellent, but the flight was a little bumpy especially was flew over the Philippines and when the sun was setting.

Osaka is a very busy airport but we have transited though Kansai Kuukou affectionately known as Kan ku　(関空） many times so after Takyubining our luggage to Okayama and and Ehime we got the transfer bus to the Stargate Hotel.

We stayed on the 44th (in Japanese and Asian numerology 44 is the number of double death) floor and had an amazing view of the Osaka night skyline. Our room rate included breakfast so we had breakfast on the 53rd floor which was a nice buffet of Japanese and Western  breakfast. Darren who is a long term resident and employee of the Star gate maybe a very good Omelet. He really does have an amazing view from his 'office' over Osaka bay where he can see all the way to Shikoku and the Akaishi Kaikyou Bridge one of the longest suspension bridges in the world.

We then made our way back to the Kansai Int airport caught the express train to Shin Osaka station and began the long journey to Iyo-Ozu Ehime. We left Kansai Int Airport at 12:20 and got to Iyo Ozu just after 6pm. We had a shinkansen journey from Shin Osaka to Okayama which is about 45mins at 300 km per hour on the Nozomi shinkansen, then we took the Salt Wind Express from Okayama to Matsuyama for three hours and finally a local express for 45 mins from Matsuyama to Iyo-Ozu. The best part of the journey was watching the sun go down over the Inland sea which was very beautiful.

I left Ozu after two days to travel to Okayama to start work. Noriko, Hannah and Tamara are staying with her parents until after a commemoration ceremony for her grandmother who died late last year. From all reports Noriko is having a brake, but her parents are tiring quickly because well lets just say that Hannah and Tamara are very busy girls. I'm missing their activity already.

Singapore

We left Australia on Jan 5th and traveled to Singapore via Singapore Airlines. There were considerable more Singapore guys working the plane. The service was excellent and we had a very enjoyable flight from Adelaide to Singapore. We stayed at the Grand Mercure Roxy, Noriko got us a very good deal using her flybuys points and it was an excellent choice close to the ocean and lots of great places to eat.

We went to Ding Tai Fung on the first night and had their amazing Shanghai style dumplings. They are simply delicous. Tamara woke us up on the first morning at 4:30AM running around the hotel room. Wasnt really her fault she just woke up at her normal time 6:30 minus two hours for time difference.

We went to the Singapore Zoo on the first morning with a tour organised through the hotel and had breakfast with the orangutangs, always a good event. Hannah also had a chance to feed elephants and Giraffes, and we watched the Animals Friends Show. You could easily spend a whole day at the Singapore Zoo, but was we were very tired we went back to the hotel had lunch, a swim in the pool (Hannah and Tamara thoroughly enjoyed the swimming).

At night time we went and had tea at the East Coast Hawker Centre and had Satay from Stall No55 which was reported to be amongst the top 8 satay restaurants in Singapore. The satay was excellent. I ordered a whole coconut to drink as juice, not so good and ended up drinking a couple of long necks of ice cold tiger beer also very nice. The highlight of the night was the black pepper lobster. After dinner we had a long stroll back towards the hotel, then caught a taxi when our legs were too tired.

The next morning we flew out of Singapore. I cant rate Singapore highly enough as a fun family friendly destination. Some things are a little expensive, but for ease, cleanliness, friendliness it was great. We will go back again.

There was a little confusion in Singapore airport about how to get to the transfer bus to our hotel but once that was sorted we didnt really have any problems. The hotel transfer desk is straight ahead of the international arrival exit.