Raw Octopus and other Bar Snacks

Who says sex doesn't sell?

You will not find a tastier bar snack. Chop up raw octopus into little bits and smother it in wasabi and you have a tangy gloopy mess that is perfect for accompanying a few pints of frothy beer. Other tasty nibbles include Korean seaweed (I'm not sure how it is different from the Japanese variety but apparently it is), young soy beans with salt, a bit like peanuts but without the fattening potential. One of the other teachers, Joe, left the office on Monday and this of course demanded a little going away bash. Much beer and food was consumed and yet the bill still only came to about fifteen pounds, to think in places at home that would just be the price of the first few drinks. Ah, it could be dangerous yet I hardly seem to be drinking anything I cant quite work it out.

Rickshaws operate here as well, much in the same fashion as in Dublin, late at night. Although here you can also catch one during the day at major tourist spots. I was very impressed until I saw that the drivers have it easy, one guy pulls whilst his friend pushes from behind making it all rather easy. In fairness the carts are a little bigger and much more luxurious they even have rugs for people laps. So if the teaching doesn't work out I can always return to the Rickshaw business.

Wendy a Cumbrian lass working in the same school as Jon and Mike organised a Guy Fawkes party for the 4th, a day early but everyone was working on the 5th. We went into the centre of town and down to the river bank. We then launched fireworks over the river and burnt our Guys. It seemed only fitting that one of them should be a celebration of the events of the 2nd of November. Here's a pic!

Guy Fawkes for 2004

If it doesn't sound very strange to have a few fireworks you should realise that we were launching them on the equivalent of the Broadwalk in Dublin or the Embankment in London and to make it even stranger Kyoto is a wooden city. Apparently its quite normal behavior though and the police never turned up to arrest us.

Americans don't know what a Lorry is, strange people. I knew they are generally fairly backward but this was new one for me. Its actually quite interesting there are lots of linguistic differences I was aware of but I keep discovering new ones, for example 'reckon' is considered real red-neck talk, so poor Mike gets more and more irritated every time I ask him what he thinks!

Because this is a wonderful opportunity to show of in front of a global audience (as if) I have received not one but two compliments on my teaching the first came after what I thought was one of the worst lessons I had taught. In fact when I saw one of the students talking to Kenta (one of the staff) I was sure she was complaining! How wrong I was. Ah to be arrogant. The fall comes next by all accounts.

All the best,
Roger