March in Osaka

Between all the traveling around with Stuart I had quite a busy month with work but made it through fine getting my fourth City Life newsletter published on time, finished off my ten-week Kiwi English course, ran a Kiwi Cooking class, translated "View" (a promotional magazine for Sakai) and all the other requests that came through as people realised they had budget left so might as well do some of the "nice to have"s. Although I cant complain because with our leftover budget I got a new laptop to use at the office instead of my clunky old desktop with a full harddrive. It was also nice to have dinner made for me a few nights when I got home from work.

Looking through my March photos, this month seemed to centre quite a bit around food but that's a big part of life in Osaka. As soon as we got back from our skiing and snow monkey weekend in Nagano, Tsuda-san and Pi-chan took us out for a meal of delicious tempura and sashimi, so as soon as we got back from our Kanto trip we had them over for a night of nabe. I took Stuart out for kaitenzushi (sushi train) and we had pancakes at home more than once. I enjoyed an early birthday / welcome back (for Stuart) dinner with my workmates and then had a joint birthday party with Louise where the Osaka crew who were still around (with guest appearances by Tom and Colleen) had a great night out of tabe/nomihoudai at Kushiya and karaoke in Namba

The highlights of work this month was the last of my ten Kiwi English classes and my second Kiwi Cooking class. To end the English course on a fun note we played a board game for the last class and had lots of NZ lollies, snacks, anzac cookies and marmite and cheese bites for them to munch on. For my second Kiwi Cooking class I was much more prepared (and it helped to have Stuart there as I needed more than two hands to get everything ready on time) and did a demonstration of different stages of the meal and then supervised as about 30 people prepared my Mum's recipes of pumpkin soup, lemon honey chicken, cheesy potato bake, glazed carrots and apple crumble for dessert. This time a few of the JETs even took part (Louise, Mindy and Han) so it was great to have a more international presence ;)

I had a couple of days off to spend with Stuart around Osaka. He had been by himself to the aquarium and the zoo while I had been working and we had been to Osaka Castle on his last trip, so we made purikura in Sakai, ate kushikatsu in Shinsekai, Yoghurtland in Shinsaibashi and enjoyed the night view from the floating garden atop the Sky Building in Umeda. As he was here for a whole month we got to both go skiing and see the spring flowers and enjoyed a picnic on his last day in Daisen Park underneath the blossoms.

 

Just as in NZ, the end of March spells the end of the financial year. However unlike back home that means massive personnel changes here. Most of the people who are on fixed term contracts finish on the 31st of March and new people start on the 1st of April - this was seven of the international team. On top of that, seemingly without rhyme and reason it is also a time to shift everyone around the organisation (it is said this is so they can't specialise) so about six additional people were moved from my team, bringing the total to almost half of the international division changing overnight with no handover and everyone just taking it. We went out to lunch with a few of the girls, had cake at the office for afternoon tea and then a small leaving gathering for a few of the girls we were closest to.

Just as Februarys blog wouldn't have been complete without mention of the Canterbury Quake, Marchs is not complete with mention of the Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami. It has been tough to see my home, and then my second home ravaged by Mother Nature in the space of three weeks but I am very lucky that I have been safe in both cases but many families and entire towns will never be the same again. There have been a lot of debates about the sensationalism of the international media and questions raised about their focus, but on the other hand there has been criticism of the Japanese media being screened by the government and witholding information so as not to cause panic. This is not the place to reopen this debate but I would like to ask for everyone to think of the people that have been affected and need help right now, rather than getting angry and overreacting. Over 12,000 people were not able to return to their families on Friday 11 March, the survivors lives will take time to rebuild, the emotional scars will take years to heal and the economic aftershocks are unprecedented. What any country affected by a natural disaster needs is the support of the world, rather than its criticism and sensationalised media reports causing panic.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=tVWhZ_qGD7g 

Thank you for all of those who have supported Japan during this time and please don't forget the images and the people you saw in the days after the devastation, they will need everyones continued support and prayers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=firuvTBOD5k&feature=related 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDXcyfkg95k&NR=1 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IOv6D2CITc&feature=relmfu