Nick wrote this... (not that it is hard to tell who writes what on our blog)
So the reason why we chose to include Cambodia was for me to present two presentations at CamTESOl 2008, an English language teaching conference held at the National Institute of Education. I presented on one misleading topic "Developing Effective Global Communication" where about 70 people showed up to hear me speak about a speaking technique that could develop students' proficiency in order to communicate in a future global context (hence why it was a mismatched title and abstract) AND I also presented on "Interaction in a writing classroom through peer response' where only 20 teachers showed up. I geared my presentations towards native Cambodian teachers of English and thus didn't put a great deal of academia in the presenations. the first presentation was packed full of Cambodians who probably wanted to silver bullet to learn how to develop GLOBAL communication... but learnt only how to unclip the gun in the holster. the second presentation was mainly attended by foreign nationals teaching overseas. I felt some were bored which I gathered from one guy staring out the window during my presentation and the ultimate humiliation; one love sick couple was writing notes on a pad for each other and were putting their arms around each other during my presentation... young people have no respect for their elders these days.
~ nick

We're off to Bangkok in just a few minutes. We'll be traveling throughout Thailand and Cambodia with a visit soon to be parents Clive and Angel in Malaysia. We'll keep you updated on our travels ahead. Jen's headed back to America via the Bahamas on April 1st, her time in Japan is almost over.

So this post should have gone before our week snowboard trip up to Hokkaido, but I'm just getting around to it today. There were no tears at school my final day, I guess I didn't expect any though. It was funny as I had actually 6 hours of classes on my final day compared to my usual 3 or 4. Guess they tried to make me work extra hard on the last one. I was told that after lunch they would have a little meeting to say goodbye and that I should prepare a speech (in Japanese). Well I wasn't hoping for anything big and it definitely wasn't. There was 3 minutes left as the teachers finally started coming to the staff room before the next period bell rang. Quickly the English teacher said a few thing and then I stood up and gave my last speech in Japanese, probably forever. I said all nice things, even if I didn't want to and then the bell rang...class time! The teachers clapped and then quickly moved out of the room. As I said before I wasn't expecting much, but a 3 minute meeting was a little less then I expected, seriously! I had been there for year and half and all they could give me was a 3 minute going away party. I'm not bitter, but thankful that teaching there is OVER! Granted, I have no idea what's next on the agenda. Here are a few pictures of my school and the English teachers I taught with. Actually at the end of the day the English teachers gave me a few present which was nice. I got some new chopsticks, slippers, a door curtain all of Japanese prints. Though, I will miss teaching at the elementary schools as those were the most fun and kept me busy all day. The kids were great and I probably learned most of my Japanese with the 1-6 graders. In the last week they all made little origami animals and wrote notes to me. I guess it was okay they all thought my name was Ms. Jan or Ms. Jane and wrote it on every letter :)

I worked out in the rice fields


Sakae Jr. High School


Second year students on my last day


The English teachers I worked with (the guy in the black coat was always scared to talk to me that he would just cancel my classes so I wouldn't have to teach with him)

We started out our ten day trip with two nights in Sapporo where we visited the famous annual Sapporo Ice Festival. Some of the sculptures were really amazing; intricate and very detailed. Check out more photos on our Flickr site.
We also sampled some of the local delicacies.

We had a Gengis Khan BBQ, a hit plate with lamb, vegies and a special sauce.


We ate sushi with a view overlooking Otaru. People say that really fresh sushi melts in your mouth, well this didn't melt as such but it was damn gooooooood.


We also had Sapporo Ramen, a flavor that is distinct to up here. This one was butter corn Ramen.


Something that I found out last year when I was in Niseko was the Niseko Komekichi Rice Ball Family Restaurant, tucked under the Gondola lift. They are by far the cheapest and best restaurant on the mountain. What else do you need when snowboarding in Japan?


We went to one good restaurant which had an indoor rock climbing wall in it! The food was awesome too... the hamburger i had literally melted in my mouth...


Here's one neat bar. You enter through a fridge door...


And finally, I'll finish this post with a photo of Jen's new haircut, the Snowfro.

That is the question that faced Jen, not me. Jen skiied for the first two days but found the light at the end of the tunnel, yes she has turned. I turned her, my powers are developing and are becoming stronger. After she switched to a snowboard, she said that her ski career is over.

At this junction, I would like to applaud Jen on her illustrious skiing career which included the 1987 Michigan Hill title as well as the 1993 Lake Sheboygan Tobaggon On-One-Ski Runner-Up prize.

Now she is one of the priveledged few...

We just got back from snowboardings in Niseko, Hokkaido, Japan which has become an almost annual pilgrammage for all Aussies. Fantastic snow on the first day we arrived, we snuck in a sneaky arvo and night boarding session. We thought the runs were good with a decent cover on the groomed runs and some light fluffy stuff in amongst the trees. But on Tuesday night, it started to snow and by Wednesday night, it was puking. Great powder. Thursday, most of the runs were closed due to high winds but that didn't stop us joining forces with some lads we met in the hostel and together we built a little ramp and kicker. It was decent fun but at night, we both trekked up to the mountain as they opened more lifts. the powder was excellent! We were eagerly anticipating Friday, a day when the winds had eased but the snow hadn't. We'd do a run in the morning and two hours later, the run appeared as if it was fresh again.






And if this doesn't turn the ladies on...

Check out more great photos in our Flickr account...

You've heard it here first. It is currently snowing in Chiba, a rare occurrence here because it really doesn't get that cold. Big, thick snow flakes. The kind that you want to land on your tongue, the kind that look like shaved marshmallows, the kind that look like a bed of feathers, ready for anyone to just run and jump on. If only we were 7 years old, we'd be doing snow angels.
Here are just a few photos, maybe more later. It is meant to snow all throughout the day.

This first photo is the view from our apartment.



This photo is the view of our apartment. We are on the right next to the silly folks who have put out laundry on a day like this!



This is Nick riding.



This is Nick, still, riding.



No matter how cold it is, the school uniform never changes... And she's going to school on a Sunday!

We've been MIA in the month of January, but we have now returned as February 1st has arrived. January has been a busy busy month and and practically internet-less month. Just yesterday we got our new internet although haven't set it up completely for both computers yet.

When we arrived back from Hong Kong we quickly got back into the swing of things at work. On the 14th we moved to our new apartment the poor man's route. Not really, but you see our apartment is on the same bus route as our old one. So, in the essence of saving some hard earned cash (looking back I would've been happy to spend the extra) we only had the moving company move 10-12 large items, like the couch, fridge, etc. Then Nick had his friend Jack helped us move a few loads in his car. But the rest was packed up in our big travel bags (hockey bags) and brought to the new one by bus! At least we never tried to move anything large by bus, just our big bags. I think we must have made at least 6 trips over 2-3 days. We got all set up in our new one. It's the same size as our old apartment just minus one room. Makes it a little more cozy, but it is quite old, so even colder! We have propane gas that heats our water and there is some ancient crank to get the hot water going in the shower, strange. I was really concerned when we got here how everything was going to fit, but we quickly managed to find a place for everything.

Our friends Bess and Marcel visited us a couple days after we moved and that was definitely a cozy 4 nights all together in our apartment. We took them around Tokyo, showed them the sights, it was great to see them!

Then our friends Angel and Clive left Japan and moved to Malaysia the 3rd week in January, they will be having their baby around the end of Feb. there and we're pretty jealous of the warm weather they are experiencing now.

Other than that, Nick's done teaching classes and is officially done next week as am I!!!! I have 4 more days left of teaching and can't wait. I handed in my resignation last week and it was funny how I was stressed out about it, but it wasn't a problem. My boss who speaks English then made me go to his 4 other bosses to chit chat with them for a while before I could leave. One of those hierarchy things that I had to resign to each one of them in ranking order. Really not that official, they were all quite nice and tried to speak what little English they knew.

The highlight of my week, besides being terribly ill from Mon. to Wed. with some stomach thing was during the daily mandatory cleaning period at school I was handed a toothbrush and asked in Japanese if I could scrub the floor with it. No joke! The cleaning with the students has definitely not been a fun everyday part of the job, being asked to clean a floor with a toothbrush that's just absurd.


I'll put some pictures up later from Bess and Marcel's visit.

Hope everyone is well!

We leave for Hokkaido on a ski/snowboard trip next Friday!

Hong Kong was a great trip and 11 days was the perfect amount of time. If you asked us what we would've done on the 12th day if we hadn't left, that would've been difficult, perhaps. So, that's a good sign, we pretty much did Hong Kong, check! According to RJ's guide book we were able to check off about 20 of the top 25 things to do, so of course there was more to do, but we did a pretty good job. And after the week and half all of use were still talking to each other. We spent this time here in Hong Kong with Angel and Clive and their friend RJ who was visiting from D.C. and then had a chance to spend a couple of our days with Chris, Adrianna and little Sophia.

Favorite parts of Hong Kong not in any particular order:

-Riding the tram up to the Peak and overlooking the crowded city and harbour below.

-Sharing Christmas and opening presents with some of our closest friends.

-Stuffing ourselves silly at the Excelsior's Christmas Day Buffet, absolutely delicious!

-Riding the Star Ferry (only 20 cents) to the other side at Tsim Tsu Shui.

-Shopping! Shoopping! Shopping! We came home with a couple new pairs of pants, a down coat, ski pants, some shirts. The markets in China are cheaper, but this was still fun!

-Stanley Beach and Market and our lunch there. We had some great sandwiches that you just can't find in Japan.

-Our escalator pub crawl during happy hour, we were home and asleep by 9, sad but 2 for 1 drinks ended at 9pm and anywas 4-9 was a good amount of time :)

-Short but sweet the fireworks on New Year's Eve. Nick and I are spoiled with watching the Sydney fireworks which last forever and are amazing. These were still quite neat despite the fact that they only lasted 2 minutes.

-Indian food with the gang on Christmas Eve, what else would you eat on Christmas Eve?

-Visiting the Giant Buddha on Lantau Island. Unfortunately the Sky Cable Car was only open to family of staff that day and we had to take buses up and down the winding mountain roads for an hour each way. But if it had been open this would've been a major highlight. It's gotta be the longest cable car in the world and takes you from one side of the island at the top of this mountain down to the other at sea level, it looked amazing.

- I chose shopping instead of visiting the 10,000 Buddhas, but the boys trip up to the seem them looked really interesting.

- Experiencing the culture in Macau and the influence the Portuguese had many years ago that still remains.

Macau. Ask me before I went to Macau and the only thing I knew about the place was that it is famous for Portugese Egg tarts. (Delicious by the way!) But Macau is definitely Hong Kong's cultural cousin.

The streets are mainly lined with European styled small apartment blocks (as apposed to the bland monstrosities in HK) and cobble stoned roads (compared with drab asphalt). It definitely had a lot of character and a great feel. We wondered through the streets after buzzing early past the Casinos from the Ferry Terminal. We planned on seeing Macau in the day light and when night approached we would try our luck at the many casinos. The Ferry is just about an hour from Hong Kong and you do have to go through Immigration and get your passport stamped, yeah for more stamps in the passport!

Again, like HK there is a ton of shopping in Macau. Lots of little stores selling all sorts of name brands with the labels cut off for less than half the regular price. If you look at your clothing labels a good majority of them would say made in Hong Kong or Macau or inevitably some Southeast Asian country. If you're having a baby like let's say Clive and Angel, this would be an awesome place to stock up and save! Both Macau and HK are great for baby clothes. That's exactly what Angel did and brought back to Japan at least enough to cover their baby's first 2 years!

We ate lunch and while the boys went on a hike visiting the old buildings the girls stayed in town and shopped, no surprise. As the sun set we all headed to the Casinos. We visited the Wynn and the Venetian. Supposedly the Venetian is larger than it's counterpart in Las Vegas. We didn't get a chance to go the the newly opened MGM Grand, but I think we all had fun doing a little gambling. Nick won $320 HK dollars, which is great, wish it would've been $320 US as it was only about $50 US. I played slots and what's great was there were 5 cent slots HK which is comparable in US dollars to less than a penny! On the other hand the Venetian nor the Wynn had any low limit blackjack tables, the cheapest was a $15 minimum bet.

It was a great day out to Macau just wish we would've brought back a box of authentic egg tarts as they were delicious!

Pictures often tell a thousand words or perhaps ten thousand in this case.



But I will say that the monk statues on the way up to the top were varied and quite interesting. I saw only the same ones twice on a few occasions only. The facial expressions and body language were great! Just check out those photos on our Flickr here.

A final note: Check out these three monks, long arm, long legs and long eyebrows. Something all young children should aspire to have.

Drinking in Hong Kong can be cheap or expensive, actually it can be both at the same time. Beer prices at the supermarket were as low as 50 cents a tinnie but could fetch as much as $15 or more a pint at a sports bar or night club. Now, there wasn't that much drinking going on and it wasn't one big alcohol-a-thon but we didn't have beers all around the place. From Kowloon to Stanley Market, Wan Chai to Soho. Soho was probably our favourite with it's steep climb from Hong Kong Central up to the Mid-Levels. There's actually the world's longest escalator there which makes the climb up a little easier. I came up with an amazing idea, an escalator pub crawl through Soho! So, during a happy hour (3-9pm) one day, Jen, RJ, Clive and I set out on the journey where each time we got off the escalator (or touched pavement), we had to find a bar and have a drink. The beers tasted sweet and we met a few interesting people along the way.



The final bar story includes the cheap and expensive drinks that I first talked about. We were dragged, literally, into a Phillipino hostess bar (Jen and Angel were not with us) and told that beers were HKD$25 each, no extra charges. We sat down for some conversation, and please believe me that conversation isn't code for something else. This was a hostess bar that offered only conversation, like Japan. Anyway, we were half way through a can when the Mama of the bar invited us to buy a beer for the young ladies for HKD$120. No thanks, we emptied our beers, upped and left straight away.