I should have started doing this a long time ago. I've been in Japan for let's see... whoa!! 4 months today! That means I have maximum 7 months left (;_;)

It's been fun so far though. Filled with ups and downs. More ups as always.

I'll give a brief overview of each months starting now then, shall I? Then I'll give a weekly review.

September: - First off, the flight over was one big pain in the ass!! 11 hours stuck in an Aeroplane with no sleep! Made worse by the fact that I wasn't able to sleep the night before flying. So all in all I was absolutely knackered. About 48hours with no sleep.

Of course I soon forgot about that as soon as we landed in Japan. I was so excited. It had always been my dream to go to Japan, and then finally when I got there I was about to burst with happiness.

We arranged (By this point I should have explained that I was with 5 other guys. Three Pairs going to three Different parts of Japan. Ryan [me], Stephen to Toya on Hokkaido; Paul and Konrad to Tokyo; and Toby and Karel to Kyoto. They're all really great guys and I couldn't have wished for a better country group. Thanks Project Trust!!) Anyways we arranged all our travel to get into Tokyo from Narita airport and I was in awe as we travelled through suburban Tokyo, if you could call any of Tokyo suburban (^-^)

We met up with our rep, Yukiko Nakaie (lovely woman), in Tokyo, Setagaya I think, (?_?) and we checked into our hotel in another region of Tokyo. Me and Steve spent 4 days in Tokyo seeing what sights we could in 4 days, we met these two great girls called Mai and Yuki. Brilliant fun, they took us to Karaoke too!

Then we parted from our country group and Made our way up to Hokkaido, by plane I might add. At Chitose airport we met our reps at out project, Sano-san, Yuko-san and Namiko-san. And drove to Toya. We had a week and a half to rest and meet up with alot of people before we actually started work. Our work consisted of 2 days a week working in a Junior High School, 1 day a week at a Senior High School, 1 day at a nursery school and 1 day at a hospital for palliative care. Also we have an Adult english lesson and a Junior english lesson. For the rest of September then we were just getting our orientation for our work and resting on the weekends.

That's the end of September.

October: - October was a little eventful. We made new friends at our work places and outside the workplace as well. Notably my Favourite is Shiro-san. He's a bank manager at Date Bank (Dah-Te for those who think it's pronounced date) He is a brilliant character who takes me and Steve out everywhere, and pays for everything too.

I also got to try out at Judo. It was fun, all of the Judo pupils are our pupils at the Senior High School, so it was fun to interact with them out of School, and throw them about the room, or be thrown as the case was more often than not. Then at the end of that month, I broke my leg. Doing Judo. But the twist was that I wasn't being thrown, I was throwing someone, guy called Yano from the High School. I don't know how exactly it happened, but I'm guessing that it was when i was throwing him when he swung round from my back as i was throwing him, his hips hit my knee, knocked my knee sideways and fractured the thing!!

Then the next day I went to the hospital, got a cast on my leg and that was me screwed for the next few weeks. This marks the end of October. There are things that I've probably forgotten to add that I'll be reminded of when Steve reads this, but meh, what'll you do?

November: - This month was much more eventfull than the last. Probably because I was always popping off to the hospital for a checkup and x-ray of my leg. All the while I was working of course getting sympathy from the locals and my pupils, which always annoyed me because they always looked at me and said Kawaiso (What a pity) But most of the time people kept giving us more food and things so it wasn't that bad.

I went to the biggest city on Hokkaido this month aswell. Sapporo. It has a population of 1.8 million people. More than that of my home country, Northern Ireland!! The reason for my visit was that a previous volunteer from two years ago came back to Japan for a University exchange. He got in contact with us and invited us both out, but the weekend that we were supposed to go out, Steve got ill. I was going to do the Noble thing and stay behind and keep him company, but he told me to go anyways. So with a clear conscience I went and left him to look after himself. My first night in Sapporo was spent getting wasted at a mexican style party, drinking Corona extra and eating Fajitas and Rissoto. Then at about 1am there was a drunken Idea about going to Karaoke. Of course everyone was happy and we all went to Karaoke. 14 drunken students wandering the snowy streets of Ainosato. Then appearing at Karaoke and staying for two hours!!

The next night we went into Susikino or Susukino, Don't remember the spelling. That night was spent getting drunk aswell. So by the time sunday came, travelling home was just a nightmare, I was so hungover!

That's the end of november aswell. Like I said before, there are things that I forget so if there's anything I remember that's slightly important I'll add it as a footnote in my other posts.

Now finally December.

December: - Since it's only the 9th this one'll be short since you're probably bored out of your heads reading the above.

Not much is happening just yet, still working away. Now we only work 1 day a week at the Junior high. My Favourite places to work are the Nursery School and the Senior High School. They're so much fun. The nursery because I love working with kids and the High School because it's so funny and reminds me of how I was at school, a pain in the arse to the teachers!

Next week promises to be much more eventful because we have a lot of things planned. Tomorrow I'm going back to Sapporo to see the Harry Potter film, in english (I hope) and next thursday Paul and Konrad from Tokyo are coming up. Then on the Friday we have a Year End party in Toyako with the hospital staff, even thoug I have no idea why I've been invited because I haven't been working there in a month or so!

So. That brings everyone up to speed on how I'm doing in Japan. Give me some feed back I've you want.

Talk to you soon.

Ryan