weather forecast

in case one wasnt aware that tsuyu - the japanese rainy season - is here, the week’s forecast from friday makes it all too clear:

help!

‘tis winter indeed

i havent made a post about the weather in a while, so here’s one.

it’s freezing in this country. gah. temperatures suddenly dropped these few days, and it was about 5deg when i was out just now. it’s not as cold as it could be, i suppose, and certainly not as cold as other parts of the world, but the wind is just terrible.

it’s bright outside and sort of warm if you stand in the sun at the moment, but i’m sitting in my cold apartment and can hear the wind howling outside. this morning, i was waiting at the bus stop and had to put in some effort into bracing myself against the wind!

the wind is the killer. the parts of me that are covered by my coat are perfectly fine, but my face gets really cold. i recall many a time last winter where i wanted to get a burka or something to cover most of me, so this must be it again.

meh.

it was cold…

Today was the first time that I’ve been in school for a week, and it feels weird. The bell seemed too loud, and my feet looked extra tiny in my indoor shoes.

My life hasn’t seemed like my own, perhaps because I’ve had a friend over for 3 days at the weekend, and it has been somewhat odd having another person around. We don’t know each other well, and I’d been bringing her around too, so there went my entire weekend. I’d been wanting to work on some stuff, but obviously it has hard to do so – I think I’ve taken for granted the advantages of being alone in a quiet house. That’s the hard part about living on your own – when you’re all alone you yearn for another human presence, yet when there’s another person about all you want is to be left alone. Gah.

* * *

The weather took a sudden drop – as is typical of osakan weather – from Sunday, and was 9 degrees outside today. 9 degrees! it was so cold that at one point in time i could see my breath condense as i exhaled. it’s insane, as that only happens in december. it reminded the brit of the weather back home, and i think i held up pretty well given what i was wearing. and i’d actually thought as i was getting dressed this morning that i might have been wearing too much!

It was funny to see the Australians yesterday all bundled up in their coats and scarves! The girl, who’s from Perth, had started wearing a heavy jacket about 2 weeks ago, which is crazy.

I cant help but feel like no one should be dressed warmer than I am, cos everyone else is from a place with colder weather than Singapore! Perth does have a winter, even though it’s perhaps around 16 degrees or so, and gold coast – where the aussie boy is from – gets below 16degrees I believe. And it already isn’t as cold this year as it was last year, haha. I should tell them to head to uniqlo and stock up on fleece tops and knitwear, cos those are really good at keeping you warm.

* * *

I’m not sure if I’ve blogged about this before, but I’ve received the results of 2 tests for my translation and interpretation course. I’m doing ok I suppose – scoring just around the average score – and getting above 70 marks, which is key. The good ones are really good, scoring above 90 marks, while the lowest are getting around 50 marks. I feel though that I’m very very average, as the grammar and vocab that appear in the model student answers are crazy. Way beyond my level. It will be interesting to see who the rest of the course participants are at the seminar in Shiga in early December.

it’s freezing!

gah. some freak weather phenomenon has caused a sharp dip in temperature in this region – it was a 7 to 9 degree difference between yesterday and the day before!

it basically went from summer/autumn to winter and ohhhhh. i hate it.

come back autumn!!

a typhoon is coming

so apparently there’s a typhoon approaching japan, which accounts for the rain that we’ve been receiving so far. to be honest though, i’d no idea whatsoever about the approaching storm, until i saw the typhoon warning issued to students in school yesterday, and when a colleague at the BOE asked me the difference between “warning” and “alert”.

the impending storm has made news however – it has been all over the tv, apparently – but because i have never made the habit of turning on the tv or watching japanese news, i’m completely in the dark. not a good thing i guess.

we discovered today that the japanese meteorological agency has an english website with the same information as the japanese version – a never-before experienced phenomenon in this country, where english websites always have just a wee bit of information compared to the japanese versions.

osaka is due gales and high waves, so no threat of experiencing a proper storm as yet. i hope we dont though, as i have no idea what to expect nor what to do – i’m surprised the Met Agency’s website had no information on precautions to take and other advice. last year, there was a storm advisory in place too, but it died before it reached anywhere near osaka.

because of the rain, everyone is carrying an umbrella, and it occurred to me this morning that most people in japan carry the long, non-foldable umbrellas, whereas singaporeans tend to favour the foldable kind.

i’m not sure why this is the case – nor am i aware of what it’s like anywhere else, and any information is welcome – but i actually dont mind carrying around a long umbrella here. everyone does it, so it seems perfectly ok, whereas back home a big umbrella looked really cumbersome and somewhat uncool.

it helps too that you can buy pretty umbrellas in japan, like that one above. in fact, it was raining so heavily and so much when i was in tokyo this may, that i gave in and bought myself a nice umbrella too:

it’s a nice pink and i like the dainty floral patterns on it. it wasnt cheap though, having cost me about 2000yen, which is more than SGD30. standard price for an umbrella with patterns, however. i think it’s worth the money too, because it makes rainy days less miserable because it’s pretty. the handle is thin and the umbrella is light, so it’s not that heavy or clumsy to carry around. in fact, i like it so much that i’m actually considering bringing it with me when i go back home in december during the monsoon season..

today

was a most eventful day. for some reason so many teachers wanted to discuss lessons, and me having to cycle all the way from school to the bank and back took a fair bit of time too.

i’m going home in dec/jan, and the SGD is so low now! or perhaps the yen is strong, but whatever.

much time was spent too, on recording my answers for the CLAIR translation and interpretation course. seriously, who these days still records to cassette tape? it’s such a huge hassle, and i had to go around the school finding a tape recorder that actually could do that well. and when i found one which another teacher had used before, i sat there for quite a while fiddling with the controls so that my recording could actually be heard, not to mention the time taken to rewind and playback to check the recording.

somehow, 2 drivers today also tried to knock me down by turning – dangerously! – when the ‘green man’ was on. that has to be one of the things that annoys me A LOT about japan, because all these idiots assume that just because the first batch of pedestrians have crossed, no other people would be using the crossing. i mean, cant you at least look both ways before driving?

ah ha, another thing that has been bugging me – classrooms with windows and doors wide open, yet with the aircon turned on. just about all the classrooms on the 4th floor in my school are like this, which is such a huge, huge waste of resources. and you have students complaining that they’re cold when the aircon is on, or students grumbling that they’re hot and stand up to lower the temperature while they’re in 3 layers of clothes in summer. or classrooms with the aircon set at 27, when simply opening the windows and doors would give you a nice, cool breeze that’s less than 27 degrees.

yet japanese keep talking about being “eco”, or environmentally friendly. pish pash.

* * *

on a happier note, the weather has cooled down – the nights are really cool and require a cardigan of some sort, and that basically applies when there’s no sun!

anyway, here are some pictures from outside my front door on a beautiful summer’s day. i’m glad the heat’s gone, but i know i’ll be miserable when winter arrives:

 

 

miserable like hell

check out the weather forecast in osaka for the upcoming week:

things are going to be just awesome and peachy.

and i checked – osaka is already more humid than singapore. here’s the humidity forecast throughout the day for tomorrow in percentages:

90 88 90 82 84 84 80 82

and here’s the year round humidity for singapore:

so now i have proof that it isnt just my imagination when i find this country more moist and unbearable than back home..

very much getting into summer now

even though its still officially spring.. i’ve taken out the mini-fan and installed it in my bathroom, so that it blows at the sink where i do my makeup and get dressed.. so has the hand-held fan – its now back in my toilet, which is the hottest place in my house in summer.

at the moment, i’m sitting in my house in shorts and a sleeveless top, which doesnt really bode well in terms of just how little time there is left before the osaka summer. boo!

spring is ending..

the weather is definitely getting hotter for good now, and temperatures can be rather high when the sun's out. my electric fans have been turned on once more, and i'm already wearing clothes suitable for the summer in the day when there's sun, with a cardigan in my bag just in case, if i'm going to be out when the sun's down and a bit cooler.

so far, i havent had the need to use my cardigan yet, which doesnt really bode well.

i really have mixed feelings about this changing weather, because much as i love the sun and the warmer weather, it can be rather hot at times, and things are only going to get worse. the humidity isnt here yet, for one, and temperatures can still rise a further 10 degrees or so.

the time to visit japan is ending folks. stay away from this country between june to august, unless you're going to hokkaido or somewhere up north!

spring and sakura in kansai

although winter officially ended when march began, the weather only turned warmer from the start of this month. unfortunately, spring has sort of abruptly disappeared into early summer - day temperatures have reached 25 degrees but feels far hotter because of the sun blazing down on you. i'm currently down to dressing the way i would if i were back in singapore, with a cardigan in my bag for if i'm out when the sun has set.

the very weird thing about osaka weather - not sure if it's something that occurs in other parts of japan or not - is that seasons arrive very suddenly. in autumn, it gradually got cooler up till a point, and after that temperatures took a sharp dip overnight. same for spring; it remained cold up till end march and gradually got warmer by a few degrees, and suddenly temperatures shot up about 5 degrees over a day. it's crazy!! thankfully the weather is forecast to cool down a wee bit from tomorrow, and i'm really looking forward to that.

spring in japan is of course all about cherry blossoms, and i've gone hanami - sakura blossoms viewing - 4 times in the past week. sakura are rather useless trees though (to quote a friend), as they're pretty for literally only a week when the blossoms are out in full bloom. after that, the leaves start sprouting - at a rapid rate, mind you - and mar the sea of pink with green. it's when the leaves start growing that the petals begin to fall too, which means that you see green leaves, brown branches and the reddish remnants of the blossoms after the petals are gone.

booo.

i think i've had my share of hanami though. i went to arashiyama with my parents, sakuranomiya in osaka on my own, another part of kyoto with the boy and yoshino with a few friends. with my parents, we sat on the Sagano-Arashiyama "Romantic Train" that runs from JR Umahori station down to JR Sagano station, and cost 600yen.

the train ride is anything but romantic unfortunately, and it's certainly not because i was there with my parents! the view is only on one side of the train for half of the ride and on the other side for the other half, so you dont really get to see that much. plus people can stand in the aisle - that's the best thing to do actually, cos you get a far better view standing than seated - so you cant really see over to the other side of the train if you're sitting down. furthermore, the seats are arranged in 4s with 2 seats facing another 2, so unless you're sitting facing the direction in which the train is moving, you dont get a very good view at all!

as the train passes through a mountain range - it's roughly the same path of the Hozu River Cruise I went on a bit more than a month ago - it passes through about 6 or 7 tunnels, one of which lasts close to a minute! so part of the short 15 to 20min train ride is spent in darkness. the train also screeches AND is somewhat rickety rackety, so the noise is not very pleasant at all.

the flowers in the meadow next to the train station were gorgeous though:

the sakura were kinda pretty as well:

arashiyama has pretty sakura too:

 

the prettiest temple there, tenryu-ji, had gorgeous sakura too, especially this one that bloomed in two different colours:

with dual coloured light pink blossoms:

there're even row boats on the river, which is really nice:

more pictures of arashiyama can be found on facebook HERE.

 

i went to sakuranomiya, a fairly popular spot for hanami in osaka city, just 2 or 3 days after arashiyama, and already the leaves were fairly large. i also very stupidly forgot to bring my camera; luckily i didnt really intend to take many photos!

the petals had all fallen, and the most beautiful part, i think, was seeing the petals fall like snow when the wind blew:

my shadow amongst the petals

i walked all the way from there to the outskirts of Osaka-jo park, where i saw these two kitties:

i visited the path of philosophy and heian jingu in kyoto on saturday, and it wasnt that pretty anymore.. the shrine's garden was so super packed though.

the entrance:

after going through that huge structure:

inside the garden:

my camera doesnt take very good pictures unfortunately.. the same scene looks so much better using a dslr! sigh.

check out the crowd, and imagine the ENTIRE garden - that was pretty big - like that!

the philosopher's path is meant to be super famous for sakura, but we went a bit late and the blossoms werent so pretty anymore:

more pictures from that trip can be found HERE on facebook too.

 

yesterday was spent in Yoshino in nara, which is supposed to be one of the best spots japan for hanami in japan. it has 3 layers of sakura that bloom at different times, so the blossoms in general are meant to last over a period of about 1 month.

the thing about yoshino, however, is that it's SO far from osaka. it took an hour and a half from Tennoji station (which is more than 30min from my house) to Yoshino station, and add that to the fact that it's hanami season and the japanese are crazy over it, which means that EVERYONE is heading there, and you get one HUGE, tremendously stressful crowd. we had to queue to get on the bus that took us from the station to midway up the mountain range, and that took a while too.

thanks to my friend's friends who were, to tell the truth, rather disgustingly late, we reached there in the afternoon and only spent about 2 to 2.5 hours chilling and enjoying the view before having to catch the last bus down the mountain at 5.30pm - and 2 hours seems rather long, but time passes quickly when you're relaxing!

i dont really have nice pictures of the place cos i was too busy relaxing, and the journey home was so super stressful that all of us were EXHAUSTED when we were finally back in osaka. i dont think we'll ever go to yoshino again, but would stay in osaka - like sakuranomiya - instead!

here are the few pictures of yoshino that i have:

already you can see that there are lots of leaves out, and that they've turned brown!

falsehoods and trickery

i was duped by the sky and weather forecast today!

it was meant to stop raining in the early afternoon and the sky did clear up and was bright. thought i could go to Osaka Tenmangu to view the plum blossom bonzai exhibition after all, and i'd actually got dressed again and went all the way downstairs before i looked up and noticed that there was a very fine drizzle.

gah. came back up and here i am...

its been raining quite a bit lately. and this is apparently what happens in osaka at the end of winter. it really sucks cos you cant do anything - today is a case in point - and the only thing that sweetens this crap weather just a little is that rain makes it a bit less cold.

i cant wait for warmer weather!!

cold.. and busy.. and hard pressed for ideas..

i dont understand how my students havent gotten used to the cold by now.. i walk into class and students who say that they're cold over and over, and i see big(gish) boys shivering and muttering that they're cold.. one of them was even clutching a hot water bottle in class the other day, on top of the 4 layers of clothes that he was wearing. and i was only wearing 3 but feeling cool..

plus they wear the same amount of layers both in school and out of school, and although the corridors are indeed chilly due to the draft, it's nowhere as cold as it is outside in the open, and i dont understand how they can survive outdoors if they feel that indoors. more unfathomable mysteries, i guess.

speaking of mysteries, it really seems like the kids that drive u nuts sometimes can be the sweetest (note that that's a relative term though.. heh) ones too.. the two noisiest and most disruptive kids in class today actually said bye to me proper as they walked out of the class cos this is our last lesson this term.. and one of them even wished me a good week too.. so sweet rite? although they're in high school they're sometimes really nothing more than children in teenager's bodies.. were we like that back then too?

* * *

i've also been getting busy lately.. and forgetting important stuff like birthdays! and having no time in school to try to study japanese when i was previously so bored i had to try hard to occupy myself till i could go home. time in school goes by a lot quicker these days, and i have no idea why. having begun yoga and calligraphy classes at the community centre nearby has made me a lot less free outside of school too. havent watched tv or dramas in quite a while!!

the weekend was spent in hiroshima, and pictures will be up soon..we took neoprints too - i still cant call them purikura, which is the proper japanese term - and it's really wonderful how you can now get digital copies of your prints :) i really love the way we all look so good and airbrushed in neoprints too!

   

 

i dont know if i've posted pictures of all of them before, but anyway there's the korean-american girl, the indian-american girl, the philippino-american girl - who's the only JET around who doesnt drink alcohol, and it's really nice to hang out with her cos she's more like me than quite a lot of the rest, plus she's such a nice darling - and the only guy there is the irishman who lives in the flat above mine. the philippino-american girl lives in the same building as us too.

* * *

meanwhile, i've been invited to one of the teacher's house for a christmas get-together, and The Brit will be bringing a christmas cake that his sister brought over with her.. i'm trying to think of something from singapore, but am kinda stuck, especially if i want to at least match The Brit's extremely appropriate gift.. so please share with me any suggestions and ideas that you might have please!!