Chickpeas!

Hello there.

Its been a slow week at Seishi, with me finally mastering my 103 Kanji for the Japanese Language Test, but staring dumbfoundedly at the 700 words I need to learn. Grrrrr. Teaching has also been slow, though apparently I made a girl smile for the first time in weeks by making her my 'assistant' in class, drawing pictures of animals for a lesson on 'Favourite Things'. She's amazing at drawing, and works part-time in a kimono shop, even though shes only 17. I asked her to commission me a special kimono. We'll see what happens. Its good though, she hates English and isn't that good at it but at least this way she's enjoying lessons. Without wanting to sound too sickly, it makes the whole thing worthwhile.

In other news I finally managed to procure a can of chickpeas, so my making humous master-plan is close to fruition. I have sesame paste, and all the other requisite ingredients apart from a mixer. I also found a fascinating website, www.sleepinginairports.net, which may help me cut costs on my trip to Seoul. Also I have booked a tour of the DMZ- hurrah! Let's see if I can sort out the whole mess, eh. For some reason I'm not allowed to wear jeans though- I can only assume the sight of 'capitalist garmnets' will prompt the North Korean guards into some sort of rage at the imperialist aggressors, and lead to 'an incident'. To reassure anyone with fears for me (or for the poor South Korean and US guards who'll be looking after me), the last incident was 25 years ago, and involved an axe. Don't know why I mentioned the axe, but surely its better than it involving a machine gun or something.

This weekend I'm off to Miyajima, to see a very famous shrine, and stare out at (officially) one of the three best views in Japan. Then on Sunday I'm spending quality time with my turtles.