Another day in the life...

I have survived another week of work as a professional dancing monkey. The other day one of the students tried to convince me that New Zealand was being invaded by `The Chinese`... I am getting very adept at smiling, nodding and moving right along. That may come as a BIG surprise!

FROM YESTERDAY:
Today we were planning to go to a mountainous area called Yoro, on the border of Mie and Gifu prefectures, to see some fiery fall leaves. However, this morning we had a sudden realization that the leaves were not even close changing yet and therefore the trip might just be a waste of time. So instead we decided to spend the day at the Zoo. Perhaps that sounds like a strange thing for two 20 something girls to do, but the weather was beautiful and it was the only thing we could think of doing outside. Anyway, the Nagoya Zoo turned out to be less of a zoo and more of a detention center for innocent animals. There were lions in concrete tanks and a variety of bored looking monkeys enduring the taunts of maniac school children who were yelling `Saru Saru Saru` (Saru = monkey in Japanese, apparently). Needless to say I was pretty depressed by the end of the visit, not only by the conditions the animals were housed in but also by the attitude of a majority of the people visiting the zoo. Respect for animal life seemed not to be on the minds of the thousands of school children, their teachers or parents. There was so much screaming, banging on the glass and feeding of the animals I couldn't believe it. There was even some dude feeding the Hokkaido Bear! Honestly, who feeds a bear at the zoo?!

FROM TODAY:
Today we had a much needed lazy day. We wandered around the trendy shopping district in Nagoya. Sakae is THE place to go if you are looking to show off your super-sexy new duds or to buy very expensive crap. The place is crawling with stores like Louis Vuitton, Tiffany, Coach and Armani... I cannot believe how much people will spend on things because French Vogue says it's cool. It is like Sex and the City. I live in a city filled with Japanese Carey Bradshaws. Consequently, I felt slightly less than human moping around Sakae in jeans, flip-flops and a Toronto Blue Jays t-shirt.

COMING ATTRACTIONS:
On Sunday I will attend my first real Japanese Karaoke session. Like leaf viewing and cherry blossom viewing, karaoke seems to be a serious national pastime. Apparently you can rent a room for around \2000 per few hours, this includes unlimited cocktails and your own karaoke machine. Of coarse the combination of unlimited drinks, bad music and Nova teachers is somewhat less than ideal, so I will have to see what happens.