For Queen and Country

I hadn't heard too much of Saint George to be honest, much less the day named after him, beyond the little picture of him on the side of my beer bottle. I still don't really, aside from the fact that he makes for a mean excuse to run around Kobe with a camera looking for creative interpretations of the word "corgi".

We got into Sannomiya in the afternoon, formed our teams and lightly jeered each other while we waited for the last of the stragglers to show up. The event was a photo scavenger hunt, running around like mad trying to find everything on a list of uniquely English things (a red rose, a corgi, something royal, et cetera). The rules - bonus points for creativity, a team member must feature in every shot. The organiser even pulled out a set of framed photos of the Queen from his seemingly bottomless bag, announcing that we would get 1 point for each Japanese person posing with her in a single frame. After a quick whizz through the list, we shot off in search of glory.

We thought we were being awfully grand with getting 8 Japanese schoolgirls to have their photo with the Queen straight out of the starting blocks (until we found out someone else got 25 people or something in theirs). The English flag was easy (or so we thought - the Union Jack was wrong!) and we managed to find something royal ("Royal milk tea") and a dragon (from a Magic the Gathering poster) at my favourite UFO catcher haunt. A quick stop at a flower shop for the red rose then we headed into Tokyu Hands, a trendy department store and found a corgi (in the form of a nameplate in the pet section) and a toy skull that we used for our "recreation of a scene from Shakespeare" (alas, poor Yorick!). Feeling awfully pleased with ourselves, we set out to find a jar of Marmite from the international food store, before realising we had completely misjudged how much time we had left and had to abandon. All was not lost though, we found a girl wearing a Union Jack skirt and a very Japanese "chav" and immortalised them in film ("I think that guy grabbed my arse", said the team member who posed next to the chav). Almost out of time, we did our quick recreation of Abbey Road and hurried back to the bar to have our score tottied up.

We ended up getting most of them, but missed the Marmite and getting a photo of cream tea (bonus points for scones and cucumber sandwiches). We also missed out on getting a picture of an English person, although we did nearly get stabbed a few times asking random strangers if they were English and if we might be able to take a photo of them if they were. We ended up coming third and not getting a prize, which I suppose is better than the people who came second and didn't get a prize. The "Queen" then showed up, who I suspect was a very tall, skinny and suspiciously hairy imposter. Nevertheless, "she" knighted the winners with a big foam sword
 and we spent the rest of our time at the pub drinking pints of ale and drawing a moustache on our Queen. It was far more amusing than I expected (the whole day, not just the moustache) and you can see our photo efforts on my Flickr.

Yesterday was spent wandering around the shopping district at Harbourland which is quickly becoming one of my favourite places. Lisa managed to find exactly what she's been looking for clothes-wise, made friends with one of the shop assistants and won a handbag in a lucky dip at the shop. I won the week's supply of chocolate at the UFO catchers, found all you can eat Chinese for $10 and marvelled at a guy who made a Thomas the Tank Engine balloon animal at the fun park bit. Needless to say, both of us agreed the day was a resounding success. They also have big walking animals that you can sit on and put a coin into, and they walk around seemingly unfettered by the inevitable fences and frowning attendants that would surround them at home. I haven't worked up the courage to hop on one just yet because I'm not entirely sure they're for adults to use, but it will happen in time. The idea of me riding a slow-moving panda to freedom is too much to pass up.

Last Wednesday was a big hike up Mt Rokko with one of my schools to a park up the top of the mountain. The main idea was to welcome the 1st year students with some speeches and skits, topped off with them staying in a lodge overnight. Some of the skits were really interesting and others were just absolutely bizarre (like, the Power Rangers beating up Buddha). Nevertheless, it seems like a nice place to head up and have a bit of a picnic. They even have paddle boats which are the most wholesome thing I can think of that still falls into the "awesome" category. A very straight-laced take on the day can be found here. Unfortunately the next day was absolutely washed out with rain so they had to cancel the hike down the other side of the mountain and head straight home. Fortunately I was already down the mountain and inside at this point.

This week marks the start of Golden Week. This basically means a 3 day working week and then a 2 day working week, which is a very good thing. Friday is the Culture Festival at one of my schools, to which I will bring Vegemite worms, fairy bread and Quik. They will like it because I command them to. Stay tuned for pictures of students and parents politely pretending they do.