Living in Japan: May 2006

Rice Planting

I got an email from Erica today saying that one the teachers at her school, Funatsu sensei, invited her to come experience rice planting again the old fashioned way, by hand. Erica and I went last year together, and had a great time!

Although we only spent maybe 3 hours doing the actual rice planting, it really takes its toll on your back. I can't imagine having to do this all day every day for I dont know how long. It's backbreaking work.

But the company was great so had a good time!

In return for our help in the field, we were all treated to a feast at Funatsu sensei's place. And what a feast it was..!

I would have loved to go again this year!

Kosotai

Coming up this weekend is the Kosotai (inter-high school sports competition). It is the biggest competitive/athletic event of the school year. For the 3rd year high school students, it will be the last game that they participate in before retiring. From June till the end of the school year in February, they will no longer be part of any sport activities, but will spend all their time studying for the university entrance exams.

All the high schools in the Nagasaki prefecture will take part in this competition. The location for the different sporting events is spread all across the prefecture. All the teachers and students are expected to attend one of the events to cheer for the students.

The opening ceremony for the event will be held on Friday, and the games will run through until the following week. There’s a lot of preparation required for attending these games. The level of play is unbelievably high. This year, the boy’s volleyball games will be held at Seiryo high school!

Classes were cancelled this afternoon because there was a pep rally that was held for the students who will be participating in the Kosotai. Each sports team marched into the auditorium with the captain holding high the Seiryo flag, while the rest of the teachers and the rest of the student body clapped. Each team took turns going on stage, introducing themselves and saying something about what they expect to achieve at the Kosotai (basically, they all said 'we will gambarimasu!')

Here's the volleyball team who I'll be cheering for tomorrow.

Seiryo is known for its strong kendo club. Every year, Seiryo's kendo team comes in first in the Nagasaki prefecture. I'll be going to see them play on Monday during the finals.

on TV??

Today, at 2pm on the NNC tv station they ran a clip of the Saruku Haku 2006 walk. But I wasn’t home to watch it!

Clair Correspondence Course

I just submitted my last Japanese test. I have now completed the Intermediate Level Clair correspondence course.

Woohoo!

I now have a working fridge!!

Said goodbye to Alicia before leaving for school this morning. Iwata san will be taking her downtown to visit Glover Garden then drop her off at the bus station.

The schedule at school switched Monday and Tuesday’s schedule making today a crazy day.

But good news! After almost 2 weeks without a fridge, the secretary came to tell me today that the fridge people will be coming to my place this evening. However, they insisted that there be a Japanese-speaking person at my place when they arrive, so Kitano sensei (my supervisor) followed me home after school. My fridge arrived around 6:40pm, shortly after we got to my place. You should see this new fridge! It’s beautiful!!!

I went to volleyball practice a little late (because of the fridge’s arrival). There’s a new member and she speaks English! Her name is Narumi and her husband’s a Frenchman who teaches French at the university in Nagasaki.

It was so nice to come home from practice and have COLD WATER..

I love my new fridge.

When Iwata san was over last Thursday for our Japanese classes, I told her about Alicia coming over. She was at first a little surprised that I would have a complete stranger stay at my place, but then became eager to meet her. Since she had free time during the day, she took Alicia around town. It worked out well because I was work till around 6pm. When I got back, we went to Joyfull (with 2 'L's) for dinner.

From there, I went to my (mini) volleyball practice later in the evening. No one speaks any English. It’s a good chance to improve my Japanese, but at the same time can be a little frustrating!

When I got back, Alicia and I ended up staying up till late, or rather early in the morning chatting away.

Hospitality Club

A couple of weeks ago, I came across a website called ‘Hospitality Club’ (http://www.hospitalityclub.org/). It’s a community of people from around the world who are open to international exchange, meeting people from around the world by hosting them when they visit your country, and being hosted when visiting other countries. I thought it was a neat idea, so I registered.

A few days later, I got an email from an Australian girl, Alicia, who was on an 8-months around-the-world trip, and who was planning to come to Nagasaki later on that week. Today, we met up at the Isahaya train station. She was a really friendly and outgoing girl! Turned out we had a lot in common, both having a love for traveling and meeting new people. From the train station, we went down to Nagasaki where we took in some of the tourist sites and had dinner at what has become one of my favorite kaitenzushi places in Hamanomachi.

Here we are at Suwa Shrine.

Sleepy

I had a hard time keeping my eyes open today at school..there were no classes because there was a term test.

The secretary came to tell me that the board of education will buy a new fridge to replace my broken one. However, the earliest they can get it done is next Monday or Tuesday. That means another week without a fridge.. If it had broken down during winter, it wouldn’t have been a big deal because during the cold months the apartment is the same temperature, if not colder, than the inside of the fridge. However, now that the weather is starting to warm up, it is a bit of a pain not having one.

On my way home from school, I stopped by a second-hand store not too far from my place. I thought I’d look into renting a used mini fridge.

When pulling out of the store back onto the road, I drove down the wrong way in the street. The scary part is that I didn’t realize it until I saw cars coming towards me. There’s a concrete thing in the middle of the road, so I couldn’t just do a U-turn...I pulled into one of the places on the side and turned around.

In the year and a half that I’ve been driving in Japan, I have never driven on the wrong side of the road. I really need sleep.

I think I’ve pulled a muscle in my leg from the walk last weekend. It’s getting better, but still hurting. I took a short nap at home, and then I went to volleyball practice this evening, only to watch. I really wanted to play!

English teachers' enkai

Still in so much pain from the weekend!..

It was a busy day at school which helped keep my mind off the pain in my legs. Tomorrow, students have their first term test. After school, we were testing the sound in the classrooms for the listening section of the test. We had a little problem with the tape, which caused a little bit of panic for a while. We got it redone though, so it's all ready for tomorrow.

There was an enkai this evening for all the English teachers, and we managed to finish fixing up the listening problem just on time to leave for the party. Although I had a good time, I ended up getting home really late. I'm really started to feel the effects of lack of sleep combined with aches and pains. I need to catch up on ZZZzzzzss...

30 km walk.. dekita!!

Saruku Walk '06 is a project organized by the city of Nagasaki to promote tourism in the city. They put on many different types of events, such as guided tours around the city, sporting events etc.

This weekend, they had organized 3 different walking courses: 7km, 20km, and 30 km long. Chewy from Oita, Huihui from Obama, Erica from Kumamoto and I decided to do the 30km walk!

Everyone arrived in Nagasaki on friday evening, and we met up at the opening ceremony location bright and early at 8:30am on Saturday. Before the walk started, we were given bags with lots of freebies (Tshirts, towels, maps, snacks, etc.). We were all given a huge namesheet to safety pin on, on which we wrote our names, where we come from and which course we were going to be attempting.

There were people who had come from as far as away as Osaka just to do this walk!

The weather forecast predicted heavy rains the whole day, but we were determined to do the walk! So we dressed accordingly and readied ourselves for the walk. The trails takes you all around the city, by many of the big tourist attractions, famous monuments, through residential areas, parks, up and down mountains etc. There were checkpoints along the way where you had to get your map stamped. There were huge arrows that were strategically placed around the city to help keep people on the right path.

The 30 km walk was scheduled to begin at 10am, and by 9 am, it had stopped raining.

The TV crew was there to record the event. After having gone through the registration, we were wandering around, mentally preparing ourselves for the upcoming walk, when one of the TV crew members asked us to hold up our pin on sheet so he could take a picture. When he saw that we'd written where we live in Japan, he asked us first to write our home countries before we take the picture. Later on, the TV crew came up to us again and asked if we could smile and wave for the camera. They asked us to keep it up for about 25 seconds, (but it felt much longer..!). It will air on May 27th. We might be on TV!!

Here we are with the Saruku mascots, holding up our pin ons.

The first part of the walk takes you towards Inasayama, which is very hilly. We crossed the new bridge in Nagasaki.

Walked by Urakami Church
The famous Peace Statue found in the peace park
Stopped at the Site of the 26 martyrs (where Chewy was accosted by the TV crew)

15km into the race, still going strong!

Crossed over Megane Bridge

I dont think i'd ever looked at a sign saying 5km to go and thought 'Yes! ONLY 5 km left!'

MADE IT!!

Cooling down after the walk

It took us about 6 hours to complete the course. The majority of the people participating in the 30 km walk were elderly, I couldn't believe what good shape they were in! We could not keep up with them!! There were 1400 who completed the 7km course, 330 for the 20 km, and only 202 who completed the 30 km course.

We were so done-in after the walk, we took a taxi to Hamanomachi (maybe a 4 min ride) where we had dinner at a kaitenzushi restaurant. Later on, took a taxi to the train station to head back home.

The legs that walked a combined distance of 120 km!!! A big Otskaresama deshita!

The next morning, we woke up feeling the effects of having walking for too long the day before. We spent a long time at 'Joyfull' having breakfast/lunch, then drove up to Ishaya to visit Megane Bridge (different from the one in Nagasaki city).

Everyone headed back to their city/prefecture in the late afternoon. It was a great weekend, spent in great company! :)

My leg is aching so much, I used some of the cooling pads that I was given when I was discharged from the hospital. I hope I will be ok for school tomorrow...!!

My fridge is kapoot

My fridge had been making funny noises for the last couple of months, but I didn't really give it much thought...until a couple of days ago when I noticed the drink I pulled out was not as cold as it usually is. At first I thought I might have accidentally changed the setting from 'very cold' to 'warm'..so I wrote down the kanjis found on the controls and asked a teacher about it at school today. Anyways, turns out my fridge has reached the end of its life. Kitano sensei asked the secretary's office what's involved in getting in replaced. On Monday I should get an answer...in the meantime, I guess I'll have to do without a fridge.

This evening, Miyamoto sensei and I went out for dinner again at the same restaurant as last time. The owner's such a friendly man! A couple of other teachers came by later on the evenings, it was a nice night!

While waiting in line to use the ATM (which, incidentally, is only available during working hours), I felt someone picking at my back. I had a couple of strands of hair on my top, so this older lady standing behind me started picking them off my shirt. I was a little surprised at first, but she turned out to be this really cute little old lady. As she went on picking off a couple of strands of hair, then making sure there were no wrinkles in my shirt, she was chatting away. She didn't speak a word of English, and I couldn't make out everything she was saying in Japanese...but she had such a nice smile :)

I spent a large portion of today correcting students' journals. It's always interesting reading through them..I find out today that one of my students has a dog named 'Poo'. When I'd first arrived, someone had asked me if I liked 'Poo san'. It took me a while to realize that it's 'Winnie the Pooh'. Maybe the dog is named after him?

Beautiful Okinawa! (May 2-6)

I spent Golden Week in the most southern prefecture of Japan, Okinawa. There were four of us travelling together: Julie from Saga, Renee from Ibaraki and Erica from Kumamoto. I didn't realize just how different Okinawa was from the rest of Japan! The fact that the culture and way of life are so different makes it a very popular holiday destination for mainlander Japanese!

When I got to Fukuoka, I got off at the international airport, instead of domestic...I didnt realize I made the mistake till I tried to find my airline. This is the second time that i've headed to the international airport by mistake, I did the same when Roxy came to visit...!

We had rented a car for our stay in Okinawa. We drove up to the north of the island, but spent most of our time in Naha. There were so many beautiful sites to see, and the weather was gorgeous!

Here are some of the places we visited:

Shurijo Castle and Park, a World Heritage site.

On the second day, we drove up to the northern area where we spent the night. We stopped by Manzamo (meaning: '10 000 people sit'), where a beautiful coral reef could be seen below the cliff.

As we were wandered down the path, we met some friendly people, took pictures together before parting ways.

Ryuku Park, a replica of an old Okinawan village with 100 year-old houses brought over from other parts of the island was also up north.

The statue of what looks like a cross between a lion and a dragon is called kirin. It can be found all over the place in Okinawa, at the entrances of people's homes especially. People believe that it will protect them from evil.

This was the restaurant where we waited over an hour for the food to come, and when it did, the proportions were crazy...but hey, we still had a good time :)

Cornerstone of Peace, found in the Peace Memorial Park, was where the last battle of the war in Okinawa was fought.

Okinawa World cave Park is a cave of long limestone which is about 5km long, 2km of which is open to visitors.Near the outside of the caves, there were many little shops where you could try different instruments, clothes, food etc.

We spent most of the third day on Aguni island, about a 2 hour ferry ride from Tomari Port. The pace of life on the small island of about 1000 people is slow and relaxed. There are no buses or taxis on the island, however people are really friendly, a couple of times offering us rides to where we we wanted to go!