Like an ant on hot concrete

I have been so busy recently. Blogging isn't the only thing I haven't had time to do. I've also not written in my private diary for weeks, and the washing is really starting to pile up.

The other week (July 12th to be precise) I took the day off work so I could go all the way into Akita City to apply for a tourist visa starting from when my work visa finishes. I only had to be at the Immigration bureau for 15 minutes or so but because Akita City is so far away and the trains so inconveninetly timetabled it was a full day trip.

I had lunch near the station. I couldn't be bothered going into a restaurant. Most other ALTs, when in need of food or drink in that area, go to Starbucks. I usually end up tagging along, but considering the fact that I drink tea not coffee Starbucks really isn't the place for me. Why should I have to pay the same price for a Lipton teabag in a paper cup and a small plastic bubble of cream that never goes off as other people pay for fresh drip coffee, or whatever you call it? There is another coffee shop a few metres down the road from Starbucks in Akita City called Nagahama Coffee that I had never been to because other people had told me it was icky and no one goes there. Well, I should have known better than to listen to them. My cup of tea was in an actual cup, and the milk was real milk in a little jug. The sandwich wasn't half bad either.

In my copious free time before the next train home I went to Tower Records. I bought Songs From the Labyrinth sung by Sting, played on the lute by Edin Karamazov and composed hundreds of years ago by John Dowland. Just for something different. I also for some reason bought Sting's Ten Summoner's Tales. I kind of missed it, because it's one of my Dad's favourite albums and he's always listening to it.

The next day the BOE held a farewell party for the two other Nikaho City ALTs and I. It was held in a room in the Community Centre. The food on offer was plastic trays of Japanese style nibbly foods such as edamame, pickles and whole grilled fish with the head still attached. Everything had a 'has been left out in the heat for at least half a day' taste to it. Even though us ALTs were the guests of honour and in any other Japanese party would be the centre of attention, the BOE people ran away from us and left us on our own. They actually moved their chairs away and had a conversation going on the other side of the room. Eventually our respective school principals and other teachers who had been invited felt sorry for us and came over to talk to us. Obvioulsy the BOE people feel very fondly towards us and are sorry to see us go *snort*. Well, they gave me a kabazaiku (cherry bark craft) mini set of drawers which must have been a bit expensive so I suppose I can't complain too much.

Last Sunday the first typhoon of the season arrived. Despite that Sumiko and I went to Sakata to visit the Domon Ken Museum of Photography. Domon Ken was born in Sakata and became one of Japan's most famous photographers. His works include pictures of happy children in post war Tokyo, much poorer children in a mining town in the 1950's, the burn victims in a Hiroshima hospital and the temples of Nara and Kyoto. Not only the photos contained within but the building itself is a work of art.

I have a nagging feeling that I did something on Monday evening, but I can't for the life of me remember what it was.

On Wednesday I went to the Elementary school for the last time. In the morning there was a goodbye ceremony for me. I had to do a speech in Japanese. I got a bunch of flowers. I spent the rest of the day doing last classes with all of the grades. When I got home I had to throw out the flowers I had received from the people at Kamagadai the week before so I would have room in my juice jug to put the elementary school flowers. That evening I had my last Eikaiwa class. We didn't do much, just exchanged addresses and such. After class a bunch of us went to Gusto to hang out and talk for a while before going home.

Friday was my last day at Konoura Jr. High and my last day of work. Again I had to give a speech in front of the whole school in Japanese. I choked up near the end and thought that I wouldn't be able to finish. I was told afterwards that I had made a good impression with my speech. I thought about it and realised that the place I had choked up at was exactly the right place to make a good impression with Japanese, considering both the words that had come before the loss of my voice and the length of speech I had left to say after I got my voice back. I wasn't even trying!

That evening we had an end of term / goodbye me party. The food served was a little different to the usual work party fare, in that there was a lot more foods I was able to eat than usual. I was actually able to eat until I was full. The teachers gave me a necklace that is made out of thin silver wire, a handcraft of Akita. It is shiny-shiny and very pretty. They also gave me flowers. I had already borrowed a vase from school for the flowers I had got from the students, so I was thinking What am I going to do with these? but when I got home i found that I could just squish two bouquets into my juice jug. Lucky, lucky.

Sakura-tinted glasses

Okay, I've just got home, it's midnight, I have things to do before I go to bed and I have to go to the immigration bureau tomorrow, but there is something I have just got to tell you. It was embarrassing at the time, but now I find it awfully funny. It's one of those 'only in Japan' things.

Some background: Recently I have downloaded the first few episodes of the 2006 season of Dr Who*. Since I think the tenth Doctor is a bit of alright, I have a picture of him coming out of the tardis on my desktop.

This evening I had a farewell party with my eikaiwa students. Mid-way through my party I took out my computer to show everyone the pictures I took at Nakajimadai on the weekend. My computer's a bit slow at the moment (it's been a while since I last defragged it) so the people sitting next to me got a good look at David Tennant as my computer booted up. "Handsome man!" they said. Okay, that's not so weird, but then they said "Is he your boyfriend?" "No," I protested. But then some other people started gravitating towards me to see why I had brought my computer out. "Ooh, is that your boyfriend?"
"No, no, it's the Doctor."
"Is that your boyfriend?"
"No, no," I wish "No!"

It's not as if it was a snapshot picture or anything. It was a proper desktop image adapted from a screencap and available on the official Doctor Who webpage. Where else in the world would people look at such a picture and assume it depicted someones boyfriend?

Although I admit I'm awfully flattered that they think I'm a good enough catch to possibly have a boyfriend who looks like that.


*I am totally unapologetic about the fact that I download TV shows from the internet. If I were in an English speaking country right now, I'd get to watch those programmes on TV for free, so what's the bloody difference? Movies, however, are different. I rent them from the video store, because I can and because I would have to in New Zealand too.

Nakajimadai

Japanese cedar trees

This is the candlestick tree. It is also called the nymph seat.

There were many fallen trees in Nakajimadai. It is usually typhoons that knocks them down.

This is a beech tree. It is one of the 100 Great Trees of Japan.

This is a charcoal-making kiln from over a hundred years ago.

Just below the bottom of the photo water was bubbling up out of the ground into this pool. Can you see the whirlpool in the middle of the photo? It was making quite a loud sucking noise.

This water was delicious.

In the distance is the Nikaho Plateau, which is fairly high itself. Nakajimadai is high up (and totally inaccessible in winter).

This is called the Greeting Tree.

Left: famous water. Right: famous moss.

Can you see the hole? It looked deeper and more scary in real life. That's where the water is coming up out of. You can hardly see the water it's so clean. It was delicious.

This is the famous moss, Chokai marimo. This pond is the only place in Japan where this moss can be found. There are two other places in the wold where is can be found. I forget where. Canada and Finland? Something like that. There are no rocks under that moss, it's all just moss.

This dragonfly was even more reluctant to move than the dragonfly I met last year. It totally ignored me and my camera.

Another week down

Last Saturday (the 30th) I went to Atsuko's house for dinner. Chinatsu came and made gyoza again. They told me that since they know I like gyoza and that they are hard to find in NZ (whereas wontons are much easier to find in NZ than in Japan) they are making sure to feed me lots of gyoza before I leave. I got to help fold them again. The first few I made were very good and curved properly, but after that my gyoza got progressively worse. I don't know why. Chinatsu made a couple of other Chinese dishes. The Japanese people present were saying 'Um, this tastes weird . . .' but I was so happy. It tasted like proper Chinese food! I guess the Chinese food available in NZ is a lot closer in taste to proper Chinese food than the stuff available in Japan. I knew that NZ and Japanese Chinese food tasted different, but I had been wondering which was closer to the original. Now I know.

On Sunday the 1st I took the train into Akita City to go see the Charity Gaijin Sumo event. Many male teachers of English (and one Japanese man) dressed up in mawashi (those little nappy things) and had a sumo tournament to raise money to fund a school in Nepal and to buy textbooks for students in India. The competitors all did very well considering that they aren't actually sumo wrestlers. Being men, they went all-out and ended up injuring each other. There were a few prides hurt, a few very exciting matches, and the man who won was the one who most deserved to win (because he was not thought very highly of by the other competitors the first year he entered as he is not a sporty person, but he really loves sumo so he tried hard). It was a nice day.

On Monday evening I went to my goodbye party with the Yosakoi team. We had dinner in a meeting hall in Kisakata. I ate a raw oyster because they are a specialty of Kisakata and I thought I ought to eat raw oyster at least once before I leave. It was really gross. We pushed a table back and danced yosakoi dances on the tatami matting. They made me do an improptu speech in Japanese, which came out in colloquial Japanese because I can't do polite speech-type Japanese without preparing for it first. They gave me this year's uniform as a present and also a huge photo of our team that was taken in Sendai last year. Then everyone wanted to take pictures of me with their cellphones and we said goodbye. Some of us went to karaoke after the party. We didn't finish until after midnight, so even though I did not drink any alcohol, I felt rather awful the next day at work.

On Friday morning I bought my plane ticket back to Wellington. I will leave Narita on the 11th of August and get into Wellington on the 12th. That's so soon!

That afternoon Atsuko drove me and three boxes of my stuff to the post office so I could send them back to NZ. There is no way I could have carried them all the way to the post office by myself. After that we went up to the Nikaho Plateau to buy fresh ice cream at the dairy farm that is up there. It was really delicious. Then we went for a drive and I got home in time to get on Skype and talk to my family.

Yesterday I was finally able to go with my Eikaiwa (English class) students to Nakajimadai. It is a hiking track through the forest on the slopes of Mt. Chokai. We spent several hours walking along board walkways, climbing over rocks, crossing rope bridges, looking at old twisted trees and drinking water out of pools that were filled with fresh water that had just come out of the ground. I discovered that I am not as much of a city girl as I thought. I was surprised when I was offered a cup to drink water out of a pool. I had already drunk some water - using my hand. Apparently that's weird, and only Ei-san had done likewise. Everyone else used a cup. Also, on the way back to the carpark Ei-san spotted a mulberry tree. I said "Ooh, mulberies!" and started eating them right off the tree. One of the people I was hiking with and a couple of random people who came to see what we were eating actually didn't know which berries to pick. "Do I eat the red ones or the black ones?" It was when I found myself surprised that anyone would have to ask that question that I realised that I must have picked up a thing or two from my father after all.

After we had finished hiking the ladies took me to a souvenir shop in Kisakata so I could pick out a gift for them to buy me. They told me I could choose anything up to 10,000 yen in value. I chose a kabazaiku letter box. Kabazaiku is a specialty craft of Akita Prefecture, mainly done in the area of Kakunodate, which is made of cherry bark. The Kabazaiku, not the town. The box was only 6,000 yen so they also bought me a kabazaiku tea leaf canister that has a fuki design on it. Fuki is called butterbur in English, and is the prefectural plant. It is more stuff to send back, but I like Kabazaiku, so I am happy.

Me in a Kimono

Because my Mum was asking after them, here are a few pictures from the day I was dressed up in a kimono. My scanner is cheap, and therefore the pictures are not of very good quality. These are just snapshots, not the professionally taken photos. I haven't scanned the good photos yet.