Bad Habits Brewing

Monday 8th August

Another lazy start (though the alarm wasn’t snoozed for nearly 2 hours this time. Had a rummage around at the top of my wardrobe to see what goodies the previous kiwis had left. In true form there was a cricket set and a tent, some Christmas supplies, art stuff (may have to try to coax my crafty side out) and a stash of New Zealand coins, including the old style.

Other than that it was another binge session of Game of Thrones until late morning when I ventured out in search of the beach. One of the predecessors had left instructions on how to get to both a small, secluded beach, as well as the main one. And to her credit even I managed to follow them. There is a stream leading down to the beach and on the footpath next to it was what I can only assume was the dried up carcass of a small snake. I would have said skin but it looked like there were bones in there too :S 

The sea breeze was very welcome and after the grey metropolis of Tokyo and failing to reach the sea the other day, I was one very content Gaijin.

My hot swollen feet were quite happy to go for a paddle in the water (even if it was a tad warm). Must have spent about an hour or so, attempting to get photos of birds, finally getting a snap of one of those bloody butterflies and just sitting on a rock with my feet in the water. Ate my lunch there and then carried on to the next beach. 

This one definitely looked more set up for beach goers, it had one of those swimming nets (in Australia they use them to keep out sharks so I don’t know if here it’s to keep the wild life out or the children in …). Was starting to feel the heat getting to me again so meandered back home – took a few different roads and stopped at another graveyard on the way, though I didn’t stray too far off course, as even in a town this small, my sense of direction is shocking.

Retreated to the flat and air conditioning again and the only other thing I really did this evening was wait until about an hour before sun down and ventured out for my first run. Not so much fun in the heat and my face was an impressive shade of crimson when I got back but at least I achieved something today…

No doubt the locals will soon be talking about the cherry tomato that takes her shelf out for a lollop every so often…

Tuesday 9th August

I seem to be getting the hang of this “snooze alarm until 8.40” thing. Another late start as I didn’t have to go anywhere until 1. Fortunately I got myself dressed and breakfasted because U-san called at 11 to say that she’d finally got hold of the landlord. We pottered off to meet him and then back to the BOE to fill out the paper work – my trusty hanko made another appearance. 

Back to the flat then S-san came to pick me up to go to the city office where we would get a bus with a bunch of other teachers from the area for a mini field trip/ training afternoon. Alyssa (the JET from America who arrived the week before me and is based in Nikaho town) came along as well. First stop was at a small history museum where all the other teachers learnt about things and we attempted to pick out the odd word that we understood… which meant a lot of standing around listening to a lot of Japanese in a building with not a lot of air conditioning. One of the exhibits was of the work of Matsuo Basho, a famous Japanese poet who had a flair for Haiku and spent over 100 days walking around Japan, writing Haiku in the various places that he stopped. One of those places was Kisakata, which is wear the outing had taken us to.

Our next stop was Kanman Temple, the major temple in the area. We walked around the grounds – are rather nice exercise as it had since clouded over and was a much more comfortable temperature and the breeze didn’t feel like it was coming from an oven.

One of the "Islands" in Kisakata

In the Kisakata area there are a group of “islands” that were formed during an eruption of Mt Chokai, the sea eventually ebbed away (potentially due to an earthquake…) leaving these islands which are now surrounded by rice paddies. I think the area they take up is roughly 2km squared… We walked up onto one of the larger “islands” on which there was more graves (they seem to be all over the bloody place here, although I have to admit it didn’t seem to be a bad place to finish up). From on top of the Island (which had pine trees growing on it) you could see the breeze rippling through the rice paddies. 

Back on the bus to Nikaho, S-san picked us up and dropped Alyssa back at home while I returned with her to the BOE to fill out yet more paper work. Then home in time to meet the guy who was installing my new, functional, substantially less temperamental stove (thank god!). S-san stayed at the flat with me while it was being installed and she saw the Kiwi toy and tea towel map of NZ that I had bought for my classes. The tea towel had pictures of NZ birds around the outside so that was our topic of conversation for the next 20 minutes or so.

Udon again for dinner  on my brand new stove, and now have to mentally prepare myself for going into school tomorrow – though god knows what I’ll be doing because apparently not many of the teachers are there yet as it’s still summer holidays.

 Wednesday 10^th August

Found these little guys chilling in the graveyard

Today was a nice cool 26 degrees (what has happened to me…) U-san picked me up and we drove to the Junior High school (mildly entertaining as it would have been just as quick to walk). I met a couple more of the teachers and spent the morning sorting out the various piles of….stuff that had been left in the drawers of my desk from I-don’t-even-know-how-many previous ALTs. On the plus side there was an abundance of NZ pencils, a few stickers and other bits and pieces for the kids, as well as tinsel, a pumpkin decoration, and Christmas tree decorations – all things that you expect to find in a teachers desk in the middle of August…

One of the English Teachers H-Sensei got me to look over a speech that one of the students had written for the upcoming English speech competition. This kid is in their third year of Junior High and I think their written English is better than my Japanese after I’ve been at uni for 4 years….

I had a flick through a couple of the text books to try and get an idea of what sort of stuff had been covered already (the students are coming into their second semester), then headed home at lunch time along with a couple of other teachers as I needed to buy lunch and beef up my 5-10minute introduction presentation into a 50 minute class – which I’m still having fun with…

After managing to whack out another slow and painful jog around the park I cooked up Oyakodon for dinner (dish with chicken and an eggy sauce on rice, Oya meaning parent , ko– child and don being a dish on rice, so chicken and egg= parent and child, voila).

Small panic when I realised that I actually had no idea how to use my rice cooker, jabbed a button that looked like “on” and hopped in the shower hoping for the best. When I got out it was heating up so it looks like luck is on my side for the time being.