Everyday's a Saturday

Tuesday 20^th September

It never ceases to amaze me how students can be so hesitant to answer questions and yet you turn something into a competition – and they are pushing their chairs back in preparation to be the first to jump up and score points for their team (in reference to what to turned out to be an incredibly competitive game of charades).

Sleeping students part 2: double act

Life lesson: it does not pay to be over tired when you’re sitting in the front row of a class with a teacher that has a sense of humour. Two third years just could not keep their eyes open and the rest of the class had great enjoyment from watching their heads bobbing up and down as the dozed in and out of consciousness. The flying plushy Doraemon made another appearance, though he was nearly taken captive when he got thrown under one of the girls’ faces and she hugged him to use as a pillow (the teacher had to wrestle a little to get him back). Some whispered scheming from one of the boys saw H-sensei borrowing a cut out of a face which the entire class waited with baited breath for him to plant on the girls7 desks when they finally dozed off again. The first girl made absolutely no reaction when she saw the cut out (though the silence while everyone waited to see what she would do was entertaining enough). The second girl however woke up, glanced around the classroom acting like she had been paying attention the whole time, before looking down and letting out a terrified shriek.

Thursday 22^nd September – Autumnal Equinox Day

After a half asleep jaunt to the supermarket, followed by worrying all night that I hadn’t packed enough food it was a sprightly 5.40am wake up.

Mission: to conquer the looming beast that is Mount Chokai. I swear every time I saw the sodding great mound it looked taller, now that I was aware that I had to climb it.

Our group consisted of Dave, Liam, Cari, Josh and myself. You couldn’t help but feel a little worried for your well-being when we stopped at the picnic area/lookout about 5 minutes in and were already puffing.

The way was often consistent of chunks of rock that had been mashed together to form some sort of (uneven) path – we pondered who the poor sod was that had to lug them there. The first stop was at the Crater Lake for snacks and some photos. The path was dotted with small shrines the whole way along – and when I say small, I mean about the size of a microwave. Many had small offerings in them; lollies, a can of coke etc. The rocks that had been a path became a climbing wall in some places where the track suddenly became vertical.

We reached the ridge after a couple of hours and inadvertently made it to one of what turned out to be 2 peaks (at which there was what looked to be a small graveyard). Given that none of us could read the kanji on the sign posts we decided it was probably best to ask an elderly gentlemen which path we needed to take to get “over there” *points at the other peak*. Ironically when people speak fast it takes twice as long to get information due to comprehension difficulties.

Our fears were confirmed and we began the decent, which in my case involved some ungraceful bum shuffling over the loose gravelly, rocky slope. We passed an ice shelf at the bottom of the valley before beginning the accent of the second peak.

View from our lunch spot

The final leg involved navigating ever tiring limbs through a bit of a cave (not a pleasant notion for those who aren’t fond of confined spaces but it opened up again almost instantly). From here to the top it was a matter of hopping from rock to rock, following the arrows and dots that had been painted to mark the way. We found a flat slab of rock to collapse on and eat lunch. One of the blocks of Whittakers that Nana and Grandad had sent over got passed around (I feel like we had more than earnt it). Around the corner came the cacophony of English that warned of approaching gaijin – and so we found the other group of ALTs that had been climbing the mountain that day. With Andrew, Misa, Richard and Jackson we headed to the summit for a group photo and to relish in our victory. 2,236m certainly felt like the top of the world.

On the way down to the summit village we bumped into the third group: Isabel, Steph and Daniel. There was a quick break at the village to make use of the only toilet for a few hours (the prospect of squat long drops isn’t as terrifying as it used to be). And check out the temple (which was so new that the wood was still a bright golden brown colour.

We had added on at least an extra 40 minutes to our trip by taking the ridge route on the way there so we followed the other path that Andrew’s group had taken on the way up. Andrew pointed out the area where he had been ready to give up before Richard threw a lollipop at him which shut him up for a good half hour. As we were crossing the valley the mist came rolling in and made visibility so terrible to the point where we were calling out to the other half of the group to make sure that they had found the path again alright. From experience mist is usually described as “creeping”, this was certainly not the case on Chokai, it rushed down the valley with concerning speed, turning a beautiful vista into an impenetrable fog in a matter of seconds.

The climb had taken a toll on everyone’s legs and the way down was speckled with slips, trips and skids and the rain rolled in and made it even more fun to try and stay vertical. I was throwing my foot out in the general direction of where I wanted to step and letting gravity do the rest.

The rain, mist and wind accompanied us for the remainder of the trudge homewards. There were a couple of instances when we rounded a corner only to discover that the carpark looked o closer that it had 15 minutes ago, there occasions were met with a unanimous vote to call a breather and crack out the mitsuya cider lollies.

A small leap of joy when we hit an actual concrete path again and with that I trotted the rest of the way like a small school child with my bag bouncing off my back and burst back into the car park.

We survived Chokai – or as our old mate Sir Ed put it – we knocked the bugger off.

Otsukaresama.

                                         

Friday

Aches for days.

Saturday 24^th September

Perks of Japan’s nutcase schooling : they seem to enjoy putting school events on weekends which means you get the following Monday off.

This week it was the Yurihonjo/NIkaho sports tournament. So to sound like a bit of a truant – all you have to do is make sure someone from your school sees you at whatever sport you decide to watch and you’re sweet!

I opted to go and watch the Volleyball which involved driving through enough rice paddies to wonder if Liam hadn’t cocked up the directions he had given me. It’s very easy to forget how young some of the students are when you watch them play – and then you remember that they practice for 2 hours every day after school. Was quite chuffed when we beat Liam’s team – and decided to stay on to watch Konoura’s next game that afternoon.

That night we headed back into Honjo for drinks at a local bar with some of Liam’s Japanese mates. We were treated to some veeeery tipsy locals wailing the Japanese version of “Let it Go” from Frozen (“The cold never bothered me anyway” was translated as “The cold isn’t that cold really”…). Everyone had a decent enough grasp on either English or Japanese to mishmash a conversation out.

We were also introduced to the drink “Kamikaze” and of course with a name like that and plans tomorrow that we couldn’t afford to be hungover for – we threw caution to the wind, and being mature worldly ALT’s of course there were no poor taste puns…

Sunday 25^th September

Fueled up with coffee Liam and I headed up to Sanbeen park for Chey’s birthday barbecue. The park was up a hill and had a stunning view of mountains in the distance looming over rice paddies.

We continued north onto Akita city where we invaded Cari’s flat to chill out with a cup of tea and watch an episode of human planet. I realised with everything being so flat tack at the moment it had been close to 2 months since I had just sat down and watched a movie of something with mates. It makes you feel a bit more at home when you can do stuff like that without feeling like you constantly have to be making the most of your time.

We graced a local Nepalese restaurant for dinner before scuttling into Hard Off (yes that’s its name, yes we all laughed when we heard it too) to scavenge some second hand goods (I now have a winter jumper to mope around in in the steadily cooling autumn mornings).

Monday 26^th September

Thank god for short weeks.

An incredibly lazy start that involved finally figuring out when the bloody post office is open (virtually never), before heading back into the Honje (Honjo) to meet Liam, Katie and Dave and go for a drive to the Kameda Waterfall. Today was a little humid again to standing near the running water in the mist was amazing.

We continued on to an abandoned waterpark in Iwaki. Iwaki was supposed to be a seaside hotspot, complete with Hotel, waterpark and ice skating rink – all of which have now shut down. Though with the Japanese being very honest – they haven’t needed to take any precautions about locking the gates. I was under the impression that we would have to look at it through the wire if we didn’t want to jump fences but you could stroll straight in. 

There was still water in the pools, bridges had collapsed into the water and in the bathrooms there were still toilet slippers laying around. 

(culture note: Similar to how you have to take your shoes off when you go inside, Japanese often have “toilet slippers” that you put on when you go into the bathroom so that you don’t contaminate your indoor slippers/shoes).

Climbing the stairs of one of the water slides gave you a wonderful view of the township, the park looked quite eerie as the sun started setting. Dave had a god at sliding down one of the slides only to realise when he got to the bottom that he would have to climb back up or jump into the stagnant water at the bottom (and it the shade of green wasn’t overly appealing).

Pizza for dinner in front of an episode of South park and it was back to Konoura with the notion that tomorrow was a school day looming overhead.