wandering: October 2005

Happy Halloween

My friend Kris finally got here! I went to pick her up at the airport yesterday and she is going to be here for a month. I don't know what we will do when while she's here, but I will make her write on her impressions of Japan. Last night we celebrated Halloween by going to a costume party. Great fun. Kris went as a cowboy, and I ended up going as a... teacher? For some reason Kris brought a wig with her, so I wore it. People know what Halloween is here, but I don't know that it's commonly celebrated. So we got weird looks on the train.

I don't know why we got weird looks.

Sickness

I guess it's time to write about something negative. For some reason, I have been sick constantly for about the last three weeks. My body isn't taking being in another country very well. I have had several problems ranging from a UTI, to a sinus infection, to a pretty severe cough in the middle of some nights. I am actually sitting at home right now on my THIRD sick day from work in less than two months! I have gone to the doctor once, and while the medicine I got there seemed to help for a few days, my problems came back. I really don't understand what's going on. I usually only get sick once or twice a year. If for some reason I die within the next couple of weeks, it was nice knowing you all.

Hiroshima and My First Enkai

Mom and Dad made it over safely, and I just spent the weekend with them in Hiroshima. It took us longer than expected to get there, but we made it in time to go to the the Peace Memorial Museum before it closed. It's really hard to imagine what this city was like after the atomic bomb, but the museum has many ways of trying to convey that message. There are pictures of the city and it's residents, facts about nuclear weapons, personal accounts from relatives of those (mostly kids) who were killed, as well as personal belongings that survived the blast. I'm sure I wasn't the only one there who was shaking their head in disbelief and close to crying. It really makes you wonder what kind of intent the people had by developing these weapons. And the weapons of today are 10,000 times more powerful!! It's all pretty scary. One exhibit in the museum was two walls of letters written by the mayors of Hiroshima protesting every time there is a nuclear test. There were hundreds. Anyway, this was a very powerful museum that everyone should visit sometime in their life. The message for peace leaves a definite imprint.

Later, that night, some of Mom's friends who work for the TV station in Hiroshima took us out to dinner. Mom always made us Okonomiyaki ("Japanese Pizza") when we were growing up and it was always one of our favorite meals. Lucky for us, there was a whole Okonomiyaki village! Meaning there were at least two buildings with several floors full of little Okonomiyaki shops. I don't think the smile left Dad's face all night.

The TV crew also wanted to take us somewhere else to experience more Japanese food, so we ended up at a small sushi bar where I was finally able to try some good tuna. It literally melted in my mouth! While we were eating, one of the crew snuck out and brought back a cake to celebrate Mom's birthday. Because there were only two other customers in the restaurant, we all sang happy birthday and ate cake. It was great!

The next morning, we woke up and headed towards Miyajima- a beautiful island southwest of Hiroshima. We rode a street car through the city to a ferry that took us across to the island. The island is known for it's floating torii (gate) that is called one of the "three best views in Japan" (because everything is categorized like that here- for instance, my city has one of the top 100 places to view cherrry blossoms in the spring!).

When we got off of the ferry, we (and hundreds of other people) were suddenly surrounded by wild deer. Very hungry wild deer. They would try to rip anything out of your hands if they thought it might contain food. They even tore Mom's map away from her. She tried several times to get it back, but the deer must have really liked the paper. Just think what the squirrels in Zion (or any other national park) may be like in a few years.

We also took a tram ride up to the top of one of the peaks to see the view of the ocean, surrounding islands, and the wild monkeys everywhere.

It was a good trip, and I will likely return to the area in a couple of weeks when the leaves are changing.

Now about my first enkai (work party). It all started out at 6:00 when we were all supposed to meet at the office to board a bus to the restaurant. It just seemed really funny to me to be riding a bus with all of my Japanese co-workers to go eat dinner. Maybe you had to be there. Once we got to the restaurant, we all sat down and were served drinks for the toast (kampai!). I never imagined I would get to see all my co-workers drunk, but this is what happened! And I guess this is what happens at most enkais. We had about 7 courses in our meal- mostly fish, and mostly delicious. Val and I had to give small speeches because we were being welcomed, and others had to give speeches because they were leaving. If I could have understood the language just a little more, it would have helped- luckily, we had translators for some of it. After dinner, most of us went to do Karaoke. Not only was this my first enkai experience, but also my first karaoke experience. I never understood what would be so fun about it until now. It was a blast- but I can't really explain why. I just know I will do it again sometime. It was fun watching my usually reserved co-workers let loose and sing better than I ever would have imagined. And who knew my boss would be such a good dancer?

Kyoto

I finally travelled outside of my prefecture. I spent last weekend in Kyoto with some other English teachers from the area. It was a great trip. We spent time looking at different temples and shrines, and stayed in a hostel at night. The last time I was there, a taxi driver decided to become our tour guide, and although it was helpful, we were rushed to get to all the tourist spots. While we didn't see as much this time, it was nice to walk around the city and see things close up. Kyoto is really a beautiful city- it's large, but never feels like it when you are there. Newly constructed buildings sit right next to shrines that are hundreds of years old. It's just an amazing place to experience. I will definitely go back soon.

Kinkakuji Temple- it is actually covered in real gold.

Gates on Kyomizu temple grounds.

more pictures

I just added a link to my new flickr page ("My Photos", on the right side of the page), where I can upload more of my photos from Japan. So if you are bored, you can check those out.

One more picture...

This was in a museum in Inuyama. We just couldn't figure out what the fourth monkey was for.

Pictures!

Guess who finally got the internet in their apartment! Someone commented that I should write more about where I live so here goes: I live in Gifu prefecture, in a city called Kakamigahara. For Japan, it is a small city, but it is far from the rural town I was expecting from communications with the people here. There are good restaurants and supermarkets, nice parks, mountains, a military airstrip- and it's only about 15 minutes to Gifu City if we want something a little more exciting to do. I'm really happy with where I ended up. I haven't been doing much travelling, but this weekend I am probably going to Kyoto. From what I remember, it's a really nice city with a lot of history. Anyway, I am mainly writing because I wanted to see if I could finally put some pictures up. So here they are. This first one is a city street festival that Val and I came across when we were trying to find a waterfall. We got distracted with all the music, dancing and food, so we never found the waterfall.