Asia is infamous for them…..the dreaded squat toilets. I’m not going to lie…..when I first came here, I was scared/intimidated by them (and it wasn’t until several months AFTER I’d been here that I learned I was using them the wrong way). So what does a squat toilet look like? It’s basically a porcelain hole in the ground that you squat over to do your business (picture below). For a while there, I didn’t particularly want to use a squat toilet, but if I had no other option, squat toilet it was. I know several people who absolutely, positively will NOT use a squat toilet, and for the life of me I don’t understand this. A toilet is a toilet is a toilet. I don’t care if it’s made of gold, western style, squat, has frills, or a hole dug in the ground….it all works the same. I feel like if you have to go bad enough, anything will do! Generally in multi-stalled Japanese bathrooms there is (at least) one squat toilet and one western style toilet. (Sometimes bathrooms will ONLY have squat, sometimes ONLY western.) I have literally waited in line with other foreigners in the bathroom, and they let me jump ahead in the line because no one except for me was willing to use the squat toilets. They were waiting for the ONE western style toilet. It’s weird……..I’ve actually started preferring the squat toilets at school. I’m not sure why (and it certainly didn’t used to be that way) but I’ll use the squat toilets instead of the western style toilets. It’s really just not that big of a deal for me……
Our Australian vacation is rapidly approaching! 
This time next week we’ll be enjoying the summertime temperatures and beach time in Cairns. We’ve talked about doing several different expeditions and explorations of the area, but here’s the final schedule: We leave Yunomae on the night of the 24th. Since we’re going to Mass in Hitoyoshi, we’re going to spend the night with Melissa. On Christmas morning we’re waking up and driving to Ozu to pick up Mary. Then we’re off to the airport in Fukuoka to catch our 2PM plane. A short hour and twenty minutes later we arrive in Shanghai and wait for our night flight to Cairns. (Yes, our entire Christmas Day will be spent bouncing from airport to airport, but it’s worth it. Plus, Ian and I plan on wearing Santa hats all day. How can you NOT be in the Christmas spirit when wearing Santa hats? 
) We’ll arrive in Cairns at 8AM on the 26th. I booked a shuttle bus to take us to our hostel, where we’ll check in for our eleven night stay. The next order of business will be to acquire our bikes that we rented. (We won’t have a car….just bikes while in Cairns.)
There are two major activities that we have planned for Cairns. The first is one that I’m SUPER excited about. We debated a LOT about whether to go snorkeling, SCUBA diving, or touring the Great Barrier Reef while in Cairns, but Ian found a tour that does all three in one. YEEESSSSSSSSSSSS!!!! It’s an all day tour that begins at 7:30 and doesn’t end until 4:30. Breakfast and lunch are served on the boat, there’s snorkeling in the morning, a glass bottom boat tour after lunch, and then SCUBA diving in the afternoon. What’s great about the snorkeling and SCUBA diving adventure is that it’s guided by a marine biologist, so he/she can say things like “Hey, look at that such-and-such anemone over there!” or “This is a blah-blah-blah fish, and it’s special because blah-blah-blah.” This entire tour only costs $170. That is a STEAL! $170 does initially sound expensive, but you have to think big picture here. The one time we went snorkeling in Florida, it was about $100/person….that was JUST for a few hours of snorkeling without a guide, meals, or anything. When you look at it from that perspective, we are getting a STEAL!
The second thing we’re going to do is take a 4-wheeler tour of the rain forest outside of Cairns. Originally this idea was going to be a motorcycle tour, but Ian found out that it was going to be MUCH cheaper to ride 4-wheelers. I’m not super excited by this idea because riding 4-wheelers through the woods is something I can do at home. If the tour includes crystal clear streams, jungle-y looking trees, and cool stuff like that, I’m okay. If it includes the same scenery that I can find at home…..
The rest of our time is going to be exploring Cairns on our bikes, going to the beach and lagoon, touristy shopping, and whatever else we feel like doing. I’ve heard that Cairns has a good botanical garden (I sound like my dad saying that) and is pretty well set up for tourists. SO. FREAKING. EXCITED!!!! We fly out on January 6th….which is going to be a long, loooooong day. We’ll go from Cairns to Shanghai, Shanghai to Fukuoka, drive back to Hitoyoshi, and finally arrive back in Yunomae late that night.
Two things happened to me yesterday where I kind of stopped, paused, and thought about our life here vs. at home. The first was finding out that my 6th grade teacher is the same age as me. I mean….I knew that he was a younger teacher, but I was thinking like early 30s younger. I had no idea that we were the same age! I ate lunch with my 6th graders yesterday, and we played the everyone-at-Melissa-sensei’s-lunch-table-go-around-and-say-how-old-you-are game. They then asked me how old I was. (One sarcastic boy answered for me and said, “Eighty-five!”) I said twenty-six, and all of the kids were surprised. They told me that their teacher was also twenty-six. NO WAY!!! It got me thinking about how differently our lives were even though we’re the same age and have the same job. I honestly could NOT imagine working like a Japanese teacher. They get to school between 7 and 8AM, teach six classes a day, and then don’t go home until 6, 7, or 8PM (sometimes even later!) at night. It’s crazy! Not only that, but his social norms, values, beliefs, and ways of thinking are different from mine. I understand these concepts and have been working with Japanese co-workers since day one, but it just struck me odd since I found out that we are the same age.
The second thing happened when we were driving home last night. We got stuck behind a slow driver in Taragi (seriously going LESS than 40 kph). I noticed on the license plate that the car was from Miyazaki, the Prefecture just south of Kumamoto and just so happens to be a ten minute drive from Yunomae. Since we picked up the car in Taragi on the 219, we knew that it was probably going through Yunomae and would continue on the 219 into Miyazaki…..at an agonizing 40 kph. 
I swore and complained to Ian. Our conversation went something like this:
Ian: “Hmmmm…..do you find that weird?”
Me: “What?”
Ian: “That we’re complaining about Miyazaki drivers. You know that if we were at home and got stuck behind some car with an Illinois plate, we’d be saying the same thing: Freaking Illinois driver! Learn how to drive!”
HAHAHAHAHA!!! It’s sooooooo true! I guess it just goes to prove that it doesn’t matter where you go, there’s always going to be a pesky out-of-state driver!!
Anyway, that’s all for now. I’ll probably write one more blog tomorrow, and that may very well be the last blog of the year. I’m not sure if we’ll have decent Internet in Cairns, so if we don’t, you’ll just have to wait until the new year to hear about our adventures!
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