Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy!!

Today is the last day of work before Golden Week.  What does that mean?  It means that today is the last day before a glorious ten day vacation, seven of those days which I’ll spend in South Korea.  EEEEEEEEEEEEEE!  How exciting is that?  For those of you who don’t know, here’s a little breakdown of our trip:

(BTW, for those of you who are still concerned about our safety in South Korea, DON’T be.  Not only have tensions calmed down, but the latest report from the State Department is that there is NO travel warning for Americans living in or visiting South Korea.)

We’re going to spend Saturday night at Melissa’s house because bright and early on Sunday morning we’re off to Fukuoka to catch our ferry.  Since our ferry leaves the port at 8:30, we have to leave Hitoyoshi by 5 AM.  Yikes!  However, it’s a three hour ferry ride to Busan, Korea, so we’ll have time to nap.  Once we hit Busan, it’s another three hours by train to Seoul.  Once we check into our hotel, we’ll still have a few hours to explore before it’s night time.  On Monday, I booked us a tour to the “World’s Most Dangerous Place”….the DMZ.  Going to the border between North and South Korea is the one thing I DEFINITELY wanted to do while in Korea.  Then Tuesday we’re touring Seoul more, Wednesday we’re off to Busan, Thursday a hike to some temple in Daegu, and Friday and Saturday we’re touring Busan.  One of those days in Busan is definitely going to be a BEACH day because Busan is known for its beautiful beaches on the edge of the city.  HURRAY!  Then Sunday we’re taking the ferry back to Fukuoka, and (bonus!) once we get back home, we still have the last holiday of Golden Week, Monday the 6th, to rest up from our travels.

In other unrelated news, I got great news this week.  I’m going to apply to Teach for America for the 2014-2015 academic year, but applications aren’t available yet.  However, if you go to the website, you can sign up to be notified when the application is ready.  It’s kind of like a pre-application deal because it asked a few basic questions, and I uploaded my resume.  This happened a few weeks ago.  Fast forward to this week.  I received a personal email from a TFA recruiter, and I KNOW that it wasn’t just a mass email that was sent out to a hundred other people because she referred to me teaching at Murray.  She said that she thought I would make a strong candidate for TFA and put me in touch with a TFA alum who I could talk to.  Maybe I’m overanalyzing it, but I was tickled PINK with this.  I haven’t even applied to the program, but I already have people wanting to talk to me!  Hurray!

So…..I promised at the beginning of the week to tell about last Sunday.  I’m going to be brief, so here goes:  It was a busy but wonderful day.  We started the day bright and early at 7:45 and made our way to Hitoyoshi for Mass.  On the way, I saw the most gloriously deep purple irises along the side of the road.  While I would have enjoyed stopping to pick a few, I don’t think the owner of the garden would have enjoyed me doing that.  We also saw a MONKEY on the road.  While monkeys do live around here, they are rather shy and don’t tend to show themselves very often.  This monkey was casually strolling across the road, and as we approached it, he glared at us as if we were ruining his Sunday morning walk.

After Mass, we met Mollee and grabbed snacks and a lunch to take to the river.  We parked at her house and walked thirty minutes down the road to get to a nice private riverside beach that was perfect for us!  We spent the next couple of hours lounging around, eating, tossing rocks in the river, and even playing “baseball”.  Ian found a bamboo pole, and I pitched rocks to him.  It’s maybe not the smartest idea I’ve ever had, but it certainly was funny!  The pole eventually broke, and by that time, it was time to leave. 

 

Since Ian and I had separate plans for the evening, he took the car, and I rode with Mollee.  Ian picked up Melissa and joined Sara in Nishiki to go to a garden party with some of Sara’s friends while Mollee, Brian, and I Skyped Ana and had a writing workshop that night.  Before that, though, Mollee and I went to Green Palace.  She had never seen the boob shrine in Yunomae, and I promised to take her.  I’m so glad that we went, too because the azaleas were in full bloom and were absolutely gorgeous!  Pinks, purples, whites, reds, fuchsias, magentas, scarlets, and lavenders burst into full bloom against the mountainside.  It was beautiful! 

A couple of my ES students saw us going across the suspension bridge, and they followed us from a distance.  Mollee said, “I think some of your students are following us,” so I turned around and asked if the girls would like to join (instead of stalking) us.  They happily agreed and caught up to us.  While it was a little weird visiting the boob shrine with two 6th graders, Mollee finally got to see it!  In addition, after we play a quick game of tag.  Playing with 6th graders is A LOT different from playing with 3rd graders I normally play with.  Those girls were QUICK!  I could barely tag one of them without turning around and becoming “it” again.  Somewhere along the way, I cut my finger, and Mollee pointed it out so that I didn’t get it on my clothes.  It didn’t hurt, so I wasn’t that worried about it and was just going to let it run its course.  However, the girls were VERY concerned.  They immediately began looking for tissues in their bags, but when they couldn’t find any, they led me up to the bathroom so that I could wash it and wrap toilet paper around it.  Gosh…..6th grade girls care more about me than me!   

Our writing workshop went well.  Mollee made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and I had made a strawberry shortcake.  I know that peanut butter and jelly doesn’t sound like that big of a deal, but when you can’t remember the last time you’ve had one, believe me when I say it was THE BEST.  After we had workshopped each person’s story, I had to pick up Ian in Nishiki.  Mollee dropped me off, and I drove Melissa and him home.  Once we got home that night, I prepared my stuff for Monday morning and my last week of work before Golden Week.  Hurray!       

Alright.  My work day is coming to an end.  EEEEEEEE!  The next time I blog, I’ll have lots of fun Korean things to talk about.  Just for fun…….I’ll leave you with a random goat picture.  For whatever reason, one of my nursery schools has a pet goat.  He bleats at me every time I walk by him.  Happy weekend, everyone!!!  :D :D :D 

Life Without an iPhone

Ian and I were having an interesting conversation the other night.  I’m not sure what led us to talking about it, but he said that under NO conditions would he go back to a non-smart phone.  I said that I thought I could.  Yes, it’s been three years since I got my iPhone, and yes, I love it dearly, but under the right circumstances, I could give it up if I had to.  Ian instantly began challenging me.  He said, “Think of everything that you use your iPhone for…..checking email, quick and easy texting, facebook, Google-ing things on a whim, checking the weather for tomorrow, and not to mention all of the apps.”  Yes, all of that stuff is really, REALLY nice and makes my life a ton easier, but IF I had to give it up, I would.  He vehemently argued the point and doubted my ability to go without a smart phone.  We were arguing back and forth, back and forth whenever my Skype app started ringing.  It was my mother, calling me from fourteen time zones away.  A non-smart phone certainly isn’t capable of that function.  Ian smiled, knowing that my mother calling at that moment was a slam dunk for his side of the argument.  “You going to get that?” he asked.  “Shut up,” I said, sliding my finger across the screen and knowing it was the final nail in my argument’s coffin.

Still believing that IF I had to live without a smart phone, I could…… fast forward to the next day.  Ian and I were running errands.  He dropped me off at the grocery store while he went to the bank.  I finished before he did, so I had to wait for him outside the grocery store.  Since I had a few minutes, I reached into my pocket for my phone so that I could read a few pages of my iBook.  Except….I had left my phone at home!  *gasp*  What did people do while waiting before they had smart phones?  I people watched for a little bit, but even as I did that I felt like time was c-r-a-w-l-i-n-g by.  Without something to keep my fingertips busy I felt antsy.  Also, I felt like people were staring at me, judging me.  I know this is probably completely irrational, but it FELT like it.  When I’m waiting for someone or something, it’s so easy to pull out the iPhone and find something to do, tuning out the world and people around me for those few minutes, but without one I felt lost and bored.  Ugh!  As I was waiting, I was getting so antsy that I honestly thought about walking home (in the rain) rather than waiting any longer.  All-in-all I was waiting for Ian for about twenty minutes.  In TWENTY MINUTES I couldn’t occupy myself without an iPhone.  What does that say about me as a person?  What is this monster I have become?!?! 

So…..this is a rather short blog today, but I thought it was interesting.  It was actually a pretty cool social experiment.  For those of you who have smart phones, could you give yours up?  For those of you who don’t have smart phones, will you ever make the change?

Table Talk

I know, I know, I know.  When I last left off, I said that I would discuss the great time we had on Sunday, but yesterday was one of those days that was just too great to put on the back burner.  The highlight of my day was lunch time conversation, but I don’t want to get ahead of myself, so here’s the whole story……

Ian and I booked our flights home way back in January.  My BOE will reimburse me for the flight, but I have to give them a receipt.  After we booked our flights, I forwarded the confirmation email that I got from the airline to my supervisor.  However, she said that she couldn’t accept that because she needed an official receipt with an inkan.  (An inkan is a unique formal seal that each person has.  The Japanese use them on all official documents and often are used in lieu of a signature.)  Since inkans don’t exist outside of Japan and we booked our flights with a non-Japanese airline, I was absolutely stumped as to what she wanted.  I asked Ian to call American Express (who we booked through) to see if they couldn’t produce………something. 

Ian and I both put this issue on the back burner, but he finally called about it last week.  As suspected, American Express said that they couldn’t produce anything like an inkan and actually stopped giving out official receipts over ten years ago.  Awesome.  Ian was able to make a more official looking receipt than just the confirmation email, so he printed that out and gave it to me.  I translated a bit of it so that my supervisor could read it and determine that it was indeed what I said it was.  When I handed it to her, she flipped the two pages back and forth and finally looked up at me.  “Inkan?”  she asked.  I said that there wasn’t one.  She then turned to the older, more experienced guy who sits next to her and asked what to do or if she could accept my receipt as an official document.  They talked quickly back and forth, but I finally heard him telling her that in America they don’t have inkans.  “EEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH??????”  She said, completely shocked.  After that, she turned to me and said that yeah, that receipt was fine.  Ha!  If I had known that’s all it took, I would have told her a long time ago that America doesn’t have inkans!  Now we will soon have an almost $2,000 reimbursement coming our way!  Hurray!

My next stop of the day was to my nursery schools.  I love my nursery school classes, but I especially love the kids this year!  Each and every one of them seems genuinely excited for English time, and so far I haven’t found any problem students…..yet.  I loved my class last year, too, but they were just so quiet and timid at first that it made playing games a bit more of a challenge.  Plus (this has nothing to do with the rest of the paragraph) my first nursery school, Jikou, has been going through a remodel since late last fall.  A new building is being constructed, and yesterday I saw the most glorious thing attached to the second floor: a slide.  The slide starts on the second floor and ends up on the first floor.  GACK!  If I was a kid at that school, I would be ridiculously excited about that!!  I’m hoping that the new building is complete by August so that I could potentially have the opportunity to go down that slide.  *SMILES*

My last stop of the work day was to my JHS.  The only class I had that day was 2nd grade, and after class I decided to eat lunch with them.  I have a love/hate relationship with my 2nd grade because there are only seven girls in that class of thirty-eight, and JHS boys are definitely…..something else…..especially this class.  Sometimes I feel like all they are doing is mocking and making fun of me.  At these times, I hate them all.  Other times they are funny and say the craziest things.  That class is definitely the most talkative in the JHS, so when I eat lunch with them, I usually get at least a half-hearted conversation.  Yesterday did NOT disappoint!

I sat down at the one empty spot, which happened to be at a table of boys that I like.  The conversation started out rough.  When I opened my Tupperware, they all peaked inside to see what the crazy foreigner was eating.  Spaghetti with cheese.  One of the boys declared his disgust of cheese, and I gasped.  How can you HATE cheese?  (Okay….I kind of understand him.  Japanese cheese sucks.)  I asked him about cheeseburgers.  He said no.  I asked about cheesecake.  He said no.  I couldn’t believe it!  I asked if they had plans for Golden Week, but they said they had to come to school and practice club activities.  I said that I was going to Korea, (which is a big deal for me!) but they reacted indifferently.  Then one of the boys asked me the most random question….if meat in America was good.  I said yes, that it’s delicious.  I said the beef is very good.  Then I asked if they had eaten rabbit.  They looked at me with disgust, and I said that rabbit is very delicious.  They couldn’t believe that I had eaten rabbit!  One of the boys said that he ate frogs and that they were good.  I agreed with him.  Frog legs are delicious!  Then he said, “Melissa-sensei, joke, joke.”  He was joking about eating frogs.  Yeah……me too………

After that, the boys also said that they ate snakes, but I wasn’t sure if they were joking or not, so I reacted like a normal person would.  “Snake?  EEEWWWWWWW!!!”  Then they asked if I ate cats and dogs.  I should have said yes, but I wrinkled my nose and said no.  The final kicker of our food conversation was one boy who told me that he ate miso soup made with frogs, clouds, spiders, and humans.  Quite the imagination this kid has!! 

I told them that I did eat deer and that it was yummy.  Most of the boys shook their heads and disagreed with me, but one nodded and said that deer WAS delicious.  I made a gun motion with my hands and told them that my brother hunts, and we eat the meat.  Anytime guns are mentioned, they are blown away and wanted to know more details.  How big was the gun?  How many did he have?  How many deer has he killed?  Did I kill a deer with him?  By this time, lunch was dwindling, and a few students were up and moving about.  One of the boys who is always a big jerk to me came over, pointed at my water bottle, and said, “Delicious?”  I looked at him and replied sarcastically, “It’s water.”  Water tastes like water.  The other boys at my table laughed and started making fun of the kid for asking if my WATER was delicious. 

Last night when I got home, it started raining, which allowed us to be lazy for the rest of the night.  We curled up in bed together, sipped tea, and watched TV while listening to the rain fall on the roof.  Honestly….is there anything more soothing than that?   

Another Wonderful Weekend

I just have to say first that in less than a week, I’ll be on a ferry bound for South Korea.  *happy dance*  I can’t wait!  We’ve got everything planned out, and all we’re waiting on is for Sunday to get here so that we can go!  GAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!  I can’t wait for this weekend!!!

And speaking of weekends…..Ian and I counted up our remaining weekends in Japan.  The total is thirteen, but two of those are going to be spent in South Korea, so we really only have eleven more weekends left to play around with.  Out of those eleven weekends, four are during the month of June, meaning that the rainy season weather will probably restrict any fun activities to indoor only.  That only gives us seven more weekends to play around with.  Even then there are some required activities that will tie up some of those weekends, such as my school sports day on May 12th.  Since our weekends—our time to get out and explore, hike, take day trips, etc—are rapidly dwindling, Ian and I decided that we need to start making the most of them……without killing ourselves or making us too tired to start the week.  We started making a list of things that we want to do before leaving Japan.  It’s a realistic list.  We know that we’re not going to make it up to Hokkaido or back down to Okinawa before we leave, so there’s no need to put those things on the list.  Items include:

-camping on the beach again

-hiking Ichifusa one more time

-hiking in the Ebino plateau again

-taking the scenic route from Hitoyoshi to Ebino

-enjoying the beach at Aoshima

-taking the 219 from Yunomae to Aoshima (It’s a BEAUTIFUL drive)

-swimming in our swimming hole in Yunomae

-enjoying an entire day picnicking along the Kumagawa

-re-visiting the suspension bridge place in Mizukami at sunrise to take pictures

The list isn’t complete, but these certainly are a few things that we’d like to do before time gets away from us.

With all of that being said, here’s how we spent this past weekend.  On Friday night, we invited everyone over for a pancake party.  SO MUCH SUGAR WAS CONSUMED.  We slathered pancake after pancake with cream, strawberries, chocolate, peanut butter, nutella, bananas, syrup, or any combination of the above.  It was great to have everyone over.  We didn’t play a game or watch a movie or anything.  Instead we spent the entire night talking about anything and EVERYTHING.  I don’t know if any subject was missed!  And bonus from that night: the lone M & M was eaten!  I jokingly offered it to Melissa, and she popped it into her mouth without giving it a second thought.  I stared at her with bugged eyes, and she said, “Dude, I know what that M & M meant.  I read your blog.”  Ha!

Saturday would have been the perfect day to scratch one of those items off of our to do list, but it rained pretty much the entire day.  I washed three loads of clothes that morning and hung them out so that they could dry.  I knew that it was supposed to rain, but it was so nice and breezy outside that I thought they could hang out for a little while.  When the first drops of rain started falling, I leaped off the bed, ran outside, and gathered everything off of the line before the downpour came. 

Since it rained all day, Ian and I took the opportunity to have a lazy day.  We curled up in bed and watched TV for most of the afternoon.  Ian dozed off around 4PM, but I got up and tackled the HUGE stack of dirty dishes leftover from Friday night’s party.  Ian finally stirred awake a few hours later, and we took on the task of switching our closet from winter to summer clothes. 

I always love doing this….especially since summer clothes take up less space.  Summer clothes are much more fun and vibrant!  We went through our clothes, discarding any winter clothes that we didn’t want to take back with us.  For a few hours it looked like a tornado had blown through our house because there were clothes and cardboard boxes SCATTERED EVERYWHERE.  For the past couple of months, if any package came, we kept the cardboard box for packing purposes.  Now we have amassed enough boxes that we could probably make a cardboard fort.  However, we were able to fit ALL of our winter clothes into one box!  Woot!!  Granted, that box is INCREDIBLY HEAVY, and we’ll need to tape the heck out of it before we send it.  One thing that really helped us reduce space was a vacuum bag.  We bought one at Daiso the other day for this purpose.  It was actually really cool to watch…….  Once we had stuff the bag as full as possible, we vacuumed all of the air out of it, reducing the bag’s size in half! 

Now that our winter clothes are packed away, we’re one step closer to coming home!  We want to get those clothes in the mail sometime this week so that they can take the slow train home.  If you send packages by ship instead of air mail, it takes a couple of months to reach its destination, but it’s MUCH cheaper, and it’s not like we’ll need our winter clothes anytime soon!

Alright, I’m going to stop here……even though I still have Sunday to go…because Sunday was quite a busy day for us and deserves its own special blog.

The Lone M & M

Since the shuffle of the new year has settled down and I’ve been to all of my classes a couple of times, I’ve noticed something.  My 3rd graders at the JHS have a big class, and are therefore divided into two sections, 3-1 ad 3-2.  I’m not exactly sure how the class was divided out, but I can only assume that it went something like this:

“Jerks, goof-offs, meanies, and anyone who doesn’t give a crap about English, come this way.  Goodie-goodies, studious students, and those of you who actually care to learn another language, go that way.”

The difference between my 3-1 and 3-2 classes is like the difference between night and day!  All of the good kids are in my 3-1 class, so that class is like a dream!  They are excited to play games, rarely goof off, and if you give them a task, they complete it whole-heartedly.  That’s not to say that each kid in that class is an angel.  There are a several kids who don’t give a crap about English in that class, but they still try.  Even those kids work hard to complete workbook assignments.  It’s a dream class I’m telling you…..DREAM CLASS!!

Then I have 3-2……….. *crickets chirping*  This class is the COMPLETE opposite.  The level of English skill between 3-1 and 3-2 is immense.  Anytime we play a warm up game, it’s a darn challenge to get the kids excited for English.  Whenever the kids repeat sentences after me, most of them are twirling pencils around their fingers, dozing off, flipping through their books, and doing anything BUT the actual task at hand.  When it’s time for them to work in their workbooks, I’m fairly certain that these kids would rather paint a board and watch it dry than complete one question.  I’m pretty sure that these kids wouldn’t mind if I fell off the edge of the earth so that they wouldn’t have to have English class anymore….

On to a lighter, funnier subject.  A week ago, Ian and I got a late Easter care package from my sisters.  Among other candy was an entire bag of peanut M & M’s.  YUM!!!!  Being the fat kids that we are, Ian and I nearly polished off the entire bag in one night.  I had poured some into a bowl and ate all except the last one.  I was trying a social experiment.  If Ian ate the last M & M, I was going to call him a fattie.  I went to bed before Ian and expected the M & M to be gone by the next morning.  However, it was still there!  When I came home that afternoon, it was STILL there!  Ian is a sugar FIEND, and I was surprised that he hadn’t already eaten it.  I asked him about it, and he said, “I was trying a little experiment.  I was waiting for you to eat the last one so that I could call you a fattie.”  GASP!  The boy was playing my own game!  I laughed and told him that I was doing the same thing, waiting for him to eat it.  To this day, that lone M & M is STILL sitting in a bowl on our table.  Both of us are too stubborn to eat it.  We’ve tried to offer it to our friends, but they immediately become suspicious when we offer them ONE M & M, so then we have to tell the whole story.  I realize that an easy solution would be to just throw it out, but it’s much more fun to see who will cave first……

The other day at school, I walked into the teacher’s bathroom just like normal….except it turned into a rather awkward situation.  One of the teachers was coming out of a stall with a spray can in her hand.  She had such guilty look on her face and immediately apologized, “Sumimasen!  Melissa-sensei, sumimasen!”  Me being the idiot that I was saw the can and thought that she was cleaning the bathroom and apologizing because of that.  I asked her if it was OK to use the bathroom now, and she looked like she was about to die, apologized again, and left the bathroom.  I was confused as to what had just happened, but then the smell hit me.  She had pooped, and I had caught her covering her scent.  I suppose that would be embarrassing in the States as well, but it’s especially embarrassing here because the Japanese are SOOOOOOO poop or pee self-conscious.  (If anyone else is in the bathroom with them, they will flush the toilet as they pee to mask the sounds of themselves peeing.)  I’m sure that I MORTIFIED that teacher, but it was just no big deal to me!

And……for the final story of the day let me give you an example of a time in which I tried to look cool and ended up failing miserably.  All of the expressways in Japan are tolled.  Every time we hop on the IC (expressway) to go anywhere, we have to roll down the window and pull an automatic ticket that is stamped with the city where you got on the IC.  When you get off, you give the clerk your ticket, and they calculate how much you owe based on that.  One Monday night when we were on our way home from Kirishima, I decided I was going to be cool and not completely stop to grab the ticket.  In a perfect world, I would have reached out and grabbed the ticket with barely slowing down.  However, we don’t live in a perfect world.  I rolled down the window, preparing to reach out and grab the ticket, but I didn’t grab it in time, so I had to slam on the brakes and BACK UP to get my ticket.  *face palm*  Thank God there was no one behind me, or else that might have been a REALLY embarrassing situation!

That’s all for now!  I’ve got just a short hour left in the work week, and then I’m off to celebrating the weekend.  Woot!

Up the Mountain!

Last Saturday I completed something that I’ve wanted to do for a really long time.  I followed the 219 up the mountains to the Kumamoto/Miyazaki border.  Since it’s basically all uphill on the way out of town, it was QUITE a challenge.

Ian had a guy’s night with Brian and David on Friday night and stayed the night in Hitoyoshi with David, meaning that I had the morning and early afternoon of Saturday to do whatever the heck I wanted.  I took the morning to lounge around the house, get caught up on TV, wash and hang out two loads of clothes, and pack up my gear.  …….and by gear I mean a water bottle with an apple and sweet potato as snacks. 

 

I left the house around 1PM.  It was a glorious, GLORIOUS day to be outside.  The sun shone brightly overhead, and I quickly peeled out of my jacket because it was HOT.  The entire trip to Miyazaki was straight up.  I pedaled as far as I could before breaking for water.  I would rest for a minute before hopping back on the bike and pedaling until I thought my leg muscles would explode, hop off, walk, and then repeating.  The scenery was absolutely incredible.  Not too far outside of town, the 219 goes into a thickly forested area and no longer has clusters of houses beside it.  The road is also rather remote, so there’s not a lot of traffic, which is great for a pedestrian like me!

On one of my breaks, I was taking a picture on a bridge whenever a log truck rolled across the bridge.  I could feel the entire bridge swaying under the weight.  It was such a crazy and terrifying experience!  I pedaled and walked, pedaled and walked, pedaled and walked, occasionally checking Google maps to see just how much farther the border was…….until I FINALLY reached the border!  YAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!  From the tippy top of the mountain, I could look down and see sleepy little Yunomae below.  In the picture below, those tiny white dots just below the power lines are part of Yunomae.  It was a beautiful view!

  

Crossing the border proved to be an unforeseen challenge.  Between the two prefectures is a 2 kilometer long tunnel.  I didn’t think that it would be any big deal to go through it, but I soon learned differently.  I didn’t want to ride on the road inside the tunnel for fear of causing an accident or some log truck smashing into me, so I walked my bike along the narrow sidewalk.  I soon realized that tunnels are creepy.  I don’t know what kind of lights are in there, but my sense of color was diminished.  At first I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me.  My red jacket looked gray, and everything had a dull gray-tan hue.  Plus, there were reflectors sticking up on the sidewalk, and my right bike pedal scraped against every.  single.  one.  along the narrow sidewalk.  The biggest complaint I have about the tunnel, though, was that car traffic was SO MUCH LOUDER in the there.  I could hear cars coming up behind me for a while, and when log trucks rolled around me, it was TERRIFYING.  The loud noises were bad, but it wasn’t any better when I was alone in the tunnel.  Without the car noises, the tunnel was eerily silent.  I pulled my bike onto the road and rode for a bit, but as soon as I heard any sounds of traffic (no matter how far away it was) I pulled my bike back onto the sidewalk.

 

You know that expression “light at the end of the tunnel”?  I get it now.  Nothing was better than seeing daylight again and to be out of the creepy tunnel of death!!  Once I got to Miyazaki, I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to do.  I wanted to stop and eat my snacks, but the area right outside of the tunnel wasn’t very pretty.  I decided to coast down the mountain a bit and find a nice place with a good view.  However, I didn’t see anything interesting, and I didn’t want to get too far DOWN the mountain because that would mean I just had to pedal back UP it.  Instead I pulled over to the side of the road in the shade of a mountain and ate my snacks, silently enjoying the fact that I had ridden all the way to Miyazaki!  I wanted to go a bit farther because I knew there was a nice lake area just down the road, but I wasn’t sure how long it would take to get there and then get back. 

I shouldn’t have been worried about the trip back, though.  Once I got onto the Kumamoto side of the tunnel, I started my stopwatch to see how long it would take to coast back into town.  It took me an hour and a half to pedal up the mountain and then just under eleven minutes to coast downhill.  That coast was some of the most exhilarating biking I’ve ever had.  I’m not sure how fast I was going, but it was soooooooo muuuuuuuuch fuuuuuuun!!!!

Once I got back to the house, Ian had arrived home.  I was exhausted from my ride, but together we gave the house a good cleaning and then spent the rest of the night cuddled up watching movies.  My favorite movie of the night was a documentary called Hungry for Change and was about the food industry in America, how everything is processed, and how sugar is basically the anti-Christ for your body, etc.  I know it was bad, but after watching that documentary, I asked Ian, “You want to go to the store for some ice cream?”  Ha!  Ha!  After all…I had ridden up mountains that day, so I could treat myself, right?  Right…..?

School Bonding Day

Last Friday at the JHS was school bonding day.  I dread this day each year because it’s basically a day for me to stand around and look even more awkward than normal.  This day happens once at the beginning of the year and is a way for the the old students to bond with the new students and for all students to bond with the teachers.  There are no classes that day, and the students and teachers play a lot of icebreaker games together.  (I hate playing icebreaker games in English.  I’m too socially awkward to find the enjoyment.  I ESPECIALLY hate playing icebreaker games in Japanese.)  Normally everyone walks together as one big happy family up to Green Palace, the park in Yunomae, to spend the day.  However, last year’s bonding day was rained out, and everyone had to cram into the gym for the day.  Since it was my first bonding day, I wasn’t exactly sure what was going on the whole day, so I felt really awkward.  This year’s bonding day was A LOT more fun.  It started off a little rough, but I soon found my groove and ended up having a great time. 

The day started off with an opening ceremony in the gym.  Then we all went out to the sports field and had another ceremony in which the student council described the day’s events.  (Like I previously said….Japan loves its ceremonies!!)  Then row by row, the students marched off the field and onto the road.  I hung back because I wasn’t exactly sure sure what was happening, but the vice principal was waving at everyone (including me) and saying, “take care!”  I has assumed that we were taking a bus to Green Palace…. but silly me!  This is Japan!  In the country of ganbatte, we weren’t about to take a bus!  We turned left onto the road instead of going right, and I was confused.  I thought that maybe I hadn’t understood where exactly we were going, so I asked one of the teachers near me.  She said “Gu-ri-no-pa-re-su.”  Green Palace.  I pointed behind us and said, “…but isn’t Green Palace that way?”  She nodded and then made a huge looping gesture with her fingers.  Awesome.  We were going way out of the way for a more scenic tour.  The forced march through Yunomae was nice (since it was a beautiful day to be outside!) but awkward.  What I’d give to be normal and not have social anxiety when talking to people!  I was quiet for most of the walk, hanging toward the back of the group and only talked a few times.

 

Once we got to the park, it was time for more awkward standing and waiting for someone to guide the dumb foreigner.  There was another speech by the student council, and then the new class of 1st graders had to come forward and sit down in the front.  Each club (kendo, tennis, judo, art, baseball, track, volleyball, and brass band) put on a quick skit to show off their skills and recruit new members.  That lasted for a while and was pretty enjoyable to watch.  The final event before lunch was “recreation.”  This is where the awkward games come in.  There was a janken (rock, paper, scissors) game in which music was played, and when it stopped, you had to rock, paper, scissor with the person closest to you.  If you won, the person began a human chain behind you.  If you lost, you had to begin a human chain behind the person.  The more times the music stopped, the fewer players there were, and the longer and more snake-like the human chain became.  I was praying that I was NEVER the last person standing (and thankfully I wasn’t!) because that person had to answer two Japanese icebreaker questions. 

 

After “recreation” time, there was lunch.  Everyone had brought a bento (pre-made boxed lunch) from home.  I settled in with some of my 1st grade girls who I like.  What I found rather funny is that the kids would sit on the dusty ground all day, but when it came to lunch they each pulled out small individual picnic blankets to sit on.  They all had looks of horror on their faces when the dumb foreigner plopped down on the ground without a blanket between my rear and the dust.  I had packed a tuna sandwich (some of the juice leaked into my backpack, so I smelled like tuna for the rest of the day) and an apple.  They were really surprised when I bit into the apple and watched in delighted amazement as I bit it again and again.  Foreigners are weird!  (In Japan apples are cut and sliced, and that’s pretty much the only way the are eaten.  For them, it was as weird as us watching someone eat a sandwich with a fork and knife.)  Sweets are rarely given for lunch, but when it’s bento day, it’s much more accepted.  I had packed chocolate candies, and in order to make friends with my lunch mates, I gave out a candy to each person.  Since it’s Japan and you can’t get a gift without receiving one, each of the girls shared their sweets with me.  I received a Kit-Kat, caramel, mouth-puckering umeboshi (sour plum), and a few other treats that I stored away in my bag. 

Once the bento boxes and picnic blankets were picked up, it was break time!  I walked around in search of a friend to play with and met up with some of my 2nd grade girls.  I actually had a good conversation with them, and then they asked me if I wanted to play badminton with them.  I LOVE badminton, so I said yes.  I knew that since the girls were tennis players, I was probably going to get creamed, but actually just the opposite happened.  Granted…the wind WAS blowing in my favor, but I SQUASHED those girls (……and tried not to do TOO MUCH of a victory dance.)  No…..I’m not competitive at all……..

After the extended break time, the students and teachers assembled once again.  The next thing that happened absolutely amazed me.  We have cleaning time everyday at school, but on a dusty ball field, what is there to clean?  Once the announcement was made that it was cleaning time, each student took a plastic sack out of their backpacks and circled around the field and adjacent park area looking for trash to pick up.  The Japanese are so clean that there really wasn’t any trash to pick up, and when I did find a piece of garbage, I’d get excited.  It was almost like hunting for Easter eggs!  (But honestly…could you imagine American kids picking up a public place after they used it…?) 

We took the shorter walk back to school, and cleaning time continued even then!  As we walked back, some of the boys picked up random bottles or garbage they found along the road and in ditches or rice fields.  On the walk I started talking with several of my 1st grade girls, and we had the BEST communication time!  I picked dandelions for them along the road and tucked them behind their ears while they squealed KAWAIIIIIII!!!  Then we started having the conversation of “What’s this word in English?” which morphed into animal sounds in English and Japanese.  We started off with easy animals.  The cat says “meow” in English instead of “neow.”  The dog says “woof, woof” instead of “wan, wan.”  The two animals that absolutely killed them, though, was the frog and cow.  The frog says “ribbit, ribbit” instead of “gero, gero.”  They couldn’t believe that!  The cow says “moo” instead of “mo”.  MINDS.  BLOWN. 

So….to summarize: the day started off awkward and ended on a great note.  The purpose of the day was to build relationships and bond with the students, and I feel like it was a complete success!  YAAAAY!!

The Forgotten Foreigner…

Last weekend it was extremely windy.  Friday night when we got home and washed all the dirty clothes from our week of hiking, I opened up a couple of windows so that the wind could blow the clothes dry.  All Friday night the wind whistled around our house.  Since our house is right on the edge of rice fields, and WE provide the wind block for the neighborhood, the wind at our house tends to be pretty loud.  It really didn’t bother me until Saturday night.  Ian and I were looking for something good to watch on Netflix and settled on the TV show American Horror Story.  As the name might imply, it’s a bit scary, but I’ve heard that it was a really good show.  I’m not a scary movie person, but I liked the show.  It wasn’t so scary that I had to look away at parts or wanted to crawl under the blanket and curl up into the fetal position.  We instantly got hooked on the show, and as the night grew later and darker, the wind started howling louder.  I’m not afraid of the dark, but after watching a couple of episodes and hearing the wind whip around the side of the house, I found myself snuggling closer and closer to Ian.  I was thirsty and got up to get a drink from the kitchen and literally had to tell myself: Melissa, there is no ghost in the kitchen.  Nothing is going to jump out and get you.  Gaaaaaaahhhhh!

I think that strong wind blowing around blew in a cold front.  Sunday morning as I slipped out of bed I shuddered and grabbed a blanket to wrap around me.  I had left our laundry room window open so that the clothes hanging in there would get dry, but I quickly closed that and made me a cup of tea.  All day long Ian and I both had difficulty staying warm.  Since it’s well into spring, we’ve already taken down our doors that divide the rooms and keep in heat.  Plus we’d already emptied our kerosene heater and stored it in the closet.  I had thought about getting my summer clothes down the day before and changing out my closet, but now I’m thankful that I didn’t!  It was so cold that once the clouds cleared and we could see the peak of Ichifusa, there was snow on it!  Snow….on Ichifusa….in April!!  *gasp*

Every week when I go with Ian to Kirishima on Monday night, we play a stupid game on the way home.  If there is a car in front of us on the Fruity Road, we guess where it will turn off.  Ian was almost right the week before, but last week I was spot on!  We caught up to a car just outside of Yamae, and I asked Ian the normal question: “Where do you think it’ll turn?”  He said it would probably turn off in Sagara, but I called the Fukada part of Asagiri.  As we approached where I thought it would turn, the car turned on its signal.  I was beside myself with excitement.  I squealed and screamed “YESSSSSSSSSS!  I WIN!  I WIN!”  It’s a stupid game to play, but the fact that I could guess correctly where the car in front of us would turn was the highlight of my commute home on Monday night. 

Tuesday at school was the entrance ceremony.  If Japan enjoys one thing, it’s ceremonies.  There’s a ceremony for EVERYTHING!  Entrance ceremonies are kind of like the opposite of graduation ceremonies.  All the town officials come, the new class parades in, there are numerous speeches, and the new students officially become members of the school.  My JHS one was as boring as anticipated.  At the end of it all of the teachers had to go in front of the crowd and be introduced by the principal. 

After my JHS entrance ceremony, I had to walk across the street and attend my ES entrance ceremony.  Since that was my first time back to the ES since the teachers shuffled, I saw several new faces but didn’t have time to introduce myself before the ceremony started.  The ceremony was MUCH cuter and more entertaining than the JHS one because the new first graders were dressed up in precious little outfits and couldn’t quite sit still long enough to save their lives.  There were still the same boring speeches, and at the end all of the teachers had to go before the audience just like at the JHS.  I hesitated going up, wanting to make sure that I actually was supposed to, but the teacher sitting next to me motioned for me to follow her.  I did, and one by one the teachers were announced by the principal.  I was at the very end of the line, the normal pecking order where the ALT falls.  After the teacher to my left was announced, I stepped forward, ready to bow and say “yoroshiku onegaishimasu.” 

……….only my name wasn’t called.  For a moment, my heart sank in my chest, and I wondered if I wasn’t actually supposed to be up there with the teachers.  I wanted to curl into a hole and die.  Since I hadn’t met the new principal, he didn’t know my name and hadn’t called it.  Once I sat back down with the rest of the teachers, I’m not sure if someone told him my name or what exactly, but he announced my name, and I stood up and bowed.  After the ceremony, I saw him in the hall, we did our formal nice-to-meet-you, and he apologized profusely.  Even the vice principal and some of the parents that I walked out with apologized for him.  Ha!  Ha!  It wasn’t THAT big of a deal…….

I’m going to end it here because the next topic I want to cover is rather long, and this blog is already quite wordy….  Stay tuned for more adventure stories!!

Karakunidake

One last blog post, and then I’ll be all caught up from Spring Break and can FINALLY move onto last week’s happenings.  I left off the last blog with us waking up on the beach after our night of camping.  It was a lot of fun, but the three of us were exhausted afterward.  There’s just something about sleeping on the ground that is not as comfortable as a bed……..

Anyway, we grabbed breakfast along the way and headed back to the Ebino plateau for another hike.  Instead of getting on the IC (expressway) and taking that to Ebino, we decided to cut through the mountains for a prettier, more scenic drive.  Indeed it was MUCH more beautiful!  I’d rather take a tiny mountain road that snakes through the hills than a four lane highway that cuts through the mountain with tunnels! 

I’m really glad that we took the back roads because that led us on another adventure!  We kept seeing signs for Kirishima Shrine and didn’t really think about going until we topped a hill, and BAM!  a huge concrete torii stood across the road.  We all looked at one another with the same thought, do we want to go check that out?

Within the past year and a half, I’ve seen more shrines and temples than I can count, so I’ve reached the feeling of “seen one, seen ‘em all.”  However, this shrine really intrigued me with its giant concrete torii.  All three of us were glad that we went.  The shrine was one of the most beautiful I’ve seen.  The brightness of the red paint and detailed carvings on the woodwork of the shrine were phenomenal.  Since it was up on top of the mountain, the sakura were just blossoming and the Japanese maple leaving budding, which made for absolutely beautiful pictures.  (Unfortunately I don’t have any to share because they’re all on Ian’s camera!!)  There were several Korean tourist groups there, and I remember reading that that shrine is famous for……something.  After walking around and taking pictures of everything, we decided to hit the road again.

 

It took about thirty minutes to reach the plateau, and since we were there the day before, we knew exactly which trail was ours to hike.  I’m not going to lie….it was a tough hike up.  The trail was steep and rocky, and we had to periodically break.  We met more Korean tourists on the hike up, and one even offered me her bottle of water.  It was so sweet!  Of course Ian, the Asian whisperer, made friends and chatted them up even though they didn’t speak English, and he didn’t speak Korean.  We were wondering why there were so many Koreans hiking that mountain, and it didn’t dawn on me until later that the name of the mountain was Karakunidake, and it used the same kanji for its name as Korea does.  Supposedly, the peak is so high that you can see all the way to the Korean peninsula.  (No way in HECK is that actually possible.  Karakunidake is in the southernmost prefecture on Kyushu, and therefore you’d have to be able to see ALL THE WAY ACROSS Kyushu in order to see Korea.  Not happening.) 

 

The higher up we got on the mountain, the better the views became.  We could see the volcanic crater lakes that we hiked around the day before, the tiny cities and towns below us, and once we got high enough we could see all the way to Kuma-gun.  Even though the weather was nice and warm at the base, on top of the mountain, the wind whipped around, and it was FREEZING.  We climbed all the way to the tippy-top to peer into the crater.  It was so surreal to look into it.  While there wasn’t a molten hot pit of lava bubbling around in it, it was QUITE a way down.  (The picture doesn’t do it justice, but trust me, it was a loooooooooong way down.)  With the wind swirling around, I was honestly a little scared to get too close to the edge for fear of the wind shoving me in.  I wedged myself between two rocks and found it to be a rather nice little spot.  The cold wind couldn’t get to me, and I had no fear of going over the edge. 

The way down took significantly less time, but it was a little bit more dangerous.  All three of us slid at least once on the trail but thankfully recovered before we twisted any ankles or tumbled down the mountain.  At the base we decided to rest and enjoy some ice cream at the tourist shop before getting back on the road.  After a restless night’s sleep and rather arduous climb, the three of us were BEAT and headed home.  Poor sleepy little Ian fell asleep in the back seat while Brian and I chatted.  Once Ian and I got home, the bed was tempting, but I didn’t want to fall asleep at 4PM, sleep for a couple of hours, get up, and then go back to bed for the night shortly after.  So we showered, washed a couple loads of clothes, ate dinner, and did a few other things around the house until it was a proper bed time.  Needless to say…it wasn’t difficult to fall asleep that night!          

Beach camping

Since Ian had to go to Kirishima last Thursday for work, we planned to make the most of it.  His company pays for gas and tolls to get there, and it just so happens that there are really good hiking trails in that area.  Our plan was to hike a short trail on Thursday afternoon and then head into town so that Ian could go to work, camp on the beach overnight, and then hike a longer trail on Friday morning.  One of our friends, Brian, joined us since he had the week off from work and enjoys hiking.

We loaded down the car and got away shortly after noon that Thursday.  The Ebino plateau is a relatively famous area for hiking, and luckily for us is the next exit past Hitoyoshi on the IC.  Even though it’s so close, none of us had actually been there to enjoy all the hiking trails it has to offer.  (I feel as though that will change now!)  The plateau was well marked with signs, and as soon as we got off the IC, we followed said signs waaaaay up into the mountains to the plateau.  It took us a minute to get oriented and find the trail head that we wanted.  (side note: Remember that volcano that erupted in Kyushu two years ago shortly after the earthquake and tsunami?  That would be Shinmoedake, one of the volcanoes in the Ebino plateau.  The hiking trails around that volcano are COMPLETELY off limits, and there were signs around printed in Japanese, Korean, Chinese, and English stating to stay off those trails.)

We decided to take a trail that lasted about two hours and hiked around three volcanic crater lakes.  The trail was relatively flat most of the way, so it wasn’t difficult at all…..nothing like the rocky vertical trail at Aso we did the day before!!  The first lake that we saw looked as normal as could be and reminded me of lakes at home…..despite the fact that it was full of so much sulfur that nothing is able to live in it.  The second lake was my favorite.  The water had a bluish tint to it and was surrounded by a thin strip of beach.  It looked so welcoming and inviting for a nice swim.  If only it wasn’t for that whole sulfuric-acid-burns-your-skin-off thing!  That lake was the calmest of the three.  Not one gust of wind made a ripple on it, so the water looked like a sheet of glass.  It was beautiful!  The sun peeked through the clouds as we rounded the trail to the last lake, also very beautiful.

 

Once we got back to the car, we grabbed a snack and got back on the road.  We originally had planned to go to the onsen and clean up, but the hike took a little longer than thought, so we powered on to Kirishima.  Brian and I dropped Ian off at work and decided to settle down at McDonald’s to work on our short stories for the writing workshop we have just around the corner.  In the hour and a half that we were there, I managed to crank out a couple of pages and was pleased with my progress!

After we picked up Ian from work, we made our way to the beach to camp out for the night.  I’ve never actually camped before.  I went to Girl Scout camp a few times and slept beside Grandmother’s house in the family tent a couple of times, but I’ve never actually done the whole us-against-nature camping thing.  It was quite the experience!  Our first task was to find a suitable place.  We weren’t exactly sure if camping on the beach was 100% legal, so we walked away from the main area and bright lights.  Ian wanted to camp closer to the water, but I refused.  We had no idea what time tide would roll in, and I didn’t want to wake up to a wave splashing over my feet, so we settled on an area away from the water.

While I hauled the stuff from the car, Ian and Brian worked on setting up the tent and putting out stuff in it.  Brian had bought some beer, so once the tent was up, the boys drank a few to celebrate roughing it in the wild.  Although it was night and we couldn’t see a thing, it was still beautiful out.  The sky was clear, and the stars shined brightly.  Waves lapped on the beach.  Even though we couldn’t see it, Sakurajima loomed across the bay, silently and slowly erupting.  It was the perfect night for camping!  Before we laid down to sleep, we went for a short walk on the beach but couldn’t go too far because the tide had covered much of the beach. 

 

Our tent sleeps two people comfortably.  We told Brian that we would scoot over and let him sleep in there as well, but he insisted on sleeping on the beach instead.  He laid down behind the tent so that it would break the wind rolling in from the water.  That was the most restless night of sleep I’ve had in a while.  I feel like I woke up at every little noise and twisted and turned every way to try to get comfortable.  I tried to focus on the calming sound of the waves to lull me back to sleep, but it didn’t help.  At one point during the night, I heard a high pitch animal call out across the water.  Ian rolled over and whispered, “Did you hear that?”  I said yeah and asked what it was.  He said that he thought it was a whale.  How cool is that?  How often do you get to wake up to whales calling to one another?  At another point in the night, I heard a few raindrops falling on our tent.  I asked Ian if we should wake up Brian, but Ian said that if the few drops didn’t wake him, then neither should we.  The deeper the night got, the cooler the temperatures were.  At some point, the wind started picking up.  It wasn’t too long after that I heard the zipper of our tent slide down.  Initial panic struck, but then I realized it was Brian.  “Brian?”  I said.  “Yeah,” he said.  “It’s just a little chilly out here.”  Ian and I rolled over to make room for him.  With three people, the tent was DEFINITELY cozy, but the greater the body heat, the warmer the tent.

Ian and I both woke up at pre-dawn.  He walked up and down the beach taking pictures at different angles as the sun rose while I stayed huddled in a blanket at our campsite.  The morning was SO COLD!  Even with my blanket wrapped around me, I was freezing and couldn’t imagine how cold Brian must have been sleeping on the sand!   

 

I’m going to stop here and make this into a two part blog because I’ve still got plenty to tell about this trip, but I’d also like to give your eyes a break.  :)

Hiking the “highest” peak

Last Wednesday Ian and I woke up at 8 AM to drive up to Kumamoto City.  Ian had to meet with his boss to discuss a few things.  I didn’t think it was going to take very long, so I waited in the car and worked on my computer.  However, an hour and a half later when he finally returned to the car, I asked him what took so long.  He said, “Well, I was talking to Danny about continuing to work for Parakaro from the States, and he seemed really excited about it.  He said that I would be the go-to guy for any work that they needed done in the States.”  Yaaaaaaaaaaay!!!!  If things work out, Ian could potentially teach one of his intensive two day classes on a weekend at a couple of factories in Columbus, Ohio.  Since gas and hotel rooms are paid for, that would be a couple extra hundred dollars in our pockets.  If that doesn’t work out, he can still work on textbooks and do the phone interviews.  It’s not a full time job, but it will be a way to pick up some extra cash!

After the meeting, we grabbed lunch along the way and headed up to Mt. Aso in northern Kumamoto.  I had been told that the highest peaks on our island of Kyushu were overlooking Aso—Nakadake and Takadake.  (I was later proved wrong.  :(  It turns out that Kuju in Oita Prefecture is the tallest mountain.)  We made our way up the winding Aso road to the parking lot, got out, and started up.  The first bit of trail was paved and graded upward.  Then we encountered the black sand stretch.  It’s a huge strip of black ash that covers probably a square kilometer of land, and it’s the weirdest thing to see.  It’s barren and desolate, seeming more like a moonscape than a landscape, and since it’s away from the main tourist area of Aso, it’s eerily quiet.  The only thing you can hear is the wind whipping around the edge of the mountain.  We had to walk through it in order to get to our trail head. 

 

While the hike to the top of Nakadake and Takadake isn’t very long, it’s mostly vertical climbing over rocks.  It’s not a difficult climb, but it does require frequent breaks.  Plus add in the fact that part of the sulfur cloud coming off of Aso was blowing toward us and causing us to choke, we HAD to break frequently.  The last time Ian and I hiked that trail was shortly after we moved to Japan.  It was August and humid and gross.  We hadn’t thought to pack any water, so we did the entire hike without a sip.  We weren’t sure if it was the heat, lack of water, or the fact that we are more physically fit now, but we remembered struggling MUCH more the first time we climbed that mountain.  Once we made it to the top of the rocky part, it was a lot easier.  All we had to do was walk along the mountain ridge.  We thought that the view from the first peak was beautiful, but the views got better and better.  We continued across the ridge to our first mountain, Nakadake.  The view from Nakadake looks right over and into the crater of Mt. Aso.  It was so cool to look down and see the steaming crater below!

 

We took a few pictures before powering on to the next stop, Takadake.  It’s a very close peak and mostly just requires walking along another ridge until the very end when it’s a vertical stretch over rocks.  Once we reached the summit, we thought we were on top of Kyushu.  It’s so sad to know that it wasn’t…..  Oh well!  We rested at the top, taking in the incredible views of towns waaaaaaaaaaaay down below.  Since we were on top of the mountain, it was a bit chilly, but just as we were getting ready to leave, the wind changed directions.  A huge cloud of sulfur floated over the exact ridge that we needed to take in over to get off the mountain!  We had to wait for about fifteen minutes for the gas to pass (insert fart joke here) before we felt safe enough to head back down the mountain. 

  

While the way up the mountain was a physical challenge, the way down was a mental one.  The path was very steep and rocky, and one wrong step could potentially send us tumbling down the mountainside.  I HAD to have three points of contact and slid down on my butt several times to keep from falling. I kept thinking DON’T TRIP.  DON’T FALL.  DON’T TRIP.  DON’T FALL.  It was like a mantra that I continued to chant silently.  The sun was going down, and Ian got several amazing pictures of what he calls “golden hour”—the time right before the sun goes down when the lighting is perfect.  (Unfortunately I don’t have any of those pictures because Ian hasn’t processed them yet.)  We reached the black sand at the base of the trail just as the sun slipped behind the mountain.  Without any direct sunlight, it got really cold really quickly!!  When we reached our car, it was the only one in the parking lot.  We laughed and said that they had probably evacuated the mountain, and the dumb foreigners were the only ones to not know that.  (In reality access to the mountain closes at 4:30.) 

I don’t know what it is about hiking, but as soon as I get back to the car after a hike I crash.  Even if I’m super hyper and not tired at all, as soon as I hit the seat, I suddenly feel like I haven’t slept in days.  Ian started driving home, and we stopped for dinner at Mos Burger in the city.  Right beside the Mos Burger was a Starbucks, and he sweet talked me into going there for a coffee (tea for me!) before we got back on the road.  That night when we got home, both of us went to bed and slept like babies!

Alright, gang….stay tuned for the next blog because I’m very excited about it!  I will recant our Kirishima hiking and camping on the beach adventures! 

April fooling

It felt weird to have last week off.  In all my time in Japan, I’ve never used any vacation time to just chill.  Last year, I burned through twelve vacation days to come home, and I rationed five days for the driving test, which left me with very few days to play with, so I used those to travel.  This year I used five days in August to take Mommy around Kyushu, one day in October to pick up Margaret in Osaka, and six days in January to go to Australia.  Even though we had plans to hike, it was so much more laid back and relaxing than catching planes or trains and rushing from one tourist site to another.  So much so that I almost didn’t know what to do with myself!

The first official day of Spring Break was April Fool’s Day.  I told in the previous blog about the trick we played on Ian’s Dad, but what I didn’t tell was who else we got.  Continuing on with the “Melissa’s pregnant” trick, I called Melissa B. and left her a voice mail saying to call me back immediately because I had some BIG NEWS to tell her.  She didn’t get back with me until later that night, and when she did, our conversation went something like this:

Melissa: So what’s up?

Me: Well…..I’m pregnant.

Melissa: Whaaaaaat???  Seriously??  Congratulations!

Me: Yeah.

Melissa: Are you excited?  Have you been to the doctor yet?

Me: Well…..it’s just….. a shock.  I took a pregnancy test this morning, and it came back positive.  I’m going to take another one in the morning, and if that comes back positive, I’ll make an appointment.

Melissa: That’s so crazy!!  Congratulations, you guys!!

Me: Melissa, do you happen to know the date today?

Melissa: (long pause) You bitch!!

AHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

Next up on the list of hits was Mommy.  I knew that she wouldn’t fall for the ole “Melissa’s pregnant” trick because we’ve already pulled that on her, so I had to get a little creative.  I didn’t sign into Skype like usual that night.  Instead I used Ian’s Skype number and called her land line.  Our conversation was something like this:

Mommy: Hello?

Me: Morning, Mommy.

Mommy: Hi, Melissa!  What are you doing calling me on the land line?

Me: I couldn’t get on my Skype this morning, and actually I was wondering what you were doing today.

Mommy: Christina (my sister) and the kids are coming in, so I was doing last minute cleaning. 

Me: What are you doing in about two hours?  Could you….um….. come pick me up in Nashville?

Mommy: Whaaaaaaaaaaat???

Me: Well, it was going to be a surprise, and Kim was going to pick us up, but she had to go into work early.  We’re in Dallas right now, and our plane leaves in a few minutes.

Mommy: Are you kidding me?

Me: No!  Seriously!  We wanted to surprise you guys.  We found $1200 tickets back in January for my Spring Break week.

Mommy:  Oh, Melissa! I’m so happy!!  I have cold chills!

……yikes.  At that moment, I knew I had to give the joke up or else listen to Mommy sobbing for joy that her baby girl was coming home.  Sometimes April Fool’s Day jokes get a little emotional.  Oops……

I tried the same story with my sister, Christina, who was driving home from Lexington with the kids.  I tried to call her phone, but she didn’t answer, so I left her a voice mail.  I said that I didn’t have wifi, so we couldn’t Face Time, but that she needed to text me back ASAP.  She text me back fairly quickly saying that could talk then, so I called her back  I started the story the same way, and I’m not certain if it’s because she has three young children and is used to being lied to or what, but she believed me for a nanosecond before calling my bluff:

Christina: You’re in Dallas?

Melissa: Yeah, my plane leaves here in a minute.

Christina: If you’re at the Dallas airport, why don’t you have wifi?

Melissa: I don’t know.  I just don’t.

Christina: Shut up.  This is an April Fool’s Joke, isn’t it? You’re not really in Dallas.

*gasp*  She’s good!

I wish we could have pranked more people….. but alas!  With the time difference, it was just a little too difficult.  I was going to write about more of our Spring Break hiking palooza, but this blog has already gotten a little too long for that.  No worries, my dear blog readers!  I have a full afternoon with nothing to do, so I’ll probably spend it writing another blog…..gotta get caught up somehow! 

Celebrating Easter in Nihon

Not too long ago I wrote an entire blog about how excited I was for Easter.  We had the BEST Easter Sunday with our friends, and I honestly didn’t even feel the least bit home sick. 

Easter is a holiday that has always excited me (probably more than Christmas).  Growing up in the Wurth household, we usually collectively gave up sweets/desserts, so to wake up on Easter morning and know that there was a whole basket of various chocolates waiting to be eaten was the BEST!  As an added bonus after going without sugar for so long, I always thought that things TASTED better on Easter.  Sweet tea=liquid sugar.  Chocolate Easter bunny=rich and creamy goodness.  Sweet potato casserole=diabetes in a bowl.  Plus after the drab season of Lent, Easter was a day to wear cute springtime dresses, pick flowers, and enjoy the sunshine and warmer weather (and of course run off some of that sugar high).

Ian and I spent the night at Margo’s house since she wanted to go to church with us and lives closer to Hitoyoshi than us.  I woke up bright eyed and bushy tailed before my alarm even went off……much to Ian’s chagrin.  I put on my favorite summer dress, slapped on a little makeup, put my bunny ear head band on, and proceeded to hop around Ian until he finally woke up.  Even before consuming any sugar, I was hyper that day! 

The plan was to go to Mass at 9AM, hit up Mr. Donut after church, and then head back to Margo’s to prepare the Easter feast.  We rolled into the church parking lot at 8:55 only to see……an empty parking lot.  Confused, we waited in the car for a moment before deciding to check it out.  I walked to the entrance of church.  Normally there are posters, flyers, bulletins, etc hanging on the glass doors, but it was completely clean.  I poked my head inside, but not ONE person was in the building.  As I walked back to the car, I noticed a lady in the parking lot, so I asked her if she knew what time Mass was.  She wasn’t sure and went inside to check.  I waited in the car, and she came back and told us 10AM.  That slightly changed plans for us, but we decided to eat breakfast at Mr. Donut in the mean time and then return to church.  However, our plan was foiled!  Mr. Donut didn’t open until 10AM, so we had to settle for walking across the street to McDonald’s.  We arrived back at church at 10AM.  We realized we were MAYBE a minute late because as we settled onto our wooden benches in the choir loft, a baptism was taking place.  Since it was Easter, we thought nothing of it.  However, as soon as the baptism was finished, the gifts were brought up, and the whole Liturgy of the Word section of Mass was COMPLETELY skipped over.  We looked back and forth at each other confused but then realized that Mass must have started at 9:30 instead of 9.  That is the only explanation!  As we were leaving Mass, some of the church helpers handed out dyed eggs and packages of tissues.  Easter treats! 

After Mass we went back to Margo’s.  Before we changed out of our clothes, I requested that we take a few Easter pictures.  (I’m not sure if you could call it a tradition, but it’s something that we usually did at home every Easter….go to church and then come home and take pictures outside while the flowers are blooming and everyone is still dressed up.) 

 

After our photo session, we got to work on the Easter feast.  Ian had to cook the ham, and Margo helped me decorate my bunny cake.  I boiled eggs for dyeing and then hunting while she rounded up plates, cups, and utensils.  Everyone began to arrive at Margo’s around 12:45, bringing hordes of food.  We had ham, pasta salad, fruit salad, sweet potato casserole, rolls, chicken salad, brownies, cakes, and so much more!  Everything was phenomenal!!  Once everyone had enjoyed dinner and the plates were cleared, I said that the Easter bunny must have known where we were going to celebrate Easter this year because he had brought us Easter baskets and passed those out. 

  

The afternoon moved on along, and we decided to dye our eggs…..except the only vinegar that Margo had was rice vinegar.  The tiny dye tablets took forever to break down in it, and the result wasn’t so hot.  No matter how long we left the eggs soaking for, the result was varying shades of pale pastels.  On the flipside, no matter how long we dried the eggs for, they never quite lost that wet, sticky feeling and left dye marks on our hand.  Lesson learned: use regular vinegar for egg dyeing.  Regardless, it was still a lot of fun, and we got to show Yusuke a traditional American Easter custom.

 

Once the eggs were dry-ish and we had deemed the time appropriate, we hunted the eggs.  Although I am twenty-six years old, I revert back to a child anytime the words “Easter egg hunt” are said.  Growing up, we’d have a hunt every year, and my sister, Amanda, and I were always the competitors.  Neither one of us really cared that much about the actual activity but rather the COMPETITION.  I never really cared who won the hunt as long as it wasn’t Amanda, and I know she felt the same way about me.  There were years (and not that long ago might I add) where one of us would steal the other person’s eggs or “accidentally” push the other person down at the beginning in order to have a head start.  We were grown adults when we did these things, and Mommy said that we should “…be ashamed of yourselves….” but we knew it was all in good fun!

 

The Easter egg hunt this year quite reminded me of those Easter egg hunts.  Margo hid the eggs while Melissa, Brian, Devin, Mollee, and I waited patiently inside.  Ian didn’t care about hunting eggs and said that he’d document the whole process with his camera.  Thank goodness for him because I crack up every time I look at those pictures!  Melissa B. totally took the place of my sister this year.  She didn’t even care (and even admitted to that!) about the hunt but just didn’t want me to win.  As soon as the doors were open, we flew outside, jumping from hiding spot to hiding spot looking for colored eggs.  I’m sad to say that I didn’t win.  I actually lost by only finding a dismal two eggs.  *sigh*

 

We spent the rest of the night sitting around talking and eating leftovers.  We covered just about every subject from Nazism in Germany to fart jokes.  I honestly didn’t want the night to end, but all good things must!  The party broke up around 9PM, and we all went our separate ways.  As Ian and I drove back to Yunomae, the most depressing feelings overwhelmed me.  After such a wonderful and fun day, it was absolutely somber to think that we’re leaving these friends in a few short months, and as much as we say that we’ll stay connected or see each other in the future, the sad truth is that a lot of them I’ll probably never see again. 

Wow…..that got deep and depressing there for a moment.  Despite that thought, the entire day was one of the best times I’ve had with our Kuma goonies.        

Chuck Norris Jesus

OK.  So….holy jeez.  I’m a little (OK…A LOT) behind, and this is probably just going to be word vomit, but here goes…..

The week before last week was the last week of school.  Japanese schools end in March and begin again in April.  I know it’s different, but that’s just the way it is.  Another thing that us westerners find strange is that teachers get rotated around in the schools.  Some higher up somewhere decides who stays and who goes.  At the end of the school year teachers are called into the principal’s office one-by-one and told if they are staying for the next year or are being transferred to a different JHS in the area.  The maximum number of years that a teacher can stay at any given school is seven, although most teachers get bounced around within three years.  In the two transfers that I have been through only about half of the teachers that I originally met when I first can are still at Yunomae JHS.  This transfer system has its pros and cons, and perhaps another day I will blog about those.

Since four teachers were being transferred this year, the end-of-the-year drinking party was a celebration for them.  I don’t particularly like going to drinking parties because I don’t drink, and they are quite expensive.  However, I generally have a good time and am in a good mood after I leave.  I was asked the week before if I could go to the end-of-the-year party.  I hadn’t been to a drinking party in a while, so I said yes.  I asked how much it was, but the teacher who asked me to come said that she wasn’t sure yet.  (It turned out to be 4,000 yen/person.  GACK!!)  She told me that there was a bus that would take us from Yunomae to Hitoyoshi, where the party was.  Party bus, baby!  This thought caused a sinking feeling in my stomach.  When there’s a bus, it usually means that it will be a night of partying, and you probably won’t get back until late, and since this party was on a Tuesday night…….  Don’t be naive and think that just because it was a work night that meant that festivities would end at a reasonable hour.  Oh nooooo.  The Japanese are wound so tightly that when they party, they party HARD and LOOOOOOOONG.  It’s nothing to be out until the weeeeeeee hours of the morning singing karaoke and drinking and then (of course) go to work like normal the following morning.

Ian, me, and two other teachers were the only ones who took the party bus the whole way.  The bus stopped in Asagiri and Nishiki, picking up several teachers who lived there before we arrived at our destination, a beautiful resort and onsen in the hills of Hitoyoshi overlooking the sakura and river.  I could honestly slap myself for not getting any pictures that night because the view was amazing!  Plus, we were served a delicious multi-course meal including traditional Japanese foods of: sashimi, tofu, nabe, whole fish (eye balls and all!), tempura, and so much more.  Everything was absolutely delicious!  By the time we left, we were stuffed tighter than ticks! 

Taking the party bus actually ended up being our saving grace.  Some of the teachers asked if I was going to the after party, but I said that I couldn’t because I had to take the bus back to Yunomae.  About five teachers went to the after party, and everyone else went their separate ways.  Ian, one other teacher, and I were the ONLY people to take the party bus back, and that other teacher got dropped off at her house in Nishiki.  I was so surprised that we were the only two left for the majority of the journey!!

One would think that by moving to Japan, where Christianity is not even CLOSE to being a predominate religion, that things like Jehovah’s Witnesses wouldn’t be a problem.  ……right?  WRONG!  In the year that we’ve been here, we’ve gotten two or three creepy religious flyers in our mailbox, the latest being a creepy Jehovah Witness flyer that has a Chuck Norris-looking Jesus surrounded by a multitude of people.  The only reason that we know that this flyer is for the Jehovah Witnesses is because several of our friends got the SAME flyer printed in English.  Margo’s name (in English) is on her mail box beside her door, so they clearly realized that she was an English speaker and left an English flyer in her box.  Mollee said that she was home both times that they came by.  At first she tried to play the dumb foreigner card so that they would go away, but once they realized that she spoke English, they gave her the English flyer.  She said the second time that they came by, she tried to throw them for a loop and spoke only Spanish.  However, they pulled out a flyer printed in Spanish!!  How many languages do they have printed?!?!

On that Thursday I had my final adult eikaiwa class.  Just like my kiddie class the previous week, we cooked.  I gave them the recipe for Ian’s famous homemade marinara and pizza crust, and together we made delicious pizza!  I only have three students in my class, and one emailed me to say that she wouldn’t be able to make it.  Another ran late, so at first it was just me and the older lady in my class.  As we stood there together chopping onions and peppers for the marinara and kneading dough for the crust, it reminded me of baking with my own mother.  Mommy never really let us help out in the kitchen that often, so when she did it was a treasured moment.  Just being there alone in the kitchen with my one student (who is the same age as Mommy) made me a little nostalgic.

Okay, gang!  This catches me all up from the week before Spring Break.  Now all I’ve got to do is tell about celebrating Easter and how I spent my Spring Break.  *sigh*  I’m so far behind……..

Spring Break: day 1 and 2

While I have stories to tell about last week….plus Easter, I’d much rather write about current events.  Ian and I had such a wonderful time yesterday, which was my first official day of Spring Break.

The day started off a little differently.  My internal clock normally wakes me up at the same time every day…7:30.  However, yesterday I didn’t wake up until 9:30.  AWESOME!  Plus Ian woke up around the same time as me, and that NEVER happens.  We talked to all of our family on Sunday night since it was Easter.  The only family that we couldn’t get in touch with was Ian’s aunt and grandfather, Margaret and Bill, so we did that first thing Monday morning.  After we finished that conversation, it dawned on us that it was April 1st….April Fool’s Day.  Since it was still March 31st in the States, we realized that we had a leg up and could totally prank people without them even realizing it.  We quickly hashed together a plan to tell people that I was pregnant.  Ian called his dad first to tell him.  The first words out of his mouth were “What name do you want to be called as a grandparent?”  His dad beat around the bush a bit, saying that he didn’t care that much what grandchildren called him and then asked why Ian was asking.  Ian very suspiciously said, “Oh……no reason.”  The banter between the boys went on for a while, but Ian finally said, “Would you believe me if I said that Melissa and I were going to have a baby?”  His dad said, “No.” (HAHAHAHA!  He knows Ian too well!!)  “But I would believe Melissa.”  I chimed in and said something like, “It’s true!  I’m pregnant!”  Ian’s dad suddenly got very excited, saying “Oh, that’s great!  Congratulations to the both of you!  I’m so happy for you!”  Ian and I could barely contain our snickers when Ian said, “Hey Dad, what’s the date?”  His Dad said, “I don’t know…..March 31st.”  Ian said, “Yep, you’re a day late.”  Ian’s dad’s reply: “……you asshole.”  HAHAHAHAHA!  April Fool’s Day!!!

Since Ian had to work Monday night and I had the day off, we decided to head down to Kirishima a little earlier than normal to do some exploring.  Every time I come to Kirishima I see a sign for the Uenohara Jomon Woods.  I Googled it once to find out that it was an archeological site of an ancient village that had been partially reconstructed.  I thought it would be cool to visit, so Ian and I decided to hit it up.  We found directions and made our way to the park only to realize that it honestly wasn’t that cool.  It was pretty much just a typical run-of-the-mill park.  There were the reconstructed huts, but visitors weren’t allowed to go in.  Disappoint!  We walked around the entire park in less than thirty minutes.  Everywhere in the park there were buildings with archeological findings that could have been cool to see……..but each buildings was locked.  Bummer!  With great disappointment and tails tucked between our legs, we left and returned back to the city.

 

Since we still had a few hours before Ian had to be at work, I suggested that we go to the beach.  The town Ian works in is right on Kagoshima Bay, and we briefly explored the seaside park there one day.  On Monday the sun was shining, the temperature was perfect, and we decided that it couldn’t have been a better beach day!  We ate our packed lunch at the picnic area along the beach, and Ian decided to climb one of the trees.  Silly boy!  I asked him if he wanted to go play in the surf with me, but he said that he just wanted to rest in the tree.  (It was actually a very nice tree that had a giant fork in which he could recline.) 

I walked to the edge of the water.  Of course it was still too cold to swim in, and we didn’t even bring bathing suits, but it was nice just to be at the beach.  It wasn’t the best beach I’ve been to, but it did have an incredible view.  Across the bay was the active volcano island of Sakurajima.  Sakurajima is so active that there is nearly a constant cloud of ash coming from it, and the sand at that beach was mostly black.  After snapping a few quick pictures, I decided to walk along the beach, one of my absolute favorite things in the world to do.  I can NOT emphasize enough how beautiful of a day it was.  The golden rays of sun falling onto the perfect rippling waves was gorgeous.  I honestly could have walked for miles along the shore, but I eventually reached an area where a river met the ocean, and the water was too deep for me to wade across, so I turned back. 

I met Ian on the way back.  He had come to find me since I had been gone for so long.  Honestly I didn’t know that I was going to be gone for so long.  I asked him if he wanted to sit on the beach with me and have a magical moment.  (insert awwwwwwwwwwwwww’s)  We sat for a while but then decided to play in the water.  Ian waded out pretty far and said, “The water’s actually pretty shallow.  I bet I could walk all the way to Sakurajima.”  Riiiiiiiiiight.  Because a bay usually is shallow enough to walk across……..  He then found a flock of birds floating in the water and decided to chase them.  The birds heard him coming from a mile away, so Ian didn’t even get close to catching any of them.  I wished that we could have stayed for sunset but alas…..Ian had to go to work.  I think next Monday night when I go with him, I might return to the beach and have a nice sunset stroll. 

While he was at work, I decided to work out at the riverside park.  I walked to the beginning of it where there’s an amphitheater.  I told myself that I would run up and down the steps, doing four sets of five for a total of twenty and “break” between sets by doing ten push ups, ten squats, fifty jumping jacks, and fifty crunches.  Going into it I was so motivated.  I got to three and realized that I was going to die.  I’m pretty sure that it’s all the food I’ve been ingesting.  Since Lent is over and I’m back on sugar, I feel absolutely disgusting.  My energy level is lower, and I just couldn’t push myself to make my goal.  I did a total of three sets of three before giving up and calling it a night.    

Today was a pretty lazy day.  I slept in until 9:47.  UNHEARD OF!!  Normally my silly internal clock is up and at ‘em earlier, but it’s as if it KNOWS that this week is vacation.  We had our dentist appointments today, and I’m proud to say that both of us have a healthy mouth full of teeth.  Tonight we invited Melissa and Mollee over to plan our Golden Week vacation to Korea.  Since our Cambodia/Vietnam vacation fell through, we decided to go to Korea.  I was extremely happy with our planning party.  We booked tickets on the ferry from Fukuoka to Korea, reserved hotel rooms for all nights, made a schedule for what we want to do and where we want to go, investigated public transportation, and laughed and enjoyed ourselves as we did it.  The four of us get along really well, and I’m super excited for this trip!  I was really bummed out when our Vietnam/Cambodia trip fell apart, but I feel like Korea is going to be just as much fun!!

(Side note: I’ve been telling people at home that I’m going to Korea, and I get one of two reactions:

1) “Which Korea?”  ………..as if North Korea is actually an option….?!?!

2) “Oh, be careful!”  I’m not sure if my family was more worried when I said that I was going to the third world countries of Cambodia and Vietnam or industrialized South Korea that is currently being threatened by cray-cray North Korea…..)

Alright….it’s pushing midnight, and I’ve got an 8AM wakeup call.  Tomorrow we’re going up to Kumamoto City so that Ian can drop by his office, and then we’re off to Aso to hike.  Hurray!