Changing Gears

So here it is…..the final week.  72 hours from now I will no longer be a resident of Yunomae.  72 hours from now I’ll be on my way to Tokyo.  72 hours from now, I will officially begin my journey home!  How strange to think……

Since this will be one of the last blogs I’ll write, I thought it would be fitting to recap some interesting things.  I’ll start off with my supervisor.  I’m not sure if I’ve ever told about my first impression of her.  When I landed at the Kumamoto airport, two people were waiting to pick me up and take me back to Yunomae, Mr. Fujiwara and Sawada-san.  Mr. Fujiwara is a older, stern looking man, whereas Sawada is a cute, bubbly looking girl.  To be quite honest I thought she was Mr. Fujiwara’s granddaughter that he had brought along to meet the cool foreigner.  It wasn’t until we were at lunch after we left the airport that I realized she was my supervisor.  I didn’t think she was old enough to be my supervisor (as it turns out, she is a year older than me)!  Boy was I wrong.  For the past two years she has saved my skin more times than I can count.  She was an absolutely amazing supervisor, and I could not have asked for more!   

 

Changing gears completely, here’s a few things that the Japanese do that I think is rather funny.  Most of you reading this blog are like me and have western mindsets, so when we think of or do things, it’s with that mindset.  For example, whenever we make the gesturing of eating, we hold a pretend fork and bring that to our mouths.  It’s common knowledge that that means eating.  However, in Japan they extend their index and middle fingers to look like chopsticks and bring those to their mouths.  This (in Japan) is the gesture for eating. 

Another thing that I find funny is that on any maps of the world, Japan is always smack dab in the middle.  Even if the kids draw maps of the world on the blackboard, they always start by drawing the four main islands of Japan.  For example, one time when we were playing Pictionary in class, the word was “world,” and the student drew a round circle for the globe, four main islands of Japan, continental Asia, and Australia before the word “world” was guessed.  It blew my mind.  As an American, I’m so used to seeing North and South America in the center of the map.  If I were playing Pictionary and had the word “world,” I wouldn’t think twice about drawing those two continents before anything else.  Both of these examples are fun little differences between eastern and western cultures.

Changing gears completely again, let’s talk about the bugs…..big, giant, nasty, numerous bugs that live here.  I’m not sure if it just didn’t get as cold and kill as many off this winter or what, but the bug population has been out of control this year it seems.  Melissa and I were talking about it a few weeks ago, and both of us agreed that the bugs were waaaaaaaaaaaaay worse this year than last year.  Here are a few examples:

Since it has been so hot, I decided that instead of going for a walk right after work like normal I’d wait until the sun went down and it cooled off a bit.  Seems logical, right?  ….except I forgot that after the sun goes down, the bugs come out.  I’m pretty sure that I ate at least three or four bugs while walking.  I wasn’t doing anything out of the ordinary…just walking.  Simply inhaling was enough to get me to accidentally eat bugs.  UGH!

The next two stories are even worse.  Since we haven’t turned on our air conditioner this summer yet, we generally leave the windows open.  At night this becomes a double edged sword.  If we close the curtains, the breeze doesn’t pass through.  However if we leave them open, the bugs are attracted to the light and will somehow squeeze through the screens to get inside.  (I think it’s really funny because spiders have learned that if they make webs right outside of our windows, they will collect a bumper crop of bugs.  Thanks, spiders!)  The other night I was in the kitchen making my goodbye gifts of cookie jars, and not only could I see one million bugs crawling on the screen, but I could feel the ones that had gotten in crawling on my legs.  I had to do a little dance every few seconds to get them off of me.  They would fly off and land somewhere else.  I was just praying to the Almighty above that they wouldn’t land in my dang cookie jars!

Ian had the light on by his desk the other night, and (of course) bugs were attracted to that.  Our bed is right next to the desk, and our bed sheet is white.  Before I could crawl into bed that night, I (no joke!) had to scrape a layer of bugs off of it.  UUUUUGGGGGGGHHHH!  Talk about have the willies before going to bed……  Ian and I decided that this is why we’ve gotten into camping while being in Japan.  Staying at our house is basically like camping….except indoors. 

And the final change of gears in this blog is something completely and totally unrelated to any of the above topics.  Since we’ll be home soon and will be riding the motorcycle more, I thought it would be a good idea to go ahead and buy a motorcycle jacket to wear while riding.  I got a couple of Amazon gift cards for my birthday, (thanks, Margaret and Bill!!) so together Ian and I picked out a stylish and reasonable jacket.  EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!  Time to go ride the motorcycle, including long road trips out West!  Hurray!  Both Ian and I can’t wait to get back on the bike once we get home!

I believe that’s all for today.  The number of entries that I’ll write before this blog comes to a close are rapidly dwindling.  Leaving time is upon us!