Opportune Okinawa Odyssey Part 1: Tropical Scuba

I was surprised how few people I talked with back home had heard of Okinawa, but I guess my travel guide said it’s largely overlooked by most tourists and I’m not sure if I even heard about it too much either before I came here; save for all those “Iwo Jima” movies and video games depicting the war. Either way, it’s the prefecture furthest to the south with the most American Military bases or something like that. As such, it carries a heavy American influence, so much so that Japanese people will travel here to get a feel for America as odd as that sounds.

Well let’s start off talking about my trip as I usually do, waking up at the beautiful time of 3 in the morning so I may walk ½ hour to catch my 3-hour bus to the airport. Atleast that’s the story I’d love to tell. No, it was much worse than that. I awoke at 3:50 wondering why my alarm(s) hadn’t gone off; I guess they both failed me. Either way my bus was a ½ hour walk away leaving at 4:03 sharp (it’s Japan) and it was pouring rain outside.

I dressed as quickly as I could and jumped on my bike. I later realized I forgot some stuff at home in my haste, but that’s to be expected. So there I was in the pouring rain with this large backpack on my back, on my bike coasting and slipping downhill in the dark (few streetlamps and no light on my bike) then later pedaling uphill like crazy. When I got to the highway overpass I quickly ditched my bike. Now there I was running up stairs with my luggage on my back and ran however far it was for the bus. I got on the bus at 4:08 just before it started to pull away, I think the driver saw me waving and running from the other side of the fence. I was so lucky, and I spent the next hour or so trying not to throw up from running so hard.

My new town mate since Jake left, Michelle, was nice enough to pick up my bike for me later, before it was impounded or anything like that. Either way Neal and I had been talking about karma during our last Wednesday’s unwinding. I lost my camera on the weekend. My car’s engine exploded/seized on Tuesday. I found my old camera somehow Wednesday after the replacement one had been used ironically enough to take a picture or two of my car and now can’t be returned. Thursday was a day of hassle trying to junk my car before my holidays; not to mention having to pack and make plans. And now Friday morning there I was at 4 in the morning soaking wet and now freezing trying to stave off a heart attack and getting sick into a bag. If karma is real, I’d better be getting some sort of compensation one-way or another, I don’t deserve this crap.

Time to forget all that, it’s my holiday now after all. As we flew over Okinawa you knew you were going somewhere special. It was a lot like all those shows on TV where you seen these islands surrounded by blue/green water, white surfs, reefs, and crystal clear water. It was really beautiful. I took a bus to Chatan, a town a little bit north of the capital Naha where the international airport is. On the ride up I spotted a gem that doesn’t exist anywhere else in Japan: an A&W restaurant.

Although I was lost, had a lot of luggage on my back and was sweating up a storm, I managed the hour journey or so for a taste of home; not to mention they had root beer on tap! ROOT BEER! Hell, I drank 3 frosty mugs of the stuff before I left, gotta love refills. The menu was different (pre ‘family’ burgers?), and they had the drive through things in front. I’ve never seen this myself before, although you see it in the old commercials and some movies like ‘Greese’ you see them. I kinda wish I rented a car just so I could drive into one an orda’ me up som berrgerrs.

Perhaps this is what the fast food joint back in the 60’s looked like? Either way I was tempted to buy a mug and mascot out of nostalgia alone, except it had “All American Food” plastered all over the store as if it was more prominent than its own “A&W” symbol. As the nostalgia faded I regained composure and remembered I don’t need that stuff. (See the sundae in the picture? Yup, those are sweet beans on the ice cream. Nothing escapes Japan's influence!)

While I was there, lots of cute locals came and went, and some of their clothing had to have been breaking some laws with how much was showing. Apparently because of this heavy American influence, Okinawa is supposed to harbor Japan’s obese population. I think that is all a lie; just because the woman have some curves doesn’t make them overweight. Also they sported some heavy tans here, something practically unheard of on the mainland, save for the students that play outdoor sports day in and day out. Another cool thing was the constant bomber planes, fighter jets, and attack helicopters that were constantly buzzing around the sky; something that needs getting used to for sure.

After eating two burgers and realizing how much my body can’t handle that much junk food in it anymore, I headed out to confirm my scuba lessons that were to start the next day and got a ride to a nearby hotel. The place was alright and I got a discount for the scuba, but the best part, and quickly becoming my number one reason for traveling, was the people I was meeting.

After a much-needed shower, change and nap after toting around my luggage in that heat over those distances, I headed out to a local bar for some supper. I picked a small place that looked like it might have some specialties and was treated to an amazing evening. I was hoping to study my scuba book a bit and take it easy, but I was encouraged to belly up to the bar with some other travelers from Tokyo. There I had some amazing pork specialties and Okinawa’s own beer: “Orion”. Wow that’s some good stuff.

Anyways we had great conversations for hours, and a lot of in Japanese! My new friends from Tokyo were giving my compliments on my pronunciation and all kinds of other things that make your head swell. I learnt how the foreigners in Okinawa hardly learn any of the language at all, which was apparent to me from reactions I was getting constantly from people. Just saying something simple as “thank you for the meal” in Japanese got this one girl to jump back wide eyed in shock, knocking over her co-worker, and cover her mouth while she gasped “Bikkurishta!!!” (roughly: what a surprise! Shock!) later on in the trip. Oh and there was English signs everywhere! I was tempted to pull out my camera and take a picture of a simple road sign that had English on it; it was that surprising to me.

We got a group photo and traded many stories, but it was time for some sleep because I had scuba class the next day. While I was waiting to get picked up for scuba I got talking with a cute university girl from Tokyo. We talked and talked, as her nervous boyfriend kept getting closer and closer to her, but she was having none of that; not with the way she was staring and smiling at me, even when I did try to include him in the conversation. By the time I left and got in the car I realized to myself: “Did I really just have a 15 minute conversation with a total cutie… completely in Japanese?” It was an amazing accomplishment for me, one that ended up repeating itself many times on my trip, but definitely a milestone for me.

I spent the morning learning the basics of scuba, then the afternoon in a swimming pool learning more basics. For lunch we had Okinawa soba noodles; super tasty. They are a bit thinner, almost crossing the line from soba to udon. There was a typhoon passing to the south so the winds and rains were starting to get crazy encouraging a night in. I ended up reading a book I bought back in Vietnam, something also almost unheard of for me and I really enjoyed it! Holidays are for relaxing after all eh?

Sure enough the next day, Sunday Sept 28, we couldn’t go into the water because of the weather and finished up the rest of our classroom work. We had the afternoon to ourselves so I took a walk to the nearby “American Village”. It was basically a bunch of malls and a ferris wheel on the roof; nothing too spectacular. But of course, since it looked like you were in America it was a rather big tourist draw. Try as hard as I might, I couldn’t resist the A&W restaurant that popped up soon after, drinking another 3 mugs of frosty, tasty root beer, and then later watched a movie in the nearby theater.

On Monday we went out on a boat to dive in the ocean for the first time. We did 3 dives and went over many skills, after which we swam around to enjoy that which is scuba. Because I was in training, they advised against me taking pictures, and as such I don’t have any. I guess these pictures I took a couple days later at the aquarium will have to suffice, as I was swimming inches from those beautiful things all around me.

You see it in videos and all kinds of promotional pictures, but it’s a different experience entirely being in the warm water yourself surrounded by these living, moving, colourful creatures. We saw those weird blobby coral things slowly moving in the current, and the bright purple fish that swam around their fingers. We saw weird toothpick like fish swimming near the surface looking like currents of their own, and all kinds of colorful delights I can’t begin to describe because I don’t know their names or what they do. The dive master led me through interesting paths like through a tiny little tunnel, where I saw spiky animals hiding in the rocks. Naturally I fear the ocean, so I didn’t want to touch much; too many stories of the poison things out there.

The second and third dive went further out on the boat, one of them was up along a cliff.
Along this wall were other cool things like large rocks that moved and revealed themselves as fish when the dive master came close to them. Now when I say cliff, it hardly does justice to this monolith of a wall that stood in front of you. It was almost literally straight up and down, maybe 5 or 10 degrees gradient if that. I lost vertigo and panicked more than a couple times being up against something of this magnitude. I mean if you looked straight up you saw 15 meters of water above you, if you looked down, you saw another 20-30 meters of wall sliding down into an endless vat of dark blue far below your dangling feet hung in limbo.

If you looked behind you, you were at real risk of suffering from total sensory loss. You couldn’t see anything but being surrounded by a massive container of blue. You couldn’t hear anything other than yourself breathing. You couldn’t feel anything other than your clothing and untold liters of water all around you. I didn’t do this much or often, and this wall help keep me feel a bit sane. I have a little idea now what being an astronaut must feel like; floating around in an infinity where even gravity doesn’t seem to have any rules on you; we area all but infinitesimal.

After all the activities, that night, I was tired. I already had enough emails from cute girls already which I know won’t go anywhere because of distances involved, and had enough of talking to ones that already had boyfriends. I remember being shocked when Neal talked to some strangers in Vietnam and didn’t swap any details after, but now I understand completely and stopped getting them from people I met too. There are so many people out there, offering so many different things. I’m still new enough at being social where talking to people still feels like work; or maybe it’s the Japanese having the effect. So I decided to take the day off from being ‘social’ as I was on holidays.

With this ‘break’ and exhaustion in mind, (not to mention studying for a scuba test) I didn’t realize until the next day what a large opportunity I missed with one of the most beautiful girls I’ve ever talked to. At the time I was just happy being able to talk in Japanese and other now-small accomplishments, but now I realize she was really interested and I didn’t even get her name after talking to her for hours. Everything’s a learning experience eh?

The next day, Tuesday Sept 30, we went out to finish up my scuba lessons. We entered from the beach this time, where I learnt how to handle crazy water conditions and current, as you had to crawl along a chain that went out into the ocean to a ‘cliff’ where the water wouldn’t kill you. There I went over the last skills, and started to get really good at the hardest ones to master: buoyancy and movement. Our dive master even found what used to be an explosive on the ocean floor; perhaps a dud bomb? Real interesting stuff for sure, I wish I got pictures of my adventure. I went back, wrote the test, passed it, got my scuba license and then hopped on a bus to try and meet up with my students that had just arrived in this wonder tropical paradise.

Either way I know I’ve come such a far way from a month or two ago and am understanding more and more some of these quotes I keep posting. It suddenly occurred to me one day when I was like “wow, I don’t recall the world being this friendly, this attractive and this exciting” when I remembered how you see the world is a reflection on how you see yourself. Here I was, traveling solo in a tropical climate, completely comfortable with being totally alone for the first time in my life. I truly have come a long way.

"When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be." Lao Tzu

tnoy

More Sunburns

Just a reminder I'm in Okinawa until Oct 5! Actually the biggest reason I wanted to post this blurb, was to quickly cover Tuesday's disastrous attempt to climb the mountain. Apparently that car I just got burns oil and seized up, so I'm basically out $1000 and my means of drying my laundry and getting groceries in the winter. Of course alot more happened but it's all better left forgotten.

"Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards." Soren Kierkegaard

tnoy

Where the Big Boys Come to Play

Tuesday’s Japanese class asked me to write a journal of my weekend. Why haven’t I done that before! This was the first time I put down thoughts and whatever on to paper without the help of an online translator or anything, and I filled up a whole page! I talked about how I went to Nagoya and tried shopping for shoes, but my feet were too big so now I’ll have to buy some on the internet. Then I talked about my relaxing weekend of studying and reading a book while watching Japanese people with their cool/eccentric fashion walking around.

You can see the paper is riddled with mistakes, mostly grammar orientated, but either way I’m rather proud of my first work. I’m so glad I bought that book on Kanji, I study out of it as often as I can and it’s exciting being able to look at those ‘crazy Chinese characters’ and have them start to make sense. They’re great building blocks to learning and understanding new vocabulary too, making memorizing 100 words a day not so crazy. For example: Tenshi, Tengoku and Tenjou (angel, heaven, roof) all start with the kanji ‘heaven.’ (天) The only problem I have now is finding time, as I can easily drain whole days doing this stuff it’s so exciting.

As time is an issue as mentioned, I am simply being too crazy perhaps. I was in Tokyo last weekend, will climb a volcano tomorrow, and Friday I leave for Okinawa to get my diving license; and in that time I have to finish an online course on diving. I wonder if your brain will puke if you stuff too much in it? Thursday and Friday were days for me to do anything because the kids were writing tests, but I spent all Thursday trying to catch up on emails (deleted well over 70) and Friday was spent getting ready for my next adventure in Tokyo; not to mention I need to start learning all that scuba stuff before I go to Okinawa Friday; I won’t be back until Oct 5 so I’m not sure how or when I’ll be updating this blog yet.

Getting off my studies, on Wednesday my students at Yayoi practiced their singing for a performance Thursday. Due to no classes, I was able to go and watch, but because I was so busy I couldn’t get out until it was over and the winning class sang an encore. It was still really nice to listen to.

Anyways, so off to Tokyo! I left Friday after school and met up with Dougal for the weekend. He’s a new JET from Canada with an IT background too, so we get along well; pretty cool guy. Although, he doesn’t have a Newfie accent! Ah well, I hear I sound funny using words with “ou” in it like “out.”

We checked into a capsule hotel in Akihabara and then went out looking for nightlife. Akiba is still an interesting place at night even if the Maid Café’s were all closed. Unfortunately they didn’t have the type of entertainment we were looking for (live music and/or dancing) so we spent time at a pub. We made some new friends with people that walked in and talked with us, and later in the night we made more friends with some guys off at a different table. This time however the language barrier was even greater, but we still had a great time, and after they invited us for Karaoke! So here we were with strangers whose names we couldn’t remember and who we could hardly talk with, singing English and Japanese songs until 5 in the morning. So much for a quiet night eh? It was really cool.

We had to check out of our capsule at 10, so most of Saturday was spent with red eyes and low stamina. Luckily in my weekend preparation, I found out about a sumo tournament not so far away and we spent the day watching big boys slap each other around. This was my first time watching sumo and it was an amazing experience. We snuck in some naps early on, as the arena was mostly empty when the low level guys did battle. It was hurried along rather briskly and was exciting. One time I saw a skinny dude with huge muscles pick up a big sumo and body slam him like it was a wrestling match on TV, it was so cool. More than once a big man was thrown from the ring and fell on people watching from outside the ring. Many interesting moments all day.

We got our tickets for really cheap, $20. Sure we had to sit at the very last row in the whole place, but they were still great seats, and we had back rests. The people who spent upwards of $400 on ‘booth’ seats had pillows to sit on in little 4x4 cubes closer to the ring. Later in the day as the place started filling up, some of the main events started. One side marched out in super expensive loin clothes and were introduced, then the other side came out and did the same thing, as if there were teams or something. It was really cool to see and hard to explain as they did traditional things like some kind of foot stomping as a team around the circle complete with arm gestures and robe moving. Very rhythmical. (I can feel my English falling apart as I learn more Japanese, please don’t mind my poor grammar and fragmented sentences, and I’m beat tired)

The rounds were considerately longer now, as the sumos weren’t rushed as much and got to throw salt around the ring. It was just great to see the audience get into it as well. Once the middle weight (maybe?) class was finished they had a similar introduction for the main events. There appeared to be 2 yokozunas though, (the big cheese/current champion I guess; remember that old wrestler with the same name back in the day?) which got me a bit confused, and they did their own dance and celebration much to the crowd’s delight. I thought there could only be one?

They would go out and get salt numerous times if they wanted, I assume because they were nervous or something. The one guy staring down the yokozuna on the other side of the mat did this a number of times; and the big monster got angry, flailing his arms in the air. This got the crowd crazy of course, and he promptly laid a smack down on his opponent. We saw similar psyching with other sumos, and sometimes they lost right away which was funny.

At the end of the event, the yokozuna got a string less golden bow to do a dance with, and again it was neat to see and hard to describe. The pamphlets talked about how many of the things they did were spiritual in nature, from the sipping of water before battle, to the throwing of salt to purify the ring from evil. I’m really glad I finally got out and saw this, sumo is hard to see I think as they don’t have too many matches/ tournaments a year.

We wanted to go out that night for some Tokyo nightlife, and now a year later I can finally say I did it! The result: pretty horrible. First we spent 3 hours trying to get to a place (long story) and in that time saw a lot of things we wish we didn’t; like an old drunk foreigner horribly harassing some young girls trying to relax, or people just being jerks in general. I guess Shibuya is a rich place full of snobs… and a lot more long, awkward stories that I just deleted. Eventually after a lot of time, we went to a place that came highly recommended to us: a club called “The Womb” which was made famous from a movie.

We got in a little before midnight for the low low entrance price of… $40. Well, ok, this better be good right? I mean everyone talks about it. My stomach dropped for 2 reasons when I saw the dance floor. One: It was an absolutely massive box, 3 stories high with a disco ball twice as large as me creating an amazing light show. And two: there wasn’t a soul in the place.

I panicked a bit and wanted us to go get our money back. Apparently nightlife doesn’t really start until after midnight or 1 in the morning though, so we were the first of a huge trickle of people that filed in. The drink menu was small and expensive, but oh well, I only had a couple anyways; I wanted to dance! The DJ was rather horrible at first, playing things like jazz and constantly stopping the music to assault your eardrums with something horrible. It got a little better I guess so we stayed optimistic. Dougal and I got out on the floor and really tried to have a good time, but after a couple hours of this, we couldn’t fake it no more. We were extremely disappointed and wanted to punch the DJ so we left.

I could go on and on about the things he did poorly, but it was more than just that. Guys outnumber girls at least 3 to 1, and most of the guys that were there were just annoying; either pushing/walking around the dance floor constantly (almost nothing wrecks your dance flow more than that) or just being drunk and annoying.

We hung out outside and saw many people who were in the club with us walking around the streets shortly after; I guess they were fed up too. We contemplated our options and decided to take a taxi back to our capsule and try and get some decent rest; the taxi (only?) cost about $50 and we were in bed by 3.

Sunday was a bit of a blur as the exhaustion was taking its toll. We tried to go to the maid café, but found its prices and lack of food selection poor motivation for us. Sure you’re not going there for food, but we just weren’t feeling the love. I’ll have to go another time maybe, and have cute girls in frilly maid outfits and cat ears say “welcome home master” in Japanese then.

We did some shopping in Shinjuku and both got on buses rather early; around 3 to go home. I lost my camera on this trip and had to buy a new one, so this was another really expensive trip for me, but it was still a good time; and the shop gave me some free items when they found out how new my camera was that I was trying to replace. In its short stay with me I got in over 2000 pictures though. The pictures I posted were taken from Dougal's camera.

Friday night I got home and hoped to unwind with a movie, but got a phone call from my sister Patty! We talked for a while, and ate together; she had a 4-in-the-morning snack and I had supper. I had a super busy day at work today, met up with some friends after, then some more friends after that, didn’t get home until after 9 and here it is almost 11 now and I have to wake up in 6 hours to hike a volcano. I guess I’m getting a crash course on scheduling my life. I’m so tired.

"The challenge is not to manage time, but to manage ourselves." -Steven Covey

tnoy

The only ‘speed’ your doctor will recommend

Time to spice up my week to make it sound interesting! Tuesday! Studied Japanese. Wednesday! Listened to 4 hours of Japanese tapes. Thursday! Memorized 100 new words. Friday! Review of said week.

I think I see a pattern here; here we go: Saturday I got on a bus and headed to Nagoya, that cosplay-friendly hotspot 3 hours southwest of me. It’s been getting cold lately back home, but here in Nagoya it’s still humid-astic! Either way my experience here gave me a good, hot city to compare others to. (“It’s almost Nagoya-hot today!” har har) Walking from the bus stop to the train station, there was this cute girl with a Mrs. Claus style skirt on waiting for the walk light. She stares at me and smiles. Yup, it’s going to be a good weekend.

So Saturday I arrived, and tried to shop for shoes. My current pair has been faithful to me for over a year through 5 different countries, a marathon, icy winter, torrential rains and so on, but they’re showing the love. Either way, it was a different experience for me to walk around a shopping mall... and feel like everything I needed could be found here. Unfortunately my list of ‘things to get’ floated away along with me feeling like I was camping in my breezy wooden house with no insulation; the feeling I had the first month or so in Japan. Ah memories… (spiders!)

The mall was fun I guess, I mostly liked looking at the girls though. They wore thick toques and cowboy boots and fuzzy pink short shorts and other fun stuff. I wasn’t really a tourist though and didn’t take many photos on this trip. I tried to plan for Nagoya as I have previous excursions, but bigger more demanding fish lay on my plate this week which included but weren’t limited to a trip to Okinawa at the end of the month! Yay! That will be awesome, I’ll get my diving license and stuff.

And so I hunted for shoes! I found out my time spent in these stores could be real quick as soon as I asked for my size (size 29 apparently). They would then show me 5 pairs among the hundreds displayed to choose from. I could narrow it down further by telling them I live in Nagano and experience, *gasp*, ice in the winter. Well there went the rest of the selection. It was funny to note too the one store only had basketball shoes in my size. Because, you know, big people only need shoes to play basketball.

I did buy some stuff, like a wig for my Halloween costume and other little things. I checked in to my capsule hotel for the night and headed out for the night’s main event: a speed dating event I found out about online.

I think I’d normally be embarrassing admitting to something like that, but what the hell. Either way this was my first time participating in an event like this, at the very least I’d meet some new people. They gave you 3 minutes to talk and then rang a bell. This was really annoying as you could hardly go through your hobbies and ask a question or two before you had to move on; let alone take notes so you could remember who’s who so you could mark ‘interested’ later.

After the 20th person or so everyone was getting pretty tired already and it started to show, as the one girl I talked with talked about taking pictures of whales the whole 3 minutes. We had a break half way, and a slightly longer chat with one of the girls reminded me that I can’t judge ages at all with Japanese people; she was 34 and looked my age.

A common theme was everyone’s shock that I had hopped on a 3-hour bus to go to an event like this. The one girl actually started laughing a bit as I died a bit inside. I mean, should I really have to hop on a 3-hour bus and spend a couple hundred dollars to meet people? Well… I’m sure I had other reasons for visiting Nagoya, if for nothing else to get out of Tatsuno, and try to end that look of shock and horror I keep getting from the students when they find out, again and again, I’m single. Ya, no pressure, although you should have seen how surprised the latest batch of kids were, they were speechless for a minute or more. This was nice actually, because I didn’t have to break them up from speaking Japanese for a while. Maybe I should advertise that more freely.

I think a couple more funny things happened but let’s move on. Drained from the event, I had an early night at and went to the park Sunday (when I wasn’t searching for shoes in vain, I’ll just order a pair on the internet) and watched some Brazilian themed entertainment. There was dancing, a live band and other stuff I guess, I couldn’t understand the Portuguese that was floating around all over the place; strange how comfortable I’ve become with Japanese.

Most of the day though was spent at a large shopping district called Oasis 21 reading a book and people watching. Normally I’d be running around like a chicken with its head cut off, but this was going to be a relaxing vacation. I hoped to go out that night, but got sleepy from the onsen and the heavy reading material, and I was in bed by 8.

Which brings us to today. I am typing this as I wait for my bus to take me home, as it was a long weekend. I spent the day again at the shopping center, although most of the day was spent studying Japanese. I reviewed over 600 words and a couple chapters in my textbook so maybe I did good if you don’t count the burnt out feeling right now. Viva le Nihongo!

"Life is an adventure to be lived, not a problem to be solved." -Unknown

tnoy

English Tastes Like Candy!

I got a shock to the system last week. Not only did they cancel three of my classes, but I was also getting a days holiday for working a Saturday! Things really are different this year, as the witch-hunt of last year is still fresh in my mind. (I asked for time off, and they asked me for the names and schools of people wanting to take the same holiday, called their schools, starting fires, and I became a very unpopular new-person in no time if you don’t remember the story). This holiday will be useful for an upcoming trip that I am planning… Either way, I guess they had to twist my vice principle’s arm a bit to let me go, as I’m super valuable apparently. I should ask again to see my performance review; it’s got to be around somewhere.

So instead of classes Friday, I hopped on a bus full of kids and other 6 other teachers and we headed to Takato for English Camp. This hill is magnetic or something, so cell phones don’t work there. Rumors have it, hippies live up in the hills doing drugs and selling their magnetic/healing water for monies or something. Either way, it was fun watching the students walk around like the living dead with their cell phones open, searching in vain for a signal. I wonder how they’d survive a week without them. But hey, one less distraction right?

The theme was the Olympics, and 6 of the teachers got to represent a Country. I was assigned South Africa! Needless to say, I spent a fair amount of time Thursday studying up on the place. Neal was a good help with links and a flag for reference. The first event was having the students ask us questions about our country and finding their ALT leader. My group accidentally saw my hidden paper, and knew to run to me however, and we snagged a gold medal right away. Good thing too, because their question was “have you been to Africa?” Personally I haven’t, although the country I’m representing is the only country in Africa at the event. They were confused, but knew it was me in the end.

We made flags and posters and other things. There were 5 students on team South Africa, two were really strong, two were shy, and one was maybe the most miserable student/human I’ve had the misfortune of having to be around. Our group suffered in a number of events because she would screw around or go sit in the corner, leaving my now-group-of-four compete in team events against up to 7 people. I knew she could speak well and was a fairly normal girl, but should you ever start asking her questions or something, she acted like she had down syndrome and only spoke Japanese; and that was if you even got a response out of her and not a moody look of death. Makes me wonder why they go to these optional events, but you don’t need to hear about that waste of space anymore.

My two strong students were amazing. Rose was from China and for her it was easier to speak English than Japanese so she didn’t get squirted much (we had water guns to punish people speaking Japanese), and Yukina was a crazy fun girl. When I asked her why she was studying, she said it was to marry a foreigner. Heh, comedy wasn’t lost on her, she took the initiative to tell jokes in English while every other student in the room stuck to their scripts. But ya, from Rose I found out more information about a free English class Monday nights in Okaya; I should start going as my Tuesday night classes aren’t too helpful.

We had lots of fun with the games. The one teacher, Kuni-chan, dressed up in a toga and was “the spirit of the Olympics” and carried around a painted broom meant to be a torch. It was great too, because he would openly say things like “give me whiskey for a gold medal” and at lunch he would purposely say, “may I shit here” instead of sit, as is the way of Japanese pronunciation. Then he’s go through the motions quickly in front of confused students. Haha classy guy, I can’t get enough of his antics. My favourite Kuni-chan moments of the weekend were when we all had some drinks Friday night and were doing poor magic tricks.

Before the drinking though, we dragged the students out for a campfire and music. The one student was asked to start the fire, and was given a small roll of paper. When it came time to light the paper however, you’d think we were dumping gas all over her the way she freaked out. I’ve never seen someone so scared of a match a foot away from their hand. Some people really, really are sheltered here.

We sang songs and roasted marshmallows. The marshmallows went out too early though, and the sticks to cook them on were too short. This led to lots of people, including me, trying to get close and quickly burning their hand from the intense heat. That miserable girl wasn’t around, so I taught the 4 good students how to make shmores. Naturally, they were a big hit! It’s always great watching students eat something for the first time that you practically grew up with; you gotta love watching their eyes get big and having them shout out “oishii!” (delicious) to the nearest person to them, then do a little dance. I also reminded everyone that English tastes like Candy, and gave out treats to those speaking. We had our water guns on hand though to punish the Japanese speaking; good times.

We played dodge ball (taught them rules from the movie), we played Frisbee (some played ultimate), we played Olympic charades, twister, Simon says, and other games. It was a lot of fun. Out of the 3 countries we ended up taking bronze for team South Africa.

Our bus dropped John (from Shiojiri) and I off near Suwa Lake so we could attend the huge fireworks show. We had a couple hours to wait, but we were tired and snuck in naps so it’s all good. Lots of new JETs came out, some more approachable than others. Some were content talking about the bottle of Wild Turkey they killed the night before, how hung over they were right now, and how they had other parties to go to that night. Yup, I definitely won’t spend nearly as much time around JETs this year.

With the jerks though, there seem to be some good people that came over; people who would attend a video game party should I throw one. I think that boat might have sailed though; personally I haven’t really played any games for well over a month now; it regrettably got cut along with most things due to “lack of time”. I weep that this day finally came to one of my favourite hobbies, but in time I will pick up a controller again and relive my seemingly lost passion. My life just has other, more pressing priorities now, and the most attention I can give that hobby now is just keeping fresh with news on some select sites when I can. That being said, The Tokyo Game Show will be on Oct 11-12 this year, and I recruited a number of people to go. It will be glorious.

The firework show was fun and pretty, even if we had way too many people on our tarp and I was getting pains. It went on for hours again, and it’s always fun to feel the kick of the shockwave hit you in the chest; massive explosions for sure. We tried to leave a bit early, but still got caught up in the rush for the train and had to wait for a while. While we waited, it started to pour cats and dogs. It was a pretty rough feeling, even if I had an umbrella because people packed so closely you had the run off from other people’s umbrellas running under yours and down your back. Very unpleasant, but I escaped with minimal damage, minus losing some keepsakes like my English club drawing of the members I posted a while back; the ink cleanly came off the paper! I’m glad I got a picture of it atleast.

On Sunday there was a mud soccer event going on. I was too late to sign up and participate, and I was even later in showing up. I ended up missing the action but caught the closing ceremony. I met up with some friends that I hadn’t seen in a long time like Junko and Patricia. Junko hopes to quit her job next year to visit my mom in Canada, so that’s exciting. It might look bad though if she visits before I do... on that note I might be going to Hong Kong soon.

Anyways, I drove an hour out to the event(It's surprisingly therapeutic to me to just drive at a speed over 40 and crank some music), and showed up in time to join everyone for the spa (onsen). I didn’t mind, it’s always relaxing. I mostly went becauseafter we all went to the super spicy ramen place, the place I met many people for the first time maybe 2 weeks after I arrived over a year ago. I got the medium heat one, and I hardly broke a sweat eating it, it was really tasty. More importantly though people started speaking, as they tend to do, in Japanese. Suddenly there was a huge applause, hands being shaken, and I was wondering what’s up.

Brett and Kaoru announced in two months time they will be tying the knot, and everyone can’t be happier for those too. I found out Brett reads this from time to time (I’m always surprised by my audience, as they’re so quiet) so I want to throw out a big congratulation to you man! You’ve earned my thumbs up of approval (^_^)ノ

The announcement kinda signaled the end of the night and we all did a very Japanese style “Bonzai” outside to celebrate some more. More Japanese was spoken and I was probably the only person there that didn’t understand.

It’s a tough feeling that; being part of something but then again you’re really not. I wish I could understand; I want to understand in the worst way. Some might call me obsessive at this point really… I mean come on, I don’t play video games anymore? What the hell happened to me?

I will take the test in December and I will pass it. Then maybe I can actually talk to people. Until then though over the next 3 months, I will finish a 500 Kanji texbook, 2 conversation textbooks, 50 units of listening tapes, 30 videos, attend classes Monday and Tuesday, untold amounts of memorization, repeat lessons until their learnt and more. Obsessive? Nah…

Nothing worth having is ever easy.

"It is not the place, nor the condition, but the mind alone that can make anyone happy or miserable." -Roger L'Estrange

tnoy

Fresh starts, new experiences.

Returning to ‘normal’ life back in Japan has been challenging thus far, atleast I sorted all my pics and published a good portion of the stories. I cut a lot out of course, like guys on bikes with rattles mean they’ll give you a male massage for $2, or that Japan’s airport shook me down when I returned, showing me a ridiculous photo of contraband and asking “do you have any of these in your bag?” hehe the poor guy had to handle all my sweaty, dirty laundry with his bare hands while awkwardly making small talk with me to try and keep it casual. Next time just leave my bag and me alone.

It was pointed out to me that my overuse of ‘striking out’ might taint, or give a negative overtone to my stories. This wasn’t what I intended. It was mostly so that you know I’m not going around the countryside and being indecent with everything that moves, which is not what I'm about, but I guess I could have said something different. Sure saying goodbye is hard, but I had great times with many new people, and I divulged the fun that we shared. Again I learnt more than I could possibly publish and wouldn’t trade the experiences for the world as I feel I came out as a different person.

I’m more focused now in my goals as I know what I want and how to get it; at least for the semi-immediate future. It probably would be foolish for me to continue teaching longer with my degree; but should certain circumstances ask me to stay longer I can always study for my masters or something and keep it relevant. I should visit home in Canada, but my time is so limited here and there is so much I want to do it might be difficult (I’m still exploring my options). Japan is such a good hub to visit places I’ve never been to before as opposed to Canada, where you’re traveling atleast 12 hours just to get here, negating transfers and all the other crap that comes with traveling. I mean, 2 hours to Korea? 5 hours to Vietnam? 3 hours to Taiwan? I’ll take two please, with a side of fries.

I need to take advantage of this situation, as last year indicated, time is fleeting. It doesn’t feel like I did much, so it’s good I have something of a journal about it. Destinations on my to-do list now include, but aren’t limited to, Hong Kong/Shanghai, Philippines, Australia, Taiwan, and Thailand. Not to mention areas in Japan I still want to go to like the Okinawa islands or Hokkaido. Either way, I’m sitting down and making a plan like I should have done a long time ago instead of playing things by ear. Most JETs are content getting drunk and falling asleep on each other’s floors it seems and I got too caught up in that last year. This year, I will have to do more solo backpacking it seems to realize my ambitions. It won’t be easy, but things worth having or doing rarely are.

Some of these are rather new additions, but there is method to my madness. On Saturday the 23rd, there was an “amazing race” like scavenger hunt in Takato near Ina. It was fun an all, but again I met new and interesting people. This time however, it was 4 Pilipino girls in Japan on a work contract. They had been here for a month and didn’t know where the train station or the town north of them was, and have one of the weirdest contracts I’ve had the misfortune of hearing about.

As per their contract, those 4 girls have to be together at all times. They get no Internet, nor a phone that can make out going calls. They have a phone between the four of them that accepts incoming calls only, but even that they have to share with another group of Pilipino people. They share an apartment that seems nice and all but has no AC and they can’t open the windows unless they want bugs flying in. Oh and one month later they still didn’t know what ‘sushi’ was. That’s not right, I wanted to help them see more of Japan. That, and they are really cool.

So the next day a number of people were meeting up North of me in Okaya near the lake, and I invited the girls out. I didn’t know their phone couldn’t dial out at this point, so when I called wondering what was up much later, we were able to hash out a plan. I picked them up and all 4 fit into my little yellow-plate car. Luckily they’re pretty small so they fit ok I think.

Since Ina is over ½ hour south and we needed to go north, we did a lot of driving that day. We had good talks and the girls sang beautifully for most of the trip; we learnt lots from each other. They bought a video camera and were making movies of the green mountains rolling by and other things. They thought it was cute to make me blush, so they kept saying interesting things. We ended up being late and missed everyone, but it sounds like it was for the best, as I incidentally learnt later that it’s a cultural thing for the guy to pay for everything.

Luckily I didn’t find this out at the pricey restaurant everyone went to, but instead the McDonalds they all got excited to eat at. It was funny too, because I suggested sushi or some other more Japanese orientated destination, but I guess they don’t like Japanese food; minus the rice, which is tasty here apparently. On the way up my little car got a flat tire too. Apparently the Philippines is a country of motorcycles not unlike Vietnam, and this was a new experience for the girls. I had a spare so we were alright.

We stopped by Suwa Lake to take pictures and relax a bit. Although a trip to the lake seems like a little voyage to me, they were really happy just for the chance to venture out so far; an experience many of the other workers before them never had they told me. They say, and my google map searching confirmed, there really aren’t lakes in the Philippines because of all the islands and oceans; and it’s a country really close to me! So ya, that’s how it joined the list, it sounds like a great place to visit with tasty food and wonderful people. I might have to make the trip in the spring when the girls are back and the weather is optimal or something.

On the way back to Ina, we stopped at my place so I could get a real tire on my car instead of that half-a-spare nonsense. The girls asked to use my “comfort room” they called it, (bath room) and got to enjoy the scenery I live in. “Your house is so lonely! You need a nice woman to move in and take care of you” Heh, they’re so cute. I offered to let them and they got excited, but it would be weird to have four young, cute, single girls move in though wouldn’t it? My neighbors saw me drive off with the 4 girls in my car so now there might be weird rumors going around about me now but oh well, my town is small and stagnant enough it probably doesn’t matter.

Since the girls were singing so nice and hardly experienced anything of a nightlife in our quiet communities, I suggested we go for karaoke. The girls are crazy and fun, we had a great time. A lot of English songs are popular in the Philippines so I had a good idea what was going on most of the time, although they got me to dance to Britney spears with them while they filmed it and other odd requests like singing a techno duet of ‘my heart will go on’.

It was a pretty big day and we all had lots of fun. They had to go home though and their contract says they can’t have visitors after 9 so we called it a night. I saw them again briefly on Wednesday after my classes and visited again. Even though I wasn’t really hungry, they insisted on making a little something for me to munch on. It was a bowl of noodles and some rice. I couldn’t believe how tasty the noodles were, they had such amazing texture and a wonderful hint of spice. I tried to get the recipe off them, or what spice I need to buy, and they told me it was instant noodles.

What? Is it even legal to have instant noodles taste this good? What is this strange and wonderful place known as the Philippines? A little later they got me to eat with my hands too, as is the way in their home country. I did so little but it was so enjoyable that I definitely need to visit someday. Since my visit was such short notice and they all had lunch boxes from work the meal was kept simple, but they want to cook Philippine dishes for me in the future. I like cooking as well, so wouldn’t mind sharing some BBQ or something with them later. They really are a lot of fun. I wanted to teach them a card game or two, but 9:00 rolled around and I had to leave. There’s always next time.

On Monday, my 3rd year Yayoi students told me it was their last time to join English club, as the all-stressing entrance exams were looming… 8 months or so down the road. I was really disappointed but remember the same thing happened last year. I hadn’t seen my club for over 2 months and now they were saying goodbye. I wanted to make pancakes for a long time, so Wednesday I brought the stuff needed to finally cook some. Only 2 students showed up.

Oh well, the others just miss out I guess. So with Kanako and Mamina, we made banana chocolate chip pancakes! It was really enjoyable showing them a recipe in English and helping them through it. We had a great time and ate tasty pancakes. I found out later Kanako doesn’t like sweets too much, which is unheard of for me, so I felt bad about some of the ingredients I added. We can always make cake or something next time.

We sat around and I mostly relaxed, as it was a big day already. I was surprised and very delighted the girls asked me lots of questions! Usually it’s me having to throw out questions like crazy, lest I want to sit around quietly while everyone talks in Japanese. They asked things like what I did in Canada, how long will I be teaching for and other great questions I haven’t had students ask me yet. I am really proud of them. Before we knew it a long time had passed and we were all full of pancakes and getting sleepy.

Before English club for 6th period, some students invited me to play dodge ball with them! I bugged them saying I was a forest monster in Japanese (mononoke). The rules were much different than what we played in school or what you saw in the movie. Instead it was like some old Nintendo games back in the day, where opposing teams surrounded your box. We ended up losing though, as the ball nicked my foot and it was all over.

Friday night I kicked myself out of my house in search of a pulse in my little town. The time with Jake is still fresh in my mind; mostly the disappointment we felt with Tatsuno. Now, even more places were closed and it felt much colder. I have been living here for a year but it still feels so foreign to me, as I can’t seem to get away from it enough. To accomplish anything that night, I decided to visit a snack bar to finally see what they’re all about since that’s all my town has it seems. There were some cute girls inside, sure, but they tried charging me $50 an hour to talk to them. Needless to say I didn’t stay long and didn’t visit anywhere else. Tatsuno is surprisingly intimidating at night. It’s poorly lit with little to no people walking around and mostly everything is closed with steel barricades.

So now then, the big reason I suffered through that and stayed grounded to Tatsuno this weekend was to attend volleyball games on Saturday. These were my first ‘real’ volleyball games that I had played in 3 years or so, with other players being referees and what not. We played by some new (to me) Japanese rules though, where you had 9 players on the court at a time. It was surprisingly organized however. Although when everyone discovered my dormant abilities, I was cycled to the front row as often as possible, as set up to spike sometimes as often as 4 times a rally. (6 out of 9 rotations).

Wow this took its toll on me. I didn’t know how I was standing really and I was dripping sweat all over the place. It was so much fun though, and our team came got 3rd place (we lost the semi final by 1 point; again weird rules) so we were almost an unstoppable powerhouse. The top 5 teams won cases of beer, handed out by order of value. ‘Premium’ beer went to the 1st place team, and draft beer went to 5th place. It was a great time.

I asked around if anyone participated in volleyball clubs, no one knew of any. This also was just a yearly event, as my team was made of teachers from my handicap school, Ina Yougou. Unfortunately there was no drinking party after, but there might be the next time they play basketball in December or something. I soaked in my hot tub that night to try and help out my aching body.

It was a casual day Sunday. Neal picked me up and we drove to Matsumoto to check out a mythical mall Neal kept hearing about. It was a nice place, filled with very nice looking people, and we watched a movie. It was surprising how small this theater was, it could seat maybe 40 people and only had 3 rows of seats. We saw the new Star Wars movie and were entertained. We did some shopping, had a great talk, and ate sushi until we couldn’t move. It was more or less a great, lazy Sunday that we both needed; even if it was really hard for me to move because of the previous day’s war wounds.

Though, it’s still tough being back in class when my mind is still on Mui Ne beach and all the pretty ladies. I will be back one day; oh yes, I will be back.

"The only good luck many great men ever had was being born with the ability to overcome bad luck." -Channing Pollock

tnoy

Vietnam Voyages Part 4: The North Finale

After swearing to never take one of those buses again, we got plane tickets for Hanoi, Vietnam’s northern capital for around $60. Our booked taxi took our money and never showed up the day of, so we were lucky to use the hotel’s own taxi to get there on time. I guess we should be happy our plane tickets were valid at least.

Hanoi, from our travel books and the Internet, easily had the longest list of scams to watch out for. It was common to see 2 shops beside each other with the same name, and one would be like “recommended by lonely planet” and the other would say, “We moved! We’re here now!” oh and whenever you wanted to buy anything, the owners would talk to each other first, deciding how much to overcharge you before giving you a price. I didn’t mind the city too much I don’t think, but even I was getting at my limit with having shopkeepers hate me and loving my money. (I suggest skipping this city).

We ended up walking for hours in Nagoya-like heat (easily the hottest conditions I’ve ever suffered through). Thanks to our guides and tips though, we were able to avoid many scams, although there were people with us that fell into some traps. I couldn’t do much but give out a silent “ooooh” and grimace in pain when the airport taxi asked where our hotel was and some Germans behind us told them; we got out and walked to our real hotels, leaving those poor tourists behind. I won’t go on and on about the scams, just make sure you’re prepared, or send me an email or something if you want more info.

That said, not much happened for the rest of the day other than getting settled in. We needed to get an extra towel for showers, and this super cute girl behind the desk helped me out. (helped me get a towel :P) She was something else, but I was taking it easy after all I’d been through recently. Later as I was waiting at the bottom of the stairs for Neal or whatever, she came up to me, looks me in the eyes and has this huge smile while she says, “you are so handsome”.

*cough* I’m out of words for how much I miss Vietnam.

We had a great exchange for a while, annoying Laura and Neal again as they wanted to get going, and here I was flirting with another super cute girl. I don’t know what it was, but she had a way of looking into your eyes that trapped you, making the rest of the world feel oblivious; I don’t know how much time passed. Anyways, I was a bit safer this time though, as she had a boyfriend in Saigon, and you’re probably tired of hearing about how I keep striking out so I’ll cut out the rest of the girl stories from here on.

The next day, Saturday the 16th, we headed out on a tour which was our main reason for visiting Hanoi in the first place; Ha Long Bay. The 5 of us again hopped on a 3-hour bus ride to the ocean and boarded a junk for the next couple of days. Coupled with the dong jokes, the junk jokes were relentless (‘Come ride my junk’, ‘this junk is all wet’, etc) and Neal set up a point system for how many times you could say ‘how long’ while we were in ‘Ha Long’ bay. It’s interesting to note too, that corrupt police stopped our van and hoped to shake us tourists down for bribes; granting us a sticker valid for one day saying how we’ve already bribed the cops, so leave us alone. Our tour group called the head of police or something and told them to screw off so we ended up being ok. I guess they’ve cracked down really hard on bad cops lately.

The junk ride started with a tasty lunch, and a casual float to a monstrous natural cave. If you don’t know Ha Long Bay, it’s been in a couple movies already. Not unlike the marble mountain, there were spear-looking mountains jutting up and out of the ocean. It was phenomenal floating around slowly on the water, surrounded by cliff-islands extending 50-70 meters into the sky. I couldn’t tell how far they went up, but it was awe-inspiring.

Once in the cave, we took a small tour. It was a really neat place, but it was rather unfortunate that some people etched their names, or broke off pieces of rock for souvenirs. At least you could hardly notice these things unless they were pointed out, and some of the etchings went back to the early 1900s, proclaiming young love and other “I was here” statements in several languages. Mostly French though.

After this, we boarded kayaks. This was my first time on one, and it was really cool! I have no pictures though, as I didn’t trust having my camera out near so much open water. Either way, that was one of the coolest experiences, floating so close to cliffs that rose so high. It looks even more impressive when you are a couple centimeters from being in the water yourself. If you went out for a bit on the kayak, you could find additional caves in these cliffs and paddle inside. Neal was my partner, and we went into the first cave we saw. We didn’t stay long though with all the cave drippings I was feeling, not to mention the new sounds: the sound of hundreds of bats.

We dared not go into the water, as we saw jellyfish everywhere. A couple times we saw small jellyfish float right underneath the kayak, and their tendrils were as long as the 3-meter kayak. Since we were on the 2-day tour we went kayaking, but those on the 3-day tour went to the nearby beach. Jellyfish stung 4 of the 5 people that went to the crowded beach. The one girl, Rie, a cute engineer from Tokyo, got stung just walking around in shallow water by a jellyfish she couldn’t see. No thanks I say ^_^

Floating out on the water too was a small town. They had their boathouses close together, floating merchants, dogs and other interesting life accessories. We had crab and other good food for supper, and enjoyed the night on the top of the junk with drinks, enjoying the great weather and full moon. One of the crew came out later and sang us a Vietnamese song, along with sharing stories about Vietnam. We were on board with a lot of interesting people.

It wasn’t too late of a night, as we wanted to watch the sun rise in the morning. It was a bit cloudy but I had good company so I didn’t mind. Later the junk stopped for a bit so we could jump off and take a swim. I jumped from the top because I was heckling a cute girl from Hong Kong named Anna, but it was damn scary. I did it somehow, forcing the issue out of my mind as I extended my foot and stepped off; very much like Indiana Jones. Luckily there were no jellyfish and we had fun swimming in the ocean until the captain got angry at us to get back on, I guess he was behind schedule in his cattle-herding operation.

That night in Hanoi we went to watch the water puppet show; a Vietnamese specialty. It was really, really cool. They played live music and ran little skits with these adorable puppets as they hopped and skipped around the water telling stories. For the first part of the show we were all mesmerized, and later on we were all sleepy as it was really relaxing and almost hypnotic in nature. Easily worth the $2 dollar admission price or whatever it was; I highly recommend it to anyone.

Monday the 18th, our last free day in Vietnam. We wanted to relax and enjoy it for what it was. We finished our shopping and saw some sights; whatever was open on Monday that is. Lots of museums and what not were closed already like Ho Chi Mihn’s mausoleum, where you could see his body unnaturally pickled in a crystal or whatever. (Goes to Russia once a year for “maintenance”). Rules to see him were super strict too: like no smiling, no talking, appropriate clothes, and on and on.

We did get to see an ancient university and other cool sites of local things. Hanoi is much different from Saigon. That night we made a try to find some dancing as it was our last night. Earlier, another random cute local gave me some advice about places to go to. The first place we went to had security like crazy including hand held metal detectors. Once inside, the place wreaked of cash. There were many girls up dancing on an elaborate stage like something out of a James Bond movie. We got a glance at the drink menu, and prices started at $70 for a shot of whiskey. It was interesting seeing a menu so casually that had so many zeroes on it. (1,800,000 Dong for a cup of wine anyone?)

We got out of there as fast as we could, lest there was some hidden entrance fee or something used to normally keep out every-day rift raft like ourselves. We tried for another dance club that ended up being closed, and the 3rd one maybe didn’t exist, at least according to any locals we talked with. We cut our loses, and went to a bar owned by an ex-pat apparently, where we had half liter jugs of drinks as strong as we wanted. “give me a taste and tell me if you want more whiskey” he would say. I talked very briefly with him, I guess he’s been living there for six years now. Neal, Laura and I sat out on the patio enjoying our drinks watching the traffic going by and enjoying warm reflections. It was a fitting goodbye to one of the best trips I had ever been on.

We left Tuesday and I got home around 1 in the morning, although after laundry and unpacking I wasn’t in bed until almost 3, time enough to get up at 7 for ‘work’ the next day, which had me sitting at my desk and starting to type up this series. We could have stayed longer, we should have stayed longer, but office politics and contracts have the last word eh?

One week later now, and I’m still rather unsettled with being back; remembering the finer days of ‘the summer of my youth’ as they’d say in Japan, reminiscing even now as I type this. I am a different person now and I’m noticing new and different things around me all the time. I now start the second year of my contract and have only about 50 weekends left in Japan that is certain; will there be more? If so, where will I be and what will I be doing? So much to do, so little time.

I miss Vietnam.

“Smile, it's free therapy.” -Doug Horton

tnoy