| My First Taste of Teaching, (and my Japanese birthday) | 07-30/08/04 |
Overview
Hit it...
The Sunday morning after Nebuta was passed in an inconsequential drive in Thomas' car back to Hachinohe (pronounced Hatch-ee-no-hay). After some recovery time, I went to meet Mike in town. At the precise moment that I left the house, the heavens opened and there was a thunderstorm, which certainly cleared the air somewhat, making living a little less stuffy for a while. We went into town and headed for an excellent shop: village vanguard. It is essentially a shop selling tat, but excellent tat. We then toured round some of the other shops on Hach's main drag, before heading to the arcade to play pool. My skills need honing... On leaving, we saw a rather excellent view from the lift.
On Sunday evening, Mike's friends were leaving to go back to Nara, so we went for a meal. Mike wanted to go somewhere special, and we found an inn specialising in seafood that looked good. We started with a share-plate of sashimi: lots of raw fish meat. There was tuna, salmon, red snapper, mackerel, squid and halibut, which was great. We followed that little lot up with fried octopus, fried squid legs, prawns in chili sauce, rice cracker soup and tofu steak. I was apprehensive about the tofu steak, but it was delicious: not unlike scrambled eggs.
Monday was the start of our week with kids in the office. We chose to do either the morning or the afternoon with the kids. The group was essentially a creche for kids on holiday, with an English slant. What this essentially boiled down to was running round the classroom with kids whooping on our shoulders, playing footy and catch with them, and occasionally doing exercises in English, which were as much fun as possible. The kids were generally great: very cute and genki (upbeat). These groups ran from Monday to Thursday, and were a lot of fun.
The star players in the premier league were Naoya, Saki and Misaki. Naoya is the little chap you can see in the photo, and Saki and Misake were a comedy duo of 5 year olds, who were always doing something mischievous. At one point we were playing a game similar to musical chairs, and Saki sustained a knock. She burst into tears and ran out. After a few minutes, she returned to the fray, and whilst still looking very angry and disheveled, managed to win the game we were playing. Great kid.
On Monday evening, we went for a beach barbeque. It was Thomas' idea. It was great to escape from Hach for a while, and just hear the sounds of the sea. The occasional firework strayed our way, having been launched by the kids having a party just down the beach. We realised that the way forward was the deployment of hand-held fireworks. There's something satisfying about having your feet in the sea, and a piece of cardboard in your hand ejecting fire and sparks at ultra-high temperatures. The food was great, and the company (Jaya, Mike and Thomas) was too. We also procured a flamethrower device to start the bonfire, which despite being a little excessive, was good fun to use. On the way back to Hach, Thomas took us to the viewpoint, and we saw an awesome panorama of Hachinohe: it's massive.
The population of Hach is the same as Nottingham, and it takes up about the same area, the main differences being that Hach looks like nothing has been done to it in about 10 years and the people are placid, and that whilst Nottingham looks smart in places, over 40% of 5 year olds are in possession of an unlicensed firearm. The amount of young children I have seen using hand-held fireworks here is truly inspirational.
On the Thursday, we went to Baikingu, or Viking, with Jaya's and my big sister Kerry, and I managed a prodigious all-you-can-eat performance. For starters, I had squid legs, octopus, potato wedges and egg fried rice. Main course was beef steak, beef tongue, bacon and chorizo sausage. Dessert one was green tea ice cream, vanilla ice cream, chocolate ice cream and Mr Whippy. I followed this up with kiwi, watermelon and melon. Melons are shockingly expensive here: 3000 yen for an average example, which is about fifteen pounds. Kerry said she saw one man come into the restaurant, and eat solely melon, in massive quantities. Another anomalously expensive foodstuff is rice, bizarrely. A small bag is about 1000 yen. It is the five pounds for something that would cost about 50 pence in Britain, except that they grow rice here, and we do not. I believe that the Americanism is, go figure.
On Friday 13th, my birthday started to warm up. Shobuke (our fabulous boss) brought a birthday cake to work for me. Saturday was the day of Charlie and Alex's Excellent Adventure. Jaya, Mike and I took a train to Asamushi: a beach and hot spring resort. There were a few people there, and we spent the day on the beach. We wanted to swim out to the nearby island, but were warned that the sea traffic was too dense. Later on however, it died down, so Alex, Chris and I swam out to the island. It was further than we thought: about 900 metres apparently. Alex also said that he felt something distinctly squiddish brush past his leg... Eventually, we reached the Island, and Alex and I climbed onto the Tori (the red archways that seem to be ubiquitous in this country) to celebrate. We probably roused the wrath of some god or other in the process, but it was the perfect shape to stratch on to get rid of cramps: out of every bad thing comes a little good. We went exploring. There were three shrines there, and a path to the top of the island, which was 53 metres up according to the sign. We had each given ourselves Lord of the Rings character names: Alex was Legolas, Chris was Peregrine Took, and I was Gimli. Alex therefore used his keen eyes at every impasse, and saw us safely through. We swam back during an amazing sunset: the sky and the water were an overwhelming electric pink, which combined with the mountains should have been breathtaking, but since we were swimming, we prioritised breathing over view-appreciation. Bally nice though. By the time we returned, it was dark. We let off some fireworks, and our work was done.
On Sunday, we went to a Reggae Bash, which was a mixed success. the music was great, but the DJs insisted on playing about 20 seconds of each track, at which point the crowd were getting in the groove, before changing the track for something else, without mixing the tracks properly. The sounds system was great, but the weather was decidedly unfavourable. We still had a great time. The barbeque was used for a second time, and somehow stayed burning throughout a series of torrential downpours that had us cowering under a tarpaulin kindly provided by Kappa, the proprietor of a very cool little local bar called Bon. Eventually, the weather perked up, allowing us to go and dance with our fellow party-goers. We made utter prats of ourselves. Alex ate a squid. It was brilliant. In the evening, Mike came over and we watched Trading Places and Tomorrow Never Dies, before letting off some hand-held fireworks in the street at about midnight. This was alright, since Obon festival was taking place: a four-day period when lots of family members return to their parents' households to commemorate the loss of family members. And set off fireworks.
On Monday evening, Kerry, Jaya, Dahlia, Mike and I headed over to a karaoke joint for some larks. Regrettably, we were only there for an hour, but sometimes that is all it takes.
On Wednesday, Jaya, Dahlia and I headed over to Aomori: the capital of the area, in order to attend the Aomori Orientation (or Aomorientation). The classes were good, and the nights were pretty decadent. Both nights involved all-you-can-eat-and-drink sessions to warm up, and then all-you-can-drink karaoke sessions. The repercussions of this were twofold. Firstly, I thought my singing capabilities were absolutely fabulous, and wanted to share my voice with my colleagues as much as possible. The second knock-on was that the days were spent learning and recovering. The thought process over the span of the day went something like this:
MORNING: What happened? What time is it? Right, go and have a nice hotel breakfast, and lots of coffee, a cold shower, and get in the mood for learning. Oh yes, and never drink again.
AFTERNOON: How can a hangover go on this long? Surely, I should be dead by now. How could I ever touch a drink feeling like this?
EVENING: The pub at seven? See you there!
Boris also introduced us to the remarkable and very effective international sign for toxic: see if you can spot it in the pictures below. On Thursday, I had my first onsen (hot spa) experience: it was fantastic. Essentially, there are lots of baths at different temperatures, ranging from 42 celsius to 16, and some of the baths have special features, like electricity (yes, electricity, in a bath, that you sit in), oh, and everybody is nude. Needless to say, it felt like home. On Friday, in the last lesson, we were invited to volunteer. Ten of us duly did. We were then blindfolded and fed various foods found in school lunches. I was lucky: I had seaweed. Ivan was not: he received nato. If you want to know my views on nato, take a look at the last journal entry! Once the Aomorientation was over, our bags bulging with Hotel pens, towels and so on, we all felt the need to go back, rest, and have a good think about what we had done, so we did.
Click here for ALL of the Aomorientation photos!
On Saturday 21st it was the AJET party. AJET organise social events for JETs. It was good fun. Alex, Chris, Mike and I had fun with the flags, perhaps a bit too much fun in a couple of cases... We also discovered Japanese camping, which is essentially going into the countryside and renting a chalet. It was very civilised, but it wasn't camping. Alex and I played The Collective Nouns Game. This is where one tries to think of names for collective nouns of things. Real examples include a murder of crows, an implausibility of gnus, and a flange of baboon. This means that it is open-season when you are making new ones up. Gosh, we had a damnably good time and that's for sure.
Tuesday was my first day at school. I had to introduce myself in front of the entire school: about 500 people. The introduction was in Japanese. There were 2 guys right in front of me, one with a camcorder, the other with a digital camera. No pressure then. It went well though. I even managed to get some audience response, with the assistance of the sports teacher (who smokes, of course). The next few days at school were spent doing my self-introduction, which I have managed to make outlast a lesson: I like to last a long time. On Friday, I was shown a very large dragonfly by one of the female teachers: nobody is squeamish of bug-type animals here. In fact, children often keep stag beetles as pets: I sat next to a Stag Beetle terrarium on the train, which was a nice surprise. In the afternoons, we also prepared for the Sports Day, which was due to take place on Sunday.
On Wednesday evening, I went for my first longish bike ride here. I headed along the coastline, stopping at a shrine to take a look. Apparently this shrine is well known due to the amounts of seagull shat you can expect to receive. I think I picked my time well, since I escaped a Gull-Bombing. The view from the shrine was great, but like all things in Japan, the shrine itself was marred by the presence of pylons leading all the way up to it. The rest of the bike ride was pretty cool: I got to a sign that said "Hachinohe 11km, and thought that since it was now dark, I had better head back. I did the sensible thing, which was to try and guess a different route back. My choice meant that I had to climb a hill with approximately a 50% gradient for five minutes. Once I reached the top, however, it was plain sailing all the way back. Well, plain cycling actually. In fact, I suppose it was exciting cycling, so it was not plain sailing at all, but you get the point.
Thursday was a joyous day: I was finally insured on the Honda Integra I purchased from my predecessor, Chris. To celebrate, I drove to the big shopping mall nearby called Shimoda with Jaya and Mike. Mike bought a swanky new bike, and Jaya bought a green-tea based product, to satisfy her green-tea craving. The car is interestingly fast, and I am sure it will supply much fun in the months to come, especially when there is ice on the roads...
Sunday was the day of the Sports Day at school. I turned up by taxi at 0815, and headed for the staff room in my suit. Everyone was in sports clothes, of course, so I went to change. The opening ceremonies were very intricate, and took about an hour to complete. They involved the children goose-stepping around the playground, before lining up in ordered rows. Then there was some exercise (the same exercises that feature at the end of Battle Royale, which was an intriguing parallel). Then the events began. There were a couple of 100m sprints, but most of the events were more reminiscent of Takeshi's Castle than Amateur Athletics. A lot of the events involved a large degree of chance: the children sauntered up to a set of boxes and picked up a card, which told them the method of transport they were to use for the next section: these ranged from a Mountain Bike, to pushing a wheelbarrow whilst wearing a buddha mask. A lot of the events were cooperative too: I took part in one event where I had to help the kids carry softballs along using a pair of sticks, and another where we had to skip, then carry a football using our backs. Needless to say, I felt really cool. My team won, a result prophesied by the team banner, which proudly proclaimed "We Are The Champion" (sic).
In the evening was the Enkai, or party. The party was good fun. I had to do a little speech in Japanese (which I only discovered on arrival at the party!), then another little speech in English. I finished with a climactic rendition of "We Are The Champions", and all were happy. At the end of the party, they gave me a box of food to take home: I think that they think I need feeding up.
On Monday, I got hold of a multiple re-entry permit. It means that the world is officially my oyster: I am free to come and go as I please from Japan. A world of travel beckons...