Okinawa

Wednesday, three English teachers from Kumamoto(Kara, Dave and John) and I caught an early bus to the airport and took the short 1 1/2 hour plane trip down to Naha, the biggest city on the culturally conflicted tropical paradise island of Okinawa. We found our rental car, a black Japanese model that looks like an SUV from the front and a k-car from the back, and navigated our way through the complex signage(lack of signage?) of the city. Our first stop was A&W, the rootbeer restaurant. My friends ingested gloppy burgers and big mugs of rootbeer and I did my pectotarian, low-sugar best with a fish burger and an oolong tea. I've come to know that my emerging dietary habits are not usually shared by my fellow Americans, which is okay as long as we all get to eat.
After lunch we found our place, 'The Kariyushi Ocean Spa Hotel Resort,' an 80-acre layout with activity space for golfing, hiking, swimming, and so on. The view from the room is beautiful, facing the ocean.
On the way there we'd passed a Mexican joint, and, never being ones to pass up a rare 'authenic' Mexican meal(of which there are none in Kumamoto--only Mexican-Japanese flavored ones), we went back for dinner. (We did want to make sure to try some Okinawan foods too.)
Yesterday, we got up early and enjoyed a plentiful European-style buffet in the crowded indoor/outdoor banquet area, and headed out to the glass boat. There was all kinds of colorful underwater life to take in. I was amazed at how clear the water was and how easily you could see deep down to the ocean floor. It made me want to try scuba.
After that, we piled into the car, and drove north to the upper tip of the island. As we drove further out, traffic became less and less. We got to the cliffs after about an hour and a half. Personally, this is my first experience with scenery of this sort, I all I wanted to do was sit and watch the waves hit the cliffs. I did spot a turtle swimming away down there, a big brown and white turtle diving down and coming back up, and that made me feel as if I had arrived just in time.
We curved back down the other side of the coast and cut through the middle of the island. On that trip, we got to see regular, sleepy Okinawan towns. They were mostly concrete and uninteresting to look at, but there were a few traditional red-roofed houses, and I saw two thatched-roofed houses.
On the way back, we stopped for dinner at 'Okinawan Slow Foods' Restaurant. My friends ate pig ears, and cherry blossom soba noodles, while I had a salted 'gurokun' fish and two styles of goya, a bitter, green, warty-looking vegetable. After that, I felt very happy. I went to bed thinking about my happy tummy.
Today, we are supposed to go snorkeling. Again, something I have experience with only through things like TV. I have to remember that I don't actually have any skill with this stuff and to be patient if I can't do it all right away! I'm happy to have a new challenge, and an experience to look forward to.
See you on the other side ;)

5 things and happy cupcakes

1. The plum blossoms have opened and they are beautiful.

2. We had our first earthquake of the year yesterday, a small one.

3. I'm going to Okinawa tomorrow.

4. I'm staying in Japan another year.

5. This stationery could be my favorite yet:









Oh,
the thrill of it all

My Dream Toilet

My home just wouldn't be complete without my own Japanese-style toilet. Set on top of the good old-fashioned squat-hole by my handy landlord when I was moving in, only now, after several months, have I had the bravery to use its all its features.

My toilet has an automatically heated seat, controls to automatically adjust the direction of the water from bidet, a 'bidet' for the other hole with controls, 'massage' settings for the bidet stream, 'big' flush and 'small' flush, and, of course, the standard upside-down handle and built-in mini wash sink.

With all the satisfaction the toilet brings me and my guests, I find myself questioning why certain features were not included. I wondered why my toilet lacked the wonders of such toilets as: the one at the public reststops or the one at the train station.

Here are some of those features included in my 'dream toilet(an * indicates a feature I've found or used in a public restroom):'

a blow dryer for after-bidet use*
an automatically cooled seat for those hot summer months
a 'flushing sound' noise-maker, when mother nature's call is just too embarrasingly loud*
motion-activated flush, a.k.a 'wait, I'm not...'*
automated tp dispenser
toilet paper always folded in a pleasing v-shape*
lady's voice thanking me for using the toilet*(I suppose it would be a man's voice on my dream toilet)

the controls on my current toilet

From the 'Happy Stationery' collection

Happy Pudding Stationery


(Be the first to get a handwritten letter on this stationery!
See blog titled 'New Feature!' for rules. Limit one entry per person per stationery; sorry, offer not valid in Chile and Mozambique(exceptions apply).)

A small gap in time

I suspect that at this time of year many people who have enjoyed the quietness of the winter months once again become busy. Spring has finally arrived. Here in the Kumamoto area it's hard to tell, however. It's been cold and windy, like winter, and it was overcast and rainy today.
Today is 'Midori no Hi,' a.k.a 'Green Day' here in Japan. I don't know it's significance(please comment if you happen to know), but there was no school today.
I just returned from a full day's outing in Fukuoka, at the 20th Annual Shohei Juku Aikido Public Demonstrations. It was an early morning, taking a bus down to Kumamoto to meet the gang, and all the way back passed Tamana to Fukuoka in the north, to arrive at the sizeable Fukuoka Sun Palace International Center. The demostrations started at 11:30 and continued until 4pm. My group, the Kumamoto dojo went on to perform at 3pm. For the second year in a row, I was also a part of the demonstration. It wasn't much to brag about though--we only got one minute per pair to demonstrate in front of the audience of around 400 people. In that time, my partner and I could do eight techniques. I was nage(throwing). It took some time to choreograph and memorize the pattern, but after it was memorized, it was kind of fun to practice. My partner is Japanese, but he lived in Hawaii for a while, so he spoke English. It helped a lot to be able to communicate to each other how we wanted to present ourselves.
After the demonstration[sorry I didn't say much about the rest of the demo, but it was pretty much the same as last year's(--see blog archives from March '05)] we had a big, goofy party, where most of the 400 people in attendance drank a lot of beer. They had lots of speeches, some silly presentations by graduating students, and a prize give-away. I didn't win anything, but a guy from a visiting dojo in Hawaii won a sketch of Bodhidharma done by Suganuma Shihan(the head of Aikido on Kyushu Island). Some people from the Kumamoto dojo are hosting some of the Hawaiians, so it was nice for all of us that they had something meaningful to take back with them from the demos.

In other news, I also participated in an orchestra concert on Sunday. We had an insane number of rehearsals last week(five??), and I wasn't able to blog recently for lack of time. The concert went well. Lots of excerpts. I did happen to notice that of the chorus of maybe 150 people, the soloists, the university students, and the regular orchestra members, I was the only non-Japanese person, as far as I could tell. There was a moment at the beginning of the concert when I realized this, and I'm sure my face turned bright red to think I would probably attract attention for it, but after that I barely gave it anymore thought. I'm so used to being a minority, it almost doesn't faze me at this point.
My stand partner, from Kumamoto University, was one of the graduating seniors in the group. At graduation time, seniors seem to be granted full pardons for any insane behavior they demonstrate. During one of our rehearsals, seven graduating university seniors hijacked the symphony for a good ten minutes to give their own mock concert, complete with dancing, gestures, and sound effects. It was so out-there, and actually had nothing to do with the non-student members of the group,(i.e., the volunteer symphony which sponsors the concerts) but no one cared.

Anyway, hope to get back to more regular posting now that... strike that. Next week, on the 29th, I'm going to Okinawa for five days. I can't say if I'll be able to blog at that time, but as always, I'll do my best to post regularly!!

Right now, it's been a long week, so I'm hitting the sack early! Tomorrow's my last class to teach before Spring Break!!

New Feature!!

Japanese stationery often makes me chuckle, and I started collecting Japanese stationery when I first came here more than a year and a half ago. Now I'd like to share some of the giggles in this new feature, "Happy Stationery of Japan."

As an added bonus, if I know you and you would like to request a letter on a particular stationery you see, leave a comment or send me an email. I enjoy writing to friends, and I relieve you of any pressure to write back!

If you already received a letter on the particular stationery, nice!!--leave your impression in the comments field!

The Wonders of Nuclear Power

Today, the ninth graders, teachers, and I went on a field trip to Kyushu's very own nuclear power plant, Genkai Nuclear Power Station. It was a three-hour bus drive to get there, in Saga Prefecture. Several of the teachers asked me along the way, 'Oh Julie, have you been to the nuclear power plant?' I wondered why they thought I might have taken the three-hour trip to visit a nuclear power plant in my free time. So I admitted no, that it was actually my first time.
The bus ride was relatively uneventful. In Japan, they have these women that are hired to talk the whole time on your ride. They are there to make the ride pleasant and enjoyable for everyone, and we had one in a cute orange and black uniform, with an adorable orange hat with a black bow straight from an '80s MTV video. She talked about the weather, her high school, Kumamoto, the Kumamoto dialect(which was interesting for me), and on and on about anything. She was so cheerful and I wished she would stop talking, but that's her job, so she didn't stop. Finally, everyone was falling asleep, so she put on a movie, Disney's 'Stitch,' in Japanese.
When we got to the site, we drove around and got to look at the reactor 'containment vessels' and other big-word things in Japanese.
Inside, we saw the inside of an actual training room used to teach people to operate and maintain the reactors and the power system. I'd printed an explanation of nuclear power and the different kind of reactors to try to aquaint myself before the trip, but the info I printed used a lot of technical terms I didn't know. So I just enjoyed looking at pipes and tubes and pools of eerie blue water, until I finally got a teacher to explain a little. She did the best she could, and I did my best to understand, but it wasn't until we got to the end of the tour that I found a pamphlet in English illustrating the various rooms in detail.
(I took this pic thinking of Homer Simpson with his coffee and doughnut:)
Afterwards, we headed out for lunch. Us teachers, and about 170 ninth graders ate squid for lunch. Big squid cut up into small pieces, small squid cut up into smaller pieces, deep fried squid, fermented natto(soybean)-like substance and squid, and pickles. As you might've guessed, the area special catch is squid. I've gotten used to most Japanese foods, but somehow squid can leave my stomach churning in strange ways. I think I'll be okay.
All in all, an interesting day. The high point for me was when the students would walk around with me, or we'd have fun taking pictures together. Interaction with the students remains one of the highlights of my work. Fun or interesting interaction with the other teachers is very rare at my job, so I try to soak up all the joy in my work from the kids.
When we got back home, we had a formal 'good job, thank you, we're finished' meeting with the students, and everyone started on home. I got in my car and was pulling out, saying goodbyes, and in some sort of dazed tone, like he'd just now realized I'd been on the trip all day, my supervisor(-esque person) shouted towards my car, 'We're finished, you may go now!' I sensed his confusion even as he said it--had he just realized I'd been on the trip all day??