So my birthday was on September 17th, 2010. I decided to spend it with some friends in Tokyo which was a great idea. I flew in to Tokyo’s Haneda airport from an airport about an hour from my house. In 2 hours I was in Tokyo and it felt as though I was in a different country entirely. Of course the language was still the same, if you don’t account for the difference in dialects, but the fact that I could almost have anything I wanted from home made the real difference. Being in rural Japan definitely has its perks but there are some days when I just want to be able to go to the store at 8 PM and not worry about it being closed, or even just get a cup of freshly brewed coffee somewhere. This is why when I went to Tokyo I decided that I was turning on my gaijin(foreigner) tourist light on and only eat at American restaurants and speaking English. I had told Matt and Dana before that I lived in the inaka, or country side, but I don’t think they understood the magnitude of that statement. I literally live in the mountains. No department stores, no 7-Elevens, no taxis, and no ATM’s on the weekends are just some of the things on the list of things that I have no access to. But even without these things I have managed to create a routine which works quite well. I’m in Hongu during the week and I visit larger towns and cities on the weekends. It’s a nice balance of city life and rural life I think. Plus, if I had all of those other things at my disposal I would probably spend a lot more money and my cultural immersion would probably be a lot less successful. Just this past weekend, someone asked me if this was my second year on the JET program because they thought I seemed very comfortable living in Japan and I attribute this to being placed in rural Japan. There are pros to living here of course and they include being able create a lot more personal relationships with Japanese people. I don’t have any “English speaking” friends that close to me so if I want to have friends in Hongu, it means I have to make friends with the people who live here, most of which don’t speak English. This leads to another pro which is a greater opportunity to learn Japanese. Because I don’t have people to speak English to, other than my students whose English is very basic, I am forced to use Japanese every day. Also, when I study Japanese, I have many more chances to use what I have learned and practice with the people around me. I am still amazed when some of my students start talking to me in Japanese and I understand what they are saying and am able to reply with a semi-coherent response. Of course there are still plenty of times where my lack of knowledge of the Japanese language leads to miscommunications, but those are becoming less frequent.
Back to Tokyo. Dana was a great host and she took us to some good places in Tokyo including the really expensive stores where we couldn’t even afford to look at their clothes such as when one of the store clerks told us the less expensive clothes were in their basement. Thanks for telling us we look like American trash, is what I thought in my head. Maybe I will go back there one day when I am willing to spend $700 dollars on a t-shirt (which is never by the way.) On Sunday, Kent, a friend who I met while in Chicago who now lives in Chiba, and I went to Tokyo Disneyland. Yes, Disneyland. I really wanted to go and I promised my niece that I would get her something for her birthday while I was there. So Kent, being a good friend that he is, decided to not let me go alone. It was a holiday weekend so the park was pretty full but they already started their Halloween theme which was fun to see. We got on most of the rides we wanted to and I for one had a lot of fun. I also completed my mission of getting my niece something for her birthday so it was a successful trip.
The next day, Kent headed back to Chiba, and Dana, Matt and I headed to Roppongi Hills. This part of Tokyo is really nice and we had heard that the view from atop the Mori tower was better than Tokyo tower so we decided to go there. While the view wasn’t that wonderful that night because of the rainy weather, the Mori art museum there was quite interesting.
I’ll admit I’m not much of an art fan but this museum had a lot of contemporary pieces which are more intriguing to me than older art. Overall the trip was fun and I was able to see Matt, Dana, and Kent which was nice.
The next big thing that happened after my Tokyo trip was Oktoberfest which I hosted in my humble quarters in Hongu. The weeks leading up to the party were a bit hectic as I tried to make my house clean and welcoming to the 15 guests. I bought some nice home décor items and put up some pictures. Some friends came up a bit earlier on the day of the party and I showed them around Hongu while we got soaked by the heavy rain. But we didn’t let the rain stop us as we toured the World Heritage Center and the great torri gate. After getting pretty wet, we took a short bus ride to an onsen which was amazing as the rain was falling. The mix of heat from the onsen and coolness from the rain made it one of my favorite onsen experiences. After the onsen we had dinner and then the party started. 
While there were some no shows due to train cancelations, 14 people came to the party and as all the guests can tell you it was an epic gathering which will be talked about in Wakayama for years to come. Haha. The day after the party, and after everyone departed to their respective homes, I went to Hiki, a beach town about an hour from me. There we had a bonfire under the beautiful star studded sky. It was the first time I have ever seen a shooting star and it was truly a mesmerizing night.
The next morning we went back to the lagoon where we had the bonfire and went swimming. This lagoon is simply amazing which clear water and awesome cliffs and caves which we explored. The entire weekend was pretty epic and probably the best weekend I have had in Japan to date. The grandness of the weekend is just too much to describe with words. The following weekend 5 of us decided to go on a hike. They wanted to do a 5 hour hike from a town about 20 minutes from me to Nachi falls, the largest in Japan. What they failed to mention was that this was one of the most difficult hikes in the area because of the 5 mountains it covers! We literally went up the side of a mountain for what seemed to be an eternity. Every time we seemed to be reaching the top, more steps appeared that kept leading upwards. As sweat and tears ran down my face, I kept pushing myself so that I can say I actually finished the hike. (In reality there was no turning back so I had to keep going.) As we crossed the markers indicating the distance left until the finish line we decided to recount tails of the events of our life at that age. So as we passed marker 20, we told a memorable memory from that age in our life.
This was actually really fun and it kept our minds off of the distance we had yet to cover. By the time we got to the waterfall, roughly 8 hours after we set out, most of us didn’t even care to see the waterfall. All we wanted to do was get to our Island hotel with beautiful onsens. I could barely feel my legs but the thought of soaking in an onsen kept my body running. The Island hotel was really nice and I would love to go back when I’m not as worn out from a day of hiking and explore more of the hotel. The next morning we had breakfast and set out to go back home. But no one wanted the weekend to end so what did we do? Karaoke. Yup, we went to Karaoke in Tanabe at 2 in the afternoon.
This leads to this past weekend, Halloween! Such an exciting weekend it was! It started off with a welcome party from one of my elementary schools. It’s a little late for a welcoming I know but they had originally scheduled it for the weekend I was in Tokyo so they were kind enough to reschedule it. So Friday one of the teachers picked me up and took me to the party. They rented a cabin for the party which I thought was pretty cool. There were speeches, a song for a teacher who was recently married, food and of course drinks. I taught them how to play never have I ever which went better that I thought it would. Then they taught me a Japanese drinking game which was a lot of fun. Four people, including myself stayed at the cabin so we stayed up pretty late talking which was great because I got to know them a bit more. The next morning we went to have breakfast and then I went back to sleep. After I woke up I felt energized and refreshed so I decided to go on a short run which turned into an 8km run. It was a beautiful day so I figured I should take advantage of it before the really cold weather starts. After my run, I started to work on my Halloween costume and got ready for the roof-top party in Nachi! Nachi is not very far from me so I drove there and picked up a friend on the way there. A lot of the other ALT’s (assistant language teachers) from the area attended and it was nice to see everyone. My costume was a great hit and I won the award for the funniest costume! I was an SNL skit, a d… in a box!
Haha. If you don’t know what it is you should watch it on YouTube. The next day we all went to an onsen on a nearby island which was pretty sweet and then I drove to Tanabe where we had a Karaoke marathon (3 hours) and then dinner at a Mexican restaurant. The restaurant wasn’t that bad and it was nice to eat some cheese because it’s rare to find out here in the country.
Taiko is going well. We have been performing a lot for some tour groups that come through the area. They “rent” us out to watch us perform and we give them a little Taiko lesson. A few weeks ago we had a group from Spain! I was excited to be able to speak in Spanish! They didn’t have a translator so I become the MC for the session. Boy was it stressful; mostly because they started asking these questions that I couldn’t translate into Japanese because I’ve only been here 3 months! But they understood that my Japanese wasn’t at a level where I can ask the Japanese Taiko members how the drums are made and what kind of wood is used, or the history of Taiko in Japan. But I had a good time and they seemed to have a good time so it was successful in my eyes.
We have also had tour groups from Israel and people from within Japan as well. I am learning a lot in Taiko and they have started to teach me some of the theatrics of the performances so I am excited to record a performance someday soon and post it here on my blog! Look out for that! I have a lot of exciting things coming up including bbq at that beautiful lagoon in Hiki this weekend, a 5k race, a trip up north to Wakayama, thanksgiving in Japan, and a mid-year ALT seminar! Stay tuned!
