Summer Comes

So the weather’s heating up and occasionally, after school or during a quiet Sunday at home, I decide to hop on my bike and look for some little spot around the town I haven’t seen yet. Sometimes I’ll go to a place that looks interesting on google maps, sometimes I will have driven past a place and always wondered what was actually there, and sometimes I’ll just go in a direction I haven’t really explored. The results range from me fearing for my life as I reach the end of a dirt track, long since past what could be called a road (thankfully I’m always driving when this happens. Although it tends to happen at twilight, the scariest time) to finding a little beach protected on three sides by cliffs, with streams of water trickling down the faces of the cliffs- a perfect place to watch the sunset. I wanted to claim one of these as my own, to have my own place I could cycle to and read, and be alone. And I thought I’d found it- the beach out on the cape, surrounded on three sides by cliffs and only accessible by a steep road down from a gap in the bamboo. It was nice, I thought, I’d clean up some of the junk that has obviously washed up during typhoons, left there because no-one uses the beach, and I’d find a good place to read, and when it gets a bit warmer I’d pitch a tent on the thin strip where there’s sand instead of fist-sized rocks. I’d swim when it gets a little warmer (the water looks perfect) and maybe one day I’d even have someone to be romantic with, who I can take there to watch the sunset.

But the I went back there, and found a hole had been cleared in the bamboo, steps made out of rocks where the path was before, and even a handrail made of rope. Evidently someone else goes there, and either someone in city hall or a fisherman thought people go there often enough to build a reasonable staircase down there. So no fortress of solitude for me. Ah well, you win some you lose some.

And yesterday a student pointed to a word in a dictionary, part of a longer translation, and asked me what it means. The word was ‘the’- I was powerless to explain, in Japanese or English. The best I could do was tell her that, in that particular context, you don’t need it.

There are so many questions I can’t answer.

 

Abandonment

Yesterday I was driving to the next town to help out at (ie. sit in on) a community English conversation class the English teacher in the next down gives, and I passed through a small village just before the city border, one of many small villages around the area that are being abandoned as the population declines. The town has an elementary school with five students, due to close next year (when two of those students will graduate) and a Junior High School that closed last year. Set into a valley, below the level of the road in front, all that is visible of the junior high school is the crumbling gym. There are at least six schools (that I know of) like this around Shimizu that are closed, three of them completely abandoned, and only one in regular use (as an old people’s home) I couldn’t resist stopping to take photos.

It’s strange seeing how nature is re-consuming these old buildings, when you think about the students who, for three to nine years went to these buildings almost every day.  At the entrance and in the staff room of all the schools are aerial photos taken following major construction, like a new gym or a new pool. In the case of the combined elementary school/junior high school deep in the forest, at the intersection where one windy road goes inland to the mountains, and the other back to the coast to join the major tourist road, the only such photo I’ve been able to find is from 1978 (昭和 52 年）and hangs in the genkan of the nearest school, which if I remember correctly is due to close in a year’s time (along with four others) The frame contains two photos, one of three students doing star-jumps with a teacher on a fine day- the shot captures the moment perfectly. The other is an aerial shot showing all the students (about 10-15 of them) spelling out the school’s name on the small field outside, with the year written underneath. I can think of no more perfect metaphor for the loss of the rural way of life. I want to go out to all of these schools before cherry-blossom season is over and photograph the way the fresh new life is taking over the old dead buildings. I’ve somehow developed a nostalgia for a time I never knew.

The photos are of the entrance, a clock stuck at ten to ten and an old swing hanging from a cherry blossom tree.

Click on the images for bigger and better views.

 

‘Round Town

Around town in the last couple of days I’ve discovered a few places I never knew existed. One is a Cherry Blossom Park out on the cape (just bare trees now, but the park’s still fun) and a sea-shell gallery built in 1966 to look futuristic, and because it’s magically well-maintained manages to not look forty years old, and still look kind of cool. In a different way to the old ruined ‘Chinese’ building next door, whose original purpose I can really only guess.
The town’s full of mad-good tourist spots. It was once a mildly-famous tourist destination, mainly amongst Japanese people who came here for the beaches. But for a long time it’s been easier, quicker and cheaper to get from Tokyo to Hawaii than to here, so all the hotels, souvenir shops and tourist attractions that went up new forty years ago are still around, some still operational but most lying unused. Now the only reason anyone ever comes here is because of the skin hospital (another reason to come here- best skin hospital in western Japan, if what I hear is correct. Add that to the American bar around the corner from my huge house and I have to wonder why you aren’t here already), or sometimes Japanese hippies decide to move here. Seriously, one of my first-graders’ father, whose family moved here from Tokyo last year, put on a concert/hippy jam fest on Tuesday, in a large run-down house in the mountains, by a river. It was certainly a different experience.
I can’t express the wonder that is the Tatsukushi Aquarium with words, only pictures:
It is fantastically kitsch, yet somehow well maintained (so much can’t really be said for the glass-bottomed boats). I was late for my tea ceremony this morning because I wasn’t aware the 1966 built ’sea shell gallery’ was a separate entity.

The tea ceremony itself was fun- The woman at the counter paid for because I only had ¥447 and the entry was ¥500. She said something about knowing me from the library, or knowing that I’d helped a couple of times. I wasn’t sure. The kids dressed up really nicely- The fourth grade girl who took a shine to me at the pool on Friday was in a kimono, too shy to talk to me (or decided she doesn’t like me…) And there were boys in collared shirts with combed hair serving the sweets. They got really dressed up and I was still wearing the clothes I woke up in at 5:30, in Matt’s apartment in the city, after the book-swap and the concert last night, when Zoe, Nick and I decided to see the sunset.
(by the way, open-mic nights always make me want to become a musician)
But today has inspired me to go camping. I’ve fallen in love with a good sunrise- and Zoe’s digital camera. The sunset over the sea in Tatsukushi would be great- we could sleep at the campground in Tatsukushi and then drive to the other side of the cape to watch the sunrise at Ohki beach. If we go during Cherry blossom season we could visit the park out on the cape, which has bikes, a cool playground and crazy wooden go-carts that don’t really go at all, and a lot of cherry-blossom trees.

And while searching for photos I found this blog, which contains a lot of photos around the town- I wonder who’s blog it is. I shall find out

Really, check out the photos on that blog. They do the beauty of this town far more justice than I ever could.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

 

Ah, the weather is perfect..

So the weather is perfect, the alledged typhoon never materialised (it never does, which is annoying. There’s always so much build-up and nothing comes of it) and my weekend was spent doing almost no relaxing.

Friday night I filled up the shopping trolley/ralley car and drove out to Mihara to get Nick’s signature so we could vote, and together we drank Jim Beam, played Everybody’s Golf 3 on Playstation and ate pizza. It’s good to occasionally go to places smaller than Shimizu- just to know they exist. In contrast to Mihara Shimizu is loud, cramped and busy. This is the reason I couldn’t sleep when I was in Fukuoka; it was just too loud- also hot. Also there was a construction site across the road.

On the drive back to Nakamura we took a wrong turn looking for a dam we knew existed but we weren’t sure where. It turns out it was the turn off after the tunnel, not before. In the end we drove down a tiny road, passed a nine hole golf course (beautiful and incredibly cheap, even by Australian standards)  and stopped off at a picnic spot with gardens and a maze that had become overgrown and was blocked by a wall of spiderwebs. After the drive to Nakamura and Mister Donut for breakfast I stopped off at the video store to pick up the videos 智美 reccommended. One of them, ジョぜと虎と魚たち, I was watching this morning, and wanted to finish but I didn’t want to be late for work.The IMDB Page has no plot synopsis and only the keywords ’sex scene, breasts, female nudity, based on a novel’ which kind of scared me- so often at the video store I pick up a movie, thinking it looks interesting and while looking on the back to see if it has English subtitles I see the back cover photos are kind of…odd – there seems to be a very thin line between drama and pornography here- and this is without even venturing into the curtained-off section of the video store- I’ve never been in there, but I’ve heard stories.

But no, the movie’s really good. The fact that 智美 reccommended it in the same email she reccommended ‘y tu mama tambien’ and ‘garden state’ is the reason I hired it, despite being too busy to take Chan up on his offer for an eggplant curry anytime soon. I figured I’d find the time even if it was between six and eight on a monday morning.

On the drive home  from Nakamura I stopped at Ohki beach (because the weather was so perfect and I always keep bathers, a towel and sunscreen in my car for that reason. Also a futon) for a swim and lunch, because I like the restaurant there, and they understand that fish flakes and fish stock are made of fish. After that I drove back to Shimizu, just in time for the tea ceremony, which was in the park behind the library, which was just so perfect, even though I misunderstood and left during the break halfway through, instead of staying for the part where the kids perform the ceremony themselves. After finally shopping (Doraemon was getting really hungry) borrowing money off Chan because I forgot I bought petrol on Friday I drove out to Souro to see the festival- I hate being put in the position where I have to choose between invitations, especially when I feel like I’m being pressured.

So after the festival we went in to Souro elementary, on a Saturday night, and the deputy principal made me spaghetti and miso soup, and then, along with two elementary school boys we went to the river and pulled nets out of the water, full of fish. I just watched- I found it kind of horrible, and we all went back to the school, and I watched TV while the others skinned and fried the fish, and tried to convince me that sausages aren’t meat. The other guys slept in the Japanese style room at the school (and this is, for some reason, not odd) and I drove home and slept, only to do it again on Saturday at the Kagumi Matsuri, the culture festival, more pizza for lunch, and then a pretty vague attempt at Japanese study.

And oh, I checked back and the IMDB page does have more details. A decent review too. I might have to buy the book…I buy too many books…far more than I can ever read…but they’re so cheap!

 

久しぶりね

It’s been a long time, owing to the fact that my keyboard’s 6 button is perpetually stuck down, I only got the internet at home last week and I had, until recently a fear of using the internet at work for anything other than Japanese study or work. Facebook changed all of that though.
here are some photos
In my first few weeks, my Scrabble skills and world traveller IQ have gone through the roof. Well, through the roof is an exaggeration, they went up to the mezzanine floor then hung around there for a bit, now I think they’re getting hungry and are about to come back down. My perpetually stuck down six key (which only types when I don’t want it to, for instance if I press 6 it will never, ever work, but it I press any of the letters between R and U, or any of the surrounding numbers, the results is something like t666666666666 until I press delete, anyone who knows my password, which I’ve had to change, will know how annoying this is)  makes typing anything difficult, and my aim of a hundred words a day, and flowing prose, even more so.

 So, 土佐清水 is nowhere near as small as first worried. It’s like a perpetual bad joke; an Australian, an Englishman and an American walk into a bar…we have an ‘American style’ bar called Santa Monica Cafe two minutes walk from all our houses, which is great for end-of-night drinking. There’s also an Italian restaurant and four chinese restaurants, so I can eat out and not have to spend ten minutes explaining I don’t eat fish, only to recieve a ‘vegetarian’ meal, covered one-inch thick in fish-flakes. The town/city is full of too many distractions; two shrines and two temples, several fantastic beaches (I’m learning to surf, and surprisingly enjoying it. It lets the hippy in me come out in a way that allows me to still shower) 

My Japanese is, in theory, improving. Well, it is, and I set myself the challenge of doing JLPT level 2 in December. Until then, I’m heading to 福岡 in two weeks for the long weekend, and I want to impress ともみ and her family with my 日本語, but I may have to pre-surprise them by phoning and reminding them I’m vegetarian (it was great, I was trying to think of somewhere to stay and I got an e-mail from ともみ’s mother saying I could stay there if I wanted to, in the same house I stayed at four years ago) I’m getting the hang of Japanese subtlety, although honorifics are still a problem. I wrote out my speech to the principals this morning and handed it to my supervisor, who laughed and changed all my でございますes to です。

 Here’s my draft entry from yesterday:

This morning at work, first day of school after the summer holidays, we drove out to the best beach in Japan (fifteen minutes away) where the weather was perfect; a slight cool breeze coming off the ocean, not a cloud in the sky, and some of the best surfing waves I’ve seen here (because of an offshore typhoon) But I was there in my work clothes holding two cameras, photographing elementary and junior high school students releasing baby sea turtles into the ocean (I’ll post photos tonight)
Each year about two hundred eggs are caught, looked after and eventually released into the ocean at two of the beaches just north of here. The kids really get into it, all standing behind a line holding a tiny turtle in each hand, which they place on the ground and shout がんばれ！　at until it gets to the ocean. Because the waves were so big today there were one or two turtles that were unlucky, and would repeatedly get swept back onto the shore, to be again picked up my a small child, who would run them out and place them in shallow water, but the water would rush out faster than the turtle, and then the next wave would sweep it back. Eventually they all got out and we walked back to the car, dripping with sweat, and waved to the giggling girls and shy, or indifferent boys. And now I’m back at the office, sipping vending machine iced coffee and posting on livejournal, until my teachers get it together to set me a lesson plan (otherwise Tuesday night I’ll be frantically throwing together a few possibilities) I guess I’ll just read Manga and check facebook every ten minutes.

Best job in the world, ねぇ？

So far in Kochi I’ve danced in a parade, pulled a twelve town bus down a city street, participated in a massive tug-of-war involving a whole city, seen people eat four different kinds of whale meat (on the same night), surfed, released sea turtles, and much more, and tomorrow I get to finally do what I came here for; Tomorrow is my first day of teaching, three classes of 清水小学校 first graders, six years old. 74 Kids in total, thankfully not all in the same room, as I thought they would be. And Thursday I have to arrive at work early, to drive out to the cape (I’ll avoid the one lane coast road and use the mountain pass instead, because I’m a little scared of the tiny roads here) to teach Junior high school kids. 74 six year olds tomorrow, then a school of 15 junior high school kids…

I should get back to lesson planning….

 

Tosashimizu

This is a map of Kochi Prefecture, showing Kochi-Shi (the city I thought I was going to) and Tosashimizu (the city I am going to, the dark green at the bottom)
But I’ll be living rent-free in a gorgeous, isolated part of Japan where people drink a lot, apparently.

Tamara, however, is less excited than me.