Here are some more random thoughts and observations from my past six months here in Japan.
Last summer, I had dinner with the Mayor of Kagoshima City. About seven high school students from Miami came over for a week long visit. The city had a fancy dinner for them and I was asked to go as a representative from the Kagoshima City Board of Education, my employer. The big, big boss from my office and I took a taxi over to the hotel together. We went up to the top floor and into the private dining room with with the big window overlooking the bay and volcano. There, we were joined by the city mayor, a few more important people, the students and their teacher and two translators.
One of the translators was my friend Juanita, from Australia. She had to sit behind those of us on the Japanese side of the table and translate. It was a bit strange because we were all eating dinner and she had to sit behind us and translate. No food for her. But, lots of good food for me.
The Japanese government is making an effort to improve Math and English education in the junior high schools. They are making a push for all classes to either have two teachers or only 20 students. Now, many of my schools have what they count as an extra English teacher and they make an effort to divide the class into two smaller groups. Here is an excellent opportunity to provide remedial help for those who need it and also a more challenging level for those above average students. But, instead of splitting the classes up by ability, most of them have split them up by student number. That is to say, alphabetically. The goal of Japanese education is to have everyone at the same level at the end, and dividing them by level would not work towards this goal. So, in this way, the above average students are still a bit bored and the below average students are still lost and sleeping.
At the beginning of the school year, each class went outside for a class photo. The students and teachers seemed excited that I was visiting their school on that day and I got invited to sit in a a bunch of class photos. Later, I found out that these photos were not for student use. They were reserved for the big book that shows all the students of that school. This way, if a concerned local citizen sees some students misbehaving outside of school, they can come to the school and use the pictures to help them to identify the culprits. Essentially, I made it into a whole bunch of mug shots.
They don't have Winnie the Pooh and Santa Claus here. They have Pooh-san and Santa-san.
Having purchased a small two pound bag of rice at the store last year and finished it, I was ready for the next level of excitement in buying rice. I went to street side vending machine that sold rice in bags of 11 pounds or 22 pounds. In Japan, you pay for convenience. And, everyone knows that carrying home one 22 pound bag of rice would be more convenient than two 11 pound bags. So, accordingly, the bigger bag cost more than twice as much as the two smaller sized bags. I put my money into the machine, pressed the button and out came my 11 pound bag, already in a plastic carrying bag, with some recipes and coupons in it.
My next step in buying rice would be to go to one of the small automated roadside silos of rice and buy a 50 pound bag, but I have yet to finish off the 11 pound one.
Almost all dry snack foods seem to come with a small packet of desiccant to keep them dry inside. It is amazing the number of things that they think require desiccant. Once, I even found some in my korean kim chee, which is a very wet spicy cabbage dish. I never knew that you could put desiccant in wet foods.
In Japanese, the months are numbered, not named. January is "One Month", February is "Two Month" and so on. But, they do have a set of twelve month names from the distant past that are used in poetry. Students usually learn them in high school. I came across them on my own and started using them in my homework. My teacher told me that my homework was not poetry and I should not use them. Now I just ask the students questions like "Which month is Satsuki in English?" and then enjoy the confused look on their faces when they do not know the meaning of the Japanese word.
I still enjoy looking through my electronic dictionary for strange words in Japanese. Some of my recent finds include "kuchi utsushi de nomaseru" which means "to let a person drink from your mouth." "Anjuu no chi wo motomeru" means "to seek a place for peaceful living." "Degake ni" means "just as one is about to leave home." "Sato ga erimasu" means "to make one's call at one's old home after getting married." I have found lots of fun words and my teacher often laughs out loud when she reads my homework.
The word "hana" means "flower". "Mizu" is "water". I thought "hana mizu" should mean water from a flower. But, "hana" also means "nose" and "hana mizu" means snot. My students enjoyed that mistake.
They say that the Japanese language relies on lots of "unspoken communication" such as body language, but I haven't seen any of this yet.
They don't call in substitute teachers in the schools here. If a teacher is absent, another teacher takes over the class for the day. If there are no other available teachers, the students are perfectly capable of sitting quietly in the class and reading or doing work. If they get too loud, the teacher from the next class will come in for a moment and quiet them down.
At PTA events and graduation ceremonies, they take attendance - of the parents.
I went on a school trip with the 7th graders from Kamoike JHS. We went to the park for a few hours and ran around and had fun. At the end, we took garbage bags and spent 30 minutes going around the park and picking up trash.
Tuesday, October 21, 2003
Monday, October 20, 2003
Lots of fun things in Japan and America
Well, I guess it has been a little bit longer than usual since my last update. Before Japan, when I was traveling, it was easy to get bored in some new city every month or two and sneak away to an Internet cafe and update my web page. Now that I am living in a city and am making every effort to keep completely busy, I find that I have no time to sit around and type. There is always something else to do. Besides all of my various outside interests, there is a whole range of domestic experiences that make demands upon my time now that I am stationary. Things like cooking dinner, cleaning the bathroom, paying bills, making the bed, ironing a shirt every few months and having a girlfriend. All things which never seemed to catch up with me when I was camping or sleeping in hotels all of the time, but are none the less an integral part of the non-wandering experience.
So, I guess I will just start with where I left off last time. Last April, the new school year started. The first week of school was pretty easy for me. After the starting ceremony, the rest of the week was taken up with health checks. All sorts of doctors and dentists came to poke and prod the students. In the afternoons, the teachers visited all of the student's houses to meet the parents.
The weekend before school started, Rie and I went for her first camping trip. Japan has lots of great campgrounds, but they are only open in July and August -The Camping Season. I found out early in my stay here, that outside of those two months the campgrounds are still great, and empty. We went on over to the Osumi Peninsula (across the bay) and found a nice place to camp. The chain across the gate was old and rusted and held together by a small piece of wire. It was a simple matter to untwist the wire, drive in, and re-twist the wire to close the gate. Suddenly, we had a big nice campground complete with wild pigs, a river, a view up the valley and platforms for the tent all to ourselves. Despite the ice on the ground the next morning, we had a great time.
Later in April, on the 20th, a few of us went to Fukiage for a race. It was only 7km (a bit over 4 miles) but nearly half of it was along the beach, in the sand. That made it a bit of a challenge. My friend, Natalie, won fifth place for her age group. Her prize was a pair of socks. Afterwards, we went to the (in my mind, at least) mandatory post-race hot spring to relax. From the 26th of April until the 5th of May we had what is called "Golden Week". By taking a few days of paid vacation, I had 10 days to ride my bike. I live on an island called Kyushu. It has lots of mountains up the middle and I decided to ride north, through the mountains. One of the holidays of Golden Week is Children's Day. Before the big day, families with boys put up very tall poles and hang carp shaped kites all over the place. They were nice to look at as I cycled by. The second day out was spent mostly climbing one very big hill, with a stop to look at a waterfall. On the third day, I got to Mt. Aso, a 50 mile wide volcanic caldera. They claim it is the largest in the world. After climbing the side, I rode down into the middle. It is so big, that they have towns, roads, fields and even train service inside the former volcano mouth. In the middle of the crater, there is a very tall mountain, which is all that is left of the active portion of the volcano. I rode up there to the visitor's center near the top. Unfortunately, the actual active portion of the volcanic crater at the top was spitting out some noxious fumes that day, so I was not allowed to climb the last 200 feet and look down into it.
From the top of Mt. Aso, I rode down the other side to the caldera floor and then back up the other side of the caldera wall. Then, it was mostly down hill to the hot-spring town of Kurokawa. I found a campground outside of the town and at night a bunch of us went in and soaked in a beautiful outdoor, river-side hot spring. On day four, I rode all the way to the northern Kyushu city of Fukuoka. It is a very large city and the bike ride in along the busy roads was not fun. That night was the first little bit of rain on my bike ride and, since I was in the middle of a big city, I decided to get a hotel room instead of camping. I spent the evening looking around the city. They have a much bigger red light district than Kagoshima.
I am not a big fan of large cities, so I left early the next morning and started going west. I rode through Saga Prefecture and spent the night camping in the hills above the town of Sasebo. In Sasebo, visible from my perch, they build huge ocean going super-tankers. Also, there is a very big U.S. Navy base there with lots of Americans in town.
Early the next morning, I took a ferry out to the one of the five Goto Islands. It took me a few hours to ride from the ferry terminal to the bottom of the island, where I caught another ferry and went down to the next island. That night, after crossing the island, I found a small town with a hot spring and a nice park to camp in.
On Day seven, I took the afternoon ferry to the city of Nagasaki. Approaching by sea, Nagasaki reminded me of San Francisco. It is a smallish city, on a big bay with lots of hills. I spent the next morning visiting the Peace Parks and nuclear bomb museums. I was surprised to see that the museums actually mentioned some of Japan's aggressive actions before World War Two. Although, it was a shame that they chose to blame the worst of Japan's expansion into Manchuria on "renegade army groups." I was also happy to note that (in the 1970's) they added a plaque for the thousands of Korean slave laborers who also died there. In the park, they have what they hope is not an eternal flame. It looks like an eternal flame, but they will put it out when the last nuclear bomb in the world is dismantled. I hope they don't have to wait to long, but I am not holding my breath. The museum's display of bomb damaged people and products was interesting, but the final area impressed me the most. They had a display on the damage that nuclear arms continue to cause. They had videos of people whose current work brings them into contact with America's and Russia's nuclear arsenals. They also had videos of people who live near military bases where these bombs are stored. Video after video told horrifying tales of sickness and extensive government health monitoring programs in these areas. There was one woman who related her tale of when she was in grade school. The government monitors came in and she set off the Geiger counter. They told her not to drink so much water at home.
Another reason I liked Nagasaki so much, was that not only was it easy to get into by boat, but it was easy to get out of by bike. Thirty minutes of riding up the hill facing the water brought me back into the countryside. I rode down the backside of that hill and ended up in a small port town, from which I took a ferry to one of the Amakusa Islands. After crossing that island, I took another ferry to Minamata, near my own Kagoshima Ken. On the ninth day, I re-entered Kagoshima Ken, and naturally, it started to pour. I became convinced that it only rains in Kagoshima. I had nearly perfect weather on the rest of my ride. Some of the islands I visited had perfect sand beaches with blue water and lots of sunshine.
Before my last night of camping on this trip (and the first rainy one) I went to a fantastic hot spring near the town of Sendai. After one full day of riding in the rain, and ten days in total, I returned home in time for an easy four day work week.
Near the end of May, I had a conference to go to in the city of Kobe. It was a conference for all first year JETs in southern Japan who had re-contracted for a second year. More than 1000 people attended. I new the dates of the conference a few months in advance, so I tried to buy some flight tickets. Of course, riding there would have been more fun, but I figured it was about eight days away by bike and I did not have enough vacation days to spare. In February, when I first started checking out prices I learned something interesting about the Japanese travel industry. The airlines only publish their schedules and fares two months in advance. So, all I could do was make a reservation based on last years times and prices and subject to change when the new schedules were published. I decide to wait until April. I went back with my friends Dana and Felicity and we found the flights with the best times and prices for us and made reservations. This was when I learned the great up-side to the Japanese system for customers. Once we had reservations, they were guaranteed. We did not have to actually pay for the tickets until the day before the flight. When we finally went in to pay, we learned that they had made a booking error and for the same price, were now on a more expensive and more convenient flight.
The three of us flew to Kyoto and visited the Golden Temple. We also saw the famous rock garden nearby. The culture stuff was nice, but for me, cities mean food. We ate mediocre Mexican food that night and wandered around the central shopping area. The next day we took a train to the city of Nara. They have a big park there with lots of deer and temples. They also have the world's largest wooden building. The original burnt down a long time ago and this one is only a two thirds size reproduction, but it is still the biggest wooden building in the world. Inside is a huge Buddha statue. That night, the 25th of May, we returned to Kyoto and ate Nepali food. I ate the Nepali national dish of rice and lentils, the same meal I ate at least a hundred times when I was in Nepal. It brought back lots of good memories.
On the Monday, we headed over to Kobe and went to the small island full of hotels where we were staying. It was a nice three day conference without too many boring speakers. The keynote speakers were a pair of very energetic former JETs who now have their own company for teaching the teachers of Japanese elementary students. They reminded a very receptive audience that the Japanese teachers can go home at the end of their day (7 or 8) and be off work. But, for us JETs, when we go home at 4:15, we can not relax and forget about our jobs. Our job is to promote "Internationalism" and we do this every time we leave the house. When someone sees us shopping or jogging or eating, then they can say "Oh, look, there is a foreign person" and we are doing our jobs of "Internationalizing" Japan.
The other memorable speech from the conference was from a professor at a Japanese university. He gave a wonderful speech on the goals of teaching English as a second language. He pointed out that we could have an alternative goal when we teach and he suggested we not only teach English, but also create "World citizens" at the same time. Every time we teach a grammar point we have the option of using a theme for the day to help us. He suggested that we use topics such as world hunger, war and environmental pollution to help us teach English. That way, at the end of the course, the students will have learned some English and have gained some world understanding. It was a very thought provoking and inspiring speech.
On the 4th of June, Kagoshima City had an English Speech Contest for Junior High School students. In the weeks leading up to the big day all of us JETs were busy helping students at our various schools to prepare. In some schools we helped a lot and in others not at all. At Wada Junior High School, I helped a very little bit and at Taniyamakita I helped a bit more. Most of the JETs from my office (9 out of 10) showed up to watch the event. Some students were impossible to understand, but many were very good. They had good pronunciation and interesting topics. The students with the most confidence and enthusiasm did the best. Luckily for me, and much to the disappointment of my fellow JETs, my students won everything. Two boys from Taniyamakita JHS won the 8th grade contest with a nice skit about baseball. Another one of my students, from Wada, won the 9th grade contest with a speech about his cat. The three of them each received a two week trip to Miami over the summer. I was very happy for them.
The speech contest made the evening news, and so did I, for a few seconds. For the next week, nearly everyone I know mentioned seeing me on TV. I was famous, among people who already knew me.
Two days later, I held my final English class for the Tamae Elementary School Little Cherries Jazz and Swing Band before their trip to Clarinda, Iowa for the Laurence Welk Festival. Someone gave me a microphone to wear before the class and the entire hour was filmed. I made the news again when the Little Cherries returned a few weeks later and their mini-documentary was shown on TV. Another 20 seconds of fame has been knocked off my allotted 15 minutes.
School and life continued for another few weeks with the normal amount of goofing off at school and bike riding or hiking on the weekends. One weekend, I took the ferry over to Tarumizu, across the bay, and rode my bike a few miles up the valley. From the end of the road, I started walking up the river. There were several large pools and I had to swim upstream at times. I went up for about three hours and had a great time swimming, walking or climbing higher. I eventually reached a steep gorge that was blocked off by a huge boulder with water pouring over it. There was a small hole off to the side that I am sure I could of crawl/climbed through, but there was a dead and rotting deer or pig carcass wedged in the hole and I did not feel like picking it out. Maybe it will be gone by next summer and I can try again.
On the 17th of July, I flew to Boston to start off five weeks of vacation in America. I had my usual enjoyable visit with my Dad, Elizabeth and Emily. Emily and I played games and my father and I went to lots of movies and restaurants. On the 19th, Dad and Emily and I went to see the U.S. Mens National Soccer Team play Cuba as part of the CONCACAF Gold Cup. Landon Donavon scored three goals and helped lead the US to a 6-1 victory. But, perhaps more exciting, was the crowd warming up for the following game between Nicaragua and Costa Rica. While the US was racking up the points, the fans for the next game were marching around with drums and cheering in anticipation.
After a family reunion softball game, I went to stay with Milo in New York City. I had a good time hanging out there and ate lots of good food in "The City." I also got to see a bunch of my favorite friends. Susie was in Baltimore for a family reunion and was able to spare an afternoon for me. Sue and her new family were in town and we had a pizza dinner and some ice cream. Matt and his girlfriend were around and we went to an interesting show. It was staged in and around a pool on the roof of a hotel.
After a fun week of hanging out with Milo, I went to New Jersey. I had a great visit with Josh, Nancy, Aunt Anne, and UNCLE JIM. I watched him play the guitar and sing in a cafe with his brother and friends. We also enjoyed our annual game of pitch and putt golf. His recent back surgery did not slow him down at all and I lost, like always.
On the 3rd of August, I flew down to Florida. I spent a few weeks sitting on the couch, watching TV and eating my mother's cooking. I also found time to visit my cousins and grandparents. I left for Japan again on the 21st and arrived on the 23rd. Those two days of travel also included a fun six hours in Korea. I brought back about 100 pounds of food from my mother and have been enjoying it ever since.
Once back in Japan, I had a week in the office to goof off and then it was back to school and the start of the second tri-mester. After the first week of school, I went back to Hayato town for the annual sailing race. We had a bit more wind than last year and sailed well. The race was followed by some swimming, a big bbq lunch and a nap in my hammock.
In addition to the three schools I visited last year, I have a new one to go to this year. It is very small and far away, so I only go one or two times per month. Suzuyama Junior High School is 13 miles from my house, and up a big mountain. It takes me about an hour and a half to ride my bike there. The first 30 minutes is through the city, but the final hour is a long hard climb through small mountain roads. A great way to start the day. The ride home takes well under an hour.
There are only 16 students in the whole junior high school. Only two in the 7th grade. But, as with every other class in every other school, the teacher says "Good morning everyone" at the start of each lesson. I am hoping that one of the two girls is absent some day so I can see if he still says "Good morning everyone." At lunch time, all of the teachers and students eat together in one classroom.
Because there are so few students, the school is combined with a 24 student elementary school. So, I will get to visit them as well and play lots of games with a bunch of little kids.
On the 12th of September, I flew up to Tokyo. My friends Karla and Daniel, from Colorado, flew in and I met them in the airport. The next day, we took lots of different trains to the Mt. Fuji area and then a taxi to the end of the road, half way up the mountain. We got there in the very late afternoon and it was windy and cold and getting dark. We started hiking up. After a bit over two hours and a little bit of rain and a lot of cold, we came to the eighth station and our home for the night.
In the little mountain hut, we ate dinner. At least I ate dinner. Karla can be a little picky sometimes and even Daniel could not stomach all of the new Japanese food. After that, it was time for bed. In this mountain hut, the bed room consisted of a two tiered section of floor about six feet wide and twenty feet long. We were crammed in there, head to toes, with a lot of other people, including some very loud snorers. I was wedged between two strange men with very smelly feet. I did not sleep much that night. We had no trouble being up and ready to go before 2:00 am.
In the middle of the night, we started climbing again. There were occasional large groups of Japanese following a guide. The guides always had two foot long red LED light sticks and looked liked they should be directing traffic on at a construction sight, not climbing a mountain. We got to the top of the 12,290 foot peak of the volcano about an hour before sunrise. We waited in the cold, with the gathering crowd to watch the sunrise. We were lucky with the weather and watched the sunrise over a beautiful clear day. After a few hours of running down hill, we were back at the starting point and ready to catch a bus back to Tokyo. It was a great bus ride, but I don't remember a thing. I slept the whole ride.
Once back in Tokyo, I headed to the Shinjuku area and one of the uniquely Japanese experiences that I had been looking forward to for a very long time. I went to a capsule hotel. Capsule hotels are designed for business men who miss the last train home and must sleep in the city or for people who go out drinking and need a place to crash. I checked in at the front desk and was given a locker key. I went to the locker and found my small blue robe and pair of blue boxer shorts waiting for me. I changed into the hotel guest clothing and put the rest of my luggage into the storeroom. Next, I checked out my capsule.
I went down to floor with my capsule and found number 3142. It was near the end of a long hallway and it was an upper bunk. The capsule itself was about three feet high, three feet wide and six feet long. A little big, but still comfortable. I crawled in and checked out the small tv and radio. The light controls also worked well.
Down the hallway from my "room", was a lounge. They had some video games, drink machines and a tv. A bunch of men were sitting around in their boxers and robes, smoking and watching tv. I went up a few flights of stairs, past the lockers and saunas, to the fifth floor. There was a restaurant there with lots of men sitting around and eating and watching tv, all wearing the blue shorts and short robes, except for the me who did not wear medium sized boxers. The large size boxers were bright orange. I enjoyed the feeling of walking through a small city where everybody was dressed the same.
Next to the restaurant was a massage room. I went up another flight of stairs to the hot spring level. They also had a barber shop and big area with all sorts of hair and body tonics, blow dryers and combs and mirrors. To the left was a big room with lots of small taps to wash yourself at. There was also a large central pool for soaking. I washed up and then went through to the other side of the floor. There was another big hot pool for soaking and small Japanese women who gave massages and walked on your back, for an extra fee. I went past them into the sauna and watched tv in there for a while. Then it was time for the extra special feature of the city center seventh floor hot spring - the outside bath. The view was nothing special, being of only the tops of a few nearby buildings, but the water was nice and hot and it was a good night to be outside soaking.
When it was time for bed, which was early for me because I had not slept at all the night before, I went back to my capsule and crawled in. The roll down door of wooden slats let in a bit too much light, so I hung my blanket over the door and it got dark enough to sleep comfortably. I was worried that when all the drunk people came in later, that they would wake me, but I never heard a peep. I woke up the next day at 4:30 to catch a bus to the airport and the hotel was full of people who had come in during the night and not made any noise.
On September 15th (Respect for the Aged Day), I flew back to Kagoshima and met Karla and Daniel there. I was excited to have my friends here for a week and couldn't wait to show them many of my favorite things. With Rie, we went straight to some whirly noodles for lunch. That afternoon we visited the local gardens. For the rest of the week we went to the beach, played in the river near Tarumizu, went to the samurai houses and Kamikaze museum in Chiran, went to the Sakurajima volcano and explored the city. I also introduced them to all sorts of good and fun Japanese restaurants. It was a great visit and I was sorry to see them go after a week.
Karla was nice enough to bring me a chain removal tool for me to use on my bike. The day after they left, I spent a few hours completely dis-assembling my bike. The next day, I cleaned each part and spent over eight hours putting it all back together. I only had one small piece left over when I was done. Not too bad, if I do say so myself. Of course, not all was perfect on the bike and I spent the next week or so fine tuning all of the little adjustments. On my 30 mile ride the next Saturday, I had to stop every few miles to turn a screw or adjust a knob. But, eventually, everything was back to tip top and sparkling clean shape. And now, I have more confidence in the workings of my bike and my ability to repair it. Confidence and skill that will be important in my proposed three month crossing of Japan from north to south by bike next summer.
On the 4th of October, I went on a long hike with a bunch of teachers from Wada JHS. We climbed Mt. Takachiho, the highest mountain around. It was a long and enjoyable climb. We were lucky with the weather and had a great view from the top. After a soak in a nearby hot spring, we went back to one of the teachers houses for a dinner party. The teachers husband teaches German at the local university, but also spoke excellent English. I ate a lot of good food with them, while they drank a lot of wine.
On the 11th of October, I loaded up my bike and went off for a three day ride. I took the ferry to Tarumizu and started riding east. Over the summer, when I went home, I bought a little computer for my bike, so now I can keep track of all sorts of useless information while I ride. I rode east for about 50 miles, through mountains and rain. I spent that night camping in my new tent in one of the ever present perfectly groomed groves of cedar trees that are found everywhere in Japan. The next day I rode east to Nichinan on the east coast and then turned around and started back west for a good 75 mile day in the pouring rain. I camped near one of the "Top 100" waterfalls in Japan near Miyakanojo City. On the Monday, I rode the 55 miles back home. I had to come down a big hill at one point and my top speed for the weekend was 73 kmh (about 45 miles per hour). I really enjoy blowing by scooters and even passing cars on the down hill streches. Of course, on the 4 mile an hour uphills, the opposite happens.
Last Saturday, the 18th, I rode the 30 miles down to Ibusuki Town. From there I rode the 26 mile route for the Nanohana Marathon that I hope to run in January. Then I came back to Kagoshima. Usually, on my weekend rides, I avoid the busier roads, but I was in a hurry to get to and from Ibusuki, so I rode along the main road. The combination of sun screen a 86 miles of busy roads left me covered in black soot and reminded me why I don't like roads with lots of trucks and busses.
Yesterday, Rie and I drove back up to the Kirishima/Makizono area of national park and hot springs. I had obtained some sketchy directions to a free hot spring in the mountains and we decided to try to find it. Rie was a bit worried because the directions basically said to drive by some noxious gas and other dangers warning signs, park at the next set of warning signs, hike twenty minutes to the final set of big warning signs and then go down towards the steaming and boiling water in the river. But, when we finally got there (after a couple of false starts) there was other people already soaking in the river, so Rie felt a bit more comfortable.
There was stinky sulferous smoke all over the place and big sections of boiling water in the river. The first place I tried to get in was too close and way too hot. We tried downstream a little ways and the water temperature was perfect. The water was full of grey ash and small red worms but neither detered us from a nice long soak. For those of you who may remember some of my adventures in Nepal, Chile and Colorado, you well know that one of my greatest pleasures is to hike to hot springs in the mountains and soak there. I finally found a place to do that in Japan and it was great. I am hoping that it snows there this winter and we can return.
I found a 16 week training schedule for the marathon and am busy running almost every day in training. So, the rest of my weekends for this year will be spent running or resting. No more time for big bike rides until January. I thought that with all of this running, I might lose some weight, but that does not seem to have happened. Also, I still go to the gym twice a week to lift some weights. I thought that with all of this working out in the gym, I would have gained some weight, but that does not seem to be happening either.
So, I guess I will just start with where I left off last time. Last April, the new school year started. The first week of school was pretty easy for me. After the starting ceremony, the rest of the week was taken up with health checks. All sorts of doctors and dentists came to poke and prod the students. In the afternoons, the teachers visited all of the student's houses to meet the parents.
The weekend before school started, Rie and I went for her first camping trip. Japan has lots of great campgrounds, but they are only open in July and August -The Camping Season. I found out early in my stay here, that outside of those two months the campgrounds are still great, and empty. We went on over to the Osumi Peninsula (across the bay) and found a nice place to camp. The chain across the gate was old and rusted and held together by a small piece of wire. It was a simple matter to untwist the wire, drive in, and re-twist the wire to close the gate. Suddenly, we had a big nice campground complete with wild pigs, a river, a view up the valley and platforms for the tent all to ourselves. Despite the ice on the ground the next morning, we had a great time.
Later in April, on the 20th, a few of us went to Fukiage for a race. It was only 7km (a bit over 4 miles) but nearly half of it was along the beach, in the sand. That made it a bit of a challenge. My friend, Natalie, won fifth place for her age group. Her prize was a pair of socks. Afterwards, we went to the (in my mind, at least) mandatory post-race hot spring to relax. From the 26th of April until the 5th of May we had what is called "Golden Week". By taking a few days of paid vacation, I had 10 days to ride my bike. I live on an island called Kyushu. It has lots of mountains up the middle and I decided to ride north, through the mountains. One of the holidays of Golden Week is Children's Day. Before the big day, families with boys put up very tall poles and hang carp shaped kites all over the place. They were nice to look at as I cycled by. The second day out was spent mostly climbing one very big hill, with a stop to look at a waterfall. On the third day, I got to Mt. Aso, a 50 mile wide volcanic caldera. They claim it is the largest in the world. After climbing the side, I rode down into the middle. It is so big, that they have towns, roads, fields and even train service inside the former volcano mouth. In the middle of the crater, there is a very tall mountain, which is all that is left of the active portion of the volcano. I rode up there to the visitor's center near the top. Unfortunately, the actual active portion of the volcanic crater at the top was spitting out some noxious fumes that day, so I was not allowed to climb the last 200 feet and look down into it.
From the top of Mt. Aso, I rode down the other side to the caldera floor and then back up the other side of the caldera wall. Then, it was mostly down hill to the hot-spring town of Kurokawa. I found a campground outside of the town and at night a bunch of us went in and soaked in a beautiful outdoor, river-side hot spring. On day four, I rode all the way to the northern Kyushu city of Fukuoka. It is a very large city and the bike ride in along the busy roads was not fun. That night was the first little bit of rain on my bike ride and, since I was in the middle of a big city, I decided to get a hotel room instead of camping. I spent the evening looking around the city. They have a much bigger red light district than Kagoshima.
I am not a big fan of large cities, so I left early the next morning and started going west. I rode through Saga Prefecture and spent the night camping in the hills above the town of Sasebo. In Sasebo, visible from my perch, they build huge ocean going super-tankers. Also, there is a very big U.S. Navy base there with lots of Americans in town.
Early the next morning, I took a ferry out to the one of the five Goto Islands. It took me a few hours to ride from the ferry terminal to the bottom of the island, where I caught another ferry and went down to the next island. That night, after crossing the island, I found a small town with a hot spring and a nice park to camp in.
On Day seven, I took the afternoon ferry to the city of Nagasaki. Approaching by sea, Nagasaki reminded me of San Francisco. It is a smallish city, on a big bay with lots of hills. I spent the next morning visiting the Peace Parks and nuclear bomb museums. I was surprised to see that the museums actually mentioned some of Japan's aggressive actions before World War Two. Although, it was a shame that they chose to blame the worst of Japan's expansion into Manchuria on "renegade army groups." I was also happy to note that (in the 1970's) they added a plaque for the thousands of Korean slave laborers who also died there. In the park, they have what they hope is not an eternal flame. It looks like an eternal flame, but they will put it out when the last nuclear bomb in the world is dismantled. I hope they don't have to wait to long, but I am not holding my breath. The museum's display of bomb damaged people and products was interesting, but the final area impressed me the most. They had a display on the damage that nuclear arms continue to cause. They had videos of people whose current work brings them into contact with America's and Russia's nuclear arsenals. They also had videos of people who live near military bases where these bombs are stored. Video after video told horrifying tales of sickness and extensive government health monitoring programs in these areas. There was one woman who related her tale of when she was in grade school. The government monitors came in and she set off the Geiger counter. They told her not to drink so much water at home.
Another reason I liked Nagasaki so much, was that not only was it easy to get into by boat, but it was easy to get out of by bike. Thirty minutes of riding up the hill facing the water brought me back into the countryside. I rode down the backside of that hill and ended up in a small port town, from which I took a ferry to one of the Amakusa Islands. After crossing that island, I took another ferry to Minamata, near my own Kagoshima Ken. On the ninth day, I re-entered Kagoshima Ken, and naturally, it started to pour. I became convinced that it only rains in Kagoshima. I had nearly perfect weather on the rest of my ride. Some of the islands I visited had perfect sand beaches with blue water and lots of sunshine.
Before my last night of camping on this trip (and the first rainy one) I went to a fantastic hot spring near the town of Sendai. After one full day of riding in the rain, and ten days in total, I returned home in time for an easy four day work week.
Near the end of May, I had a conference to go to in the city of Kobe. It was a conference for all first year JETs in southern Japan who had re-contracted for a second year. More than 1000 people attended. I new the dates of the conference a few months in advance, so I tried to buy some flight tickets. Of course, riding there would have been more fun, but I figured it was about eight days away by bike and I did not have enough vacation days to spare. In February, when I first started checking out prices I learned something interesting about the Japanese travel industry. The airlines only publish their schedules and fares two months in advance. So, all I could do was make a reservation based on last years times and prices and subject to change when the new schedules were published. I decide to wait until April. I went back with my friends Dana and Felicity and we found the flights with the best times and prices for us and made reservations. This was when I learned the great up-side to the Japanese system for customers. Once we had reservations, they were guaranteed. We did not have to actually pay for the tickets until the day before the flight. When we finally went in to pay, we learned that they had made a booking error and for the same price, were now on a more expensive and more convenient flight.
The three of us flew to Kyoto and visited the Golden Temple. We also saw the famous rock garden nearby. The culture stuff was nice, but for me, cities mean food. We ate mediocre Mexican food that night and wandered around the central shopping area. The next day we took a train to the city of Nara. They have a big park there with lots of deer and temples. They also have the world's largest wooden building. The original burnt down a long time ago and this one is only a two thirds size reproduction, but it is still the biggest wooden building in the world. Inside is a huge Buddha statue. That night, the 25th of May, we returned to Kyoto and ate Nepali food. I ate the Nepali national dish of rice and lentils, the same meal I ate at least a hundred times when I was in Nepal. It brought back lots of good memories.
On the Monday, we headed over to Kobe and went to the small island full of hotels where we were staying. It was a nice three day conference without too many boring speakers. The keynote speakers were a pair of very energetic former JETs who now have their own company for teaching the teachers of Japanese elementary students. They reminded a very receptive audience that the Japanese teachers can go home at the end of their day (7 or 8) and be off work. But, for us JETs, when we go home at 4:15, we can not relax and forget about our jobs. Our job is to promote "Internationalism" and we do this every time we leave the house. When someone sees us shopping or jogging or eating, then they can say "Oh, look, there is a foreign person" and we are doing our jobs of "Internationalizing" Japan.
The other memorable speech from the conference was from a professor at a Japanese university. He gave a wonderful speech on the goals of teaching English as a second language. He pointed out that we could have an alternative goal when we teach and he suggested we not only teach English, but also create "World citizens" at the same time. Every time we teach a grammar point we have the option of using a theme for the day to help us. He suggested that we use topics such as world hunger, war and environmental pollution to help us teach English. That way, at the end of the course, the students will have learned some English and have gained some world understanding. It was a very thought provoking and inspiring speech.
On the 4th of June, Kagoshima City had an English Speech Contest for Junior High School students. In the weeks leading up to the big day all of us JETs were busy helping students at our various schools to prepare. In some schools we helped a lot and in others not at all. At Wada Junior High School, I helped a very little bit and at Taniyamakita I helped a bit more. Most of the JETs from my office (9 out of 10) showed up to watch the event. Some students were impossible to understand, but many were very good. They had good pronunciation and interesting topics. The students with the most confidence and enthusiasm did the best. Luckily for me, and much to the disappointment of my fellow JETs, my students won everything. Two boys from Taniyamakita JHS won the 8th grade contest with a nice skit about baseball. Another one of my students, from Wada, won the 9th grade contest with a speech about his cat. The three of them each received a two week trip to Miami over the summer. I was very happy for them.
The speech contest made the evening news, and so did I, for a few seconds. For the next week, nearly everyone I know mentioned seeing me on TV. I was famous, among people who already knew me.
Two days later, I held my final English class for the Tamae Elementary School Little Cherries Jazz and Swing Band before their trip to Clarinda, Iowa for the Laurence Welk Festival. Someone gave me a microphone to wear before the class and the entire hour was filmed. I made the news again when the Little Cherries returned a few weeks later and their mini-documentary was shown on TV. Another 20 seconds of fame has been knocked off my allotted 15 minutes.
School and life continued for another few weeks with the normal amount of goofing off at school and bike riding or hiking on the weekends. One weekend, I took the ferry over to Tarumizu, across the bay, and rode my bike a few miles up the valley. From the end of the road, I started walking up the river. There were several large pools and I had to swim upstream at times. I went up for about three hours and had a great time swimming, walking or climbing higher. I eventually reached a steep gorge that was blocked off by a huge boulder with water pouring over it. There was a small hole off to the side that I am sure I could of crawl/climbed through, but there was a dead and rotting deer or pig carcass wedged in the hole and I did not feel like picking it out. Maybe it will be gone by next summer and I can try again.
On the 17th of July, I flew to Boston to start off five weeks of vacation in America. I had my usual enjoyable visit with my Dad, Elizabeth and Emily. Emily and I played games and my father and I went to lots of movies and restaurants. On the 19th, Dad and Emily and I went to see the U.S. Mens National Soccer Team play Cuba as part of the CONCACAF Gold Cup. Landon Donavon scored three goals and helped lead the US to a 6-1 victory. But, perhaps more exciting, was the crowd warming up for the following game between Nicaragua and Costa Rica. While the US was racking up the points, the fans for the next game were marching around with drums and cheering in anticipation.
After a family reunion softball game, I went to stay with Milo in New York City. I had a good time hanging out there and ate lots of good food in "The City." I also got to see a bunch of my favorite friends. Susie was in Baltimore for a family reunion and was able to spare an afternoon for me. Sue and her new family were in town and we had a pizza dinner and some ice cream. Matt and his girlfriend were around and we went to an interesting show. It was staged in and around a pool on the roof of a hotel.
After a fun week of hanging out with Milo, I went to New Jersey. I had a great visit with Josh, Nancy, Aunt Anne, and UNCLE JIM. I watched him play the guitar and sing in a cafe with his brother and friends. We also enjoyed our annual game of pitch and putt golf. His recent back surgery did not slow him down at all and I lost, like always.
On the 3rd of August, I flew down to Florida. I spent a few weeks sitting on the couch, watching TV and eating my mother's cooking. I also found time to visit my cousins and grandparents. I left for Japan again on the 21st and arrived on the 23rd. Those two days of travel also included a fun six hours in Korea. I brought back about 100 pounds of food from my mother and have been enjoying it ever since.
Once back in Japan, I had a week in the office to goof off and then it was back to school and the start of the second tri-mester. After the first week of school, I went back to Hayato town for the annual sailing race. We had a bit more wind than last year and sailed well. The race was followed by some swimming, a big bbq lunch and a nap in my hammock.
In addition to the three schools I visited last year, I have a new one to go to this year. It is very small and far away, so I only go one or two times per month. Suzuyama Junior High School is 13 miles from my house, and up a big mountain. It takes me about an hour and a half to ride my bike there. The first 30 minutes is through the city, but the final hour is a long hard climb through small mountain roads. A great way to start the day. The ride home takes well under an hour.
There are only 16 students in the whole junior high school. Only two in the 7th grade. But, as with every other class in every other school, the teacher says "Good morning everyone" at the start of each lesson. I am hoping that one of the two girls is absent some day so I can see if he still says "Good morning everyone." At lunch time, all of the teachers and students eat together in one classroom.
Because there are so few students, the school is combined with a 24 student elementary school. So, I will get to visit them as well and play lots of games with a bunch of little kids.
On the 12th of September, I flew up to Tokyo. My friends Karla and Daniel, from Colorado, flew in and I met them in the airport. The next day, we took lots of different trains to the Mt. Fuji area and then a taxi to the end of the road, half way up the mountain. We got there in the very late afternoon and it was windy and cold and getting dark. We started hiking up. After a bit over two hours and a little bit of rain and a lot of cold, we came to the eighth station and our home for the night.
In the little mountain hut, we ate dinner. At least I ate dinner. Karla can be a little picky sometimes and even Daniel could not stomach all of the new Japanese food. After that, it was time for bed. In this mountain hut, the bed room consisted of a two tiered section of floor about six feet wide and twenty feet long. We were crammed in there, head to toes, with a lot of other people, including some very loud snorers. I was wedged between two strange men with very smelly feet. I did not sleep much that night. We had no trouble being up and ready to go before 2:00 am.
In the middle of the night, we started climbing again. There were occasional large groups of Japanese following a guide. The guides always had two foot long red LED light sticks and looked liked they should be directing traffic on at a construction sight, not climbing a mountain. We got to the top of the 12,290 foot peak of the volcano about an hour before sunrise. We waited in the cold, with the gathering crowd to watch the sunrise. We were lucky with the weather and watched the sunrise over a beautiful clear day. After a few hours of running down hill, we were back at the starting point and ready to catch a bus back to Tokyo. It was a great bus ride, but I don't remember a thing. I slept the whole ride.
Once back in Tokyo, I headed to the Shinjuku area and one of the uniquely Japanese experiences that I had been looking forward to for a very long time. I went to a capsule hotel. Capsule hotels are designed for business men who miss the last train home and must sleep in the city or for people who go out drinking and need a place to crash. I checked in at the front desk and was given a locker key. I went to the locker and found my small blue robe and pair of blue boxer shorts waiting for me. I changed into the hotel guest clothing and put the rest of my luggage into the storeroom. Next, I checked out my capsule.
I went down to floor with my capsule and found number 3142. It was near the end of a long hallway and it was an upper bunk. The capsule itself was about three feet high, three feet wide and six feet long. A little big, but still comfortable. I crawled in and checked out the small tv and radio. The light controls also worked well.
Down the hallway from my "room", was a lounge. They had some video games, drink machines and a tv. A bunch of men were sitting around in their boxers and robes, smoking and watching tv. I went up a few flights of stairs, past the lockers and saunas, to the fifth floor. There was a restaurant there with lots of men sitting around and eating and watching tv, all wearing the blue shorts and short robes, except for the me who did not wear medium sized boxers. The large size boxers were bright orange. I enjoyed the feeling of walking through a small city where everybody was dressed the same.
Next to the restaurant was a massage room. I went up another flight of stairs to the hot spring level. They also had a barber shop and big area with all sorts of hair and body tonics, blow dryers and combs and mirrors. To the left was a big room with lots of small taps to wash yourself at. There was also a large central pool for soaking. I washed up and then went through to the other side of the floor. There was another big hot pool for soaking and small Japanese women who gave massages and walked on your back, for an extra fee. I went past them into the sauna and watched tv in there for a while. Then it was time for the extra special feature of the city center seventh floor hot spring - the outside bath. The view was nothing special, being of only the tops of a few nearby buildings, but the water was nice and hot and it was a good night to be outside soaking.
When it was time for bed, which was early for me because I had not slept at all the night before, I went back to my capsule and crawled in. The roll down door of wooden slats let in a bit too much light, so I hung my blanket over the door and it got dark enough to sleep comfortably. I was worried that when all the drunk people came in later, that they would wake me, but I never heard a peep. I woke up the next day at 4:30 to catch a bus to the airport and the hotel was full of people who had come in during the night and not made any noise.
On September 15th (Respect for the Aged Day), I flew back to Kagoshima and met Karla and Daniel there. I was excited to have my friends here for a week and couldn't wait to show them many of my favorite things. With Rie, we went straight to some whirly noodles for lunch. That afternoon we visited the local gardens. For the rest of the week we went to the beach, played in the river near Tarumizu, went to the samurai houses and Kamikaze museum in Chiran, went to the Sakurajima volcano and explored the city. I also introduced them to all sorts of good and fun Japanese restaurants. It was a great visit and I was sorry to see them go after a week.
Karla was nice enough to bring me a chain removal tool for me to use on my bike. The day after they left, I spent a few hours completely dis-assembling my bike. The next day, I cleaned each part and spent over eight hours putting it all back together. I only had one small piece left over when I was done. Not too bad, if I do say so myself. Of course, not all was perfect on the bike and I spent the next week or so fine tuning all of the little adjustments. On my 30 mile ride the next Saturday, I had to stop every few miles to turn a screw or adjust a knob. But, eventually, everything was back to tip top and sparkling clean shape. And now, I have more confidence in the workings of my bike and my ability to repair it. Confidence and skill that will be important in my proposed three month crossing of Japan from north to south by bike next summer.
On the 4th of October, I went on a long hike with a bunch of teachers from Wada JHS. We climbed Mt. Takachiho, the highest mountain around. It was a long and enjoyable climb. We were lucky with the weather and had a great view from the top. After a soak in a nearby hot spring, we went back to one of the teachers houses for a dinner party. The teachers husband teaches German at the local university, but also spoke excellent English. I ate a lot of good food with them, while they drank a lot of wine.
On the 11th of October, I loaded up my bike and went off for a three day ride. I took the ferry to Tarumizu and started riding east. Over the summer, when I went home, I bought a little computer for my bike, so now I can keep track of all sorts of useless information while I ride. I rode east for about 50 miles, through mountains and rain. I spent that night camping in my new tent in one of the ever present perfectly groomed groves of cedar trees that are found everywhere in Japan. The next day I rode east to Nichinan on the east coast and then turned around and started back west for a good 75 mile day in the pouring rain. I camped near one of the "Top 100" waterfalls in Japan near Miyakanojo City. On the Monday, I rode the 55 miles back home. I had to come down a big hill at one point and my top speed for the weekend was 73 kmh (about 45 miles per hour). I really enjoy blowing by scooters and even passing cars on the down hill streches. Of course, on the 4 mile an hour uphills, the opposite happens.
Last Saturday, the 18th, I rode the 30 miles down to Ibusuki Town. From there I rode the 26 mile route for the Nanohana Marathon that I hope to run in January. Then I came back to Kagoshima. Usually, on my weekend rides, I avoid the busier roads, but I was in a hurry to get to and from Ibusuki, so I rode along the main road. The combination of sun screen a 86 miles of busy roads left me covered in black soot and reminded me why I don't like roads with lots of trucks and busses.
Yesterday, Rie and I drove back up to the Kirishima/Makizono area of national park and hot springs. I had obtained some sketchy directions to a free hot spring in the mountains and we decided to try to find it. Rie was a bit worried because the directions basically said to drive by some noxious gas and other dangers warning signs, park at the next set of warning signs, hike twenty minutes to the final set of big warning signs and then go down towards the steaming and boiling water in the river. But, when we finally got there (after a couple of false starts) there was other people already soaking in the river, so Rie felt a bit more comfortable.
There was stinky sulferous smoke all over the place and big sections of boiling water in the river. The first place I tried to get in was too close and way too hot. We tried downstream a little ways and the water temperature was perfect. The water was full of grey ash and small red worms but neither detered us from a nice long soak. For those of you who may remember some of my adventures in Nepal, Chile and Colorado, you well know that one of my greatest pleasures is to hike to hot springs in the mountains and soak there. I finally found a place to do that in Japan and it was great. I am hoping that it snows there this winter and we can return.
I found a 16 week training schedule for the marathon and am busy running almost every day in training. So, the rest of my weekends for this year will be spent running or resting. No more time for big bike rides until January. I thought that with all of this running, I might lose some weight, but that does not seem to have happened. Also, I still go to the gym twice a week to lift some weights. I thought that with all of this working out in the gym, I would have gained some weight, but that does not seem to be happening either.
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