Last Day in Japan

So today is my last day in Japan...at least until I come back in October....
But I said goodbye to Kozakai today...not sure exactly how I feel about all of it. A year of my life gone in a flash and hundreds of people who have had a huge impact on my life who I'll probably never see again. But at the same time...on to bigger and better things!!!

What a crazy year it's been, gonna try to recap some of the highlights...for which I have accompanying pics of course!

JULY
 
Family Visit
Matsushima
 
My fam came up for 5 days. July 18-23, no pics for that up yet though. My mom, my sis, and my Uncle Daniel and Aunt Julie from Singapore. Japan was a sweltering 37 degrees while they were here. So needless to say, my dragging them around Japan tired them out to say the least.
We went to Himeji castle and samurai gardens, Kyoto for Gion Corner, Kobe, Hiroshima and Miyajima and little stints to Tokyo and Nagoya for some shopping. They flew out of Tokyo because they had such trouble with an asshole immigration officer in Nagoya, which had me waiting for almost an hour and half after their plane had touched down...totally thought they hadn't even gotten on the plane in the first place. A lot of Japanese staring at the foreigner girl, who likes to hang out at airport arrival gates....

The day after my folks left, Pauline and I headed up to Matsushima, one of the top three most beautiful sights in Japan, crossing the last of the three off our list of places to see in Japan. My parents left their rail passes behind, so we were able to do the trip for free. Matsushima is basically a collection of islands sticking out of the sea, like a cross between Thailand and the Thousand Islands in Canada, you take a 2 hour boat tour through the islands and see some cool rock formations. We had awesome weather, so got a great tan....haven't gotten around to posting pics of this yet either....

July 20, 2004
 
At midnight, these crazy air raid sirens, which I swear the Japanese have leftover from WWII, went off in town. I shot up in bed, abruptly woken by the loud wailing of these sirens, positive bombs were about to come crashing down around my tin apartment.

Then, if the sirens weren't enough to wake you, a voice over the loudspeaker system announces that the school gym is on fire.

OH! Well of course, we must wake up the whole fucking town at midnight on a weekday for this.

The sirens stop. The firetruck sirens stop and all is quiet. Then, just as I'm falling back to sleep...the loudspeakers go off again...loudly announcing "the fire has been put out".

Thank you for that.

Gotta love Japan.

July 16, 2004
 
My last day of school. Cleaned out my desk...to the horror of my 9th grade boys...who seemed totally upset to see me go....really touching. Gave my "sayonara" speeches to the schools, at East Elementary, did a live videofeed...kinda fun. Same for West Elementary. JHS was traditional, auditorium speech.

JUNE
 
Mt. Fuji
 
I feel pretty damn proud that I can say I climbed Fuji. It is definitely a feat I totally underestimated, thinking that since 300,000 peeps scale that mountain every year (not all to the top though), it couldn't possibly be that hard to do...could it? Pauline and I jumped on a 6:30 a.m. train for Fuji, and started climbing around noon, after a three hour train ride and a two hour bus ride to the fifth station of Fuji. The climb up was done with our heavy backpacks, loaded with 5 layers worth of clothing and our tents and sleeping bags. We went through several wardrobe changes on our way to the top. I remember thinking at the 6th station...the top looks so close, this is gonna be so anti-climatic. Hours and hours later, as we crawled to the top, murmuring all possible variations of I want to die....I realised how gravely we underestimated Fuji. Needless to say, by the top we got to the top, I couldn't have cared less about the sunrise...although it was beautiful. We ran around the crater for a bit, before the subzero temperature and sheer exhaustion forced us to head back down the mountain. We had to walk on a steep incline the whole way down, moving through clouds which obscured the path forcing to backtrack uphill several times....painful experiences. My toes and feet were so sore by the end of it, I thought they'd fall right off. But definitely a memorable, personal limit testing experience to say the least. Sure preparation for the world of pain walking Shikoku will bring...

Pics from Fuji: http://www.photoaccess.com/share/guest.jsp?ID=AF309C3AB57&cb=PA

 
Weekend at Flyin' Ryan's Pad!
 
Pauline and I headed up to Toei town, Ryan (fellow JET's) home in the mountains of Aichi...did a little onsen, swimming, observatory, hiking...basically did up the great outdoors. Total blast!

Watched Mothmen Prophecies....to which drunkass Ryan kept muttering "Ingrid...Ingrid..." (citing a german beer marm rather than the mothman Idrid)
Crazy Mofo.

Pics: http://www.photoaccess.com/share/guest.jsp?ID=A136C13AA31&cb=PA

 
June 21, 2004 --- TYPHOON!!!
 
Typhoon time in Japan.....woke up in the morning, looked out the window and saw one of my fourth grade elementary students get blown over in the street....GROAN...gotta go to work even in a frigging tropical storm!!

So drag myself to East elementary school...my least favourite school by the way...taught one class and then the announcement came that all schools in town were closing and kids being sent home because, wouldn't you know it, there's a typhoon outside!!!

I had to walk home just as the worst of it was starting...rain felt like bullets and got blown into a couple of walls...fun times, I tell ya.

MAY
 
Tokyo Disneyland
 
What a huge disappointment...my first trip to any Disneyland basically taught me two things; the Japanese are crazy, disney-psychos, and that Disney is inherently evil and Mickey can shove it up his ass...nothing but a money-grubbing rat.

If anyone's heading to Tokyo anytime soon, avoid Tokyo Disneyland...aside from about 3 fun rides, it's actually boring. Huge lines and nutty Pooh and Mickey-obsessed Japanese Disney fanatics.

When I get around to it, will try posting the vid I have of the throngs of Japanese charging through the gates at Disney.

Pics: http://www.photoaccess.com/share/guest.jsp?ID=A158203A6CA&cb=PA
 
Weekend in Okayama
 
My mom's friend Alice told me about these cool Japanese villas, open only for use by foreigners in Okayama prefecture. When Pauline's cousin came down to visit her, I figured why don't we go out there to show her some of the hard-to-find "traditional" side of Japan.

We had this awesome thatched roof, tatami-roomed japanese farmhouse all to ourselves in Hattoji...which we ran around in, taking photos of ourselves in our japanese dressing gowns.

We stayed one night, surrounding by rice paddies, and then headed to Ushimado, a villa overlooking the Japanese inland sea. Far more modern and not as spectacular a time as Hattoji...but great view.

Pics: http://www.photoaccess.com/share/guest.jsp?ID=A117EF2A542&cb=PA

This was the weekend Pauline and I talked about the Shikoku pigrimage. Our original plans were to bike the trail which would take 3 weeks and then head back to our respective countries. I have no idea how it ballooned to include other parts of Asia. The itin then evolved into 6 weeks in China, Tibet and Nepal (total).  Of course now that it has been finalised, the Shikoku pilgrimage is now 6 weeks long bc we plan to hike the entire trail rather than bike it. The 6 weeks in all three of those countries? Well, there are landslide warnings in the Nepalese region right now, so we substituted Mongolia in its stead.  From there...it has somehow stretched to a month in each of those places. And of course since we are traveling back to Japan anyway, we might as well stop over in Korea for about a week...
 
Here is an essay that a past JET wrote about the Shikoku pilgrimage that was really inspiring and started me thinking about eventually doing it way back in September: http://www.jetprogramme.org/e/new/essay03/02_2.html
 
 
Golden Week Trip--Western Japan
 
Was torn between travelling through Western or Northern Japan for the back-to-back holidays of Golden Week. I had yet to go these areas, and chose Western Japan, because it had these limestone caverns I wanted to check out.

Hass came along for the ride and we started off by biking for 7 hours across a series of bridges and islands connecting Shikoku to Honshu. Then we did Hiroshima (the second time for me), went to Hagi and managed to be in town for the pottery festival...bought up I tell ya. We also saw the famous 5 arched bridge in Iwakuni and did Akiyoshi-dai, the limestone plateau and caverns.

Was pretty exhausted after all of it...wanted to do the sanddunes in Tottori-ken, but ran out of cash to make the trip. Travel in Japan is EXPENSIVE!

Pics: http://www.photoaccess.com/share/guest.jsp?ID=A0453C3A34A&cb=PA

Kobe & Kyoto
 
Went to visit and old friend of my mom's who lives in Kobe. Alice.

She and her husband Ken were totally cool. They restore and mount Japanese scrolls. I went to visit them at their workplace and their boss...a man who enjoys commenting on this fat Canadian girl he knows...gave me this 300$ crystal, carved by a monk in Kyoto. It was pretty cool.

Then Alice and Ken drove me to Amanohashidate the next day. The second of Japan's most beautiful sites...also home of Sage the Ronin Warrior of Light....in case anyone was wondering....(from my favourite anime...yep, that's right!)

It was pretty funny seeing all these kids and old men and women peering between their own legs to see the "bridge". This is of course, the PROPER way to view it.

Also checked out the longest suspension bridge in Japan, Rainbow Bridge...named for the coloured lights which change every half hour at night.

Next day, took off to Kyoto and checked out a couple of temples while I was there. Ryoanji, a stone garden, I'd looked forward to seeing since I learned about it in school was totally ruined by the Japanese incessant love for loudspeaker announcements.

Pics: http://www.photoaccess.com/share/guest.jsp?ID=A3299C2A3BF&cb=PA

 
APRIL 
 
FREDDIE!!!!
 
My sweetie decided to head to Japan for 10 days, in between his exams, for a visit. Had a total blast. Freddie's probably the one thing/person I miss the most in my time in Japan.

While he was here, we went to this nutty Onbashira festival with some other JETs. Fest happens only once every 6 years in Japan, and during it, a bunch of Japanese men ride really big logs down a hill and break bones or die. Fun stuff.

Although, definitely interesting...the only comparison for the feeling we had while watching the festival...which involved a lot of waiting for 10 seconds of crazy log-sliding....was the first-time you have sex.

It's a lot of waiting, for a short burst of excitement...and then it's done.

Nonetheless, good times all around.

It was painful having to say goodbye to Freddie at the end of the ten days at Narita airport after spending the wkend in Tokyo. And like last time I had to leave him, it ended up with me going home by public transport, in tears, while the Japanese pretend not to stare at me.

Pics from Onbashira: http://www.photoaccess.com/share/guest.jsp?ID=A998313A13F&cb=PA
Pics from Tokyo: http://www.photoaccess.com/share/guest.jsp?ID=A9D9CD2A271&cb=PA

 
MARCH
 
Thailand 
  
Went to Thailand with Pauline. We totally bonded over illness and pigging out on this trip. Pauline had a cold starting out from Japan, and trekking through the jungle, snorkelling, cave exploration, boating and running around Bangkok eventually caused her cold to evolve into acute bronchitis. I got food poisoning on the last day, after drinking an orange slushie from a food hawker...which I should have been wary of in the first place...but it was just so damn hot out!

So we had to delay my flight, meaning my bosses found out I'd taken off to Thailand...I hadn't told them I was taking a vacation instead of going to work. But they were so amused that I'd gotten food poisoning...they let it go.

Pics: http://www.photoaccess.com/share/guest.jsp?ID=A6181A1A0F0&cb=PA

 
March seemed to be a month with a very sexual theme running through my travels. By the end of it, I was seeing penises everywhere....

Sex Museum

I got wind of these things called hihoukans in Japan. Better known in English as sex museums...or "museums of erotica"...yummy.

They're basically throw-backs to the disturbing underbelly of japanese sexual deviance. It was...to say the least, an extremely traumatizing experience...

The pics speak for themselves: http://www.photoaccess.com/share/guest.jsp?ID=A1287929D5E&cb=PA

Penis Festival

The Shinto religion of Japan is rooted in fertility rites. So of course, there are festivals to celebrate both the female and male parts associated with fertility. Namely the illustrious penis and coveted vagina.

I attended a festival celebrating my favourite part of the male anatomy, in a town about an hour and a half away from mine. It was some of the funniest shit I've ever seen.

Pics: http://www.photoaccess.com/share/guest.jsp?ID=AD9B9439C46&cb=PA

Love Hotel Birthday Party

Japan is riddled with love hotels....hotels specifically designed for having sex in. You can rent rooms by the hour for quickies, or book 'em for the night for orgies, use them to cheat on your spouse, or whatever comes into that dirty little mind of yours. You can get themed rooms too, sado, dungeon, dentist office ??? , etc. Also get sauna, pool, karaoke room...all possibilities.

We had a birthday party for one of our fellow JETs in a love hotel. Karaoked into the night, while Japanese porn played on the TV in the livingroom....that's all the TV plays.

Engaged in a little bondage and a little bed-sharing ;)....check out the pics.

http://www.photoaccess.com/share/guest.jsp?ID=A9647A29B32&cb=PA

 

FEBRUARY

Sapporo!!

This was a fun weekend with Pauline, Sarah and Eva. Did lots of shivering, walking, getting lost from our hotel to the Sapporo Beer Garden, partying...the city totally did not seem like a regular Japanese city, really laid-back atmosphere.

Pics: http://www.photoaccess.com/share/guest.jsp?ID=A85D6829A46&cb=PA

Not a whole lot happening during the wintertime. Spent most of it freezing my ass off in front of tiny space heaters, and growing fat since there was nothing to do but watch movies and eat. Many outings with JETs clubbing during the cold months. Ahhh, the memories of ID Bar....

 
JANUARY

Hong Kong & Macau

Spent the Christmas and New Year's vacation in Hong Kong with Eva, a JET from Ireland. Did a lot of touring of outlying islands as well as a trip to Macau. Fab times.

Pics: http://www.photoaccess.com/share/guest.jsp?ID=A164C629678&cb=PA

 

OCTOBER - DECEMBER

Freddie LEAVES!!

Freddie headed back to Canada after spending 3 months with me in Japan. It totally SUCKED saying goodbye to him. We had a great time travelling together and he totally became a part of my life here. It was like starting all over again when he left.

Pics from our trips:

Hiroshima & Himeji: http://www.photoaccess.com/share/guest.jsp?ID=A094D428E84&cb=PA
Nara: http://www.photoaccess.com/share/guest.jsp?ID=A450B228A02&cb=PA
Takayama: http://www.photoaccess.com/share/guest.jsp?ID=A8D4EA28862&cb=PA
Around Kozakai: http://www.photoaccess.com/share/guest.jsp?ID=A518B628587&cb=PA

AUGUST - SEPTEMBER

Work Begins!

Adjusting to my new life in Japan. Getting to know students and my co-workers...and above all...learning to be a teacher ;)

Saw the sports festival at my school, took a trip to Osaka and got introduced to the Japanese enkai!!!

Sports Fest & enkai : http://www.photoaccess.com/share/guest.jsp?ID=AB109F1829C&cb=PA
Osaka: http://www.photoaccess.com/share/guest.jsp?ID=AB20AF282FE&cb=PA


Think that's a pretty good run-through of the year...will add more later.