あっと言う間

When people have asked me how I feel about leaving Japan soon, this was a phrase I quickly learned – a tto iu ma – “a blink of time” or literally, “the time it takes to say ‘Ah!'”

Two years feels especially short when I think about how other JETs have stayed as long as five years.  But as I wrote in my last post, the longer I stay here, the harder it will be to return home.  I guess I chose to sacrifice the short term for the long term.  I said goodbye to all my schools last week, and I was surprised how appreciated the students made me feel.  I never thought only seeing them each once a week would have that much of an impact, but when some students gave me lovely personal messages, drawings of me and even asked for my UK address so they could write to me, I realised how close we had actually got during that time and how much I’ll miss them.

On Monday night, the shock of leaving hit me really hard and I couldn’t sleep at all, thinking about how difficult it will be to see the friends I made here again.  It will be relatively easy to see my Japanese friends as I know they’ll always be here, but sooner or later, my JET friends will all move on with their lives and end up scattered around the world.  However this does mean I have a good excuse to go travelling and see them!  When I’d finally managed to get to sleep, about two hours later, the man living across from me decided 5am was a good time to start hammering away at something in his shed for an hour.  I stuck my head out the window and yelled at him, because I didn’t care about being a nice neighbour anymore with only a week left, but he didn’t hear me anyway.

Clearing out my apartment is really tedious and I hate it.  Especially when it’s hot and humid and all I want to do is lie on my sofa and eat watermelon.  I’ve also amazed myself at how much crap I managed to acquire in two years, and the CARDBOARD, oh the cardboard.  But it must be done, and I tell myself everything will come together in the end, because it always does!

Last Saturday we had a taiko performance and then a party afterwards which one of the group leaders organised for me.  I nicknamed him Boss a while ago and he was so chuffed that now he makes everyone call him that.  We decided that the guy who sort of oversees us as a group, but doesn’t really play with us, needed a nickname too, so I suggested Chief, which also turned out to be a big hit.  We got very drunk and I was serenaded at karaoke with a powerful rendition of Queen’s I Was Born To Love You featuring some hilarious backing dancers.  They are all such a fun group of people, I’m sad I only got to know them proplerly in the last six months.  I could see us hanging out together more often outside practice, but obviously that won’t be happening 😦 But I’m glad I did have those six months!  I remember how hard it was to feel like I had a place in the Japanese community, as I just didn’t click with anyone in my own town.  I’ve been so lucky to have Lauren in the next town, who’s not only been an amazing friend to have, but without her I wouldn’t have had met the taiko group and made such good memories.

I met up with my friend in Aomori city on Monday, as I had to change my visa so I can use the JR Pass to go travelling.  We went to the fish market where you buy 10 stamps and can choose whatever seafood you like to put in your ricebowl.  I got all my favourites, including ikura, unagi and a huuuuuuge juicy raw scallop.  Then she took me to an old-fashioned looking ice cream sundae place where she used to go as a teenager.  I had a “B.B.” which was apparently a “big black” sundae, with big scoops of chocolate ice cream, an oreo, chocolate covered cornflakes and sliced banana.  I couldn’t finish it though…  We looked at the UK guidebooks she’d rented from the library because she wants to visit during spring next year.  Looking at all the nice photos of English gardens and pretty shop fronts in London actually made me feel a bit better about coming home, and even more so at the prospect of showing it around to a friend.

An Introduction to Rice Planting

Well, it was really just fifteen minutes of the mayor of Inakadate praising the crowd turnout and good weather, followed by lots of motivational rice-themed dancing with the town mascots singing “kome kome kome kome” (rice rice rice rice) before all 1200 of us were unleashed into the fields.  We had no idea what we were doing, then someone chucked us each a slab of rice seedlings, and away we went pushing them into the lines of holes that had been marked out for us.  The mud was lovely and warm and squishy on my bare feet, but unfortunately gave me hobbit feet for nearly two weeks after, no matter how hard I scrubbed.

When the rice grows, it will become a lovely piece of art!  We didn’t plant the coloured sections because I suspected we as volunteers couldn’t be trusted.  Suspicions  confirmed when teenagers started throwing the mud at each other and got a telling off from sensei.  The tradition of rice art started here in Inakadate about twenty years ago, using different coloured rice strands to create a picture which is viewed from the top of the building next to the fields.  Last year the rice art theme was Star Wars and Gone With The Wind (bit of a random combination), and this year it will be two characters from a Japanese drama I have no idea about, and Godzilla!

Getting ready to go

First bike ride of the year

Went for a 26k ride last weekend up to Ajigasawa and back, taking a couple of photos of near where I live along the way.  I know you probably think I’m a wuss for only just getting out on my bike at the end of April, but road biking in Aomori weather right by the sea just isn’t worth the pain!!  Even on the way back, the headwind was strong enough to make me want to just finish the ride already.  The big fat beautiful cherry blossoms and blue skies made it worth it though.

Random Photos from January and February

Frozen river in Ajigasawa

Walking around Aji with Lauren after a day of snowboarding.

View of Iwaki-san from Ajigasawa.

Surprisingly good chips we ordered whilst karaoke-ing after the formal.

Enkai with fave school teachers.

What you get when you go to a doctor’s with a cold.

Earl grey tea waffle and a cafe mocha.

Making healthy Japanese food.

Rice, spinach and tuna, chicken with vegetables, tea, carrot steamed bun, pickled vegetables.

My valentines gift from Lauren.

Dinner and film at my place!

Oden

Oden menu.  Some items include: daikon (giant radish), konnyaku (devil’s tongue), boiled egg, Japanese omelette, fried yam, processed fish in a variety of forms, processed sausage, gyoza, burdock root, fried tofu, fish meatball, chicken kebab.

More oden

Cuban music and salsa night

Kimchi nabe

A chocobanana eel gacha toy

Another gacha toy, I have no idea what this is but I love it.

Fish set meal at my local restaurant.

Tanjoubi

(A month late… I will get back into posting, I promise!!)

Last year I spent the evening of my birthday drinking wine in the bath.  This year I sat in a jazz bar eating sushi and being charmed by a drunk Japanese businessman.  Both years were enjoyable, but I think I can look forward to my birthdays again if they all turn out to be as fun as this year’s!

Every Tuesday I meet my barber friend for English/Japanese practice, so I was planning on just going out for some food with him and my friend in the next town over.  At the last minute he suggested we go to his sister’s bar in Hirosaki, I imagine because the restaurant I originally wanted to go to is owned by his wife and he’s probably sick of it!  We picked up Lauren and drove over an hour through a snowy blizzard to get there.

Like a lot of bars in Japanese cities, it was situated down an alley underneath a building full of other bars; the inside was only big enough for a handful of people but didn’t feel cramped at all.  There were five or six bar stools of the worn-out suede variety, surrounding a sunken bar area where the mama in her black crochet shawl and red lipstick stood puffing on a cigarette.  She welcomed us in, chatting away as she poured us some whiskey and the other lady pottered around in the kitchen out back, bringing us little dishes of food one by one.    We had sushi, nabe, pickled vegetables and a little bowl of pork soup, followed by a kind of fruit pastry cake.  I wasn’t expecting any of it, so it was a lovely gesture and truly appreciated!

Toshiya said he wanted to hear me play something on the piano, so I brought some music just in case because I am one of those people who lack the ability to memorise any music worth listening to.  The time came, and I played my failsafe Nocturne No. 9 by Chopin; probably not the kind of thing that they hear in a jazz bar very often, but it was fun to play for people again.  When I finished, I saw that we’d gained an audience member in the form of a rather drunk salaryman, which explained the distant cheering I heard halfway through playing.  He proceeded to entertain us for the rest of the night, despite repeating half the things he’d already said, and gave the other bar mama some money to go out and buy me flowers from him.  Lucky me!

It makes me so happy to have friends like Toshiya; it’s thanks to the hospitality of Japanese people in the community that let me do things like this.  Even though I find it hard to befriend Japanese people in my tiny town, I’m glad to have met the handful of friends I do have.

Japanese Guys

Introducing my first comic drawn on my graphics tablet!  It’s taken a while to get finished, due to having to restart it a couple of times because A) my cartoon style sucked and B) I recently upgraded to the full version of the software I was trialing and learned that there is such a thing as LAYERS which made drawing this kinda thing a billion times easier.

To distinguish English dialogue from Japanese, I wrote what would’ve been said in Japanese in the slightly thicker ink pen style.

The older folk make enthusiastic conversation partners, but the intensity of topics tends to escalate rather quickly…

 

Basketball

(Tuesday 19th January)

I’ve gone from already counting down the days until I leave Japan to thinking that if every day were like today, I’d probably have decided to stay a third year.  (Edit: Nope, as soon as I go back to the BOE I am immediately grateful for making the decision to leave!!)

Today was the first day back at my favourite school since breaking up for winter holidays. I had such a laugh in all my lessons, mostly because the kids have brilliant senses of humour.  The highlight was probably showing the 2^nd years the video for Learn to Fly by Foo Fighters (probably the funniest they made) and everyone thought it was hilarious.  I think we watched it four times after the students realised that all the different characters were being played by the same band members.

I was really excited to see that they’d left me an invitation to their end of year enkai, because they have only invited me to two before.  I put it aside and tidied up the rest of the school newsletters that had accumulated on top of the laptop, and underneath I found a New Year’s postcard from none other than the ikemen (beautiful male) P.E. teacher who sits behind me.

He wrote: “Are you enjoying school? If it’s ok with you, please come and join a P.E. lesson some time. I think the students will be happy.”

So I found myself, not for the first time, reluctantly agreeing to do sports in order to impress a guy (he’s married though, sigh).  I played basketball with the third graders (15 year olds) and was surprised at how much I enjoyed it, but more so that I didn’t drop the ball or smack anyone in the face.  I felt a surge of pride as I threw the ball across the court to my team mate and sensei shouted naisu pasu! at me from the other side.  I can’t have been that bad because I’ve been asked to join in again next time…

Snowy morning walk

Last night I went to my next door neighbour’s for dinner and she invited me out for a walk she was going on the next morning.  She said they were leaving at 8am, but I had nothing else planned and knew I’d just bum around in my pyjamas all day if I stayed in, so I decided to tag along.

We met up with two of her friends: the mother of one of my favourite students, whom I’ve met a few times already, and a lady who used to be the head of the local kindergarten (Mrs K).  I’d never met her until today, but I immediately loved how animated and chatty she was.  She’s very well-traveled, which apparently is rare for a lot of Japanese people, especially those who grow up in the countryside, and it’s amazing how different people are when they’re in tune with the rest of the world.  I’ve found that the people I know who have never left Japan, i.e. everyone except one guy at the BOE, appear to be amused by my presence and rarely get past topics such as whether I can eat certain Japanese foods or how the weather in the UK compares to Aomori.  I know they’re just trying to make conversation, but it’s really hard to just have a normal one that doesn’t involve what I think about such and such special Japanese thing.  So it was really refreshing to just talk about stuff that’s happened in the news, and she told me about an awful bus crash that happened in Nagano, killing 14 passengers on a ski trip.  Not the most joyful topic of conversation, but a welcome change from talking about how skillfully I can use chopsticks!!

 

It was a gorgeous morning, cloudy but calm, and the falling snow just made it more beautiful.  We went round the back of Mrs K’s house, trudged up a steep hill and suddenly we were in the middle of the mountains.  I would never have known this was a 15 minute walk from my apartment!  They said the last time they took this route they encountered a 30-strong family of monkeys, and had to make a hasty U-turn to avoid any trouble… Luckily this didn’t happen when I went!

Mrs K invited us back to her house, and it’s probably the most lavish house I’ve had the pleasure of visiting in Japan.  She had obviously done well for herself, and her house was beautifully decorated with rows of plants and pictures hanging on the wall; most looked liked souvenirs from her travels, including Mont Saint-Michel and Neuschwanstein Castle.  We stuck our legs under the kotatsu, drinking Kona coffee and eating fancy chocolate biscuits from the UK.  She said she’d make me a monkey out of socks (the one she already made was very cute) as a good luck charm for the year, and gave me one of those fancy oranges with a padded net protector thing.  I ate it when I got home and it was probably the best orange I’ve ever had, so now I finally understand why people pay so much money just for a bit of fruit.  Although I’m not sure if I’m willing to shell out 5 quid for that just yet.  Maybe when I’m rich and retired…

Car

My supervisor sat me down one day in October and told me that he didn’t want me to to use the town car for personal purposes anymore.  The reason he gave was that I was  “under scrutiny” as a public servant, so I assume he was worried a member of the public might see me up to no good and rat me out to the authorities… Incidentally I have never actually caused any problems when using that car but whatever.  (Okay I crashed into a snow pole, and even when I told him about the scratch A YEAR AGO he didn’t seem bothered enough to tell me to get it fixed, so it remains to this day.)  Apparently the ALT before me parked somewhere he shouldn’t have and someone rang up the town office to call him out.  The shame, the embarrassment.

I was a bit peeved that all the other ALTs got to use the car before me, but more to the point he didn’t even offer to help me find a new one.  I think he knows I’m capable of sorting myself out, but trying to lease a car in a different language would be easier if I had someone fluent helping me and making sure I didn’t get a crappy deal.  So I put it off as much as possible, getting trains and lifts from other people, until my neighbour told me she knew a guy that could be of service… He had a garage an hour away in the deep inaka, and apparently used to loan a car to Santa Claus when he had a stint at nearby Santa Land Shirakami, which is sadly no more.

So I went to his pokey little garage and stood by the portable heater, listening to two old guys talking to each other in heavy Tsugaru dialect while he made a note of my details for the insurance.  It was originally going to be 10,000 yen a month (£60) which was pretty cheap when it includes insurance and tire service etc, but because I’m young he said it had gone up to 13,000.  Can’t argue with that!  I told him I’ll be amazed if I survive the snowy season without a scratch, to which he just laughed and didn’t seem to mind.

So here is my new automatic “bus”, which isn’t really a fan of hills and can just about handle 30mph on a good day.  Now I feel like a true countryside driver.

Japanese apartment tour

I’ve been meaning to upload a tour of my apartment for… nearly ten months now so I finally seized the opportunity when I’d blitzed the place in preparation for friends staying over, and had 15 minutes to spare before going out to meet them!  I might do a video tour of my town as well at some point.  I also took some pictures on my run the other night because the azaleas by the shrine were out, and the rice fields were looking pretty!

(Sorry that you only get to enjoy the bottom half of my face in the first part)

I actually think May has become my favourite month in Japan just because of the rice fields.  Before the rice is planted, the water looks so beautiful and glass-like.  In late May, neat rows of shoots start to appear – some planted with machinery, and some planted the old-fashioned way.  I love watching the farmers in their wellies and headscarves, their backs bent at a permanent right-angle as they tend to each plant.  It’s just something I’ve never seen before and makes me really appreciate how Japanese people care about how their food is made.  It’s a shame that probably one day it will all become mass-produced, although doing everything by hand really can’t be good for the farmers’ backs… I’m not exaggerating when I say permanent right-angle!