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Published: April 23rd 2008
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Still floating around. So I am coming up to the 1 year 6 month period now.
I’ve been here a long time. It’s surprising how adaptable you can be. The same way when the weather is hot you can’t imagine what it would be like to be cold walking around fully clothed. And when your sitting in London on the sofa watching neighbors, eating cornflakes and drinking beer, its hard to imagine what it would be like to be suited up in a Japanese office on an island on the other die of the world.
I feel like this is my home now.
Home from home anyway.
There are still obvious things missing from my life.
However, I still find myself fulfilling intrigued enough by the Japanese and content with my day to day life to stick around for a while more.
It is though, the time of year that: my contracting organization decides to ask if I want to stay for another year. The timing is of course supposed to hit you when you are at your lowest and encourage you to make a more informed decision. It cold and you7Ve probably just arrived back from
a fantastic tropical holiday, to find that your teachers look tired and unfazed by the 3 or 4 days holiday the spent visiting their relatives graves and organizing for New Years festivities.
This year, the winter hasn’t hit me nearly as hard as last year. I still sleep in tracky bocks, socks, jumper t-shirt and a hat, and spend the rest of my time sitting under my kotatsu- a Japanese heated table, with my kerosene heater on full all morning and evening. But, a general feeling of, “was it really that cold back in England”, and the general realization that although central heating is great, it does seem to take away what seasonal pleasures there might have been. In the same way as our supermarket are filled with fresh bananas and melons all year round, making the thrill of eating that first seasonal fruit, the same could be said of the sudden leveling off of the heat from the September mark (if I remember right).
The sight of the cigar-smoke like breath in the morning, and through-out the unheated hallways of the school, now makes me only love this country even more, and I feel like I am enjoying the
MOVE IT MOVE IT MOVE IT!!!
Imabari Nishi Kouko baseball team. the best int eh country who had decided to use our facilities to carry out their bizarre and a painful training regime. winter for the first time in my life.
Each season is in its own right, extreme here, and the red leaves and cherry blossoms of spring and autumn are complimented nicely buy the sweat and sun of the summer, and the huddling around big bowl of steaming Japanese hot pots and snowboarding in perfect snow.
However, (however no. 3) I am having to make a decision on how I am going to feel a year and more from now and think ahead on those seasons, and although the ups and downs of the first year have reduced to a general comfort level that allows me to enjoy my job whilst experiencing this beautiful country, I can’t help feeling that this feeling can’t last, and that it is not meant to last.
The initial craziness has gone away with the acquisition of language and “in the deep end” method of teaching, along with the full cycle feeling of settlement and routine.
But each time I visit another country I feel like possibly its that initial craziness that is experienced when encountering something completely new and different, that I want to experience and keep the fire in the sole alive
and burning strong.
2 years in such isolation, is a long time for anyone, but 3 years?!
Tricky.
I must say that I’m struggling a little with this one, and obviously only I can make this decision. The temptation is to stay, but the worry is that the sense of change and adventure is turning into comfortable and that by this time in August the job will be getting boring, most of my good friends will be leaving and I will have another year to day dream about where I will go on my short amount of paid leave.
There of course is a massive amount of stuff that I could still do here and experience, but a part pf me just wants to get “The Long Way home” trip on the go as it could take up to a year.
Much to think about.
In the mean time, life is rolling on.
The other day the pictures of the Tondo Matsuri are shown, which despite freezing rain, was a great day, and one I won’t forget.
At New years, rice ears or whatever you call them, are woven into the Japanese equivalent
of Christmas wreaths, and hung around the house.
Tondo matsuri is therefore the equivalent of the last day of Christmas, and instead of dragging that brown Christmas tree down tot eh local dump, or side of the motorway, the Japanese build there own bamboo trees, adjourned with these rice wreaths and parade it round the island (chanting as always) and then set fire to the beast for the finale.
It was great but exhausting as these things can be but another fantastic part of living in such a small community.
My primary school kids are great and nothing phases them, so we marched on through wind and rain, picking the odd fallen origami crane or piece of calligraphy (as Ethan put it, “I spend all year doing shuuji, and then they take all my best ones and set fire to them!”) that were draped over the bamboo pyramid.
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Yellow Head
E-san
Tondo of a Time
Nice one Chaz, you're still on here! I thought everything had been privatized. Where is the obligatory pic of you and your semi-handicap running friend?