A beach and a Classroom

---

Last Sunday, Eve and I ventured out of Fukushima to the Pacific coast for a little relaxation on the beach. We made the 90 minutes trip via train to a small town called Shinchi, Northeast of Fukushima.

According the the "helpful" Fukushima prefecture (province) information website, we were informed that SHinchi had a tourist beach for bathing, with restaurants, shops, and boat rentals. What it failed ot mention was exactly how to get ther eonce we had arrived in SHinchi. As the train pulled up to the Shinchi station, we were basically in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by rice paddies and mountains.

Using our best reasoning, we walked along the road until we came to the direction that the water seemed to be in- ie. when we looked east, there weren't any mountains, so therefore, that direction must be the ocean. We made it to the water- the sun was out, the sand was a nice grainy-type of beach and it was practically empty. Eve saw a sign which pointed out where the main bathing part of the beach was (although the water was far too cold to swim) so we walked. And walked. And walked. We walked for almost an hour until we came tp a small marina...Eve had directed us in the wrong diretion.

All was not lost since we came across a pizza restaurant. We got plenty of stares since it seems few foreigners ever make it that far. And it's always fun to try to read the katakana Japanese characters on menus when there are no pictures for you to point at (I can officially read "mango" and "pizza" and "cheese" in katakana).

We decided just to sit down and relax on the beach- but at this point, the weather had turned. It was now incredibly windy, os much so that we had to hang onto our beach towels to keep them from blowing away. The few people on the beach thought we were hilarious- there they were in jeans, sweaters, jackets, and rubber boots, and we were walking along in out barefeet and shorts with t-shirts on. As always, we are the crazy "gaijin" or foreigners. It was a good day and nice to get out of Fukushima, although we got lost on the way back and stranded at a small train station for 40 minutes, and I'm not sure if I have a suntan or windburn...

The other news of the week is that I had my first English class. I am teachng 8 Japanese women who are English teachers themselves. Our weekly class helps them prctice their English and also enables them to have more adult conversations in English as opposed to catering to young children's vocabularies. Most are homemakers who live in an 60 minute radius from Fukushima. One girl actually lived in Kitchener for a year, so she was excited to hear that I was from Toronto/Niagara Falls area. Although, having never taught a class beofre, it was a little unnerving to just have the guy who works for the company to say, "okay, start the class" and then he walked out the door, leaving me to fend for myself.

I did get compliments from my class afterwards as they couldn't believe I had never taught a class before and was just thrown into it. I then had to head over to Sendai to attend a training session witht he company fo rthe children's parties I will be working at in July- and a trip to Sendia is always fun because I get to visit HMV which is the only place in this enire areea that has any reading material in English!

---

Photos

Rice paddies
The view from the train station in Shinchi.

Pacific Ocean
My first time in the (freezing) Pacific.

Break wall
The entire beach is lined with breakwalls for typhoon season.

Beach
A view of the beach.

Fukushima Cat
Couldn't resist posting a picture of one of the local cats, hanging out in the "model hedge display" in the local park.

Comments

[jeff]

ling chow fu
i dont speak japppanese but since you do will you translate that for me...haha. so hows it like living in japan, are you anywhere near hyroshima or nagasaki? if you see my evil mom tell her hello and to try and not get the czars virus over there....have fun and eat some tuna tataki for me....love jeff

[Donna Miller]

Hello
Hi Rachel, I haven't had a chance to go through all of your journals until today. Wow, you have been busy. It sounds like you are really immersing yourself in what is going on around you. The photos really help to get a sense of what you are experiencing and seeing. Congratulations on your job. It's not easy to be thrown into a classroom and left to fend for yourself with a group of students looking expectantly at you. Are you basically giving them an opportunity to practise conversation skills? What will you be doing with the kids? I met a teacher here at the college last week who went to Japan on a whim and ended up staying there for 10 years. How is your Japanese? Do people understand you when you speak it? Anyway keep exploring and enjoy yourself. Bye for now. Aunt Donna