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Published: October 9th 2006
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The raw/fresh/alive Island (you pick) So, early on that Wednesday morning I got up, thought I had lost my passport, did the worst shave in history and stumbled onto the bus to aiport no2. Then on the crest of a Typhoon we made the 1 hour jouney South to Matsuyama.
Ehime translates as 'Love princes' and is reffered to as the sunkissed corner of Japan, not least because of its output of Mikan (oranges or madarines I forget which) but also as it sit with its coastline on the Inland Sea or Seto Naikai. Its very still and very hot (Even now as I write this on the 9th Oct the sun is shining outside and its a healthy 25 degrees outside).
Piling off the plane, feeling incredibly nervous for some reason, we left the tiny airport and were greated by the kamijima shaparones. Konno sensei, who was one of my JTE (Japanese Teachers of English) was a very tanned, slender chap who I took an instant liking to, and who told me right away, had visited Londond enjoyed it - good start. The rest were all pretty nice and spoke reasonably good English, or enough to get by anyway. We jumped in the
van and drove for two hours solid.
I got my first real view of Japan doing this and infact we seemed not to ride on the motorway at all as we past through countless towns and small villages. Matsuyama, is the largest city in Ehime and possibly Shikoku (I forget) and is our base camp for the Jet scheme. This I realised was a little bit crazy as I can see Hiroshima prefecture from my window, but matsuyama is 2hours drive away but what do I know... It felt like we never left each town as we rolled on, as every bit of land not occupied is used for making rice and thus there is little space without something gowing on it or someone living on it - however, the familiar skyscrapers were no-where to be seen out here and we were getting ever more rural.
A line of islands form a bride from the mainland to Shikoku (one of the four island which make up Japan) and they in turn have had an eloborate and expensive number of suspensions bridges built across almost all of them (in fact they stop just before my island). After stopping off
Cicada
These are the noisy beast, when they work together, they make noise like an aiplane firing up. They're big too. to buy a pillow and other neccessities we met with the 3 members of the community centre and board of education that I would be sharing an office with every Wednesday for the next year. They introduced themselves as Murakami san, Murakami san and Murakami san - no relation. I would come to discover 1 in 4 people on my island are called Murakami and are descended from pirates. I would soon feel comforted by the fact that I can remember 1 in 4's people names on the island straight a way (but not really anyone else's).
After some mighty fine shashimi, sushi and beers - I was led onto the 60yen (30p) ferry ride to my island and arrived pretty tipsy in the dead of night at the place that I would call home.
It is enormous and was only recently purchased from a family of 4 by the Board of Education. In fact its so big I don't really use four of the rooms in it, and its mighty cheap - however, by this time I was on a input over load and had to sit in the centre of my new dojo and take it
all in in silence with a brew.
This was a tad tricky as the sound of cicadas is deafining here, being the height of summer, and every hour there is a tonoy system that rings in the hour and announces information over the whole island. Its so loud, Jenny from my neighbouring island can hear it. But I have grown to love this sound, much like I began to enjoy the call to prayer in Turkey (although not the one 6.00am).
I didn't affect my sleep anyway and I collapsed into bed and slept with smile on my face - I was really here.
6:30 am I awoke to the crushendo (i don't have a clue how to spell that word, any idea?) of cicada and the 6:30 tanoy which I have found out now explains the rubbish collection system for that week but at the time sounded as if it could be describing an oncoming swarm of cicada, and that we should flee the island. My bed backs onto one of 4 traditional paper sliding doors and I was being bathed in a golden beam of light - it was six thirty in the morning
and already the sweat was pouring down me. I think of everything so far I have experienced in Japan, this is the moment I will recall most vivdly - I was in another world and the air was, quite literally, alive.
I then went to start my first day at work...
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Stephanie
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Ichigo-ichie
Looks like you're doing this all right!