Advertisement
Published: October 29th 2006
Yabusame - Food
Grilled octopusThis update is long overdue and as such will probably be very long…
My morale has sky-rocketed since my last blog entry. The fact that I haven’t written in 20 days is a good indication that I’ve been keeping busy with other things. In fact, I’ve been keeping so busy that the time has been flying by! It would probably take a long time to enumerate every weekend activity I’ve done so I’ll just start with what I remember.
Two weekends ago, I decided to branch out and try to make some new friends. I had “networked” with a few people while I attended the University Seminar (mentioned in the last posting) and went to one of their birthday parties on a Friday. There were people from every walk of life at the party, from what I could tell; ALTs, Japanese people, even some Korean exchange students. I spent the night chatting with various people including a Korean guy who got friendlier with every drink; I was flattered, though not at all interested by the time he started putting his arm around me. Although I didn’t meet anyone (man or woman) with whom I felt any real chemistry, it
Yabusame - Food
Grilling snails
was nice to just “shoot the breeze” with people. I think I need to be less selective in choosing my friends, since the ALT population is rather limited in our area. I have also noticed that most of the ALTs are unconditionally accepting of each other, something I am trying to incorporate into my own personality.
Later that weekend, I attended the Yabusame archery festival with my friend Yuki and a couple of his friends who were visiting for the weekend. Along with being a great excuse to eat all sorts of fried meats and sweets (and snails - see photo), the festival is meant to secure another year of good luck for the town it is held in. The main event (and reason for the title) is when a middle school boy, who has trained intensively for several months, rides down a long dirt pathway on a horse shooting arrows at four targets. He rides about 3-4 times. The town can expect good luck if the boy hits the targets. I heard that he has to leave town if he doesn’t succeed. This year the archer did very well and hit 7 out of 9 targets. His father
Eating mochi at Yabusame
Gooey rice flour patty grilled to perfection. Mmmm....mmmm.... walked behind him whenever he rode back to the start of the pathway. When it was all over the father was so proud of his son he was almost in tears. Everyone in the crowd gave him a big cheer as he walked by. After the archery there’s a big street parade where various groups do dances and walk around in costumes (both traditional and modern). Even though it wasn’t in our town, I still felt an incredible sense of community and (finally) belonging.
On Thursday of the next week, my Australian friend Tim arrived from Tokyo and Singapore where he had been vacationing in 1st class style and we got ready for another weekend of partying. I felt a bit bad since I don’t think Tim knew what to expect of Kagoshima and I pretty much plunged him into every traditional cultural activity I could think of (from eating traditional foods to visiting shrines). Being a technology aficionado, I think he might have been surprised by the lack of technology down here in
inaka. Nonetheless, we did manage to squeeze in a couple of evenings of partying and hanging out with my ALT friends in the city, which
I think he enjoyed.
So, Friday after work, Tim, Nathaniel and I piled into my car and headed to my friend Zach’s apartment in the city. Zach, being a self-proclaimed obsessive-compulsive, anal-retentive kind of guy, had kindly coordinated a whole weekend for about 11 of us. It started with an authentic Mexican dinner at his place on Friday night (we ALTs are deprived of most kinds of foreign food that aren’t Asian or American) complete with black beans, home made salsa and soft-shell tacos. Everything was delicious!
The next day we were up early for breakfast then it was back into the car to drive to Ibusuki where we hiked the “Satsuma Fuji,” Mt. Kaimon. I was coming down with a bad cold so I was happy to hang back with the slower hikers while Tim made good time to the top with the fast hikers. The hike was beautiful from start to finish so I was also happy to have the chance to take pictures on the way up. After lunching at the top, we started our grueling trip down, where my cold suddenly took a turn for the worse. By the time we got to the
Mmmm...snail
I accidentally ate the stomach of this one and had to spit it out after this shot was taken - it was SO bitter! bottom, I was practically crawling; but the day didn’t end there!
As a reward for all our hard work, we treated ourselves to an experience like no other: sand baths. Ibusuki is famous for the coastal strips of sand that are heated from beneath by geothermal something or other (I still haven’t learned the volcanic lingo). Here’s how it works: after you buy your ticket, they give you a small towel and a robe to wear (since this is a mixed bathing experience); men and women change in their respective changerooms, then join up again on a sandy patio overlooking the ocean where you lie in a shallow (sand) pit and have sand shoveled over top of you to create a nice warm sandy cocoon.
This would feel like an oven during the summer time, but now that the weather is cooling, and with the nice breeze that comes off the ocean, it feels warm and relaxing - for about the first 10 minutes, that is. At almost the 10 minute mark our “oohs” and “aaahs” turned into “ouches” as our heels and calfs began to burn. Though the
yukata robes do cover your body quite fully, they
only go to about mid-calf, so the first part to feel really hot is any exposed skin. Most of us couldn’t stand the burning and kicked off the sand at our feet as we shuffled them to find a more comfortable position or at least a cooler spot of sand. At 12 minutes we were starting to yelp as the burning made its way through our yukatas. At this point we started competing to see who could stay buried the longest. I think the last of us leapt out of their sand bed and into the rinsing pool at about 15 minutes. Apparently, the most beneficial amount of time is 20 minutes but you would have to have either nerves of steel or no nerves at all to deal with that kind of heat.
Even after this full day, the party continued for everyone but me. By the time we got back to the city, I couldn’t fathom moving more than a few feet at a time, but everyone else (including Tim, who seemed to hit it off well with everyone he met) went out to a night club to celebrate our friend Fio’s birthday. I had an early
night, broken only by the sounds of everyone coming back to Zach’s at varying hours of the night.
On Sunday I felt a bit better than I had after the hike and after a late start to the day, I ventured out with Nathaniel and Curtis (another ALT, whom I met for the first time that weekend) to Mister Donut and Starbucks for a very innutritious but satisfying breakfast while Zach and Tim convalesced, hungover, at the apartment. At about 2pm we reassembled with our crew from the day before and headed off for yet another oceanside
onsen, this time at Sakurajima. Whereas the sand baths were painful, the Sakurajima Furusato onsen was heavenly. This onsen again, was a mixed bathing resort, and because it has a shrine built over the actual onsen we had to wear yukata again. There were three kinds of bath that we alternated between. The main bath (the one with the shrine and a big mass of gnarled tree roots hanging overtop) was filled with hot mineral water and lined with smooth stones so that you could lounge around at various levels of immersion; there was also a lukewarm bath where you could lay
Yabusame
Two officiators observe a hit target
your head on a log and lie on your back as if you were in a bed, staring up at the sky, or chatting with the person next to you; and there was a shallow pool with streams of water falling from above, under which you could sit for a head and/or shoulder massage. And then of course there was the bay, which was about 5 steps away from the main bath, where you could dip your feet if you felt too hot. The ocean temperature was even warm enough for swimming (though there were signs advising against it - I didn’t go swimming, but some of the other ALTs did).
We all finished off Sunday with dinner at a Thai restaurant on the highway back to my place. I had Thai green curry, which certainly was spicy, if somewhat tasteless because of my cold.
I took the day off work on Monday so that Tim and I could spend some more time sightseeing together. After hemming and hawing all weekend about what we should do, we decided to head up the coast of Miyazaki to see…well, we weren’t exactly sure what we wanted to see. We made
up our minds as we drove (I mostly just stopped at places I thought were interesting and Tim indulged my penchant for all things old, cultural or beautiful). Our first stop was at Udo Shrine where we threw stones at a dip in a rock, trying to make our wishes come true (neither of us succeeded); then we headed further north to Aoshima beach, where we had a picnic lunch, watched the surfers and I got distracted by all the seashells that had washed up on shore and spent a little too long picking up the nice ones (oops!). We finished off our trip in Miyazaki City where Tim had dinner at a burger joint and I picked up a bento (boxed lunch or dinner with things like rice, fried meat, some sort of veggie or salad, etc.) and then Tim drove us back to Shibushi.
I went back to work on Tuesday and Tim relaxed at my house until about 5:30pm when I drove him back to the city to stay with Zach again so he could be closer to the airport when he left on Wednesday.
After that, the week progressed fairly quickly, though my cold
continued to hang on. I definitely got a lot sicker this time than I used to get in Calgary…maybe it’s the stress of being in a new place or maybe it's just all the foreign germs. On Thursday, I booked spots on a flight to South Korea for the Christmas vacation that I will be taking with my friends Curtis (mentioned above) and Robin. We’re going to meet up with a fellow Montrealer, Stephanie, who was actually friends with my cousins Pat and Genny, and who has been teaching in Daegu, South Korea since about the same time I got to Japan. We’re all excited that we will be doing something interesting over the holidays.
This weekend was yet another party weekend as about 75 ALTs from various Kyushu prefectures converged on Nejime for an apparently world-famous Dragon Boat race. Participants came from as far as Hong Kong and Canada (a Toronto-based dragon boat team actually came all the way out here to compete). After a big town party (where we had a feast for about $10) we all retired to our cabins (each prefecture had its own site) for some more partying and then tried to get some
Yabusame
The archer's friends/classmates hold up some of the targets he hit. rest for the races this morning. Everyone came out and like the Yabusame festival there were all sorts of stands with different kinds of fried foods and sweets and a great feeling of community. None of our teams won any prizes in the races even though some of our boys' teams advanced to the semi-finals, but we all had a great time catching up with our friends some of whom live too far away to see on a regular basis.
We also enjoyed the beautiful scenery of Nejime, which is right on the coast and surrounded by lush mountains. Even the roads are lined with palm trees, giving it a very Hawaiian feel. As I’ve been going out running in different parts of Shibushi and as I’ve been driving around more, I continue to be amazed at how much natural beauty this country has to offer. Even as I was swimming at the nearly-empty, bleach-smelling pool on Saturday, I couldn’t help but think how gorgeous it was surrounded by trees and with the sun streaming in through the skylights. Sometimes, especially at sunrise or sunset, it just feels like heaven and I can imagine that once I get over
my disgust with the spiders and other crawly things - I'm definitely becoming more accustomed to finding them in my house and I have no qualms with their existence outdoors - I will be happy to stay here for two years.
Speaking of crawly things, I had a major onslaught on Friday night. I walked into my bathroom to brush my teeth and get ready for bed only to find that a giant spider (the size of my palm with its leg span) that had been perched on the outside of my bathroom window had managed to find its way in and so had a mid-sized cockroach. I might have let the spider go, since it probably would have found its own way out again, but I couldn’t just leave the cockroach scuttling around. So I crept back to my kitchen and grabbed the cockroach spray from beneath the sink. I went back and started spraying the cockroach, thus spooking the spider and sending both of them scrambling for cover. All of a sudden I had a change of heart towards the spider and went “postal” on both of them. Spiders aren’t easily killed by cockroach spray but if
Yabusame
Targets are paraded towards the shrine you douse them enough, they do eventually die.
I don’t usually spray my spiders with insecticide, instead trying usually to sweep them out the door, but when I do use the sprays I tend to get a bit carried away. I had basically created a gas chamber in my bathroom, so in an effort to keep the fumes from spreading to the rest of my house I shut both the sliding doors that lead into it. As I closed the outer door I saw what I dreaded seeing: a shocked looking gecko that had been hiding between the wall and the door. Everyone I talk to about geckos says, “oh, they’re so cute!” Well, maybe as tattoos they’re cute. In real life I find them really creepy, especially since the one that likes to come into my house is really big (about an inch wide and 6 inches long) and a really ugly shade of brown. After a second of me looking at the gecko and it looking back at me, it suddenly jumped to the floor with an awful sounding splat and made a dash for the bathroom door, which was now closed. Finding that its regular exit
Yabusame
Targets are taken to the shrine was blocked - I think it usually comes in and out through the drain in my bathroom floor or somewhere behind my washing machine - it dashed onto the opposite wall where it shimmied upwards, waited, and splatted onto the floor again before dashing back down the hall and disappearing somewhere in my entranceway. Once I finished hyperventilating I had to laugh at the whole sequence of events. Sometimes I actually feel like I’m the one intruding in the geckoes’, spiders’ and cockroaches’ house.
And that’s the kind of month it’s been for me. The time between now and Christmas is bound to be just as exciting as I’ve got outings planned with all sorts of different people (from my host family to my ALT friends to my Japanese friends to my dad) almost every weekend until New Years. I’ll try to make my updates more frequent so they are not all long-winded like this one and so it doesn’t get too overwhelming (for me) to try to keep track of everything I’m doing!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.163s; Tpl: 0.015s; cc: 8; qc: 76; dbt: 0.0865s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.3mb
Dana
non-member comment
The bathing resort sounds awesome!!! Having only a shower in my suite, I would definitely enjoy a nice long bath, especially in a place like that! The gecko story is hillarious! :-)))