one of the many layers of feelings that is surfacing quite often at the moment is the missing. I am missing my friends and family. I think it is because over time you develop such an eloquent language with the people you are close to and its hard being unable to speak it now. to communicate the things i see and do with the ease that that language allows. I want you to see things with me and share everything i do with all of you! the friends i have here are vital indeed but they are new and i cannot really e x p e r i e n c e with them. not like i can with all of you.
im ok though! and i know I gotta do it alone.
just missing ya'll a little.
i've posted all my pictures on flickr as meinmihara. go take a look!
. .
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
language school
This week I am in Saijo. This is Saijo. All first year JETs in the Hiroshima prefecture have been shipped off to language camp - a government sponsored center that gives intensive language and culture courses and throws in a bed and breakfast deal too. The lessons I am taking are pitched just right it seems - I recognise the feelings of frustration, ignorance and shocks of enlightenment from my lessons with Jenkin-sensei back home. This institute is something else. Imagine a Goethe Institute with a holiday Inn attached. Very nice indeed. The whole enteprise, like much of Japan is very eco conscious - when you get into your room you plug your room key into a slot on the wall and this allows you to turn on the lights and air con (meaning that if you arent in your room, these cant be running). clever ne? There are also seven different bins on each floor for trash: plastics, soda bottles, paper and other burnables, razors & glass, batteries and cans. okok thats only six but i cant remember the other one. The whole recycling shtick irritated me at first but now i feel extremely virtuous - taking 15 minutes to throw anything away.
last night i rented a DVD from the institute's library - it was a Japanese animation from the 80s called the old crocodile (me think). It was beautiful. A red ink crocodile on a brown paper forcing this octupus to fish for him by day. then at night he eats the octupus too - one leg at a time until its just a sorrowful black beak and eyes.
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Sunday, August 17, 2008
Genki
This past week I was off in Hiroshima city for orientation and upon my return i was struck with the cold from hell. It came from nowhere on thursday morning and by lunch time I was a fevered, lock jawed wreck. It is Obon week this week (a big festival where everyone in Japan returns to their family home) so the high school not to mention the town was emp.tee
It was in fact my headmaster and a sweet sweet man in 'Jim' - Japanese for Admin - who swaddled me off to Mihara hospital. It seemed so grave! But I had to go to the hospital only because all the local practices were closed for the week. Once in the hospital I came to realise how little Japanese I knew. Between sweet man from Jim (I wish I had dads facility for recalling names!) and a fluent gaijon friend over the phone we managed to establish that I was not pregnant, I was was nauseous, I had pain in the throat but no snot and that I was feverish but not dizzy. The man from Jim left me in reception assuring me that someone would bring me pills and I could pay the next day.
The next day I was very very sick indeed. The pills had had no effect. My glands had swollen so monsterously that it looked like my wisdoms had come out all over again and i couldnt even swallow my own spittle. A very sorry sight. My supervisor called to say he had heard I was poorly and did I need to go back to hospital. Yes please! Drive me please! He and his family were there in a flash (from the next town over) and they sat with me in a two hour queue at the hospital to see another doctor. The queue was mostly little old ladies with the highlight of a baseball player, uniform all muddy in the bum, holding an icepack on an alarmingly bulgy arm. His dad looked way more worried than my supervisor.
This time in the consultation all I had to do was sit and shiver and try to swallow spit while my supervisor and the doctor (imagine a Japanese doctor Dolittle wearing a paper shower cap) discussed whether I should get new pills or a drip. I was all for the drip. Mainline the Cure!! And in the end I got it and spent a blissful hour and a half in a low hospital bed with a drip quitly fixing me and nurses with all kings of charms and pens doodads dandling off their uniforms scuttling about. Oh, before the peace there was a bit of trouble finding a vein. I automatically gave them my left arm (blood donor arm, yeah, i got the scars, Im hardcore) but it was rejected after a rather painful first attempt and there followed a bizarre expedition up and down my right arm - two gentle pretty nurses walking there fingers up and down up and down until they found what they thought was a good spot - they would try the fluid would flow under the skin making balloons so they would start again. walky walky. pokey needle. i didnt mind in the least. I think I must be a bit of a hyper condriac but man, if i am in a hospital being seen to by pros with pro liquid medicine - its a valhallah
when i came off the drip the nurses checked my blood pressure with a tube machine that starts playing Satie when you slip you arm through. :)
and now three days one drip two consultations and a lot of meds later I am okelidokeli!! And the best part? Im on Japanese medical aid! All that stuff cost Three Fifty ZA Rands. hehe.
.
It was in fact my headmaster and a sweet sweet man in 'Jim' - Japanese for Admin - who swaddled me off to Mihara hospital. It seemed so grave! But I had to go to the hospital only because all the local practices were closed for the week. Once in the hospital I came to realise how little Japanese I knew. Between sweet man from Jim (I wish I had dads facility for recalling names!) and a fluent gaijon friend over the phone we managed to establish that I was not pregnant, I was was nauseous, I had pain in the throat but no snot and that I was feverish but not dizzy. The man from Jim left me in reception assuring me that someone would bring me pills and I could pay the next day.
The next day I was very very sick indeed. The pills had had no effect. My glands had swollen so monsterously that it looked like my wisdoms had come out all over again and i couldnt even swallow my own spittle. A very sorry sight. My supervisor called to say he had heard I was poorly and did I need to go back to hospital. Yes please! Drive me please! He and his family were there in a flash (from the next town over) and they sat with me in a two hour queue at the hospital to see another doctor. The queue was mostly little old ladies with the highlight of a baseball player, uniform all muddy in the bum, holding an icepack on an alarmingly bulgy arm. His dad looked way more worried than my supervisor.
This time in the consultation all I had to do was sit and shiver and try to swallow spit while my supervisor and the doctor (imagine a Japanese doctor Dolittle wearing a paper shower cap) discussed whether I should get new pills or a drip. I was all for the drip. Mainline the Cure!! And in the end I got it and spent a blissful hour and a half in a low hospital bed with a drip quitly fixing me and nurses with all kings of charms and pens doodads dandling off their uniforms scuttling about. Oh, before the peace there was a bit of trouble finding a vein. I automatically gave them my left arm (blood donor arm, yeah, i got the scars, Im hardcore) but it was rejected after a rather painful first attempt and there followed a bizarre expedition up and down my right arm - two gentle pretty nurses walking there fingers up and down up and down until they found what they thought was a good spot - they would try the fluid would flow under the skin making balloons so they would start again. walky walky. pokey needle. i didnt mind in the least. I think I must be a bit of a hyper condriac but man, if i am in a hospital being seen to by pros with pro liquid medicine - its a valhallah
when i came off the drip the nurses checked my blood pressure with a tube machine that starts playing Satie when you slip you arm through. :)
and now three days one drip two consultations and a lot of meds later I am okelidokeli!! And the best part? Im on Japanese medical aid! All that stuff cost Three Fifty ZA Rands. hehe.
.
Monday, August 11, 2008
flat pics: finally!
the view. im lucky hey?
my loo
living area angle 1
living area angle 2
bedroom angle 1
bedroom angle 2
Sunday, August 10, 2008
yassa festival
mihara's big local festival is called the Yassa. Yassa literally means hurry up. The revelries date back to the 1300s i think when mihara castle was being built and the local residents would get dressed up and dance around singing hurry up - build the castle!
the castle is gone but people still get dressed to the nines on friday and saturday night. every organisation, suburb or school forms a team who parade down the main drag in the MOST garish yukata you can imagine. turqoise satin and neon yellow yukata, ANC yukata, black and white formula one yukata. each group is separated by a vehicle of sorts (nissan, lexus, ambulance) covered in paper flowers and whenever a dancer gets parched they pop into the back of their slow moving vehicle and grab a beer.
tonight is the last night of the fest and there are going to be fireworks! I have heard that a japanese fireworks display is nothing to be scoffed at. lookin forward to it.
x
the castle is gone but people still get dressed to the nines on friday and saturday night. every organisation, suburb or school forms a team who parade down the main drag in the MOST garish yukata you can imagine. turqoise satin and neon yellow yukata, ANC yukata, black and white formula one yukata. each group is separated by a vehicle of sorts (nissan, lexus, ambulance) covered in paper flowers and whenever a dancer gets parched they pop into the back of their slow moving vehicle and grab a beer.
tonight is the last night of the fest and there are going to be fireworks! I have heard that a japanese fireworks display is nothing to be scoffed at. lookin forward to it.
x
onsen
on my last night of homestay Kikawa-sensei suggested we go to an onsen - a tradtional japanese hot spring. they area all over japan. hot water is leaking out everywhere.
the mihara onsen is nothing like i imagined - which was a remote pond on a mountain top. It was like a casino!! four storeys high with separate baths for men and women. in the change room are scores of wrinkly old ladies just cruising around in the buff. i was self conscious at first, my western proportions could not have been more other.
The bathing area is divided into a dozen or so different pools. some are the onsen themselves - brown cola water bubbling into tiled pools at around 40 degrees. I sat in these for a bit and then treid the novelty pools where you can get various bubble massages and even one where electric current is passed through the water making your muscles seize up so you become temporarily paralyzed - fingers crumpled against your chest. weird but good!
we wallowed for about an hour and then went back down to the public seating area in our gowns. there are giant tvs quitely playing japanese soapies and rows upon rows of lazy boy chairs. babies on mommies chests and old men are dotted about - all uit ge pas, its so peaceful. so thats what we did too. it was dim lit and air conditioned and heavenly.
.
the mihara onsen is nothing like i imagined - which was a remote pond on a mountain top. It was like a casino!! four storeys high with separate baths for men and women. in the change room are scores of wrinkly old ladies just cruising around in the buff. i was self conscious at first, my western proportions could not have been more other.
The bathing area is divided into a dozen or so different pools. some are the onsen themselves - brown cola water bubbling into tiled pools at around 40 degrees. I sat in these for a bit and then treid the novelty pools where you can get various bubble massages and even one where electric current is passed through the water making your muscles seize up so you become temporarily paralyzed - fingers crumpled against your chest. weird but good!
we wallowed for about an hour and then went back down to the public seating area in our gowns. there are giant tvs quitely playing japanese soapies and rows upon rows of lazy boy chairs. babies on mommies chests and old men are dotted about - all uit ge pas, its so peaceful. so thats what we did too. it was dim lit and air conditioned and heavenly.
.
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