I was able to get off work early so I could meet my friends for our big three day weekend trip to Shikoku. It didn’t cost me any yearly vacation time, so that was nice. With my other ALT friends, Ashley, Erica, Brian, and Alvin, we rented a van from the place where most of us bought our cars and headed out. It honestly felt like all the trips I’ve taken with my family. We reached our first destination, a small ryokan in Okayama, to spend the night. Friday morning we set out on the ferry to go to Naoshima, a little island famous for modern art (famous is relative it seems as nearly no one I talk to knows about it). Lucky for us, since the typhoon already swept through the area, it was nothing but blue skies and sunshine. The absolute perfect day for exploring. And exploring we did! We went to the Benesse House (art museum). A lovely place with captivating art exhibits. Around the island and the museum were other pieces of art outside. The giant polka-dotted pumpkins by Yayoi Kusama are probably the most famous. If anyone remembers when the Kennedy Center threw that huge Japan exhibition for a few weeks a couple years ago, think about those rooms covered in black and yellow dots. Same artist. She works with polka dots for rather disturbing and sad reasons (she allegedly was abused as a child and would see spots in her hallucinations), but it’s great that despite that tragedy, her art is so interesting.
Anyway, we cruised around the island either by car or on foot. As we looked up things to do, Alvin mentioned a cat café and I was totally and completely sold on the idea. Thankfully, I wasn’t the only one on board with this idea. After we were finished with the Benesse House, we went for lunch at a small okonomiyaki place that was pleasantly cluttered with nice things outside. Reminds me of how I would decorate. We intended to try making glass beads but because it was a holiday, the glass bead lady was absent. We headed over to the Art House Projects, old houses renovated into pieces of arts and mini museums. Unfortunately, the scheduled tours didn’t work well with our relatively tight schedule so we had to abandon the hope of going inside. Instead, it was off to the cat café.
Before anyone thinks that this is entirely unsanitary, do not fret! I’m not sure how all cat cafés work, but it was literally a small house turned into this establishment. The kitchen/dining room area was dedicated to the café aspect. It had yummy looking food and delicious drinks (I got a melon soda ice cream float. I haven’t had a float in years!). In the room that would have been a bedroom is dedicated to the cats. After we had our drinks, Ashley, Erica, and I asked the workers for 10 minutes in the cat room. Usually, it’s 500 yen for 30 minutes and then 100 yen for every 10 more minutes you spend. Again, we were running short on time, so we got in for 200 yen. We washed our hands and stepped into kitty land! We sat on couches, petting the cats, playing with them, taking their pictures (without the flash, that was the rule), and enjoying their adorable company. Once we had our fix and the time was up, we paid and left. Now I can finally say that I have been to a cat café! That’s one off my check list.
We did another loop around the island for pictures and then set sail for Takamatsu on the main island of Shikoku. We got settled into our second ryokan, laid around for a bit due to being a bit exhausted from the day, and finally got the strength to get dinner. At first we went to this place that looked gorgeous but the food was bland and the service was unbearably slow. We left as soon as we could and went to the first Starbucks that I have seen recently. Much to our dismay, there were no pumpkin spice lattes or frappaccinos. Instead, they had this apple crumble flavor. Erica and I were determined to get our autumn drinks on/I know I wanted to try it, so we ordered frappaccinos. Once again, disappointed that it didn’t taste like heaven in my mouth but it was alright. I probably wouldn’t order it again though. Whomp whomp. Our next destination was an udon shop because Takamatsu is famous for it. We had to wait in line for a while to get seated but that must have meant the food was delicious, right? Well, it was! I got curry beef udon – it was the recommended dish on the menu. For curry udon, instead of broth, it’s curry that the noodles are in. So delicious. Wow, just writing about it makes me want it again!
Shortly after dinner, we bought some snacks for the next day, headed back to the ryokan and went to sleep. Saturday was going to be adventure day! In the morning, everyone went canyoning (not my thing, so I decided to wait it out), and in the afternoon, we all went whitewater rafting. The place is run mostly by Japanese people, but many of the employees are guys from New Zealand. Some of the Japanese people there spoke with Kiwi accents – so cute! In the morning to pass the time, I continued playing Okamiden. I bought the game in Japanese, knowing that there would be much I wouldn’t understand but every time I can get more than 70% of the conversation without just guessing and using context clues is great! I’m a bit stuck now. Instructions are difficult in Japanese when I can’t read most of the characters. Oh well, that’s what the Internet is for, right?
The afternoon rolled in, we had lunch, and after a while, we set out for the river. Honestly, I was a bit scared because…well, I’m always a bit scared about outdoorsy sort of stuff because I’m not that person. I do like water though, so that was mostly what kept me going. In the midst of all of the Japanese people, my group of people had a New Zealander named Bob (I think). After a run-down on instructions, advice, precautions and whatnot, we were in the river! It was so exciting! I couldn’t stop laughing! Like the way I can’t stop laughing when I’m on a roller coaster and subsequently, after the roller coaster – such an adrenaline rush! Giddy, even. It soon became less scary and more thrilling, in a good way. Left my arms exhausted though!
After that ball of fun, it was on to our stop for the night, the lodge called Leben. Now, Leben is up on the highest mountain I have ever been on. Numerous things bothered me with this part: the road was narrow and windy, we seemed to be going up forever and the drops continued to look more and more ominous and steep, there were only a few guardrails, and to top it all off, it was dark. I tried my best to keep it together and kept my hand tightly wrapped around the door handle (not the one that opens the door, but the other one…I don’t know what else to call it) to make myself feel better. I’m surprised how much it helped. We finally made it to the top and my hand was in pain. We were led by this nice young woman to come to another cabin that was close by for dinner. For dinner, we had yakiniku with fresh meat and vegetables (there’s a farm up on the mountain)! She gave us a rather interesting dish composed of a gelatin-like substance (but firmer) that had tofu and shiso (a kind of herb) stuffed in it. Once you topped it with a bit of soy sauce, it was very tasty. We continued our fun evening with the karaoke machine that’s conveniently inside the lodge. Once we sung our hearts out and we got tired enough, we went to bed. Compared to our other mornings, when we had to be up pretty early, this was our easiest morning. We leisurely made our way to the cabin to be fed another great meal. We paid, said our thanks, gathered our stuff and hit the road again. The mountain seemed far less terrifying during the day and now that I knew it had to end at some point. We headed out for Naruto to see the natural whirlpools but our timing was once again a problem. The peak time was not for another hour or so. We decided to leave and go up to Awaji where we could see the same whirlpools, around the peak time and better yet, be closer to home. I didn’t really know what to expect when we went out to see the whirlpools. Part of me was worried that I’d be disappointed and not see much, but even though they were small, there were definitely whirlpools! It was rather odd, as I’ve never seen them before. Before we started our trek back up home, we hit another convenience store for some ice cream.
That’s when we had our very funny and cute encounter with about five or six boisterous elementary school boys. The first one to walk out of the car was Brian, who is a pretty big tall guy, so the kids went nuts. They kept exclaiming to each other, “Whoa, foreigners!” and saying “Hello!” to us. The five of us waved back, smiling and greeting them back. A couple of the kids came in the convenience store a while after us. Brian and I were on our way out at the same time and one of the kids held the door for me! I said “Thank you!” and then all of them started screaming, “Thank you! Thank you!” to each other. Brian started to drink the Coke he just bought and this apparently blew their minds. “It’s really a foreigner!” one of the boys yelled while laughing. They started joking around and calling their friends foreigners. Once the rest of my group was out, we headed back to the car while saying, “Goodbye!” to the kids and they happily replied back. Little things like that make me love living in Japan so much.
Our return home was uneventful until we reached our semi-last destination (Wadayama) to do some car switching and whatnot. We accidentally hit the car beside us with our door handle and they called the police. None of our Japanese was good enough for this conversation so we quickly called in a friend who is perfectly fluent in both languages. I’m pretty sure Japanese policemen have very little to do here. Because for the tiny scratch on the car, we had three police cars come in, complete with sirens and running to the scene. Things got settled and everyone apologized to each other. Alvin, Ashley, and I left Brian and Erica in Wadayama and we went up back to Toyooka.
Now, I had a fantastic weekend. But the ever present lingering of something kept me close to tears many times. At 4:00 in the morning on Friday, I got a call from my mother. I already knew it was something bad if my mom was calling me. She told me that my grandfather passed away. I can’t really remember what we said after that. I know that I locked myself in the bathroom for who knows how long so I could cry. Out of all the things that worried me about living in Japan for a long time again, it wasn’t radiation and earthquakes, but losing people I love when I’m thousands of miles away. After I cried, I went back to sleep to wake up when everyone else did. I continued texting my mother occasionally. I kept this awful information to myself until I couldn’t stand it anymore. I desperately needed to be comforted; I couldn’t handle it on my own. When I had a moment alone with Erica, I just blurted it out. We hugged each other tightly and cried together. She knew all too well what I was feeling as her grandfather passed away while she was in Japan too. It was brief, the moment we had, but it helped me enormously. I couldn’t be more grateful that I could tell her that and she could be the friend I needed.
Once I got home from dropping off Alvin and Ashley at the train station, I headed home and got on Skype to talk to my family. Thank God for Skype.
Monday was nothing remarkable but Tuesday was the best day of the week for me. My mother and I arranged for me to talk to my grandmother on the phone while everyone was in Georgia for the funeral. My grandmother was in high spirits and it was so good to hear her voice. My grandfather had been in so much pain and sick before he died, he prayed that God would just take him home. And he did just that. My grandfather quietly died in his sleep on the way to a doctor’s appointment. I know my grandmother misses him, she’s had been married to him for 66 years, but she and the rest of us are relieved that he doesn’t have to suffer anymore. I had the chance to talk with other family members briefly and it lifted my spirits. From the love from my family and friends, I felt myself getting better. Not getting over his death, but being at peace with it. What I didn’t expect was who would complete my healing process.
Kindergartners.
First period at Naka Takeno, I had the little guys. There’s about eight of them. Some of them are the same kids I played with in the sand and helped catch bugs. I did a self-introduction in a combination of Japanese and English. I helped form a simple template for a self-introduction (“My name is ___. I like ___.”). Everybody got a sticker for introducing themselves. They really liked that. We played hide-and-seek and they asked me questions. During hide-and-seek, for almost every child that I found, I had one trying to hold my hand. With four kids hanging on to me at once, it was more like holding my fingers. They showed me their pets – two turtles and some crawfish. Right before class ended, they gave me a performance of what they did at their sports festival. They sang and danced just for me. I couldn’t stop smiling.I had a waving and smiling crowd bidding me goodbye as I went on to the next class. I did musical chairs with the fifth graders and they really had fun with that!
The next class was with the third graders. As I promised the fourth graders, I wore my Pikachu shirt that day. The third grade teacher started asking the kids what other things are popular in America from Japan. They mentioned Mario (since I wore my Mario shirt the week before). The teacher asked me if I knew about Dragon Ball. I said yes and demonstrated the classic “Kamehameha!” for the students and they all giggled. At that, the kids started scrambling around moving their desks and chairs. One of the students handed the teacher a CD and the teacher told me that they performed a dance to the song from the show. He started to play the song and the kids started dancing! So cute! I told the teacher that we had the same song but with English lyrics (which make me laugh, by the way). I told him I would print out the lyrics and bring them to school with me next time.Anyway, the kids were told to do it relatively quietly but that was pretty difficult. The teacher didn’t mind too much though. I felt so happy to have a personal performance again. Once they finished, we went into the heart of the lesson of the day – shapes! Triangles, rectangles, ovals, hearts, squares…you know, as I’m thinking about this, I should have used Lucky Charms instead of traffic signs. Next time. I made the kids go around the room to find various shapes and say them to me. It went pretty well.
Eventually, we had lunch and recess. I got bombarded with tickling by two of the fourth grade boys again. We had to play in the gym because they were putting down winter grass…at least that’s what someone told me. We have this intern who must either be in college or just out of college, because he seems to be the same age or closer to my age than everyone else. We were all playing with hula hoops and somehow, it got to the point of me throwing hula hoops at him so he could try jumping through them. When I say throw by the way, it’s more like rolling them across the floor…at high speeds. Sometimes he’d make it, sometimes he’d start to go for it and then give up at the end, falling on his hands and knees. Hilarious! I’ve watched many a dog show in my life and it reminded me of one of those agility races.
The rest of the day composed of reading more of The Hunger Games series (I’m reading The Mockingjay now!), teaching one more class (6th graders), and then tagging along with the students while they practiced for a marathon they’re apparently participating in. While they were taking a loop around the blocked off neighborhood near the school, I was walking leisurely behind them when I came across a group of mothers sitting on the curb chatting with their babies. I heard some tiny voices calling out, “Talia-sensei!” and noticed that two of the kindergartners were playing on the swings nearby. They ran over to me and one of them sort of jumped me. I gently swung her side to side and she found this to be fun. I waved to the group of mothers watching us and they happily waved back. We went back to the swing set and they suggested we play a game. The game that one of the girls came up with was that she would call out a color. The point was for me and the other girl to touch something of that color before she tagged us. If she tagged us, we would be “it” (by the way, being “it” is called “being the oni” in Japanese. Oni means ogre.). After I confirmed what the rules of the game were, we started. Of course, she targeted me. Before she would even call out a color, she was creeping towards me! Little cheater, hahaha. I very quickly became the oni and the girls found this hilarious. After we played this for a bit, we decided to play hide-and-seek again. As soon as we started, Kometani-sensei found me and told me that it was well after my time to go home. I told her I was in the middle of game and she laughed. When I found the girls, I told them I had to go home and that we’d play again. They were okay with that and we said goodbye.
It was then I realized that my heart felt okay again. I’ve always loved kindergartners and feel like I have the best time with them, but the way they completely embraced me just felt so good. They were like little angels sent my way to comfort me by just being themselves. Needless to say, but I cannot wait to teach the kindergartners again.
I’d have to say that Tuesday was my best day. The rest of the week went well. It’s currently Friday afternoon and very rainy. At the junior high school, my first graders are still a bit reluctant to talk and every class feels like they have to warm up to me all over again. The second graders are a little more willing to participate in comparison. Third graders don’t like to talk as much either, but when they do, I can tell they’re getting used to me and it’s not so awkward for me anymore. They’re all good kids.
This weekend will not be action and adventure packed. I plan on getting my life a bit in order – my apartment needs some attention.
Pictures from the fun weekend:
Shikoku and Whirlpools
Naoshima
---
And Grandpa, I will always love you. I am blessed that I had the privilege to have you in my life. Rest in peace.
No comments:
Post a Comment