Post #111

Clearly I've written so many posts, I'm running out of original titles, lol.
Saturday afternoon was a balmy 18 degrees when Yuka took Jessica, Catherine and me to Atsuta Shrine near her home in Nagoya. It was getting dark, so we couldn’t see it that well, but it was a very peaceful place. All the little buildings scattered throughout the large forested block are made from wood. The tori gates were made with huge polished beams. Not painted wood, just wood in its natural state. It also has what is said to be the oldest tree in the world - a huge, gnarly camphor. There were also trees that appeared to have fresh grass shoots growing all along the branches.

That evening, I met up with Jun at Nagoya Station and walked to the apartment he’s renting with two friends. When his room mate got home, we drove to pick Mayu up at the station and Jun’s other friend who got off work at 8:00 and all went for dinner at a Japanese restaurant nearby. Jun and Mayu had briefly met each other in Nelson last year and Jun’s friend, Mina, lived in Victoria for 3 months this year, so during most of the dinner, we all reminisced about Canada.

I slept at Mayu’s house that night, to enjoy the annual Gingko tree festival on Sunday. We didn’t get to bed until well after midnight, but we were up before 8:00, had a very full breakfast and headed out to the elementary school to wait for air balloon ride tickets! We got there around 9:15 and waited until 10:30 when we could receive our tickets then waited more in another line. Unfortunately, Sunday was a chilly 10 degrees and I hadn’t come prepared. It had also been quite windy that morning so they weren’t able to fly for more than an hour and were behind schedule. John and Shoko showed up shortly before 12:00 and it was soon our turn… to wait in another line! Finally, after waiting 3 hours, we got to go up! There were 7 or 8 of us in the very sturdy basket and we rose 14m off the ground and hovered for a bit. Yee, floating, frantic picture-taking and girly giggling!


I was rather chilled to the bone, so we all made our way to the festival grounds to find something warm for lunch and listen to the Taiko drumming band. Then, we wandered between one train station and the next, along the side roads, lined with Gingko tree groves. At this time of the year, the Gingko leaves turn a bright yellow and the nuts are harvested. The nuts are covered in a very stinky fruit that is apparently harmful if touched. I can see why these ancient trees have lasted so long, who would want to eat something the smells like dog shit? Well, the nut, once removed from the fruit, dried, cracked open, heated and dipped in salt is actually delicious! We also discovered a tree there that had huge, wrinkly yellow citrus fruits that are about twice the size of a big grapefruit! Apparently you’re supposed to put them in the bath. Unfortunately the one I brought home was going mouldy, so I enjoyed a citrusless bath this evening.

Thanksgiving

This year I celebrated Thanksgiving with the Americans and everyone else! Turkey is practically non-existent in Japan, so when Rosie found a company she could order it from, she started inviting people to join her. It soon escalated to 3 turkeys, over 30 side dishes and plenty of desserts brought by everyone who attended. There was even stuffing, gravy, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie and pecan pie! I ate a lot and had some leftovers for breakfast! I am truly thankful that people from so many different countries, cultures and backgrounds could gather at I-House and enjoy such a delicious feast!!

One month, two months, three months...

Today is the 25th, which means...
One month until I'll be enjoying fun times and wonderful food at Christmas with my family in Canada.
Two months and I'll be arriving in Ecuador to meet with my sister and friends there and recoup my Spanish.
Three months and I fly to Brazil for an adventure around the country to get to know the people to learn the language.
Six months from now and I'll return to Canada once again to enjoy spring before starting the year-long Professional Communications Program at Royal Roads University.
So exciting!

Just Hanging Out

This week, I've been taking it easy, just hanging out.
Monday I had a vocabulary test and speech to do, but ended up with no homework - GASP! So I spent the evening getting chores done and studying Portuguese :)
Tuesday I went with Yuka to her Simultaneous Interpretation class. They practice interpreting between English and Japanese, using microphones and head pieces in a conference room. I introduced myself and a girl simultaneously interpreted it. I actually found it hard to speak English while listening to her interpretation in Japanese. Then they put me in the booth and I interpreted the Japanese version of my introduction back into English as well as a speech by Yuka! But I started conjugating my English sentences in the wrong order because of listening to the Japanese. It's so challenging because the word order is completely switched around, but if you wait until the end of the sentence, it's too late to say it because you have to listen to the next sentence. Fascinating!!
Wednesday I went to Portuguese class and in the afternoon I hung out with Keisuke at the university's cultural gathering.

Thursday I had another vocabulary test in the morning and in the afternoon I visit Osho-sama. Four and a half months ago when I met her, I could hardly understand anything, but I remember her saying "it's hot" as a invitation into her house. This time it was "it's cold" which took me from where I normally sat at the kitchen table to the coffee table-style thing in her bedroom. It's covered with a thick blanket and heated from underneath! So cozy!
Friday I had a kanji test, biked to the post office and then got some homework done.
Saturday I studied a lot for next week's test, made lots of sushi and watched some of the Inebriathon (drinking Olympics) games that were going on the in the courtyard - very entertaining.
Sunday (today) I studied some more and then went to visit Osho-sama again. This time I took my laptop with me to show her some photos of home. I don't think she knows very much about Canada, so I drew a map to show where I lived and talked about snow and young people's work ethic in Canada. I talked about coming back to Japan in the future and with help from my electronic dictionary, I understood that she was offering to give a reference for me if I wanted to come back and work in Nisshin City :) Who knows what the future will hold! We are going to keep in touch by writing letters, so that I don't forget my Japanese.


Tonight, I just got back from Jun's house where we celebrated my birthday because I couldn't go in October as planned. His parents had prepared loads of extremely delicious sushi and sashimi! There were, seriously, countless kinds of raw seafood, from tuna and salmon to squid and sea urchin! Yum yum yum!! Then to top it all off, they brought out the cake and sang happy birthday to me!! Jun's sister made the cake as she works at a cake shop! It was a strawberry cream cake topped with all kinds of fruit and maple-flavoured macaroons... need I say how scrumptious it was?

Fall Colours at Yoro Park

Fall in Japan is simply beautiful. As the weather gets colder, the trees start bursting into colour. Today I went with some international students, some Japanese students and Mayu to Yoro Park in Gifu. It was a ways away, but well worth it!

First we hiked up the mountain through the narrow shop-lined streets up to the shrine where I hugged a sacred big cedar tree and rang the rattle to make a wish. Then we ate our picnic lunches beside a stream lined with green and red maple trees. From there we continued up to the waterfall, one of the 100 most beautiful in Japan. It is very tall and the water was crisp, clean and said to have healing powers.

With our free time, a group of us went to the artists’ garden. What a fascinating place… there’s a building with a slanted floors and a maze of walls in the centre. Then you have to climb over a pile of rocks, with a water pump at the top of them. The next “house” has random articles of furniture and appliances bisected at random angles with walls. Some places you can’t even fit through. It’s kind of creepy. But! I realized a childhood dream – as a kid, I often gazed up at the ceilings in people’s homes wondering what it would be like to walk up there. Well, today, I gazed up to see a kitchen table and chairs sitting on the floor above me and later a bedside table complete with a phone and lamp on it.


At the next place, there was a dip in the earth with a large wall circling it. We climbed along a narrow it, with barely enough room to squeeze by the people coming towards us. Down in the bowl, there were other displays and mazes among the trees and bushes. Just bizarre, and fun!

Saturday in the City

This afternoon I went to Nagoya Station to see about putting more languages in my electronic dictionary, but unfortunately you can only add specific dictionaries. Although my dictionary can go between English, Spanish and Japanese now, it couldn't do French to Spanish if I put a French dictionary on there. Only a French to English/ Japanese dictionary is available. Hmmm...
Then I met up with Katsutoshi-san, Catherine and Alexis. Together we went to the Noritake Garden. We explored the museum there which shows the history and production process of Noritake ceramics. It was quite fascinating. Some pieces are amazingly detailed in structure (for example a statue of a man riding a winged horse, saving a lady from a dragon) and others, such as the vases, in that they are all painted by hand.





Back at Nagoya Station, the annual winter illumination had just begun. It's on every night for almost 2 months at Christmas time. There is a huge (22m/46m) grid mounted on the side of the station, with 1.1 million lights on it!!! The theme changes each year. This year is showed the changing of the seasons in a little seaside town. Around the station there are also lit up trees and other displays. It's all very beautiful.
Then we met Hiromi-san at a restaurant there and Katsutoshi-san had to go to a meeting. We enjoyed a beautiful 6-course Japanese dinner. The sashimi, teriyaki tuna, tempura and various side dishes were delicious! ごちそうさまでした！

Hiroshima

Before coming to Japan, I had read a novel based on true stories from the August 6th, 1945 bombing of Hiroshima. It was intensely real in its descriptions of the horrors of that day and the days to follow. Saturday morning, we visited the Peace Memorial Park, starting at the Hiroshima Dome, one of the only damaged buildings left standing today. It is preserved as a reminder of the impact of the nuclear bomb.
As we continued through the park, there were two cenotaphs dedicated to the thousands of children who lost their lives. One was surrounded by cases full of colourful paper cranes folded by school children to pay respect to the dead and encourage peace in the world. I started getting chocked up and as I walked beside the pond towards the Memorial Museum, I wondered how people could do this. Not just specifically concerning Hiroshima, but everywhere that is affected by the cruelty of war.
In the museum, I noticed that the facts were unbiased and included events that Japan is not particularly proud of. It talked about Japan’s past wars and the conditions of World War II. It explained the U.S.’s reasoning behind the bomb and choice of target. But I just can’t understand how anyone could plan to cause such utter destruction even if they thought it would bring an end to the war.
The part of the museum that affected me the most was seeing the displays of clothing and articles worn by many of the innocent people who lost their lives and reading about their suffering. Many people died immediately from the impact, others eventually died of their burns and injuries. Some died of violent radiation sickness in the months following the bombing and others managed to survive only to die of cancer and other diseases years later. I left the museum with tears in my eyes and a clenched feeling in my stomach. I just hope that no human ever again feels that they have reason enough to inflict such pain and suffering on others.

Miyajima

Friday morning I left bright and early along with 50 or so other international students and several guides for a 7.5 hour bus ride to Hiroshima. We spent the rest of the afternoon at Miyajima, a mountainous island with a beautiful seaside shrine. We took a ferry across and were immediately greeted by the resident deer that were lounging about, wandering the streets and trying to eat our pamphlets and paper. The shrine was built in 593 and remodelled in 1168. It is on boardwalks in a bay with a 7-metre tall Tori Gate out in the ocean. There is also a 5-story pagoda that was built around 1407; however the founder died halfway through construction and it has remained unfinished.
Now, Jessica and I looked at the map we were given before the trip and decided we were hiking to the lookout on top of the mountain! Some people wondered if we would have time as it gets dark by 5:30pm here, but I was sure we could do it. It didn’t look that far on the map . . .
We started up around 3:50pm, stopping by a temple, surrounded by maple trees that were beginning to turn colour. From there, we hiked up the stairs, through the trees, along the valley, up the stairs. We could be heard saying “Sequimos, si! Paramos, no!” and “Si se puede!” (Let’s keep going and yes we can). We were starting to get pretty tired of the constant stone steps leading up through the trees. Around 5:00, it started getting dim, but we were so determined we just kept going. There were signs pointing up and signs pointing down, but no indication of how far we had come or how much further we had to go.
Finally, we reached an intersection that said 60mins back down to the temple and 20(or so?)mins back down another path, but still not how long to the top of the mountain. Oh dear! I called the rest of my group and they were waiting for us in the town at the bottom. We opted for the 20mins back down, but it started UP a narrow path through the trees and as I walked into a spider web that was it, we were going back down the way we came up.
It was 5:30pm and we started using the glow from our cell phones to light the path in front of us. Slowly, arm-in-arm, we made our way down the stone steps through the dark trees. Jessica doesn't see well in the dark and had never been in a forest at night. I was doing fine until 10mins along, there came an animal screech from up the hill. Then I was spooked… We kept talking and I sang some songs to drown out the night sounds. When I finally saw the temple lights at 6:30pm, I was so relieved! I learned a lesson – don’t trust tourist maps and don’t underestimate Japan’s mountains. What an adventure!
We snapped some pictures of the shrine and Tori Gate before hurrying to the ferry port where my group was waiting and just managed to slip on the 6:45pm ferry. We caught the train to the hotel, talking to two guys from the Dominican Republic who are on a baseball league here. I bought some market food to eat at the hotel then enjoyed a hot bath while drinking some tea and reading my book. I was so exhausted, the bath felt wonderful!

College Connections

After the French language lounge and Portuguese class yesterday, I headed to Nagoya where I visited an exhibition of foreign art. I enjoyed much of the photography and art work, but found myself more interested in the profiles, seeing where people are from and how long they've lived in Japan. There were many American, British, Australian, Brazilian and Mexican artists.
From there, I went to Konan and we had a quick dinner with John and Shoko before going to John's Wednesday night coffee club. It's an English conversation club for a couple of his Japanese acquaintances. Back at their apartment, I enjoyed a relaxing bath a glass of sake before tucking into the cozy futon. The next morning we had a very hearty breakfast before heading to the college. I attended his morning seminar class with the 3 students who had studied in Castlegar last year, then had to take the bus to the train station.
At Nagoya Station, I met Linda, the coordinator for the international program at Selkirk College and the Peace Studies instructor. She is in Japan for an educational fair, so she came to visit the college here on her way through. We did a presentation together about Selkirk for some students who are interested in studying abroad. There were many photos in the power point of when I was Cultural Assistant - good memories!
Then Momiyama-san (who works at the office here) took us out for lunch with Brooks too. We went to a ton-katsu restaurant, Nagoya's specialty, breaded pork cutlet. I'm not a big fan of pork so I opted for deep-fried oysters...mmm... We started by crushing our own sesame seeds for the sauce! After such a big lunch, we decided it would be a good to walk it off so we headed up to the hill shrine before I showed Linda back to the bus stop.

Into November

As we entered into November, I could be heard yesterday morning saying "isn't it hot?" to an elderly lady at the post office and that afternoon "it's rather chilly isn't it?" By that evening we were bundled in coats and scarves for a night wander around the community on the hill. We went for a really long walk because we had eaten way too much cake, brownies and chocolate fondue at Yuka's birthday party! Today is her birthday and national Culture Day in Japan so no one has classes. We explored the hill shrine this afternoon and discovered a cave behind it.
Otherwise, I've been doing homework and catching up on chores and emails etc. lately. I'm working on my application for Royal Roads University where I plan to study starting in July 2010 and graduate with a degree in Professional Communications in July 2011. I have also decided to go back to Ecuador for a month this winter! My sister is living there and my two best friends will be in South America then, so hopefully we can all meet up! I'm really excited to see my host families and friends there after more than 3 and a half years! Because it was affordable to get a multi-destination flight, I'm taking the opportunity to learn Portuguese in Brazil for 3 months! It will be my 5th language! I hope I don't get them all mixed up!