The Roof, The Roof, The Roof is a Fire Hazard

This day in history - it started snowing in Niimi Central, and didn't stop until the first week of April. However, the weather is a bit screwy this year so maybe in another week we'll have snow.

I took a study break to go up on the roof for some fresh air and a bit of atmos, and here's what I found: Piles and piles of crap.

Clothes, shoes, kitchen impliments, cooking ingredients, boxes, broken things, unbroken things that nobody could be bothered cleaning, PET bottles and cans, and more barbeques than you could shake your tongs at. I also found many packs of waribashi, disposable chopsticks, and three unopened beers.

On the roof itself, the scattered remnants of infamous Sanbi Rooftop barbeques past (finally shut down for good by the cops), including a plastic baseball bat once used to smash chicken bones over the Deo Deo and cafe next door. How do I know all this stuff once belonged to JETs? Nice one guys.

Maybe I'll clean it up one day.

This is what I went up there to see:

Finding the finish line

At 8 am, the school grounds of Tetta Elementary School were a balmy 5 degrees, which was a vast improvement on last year, especially since I had advance warning that the Niimi Junior High Schools road race, or ekiden, was to be held today and had rugged up for the occasion.

The students warmed up in their generic Japanese tracksuits, doing bizarre exercises and stretches prescribed years ago as the acceptable way of doing things, and then raced around town.
After ganbarre-ing for two hours, I was allowed to leave early, so I cycled back to Niimi Central and waited for the evenings entertainment.

The staff of N JHS had arranged an enkai at a small yakiniku, or grilled meat, shop. The teachers agreed that when eating meat, beer is the drink of choice, and as the following day was a public holiday, the beer did flow. And flow.

I experienced three more culinary firsts - cow tongue, cow intestines, and the bit connecting giant scallops to their giant scallop shells. I only had one piece of tongue as it was literally hard to swallow what with the image of a tongue in my mind. The intestines were chewy. The scallop thing was easy to eat but not very flavourful. I think I've only got inoshishi, or wild boar, and raw horse to go......

During the meal I had the opportunity to watch the teachers get completely drunk. To the point that the women started dishing dirt on other female teachers they didn't like, and the headmaster was spilling the secrets of his life, such as his illicit brandy still, and his concrete grinder made fertilizer side business. We stayed until long after the fat began congealing on our plates.

Then it was time for the nijikai, or second stage. We headed to an underground snack bar I've never heard of hosted by a Filipina woman affectionately known as Ruby-chan. While there I watched the principal as he pointed out a new addition to the hostess - a fake tattoo on her inner thigh visible through her fishnet stockings. I amused everyone by sticking a toothpick through my tongue (it's pierced). I also sang many of the PE teachers favorite songs by Aerosmith, Warrant, Mr Big, Def Lep, and Bon Jovi. One song scored us 666 points, and as this was a "lucky number" we both won some hideous t-shirts. Another song scored us a bottle of brandy, and a bottle of shochu, a Japanese liquor. Sadly, Ruby is hanging on to these bottles in her bottle keep, with a N JHS label on them. I'm sure the principal will polish those off in no time. As the bill for a an hours entertainment came to over 20,000 yen, I doubt I'll ever be going back there. After an embarrassing conversation with some Niimi Dai-ichi teachers that showed up in which I mistook the word "poor" for "whore", I realised I was the only female left in the bar and sanjikai was probably due to start on my departure, so I left.

Such a fantastic night, and I only spent 3,000 yen.

Hypocritical Me

Generally speaking, New Zealanders are against whaling. We despise cruelty to animals. We're anti-nukes. We're anti-war. We're just a bunch of peaceniks and hippies who wish more people would take notice of global warming, think more about recycling, mean it when they talk about disarmament, and turn to renewable resources. C'mon people, can't we all just learn to get along?!?

So when whale came on the menu for kyuushoku (school lunch), I felt like I was going against everything I believed in.....because I had wanted to try it ever since I came to Japan.

The lunch announcement that came with the meal stated that whale is a rare food and the students should enjoy the meal. This is true. Since I arrived in August 2005, whale has not been on the menu at my three schools even once. I'd seen dark red whale steaks in the supermarket, and I'd seen it on menus here and there. As far as enjoying the meal goes, some of the teachers said that they don't enjoy the flavour or texture of whale meat, and therefore don't actually go out of their way to eat it.

From talking to my JTE I found that whale is generally served in two different ways - either as a grilled or fried steak, or battered in some kind of tomato sauce, which is how it was presented to me.

Along with my parsely rice, watery soup, and salad drenched in dressing, came chunks of whale in tomato sauce.

It was hard to catch a flavour in the meat, the tomato overpowering it. The meat was brown and looked and felt a lot like beef.

I am not proud that I ate it, but I didn't want to open a can of worms by refusing it and trying to stand on some moral high ground. I don't know enough about whale populations and whaling, and Japan's consumption of whale meat to back up my argument. I tried once with a Japanese man. He simply said that whale populations are increasing, so it is fine for the Japanese people to eat them. He would not even listen to any argument to the contrary.

So yeah, that was that.

Totemo Tipsy

Not my quote, but the guy that said it was a wee bit past tipsy.

For the last two days, all of the JETs in Okayama Ken had to attend a "mid-year seminar" that was supposed to be an opportunity for us to learn how to team teach (in fact it was more of an opportunity for us to vent on all the percieved problems of our individual situations and the Japanese education system) and to listen to speeches directed at Japanese Teachers of English.

For us, it was really about the opportunity to socialise with people we haven't seen in a very long time.

Highlights included dinner and nomihodai at Asahi Super Dry, eating a real Indian curry, karaoke at Joyopolis, hanging around in town all day, eating at Raccos Burger, dinner, drinks, and trivia at Kirinya, sleeping in until 8:30 am on Sunday, and the fantastic company of other JETs.
Canadians are so hardcore.

It all wouldn't have been possible without the hospitality of an old school jazz enthusiast Frenchman, and the Hutcheson Household responding to our 2am wakeup call.

I also bumped into "Not-Daniel" on the way home one night. Do I look like a Zoe to you?

I'm in hell

Used Cloth

In Tamashima, a 30 minute walk from Shinkurashiki Station, there is a "used cloth" or "antique" store of gigantic proportions.You can spend hours lost among the racks.You can find almost everything you need on the cheap, with most items in the store being around the 500 to 900 yen mark.Just what every young woman needs on the leg of her trackies:A Japanese clothing label, not directions for wearing:Warning: Amount of used cloth purchased may cause suffocation.

Let's Exchanging - Again

Another year, another "exchange" with the mentally handicapped students of Kenko No Mori.This year, along with the calendar painting, food making, and sweet potato bonfire, bottle rocket testing was also incorporated in the days events.

The cutest bottle rocket you ever saw, decorated by "The Three Fukuda's".Messing around with the bottle rockets was a lot of fun.
What was even more fun was watching the tough guys pump their bottle so full of air it backfires and soaks them.

Drugs are bad, Mmmmkay?

Marijuana is evidently not a problem in Japanese schools, but just about every other chemical is.

We Came, We Saw, We Conquered

13 Okayama ALT's invaded Tottori Prefecture to climb Mt Daisen in the gorgeous Daisen-Oki National Park.

We left Niimi around 8 and headed up the mountain pass at Chiya, and through the tunnel into Tottori Prefecture, where we were greeted with this sight:Eventually we arrived at our starting point and headed up the incredibly steep path through the autumnal oak forrest that eventually gave way to scrub and rocky crags.
Three hours later we were on the summit - well, as high as you can safely climb anyway. The tallest peak, Mt Tsuruga-mine at 1,729 metres above sea level, is unreachable due to the steep slopes slowly eroding to the point where there is no path. That didn't stop many from climbing over the barriers and walking along to the second tallest peak, only a few metres lower. The erosion on the mountain is so bad that the surface is literally stapled down in many places, and work is being done to build walls at the base to stop major slips from eroding any further. At one point in the past, there was a movement among leisure hikers to bring a rock to the summit every time the mountain is climbed.

The view from the top was spectacular. A 360 degree view of the Japan Sea, Hyogo Prefecture, Hiruzen Heights in Okayama, Yongago City in Tottori Prefecture, and across that border to Shimane and Matsue City.After basking in the sun and refreshing ourselves with snacks and ramen, we headed back down the same path, which proved to be even steeper and more excruciating when encountered going in the opposite direction. After taking a break at the Amida Do, which is a Buddhist hall made entirely of handcarved wood - a Cultural Asset only open twice a year apparently, and just happened to be open on the day we were there.
We then walked across the old river which is now a landslip, where we found piles of rock which I found to be reminiscent of the Blair Witch Project.
Last stop was a visit to Daisen-ji Temple, which was established in 720, to ring the bell, and for me, give thanks that my knees didn't give out halfway down the mountain.

Another town, another festival

After a fairly quiet week I went to the small town of Tojo in Shobara City just over the border in Hiroshima Prefecture for the local otori matsuri on Friday, which included a performances in traditional theatre, a Daimyo procession, and a Horo parade.

For such a small town it was very crowded and I had trouble finding a good vantage point to view the traditional kagura performance.While munching on the obligatory festival taiyaki, the anko bean paste inside a batter shaped like a fish, I watched the Daimyo and his entourage mount the stage for a bit of play acting, traditional music and dancing girls in kimono.

Then the primary school children carrying heavy horo, a woven basket that used to be worn as armor to protect soldiers from arrows but is now used as decoration, on their back came in to the arena. One of them was my friends son Masa. While she donned a hapi coat and looked after him, her daughter Eri came to hang out with me and Tara and show us around town during the procession.The procession kicked off with samurai shooting guns and canons firing surprisingly loud blanks at the crowd.The procession including samurai, soldiers, archers, women in kimono who I assume represented cortesans, and then the children carrying the horo. Eri made sure we stood in the sun to keep warm, but this meant that all of my photos were taken facing the sun, so most of them are useless.
This man had the job of pushing a loudspeaker around. It blared out, "shitaniiiiiiiiiiii, shitani. shitaniiiiiiii, shitani!" over and over, which means to kneel and bow your head to the ground. I guess it's not really an authentic recreation after all.They made a loop around the town, with cannon booms echoing randomly around the place, once surprising me from directly behind.Eri took us via a chikamichi, or shortcut, through vegetable patches and alleyways behind houses to see a drumming performance. It looked like there was going to be a tea ceremony as well. Unfortunately we had to fight our way through the crowds to get to the train station in order to get home in time for the foreign invasion of Niimi that was going to take place that evening.