Wednesday 25th April... it's almost Friday!!!
Tomorrow is my last day of school for a whole 10 days and as of Monday, every single Japanese person will be enjoying one of Japan's busiest holiday seasons - Golden Week. More importantly for me, David will fly out to Japan on Friday for his third and final visit! Whilst living in Japan I have come to notice the kindness and generosity of so many people I meet on a daily basis but there is one Nihonjin that sticks out from the rest... Makoto, my English student who I meet with twice a week. When he heard that David and I were planning to do a little travelling this time, he insisted that we don't hire a car as he would simply give us his car for as long as we need it! His lovely, spacious, automatic Toyota complete with GPS, air con and CD player!
So, next week David and I are planning on driving around for a few days with a definite overnight stay booked in Kawaguchiko - the lake at the foot of Mount Fuji. We will also be heading to Tokyo towards the end of the week and hopping over to Yokohama for the day too.
Happy Golden Week everybody!
O Hanami - 15th April
This weekend I was helping out at a local High School's English camp again and so only really had Sunday to myself. As we are in prime time sakura (cherry blossom) season and I had yet to attend the Japanese tradition of a Hanami (cherry blossom viewing party), Bel and I decided we would take it upon ourselves to find a spot under a cherry tree, drink some wine and generally just appreciate the pink-ness... as per any other Hanami.
Bel had managed to locate a park and so off we went with our picnic in one hand and our cameras at the ready. We were not going to be put off by the big grey clouds, which did eventually produce about an hour of rain!
We were relieved to find out that the park was a "gun-hunting prohibited area"
Just your average, run-of-the-mill Japanese park!
This weekend I was helping out at a local High School's English camp again and so only really had Sunday to myself. As we are in prime time sakura (cherry blossom) season and I had yet to attend the Japanese tradition of a Hanami (cherry blossom viewing party), Bel and I decided we would take it upon ourselves to find a spot under a cherry tree, drink some wine and generally just appreciate the pink-ness... as per any other Hanami.
Bel had managed to locate a park and so off we went with our picnic in one hand and our cameras at the ready. We were not going to be put off by the big grey clouds, which did eventually produce about an hour of rain!
We were relieved to find out that the park was a "gun-hunting prohibited area"
Just your average, run-of-the-mill Japanese park!
15th April The Japarathon – マラソン!
Another weekend of glorious sunshine and in fact, I have pretty bad sunburn from spending the day at the Nagano Marathon on Sunday. Saturday was actually spent sunbathing on my balcony and then it was a very early start to get the train through to Nagano on Sunday morning. I managed to get on the wrong shuttle bus once I got to Nagano and so was a tad lost for about 20 minutes but after some severe guesswork and a very kind bus driver I was back on track and arrived at my destination only a little late! I had volunteered with some friends to help at an International Stall set up at the marathon which basically involved a group of us dressing up as “runners” and mingling around the crowds whilst some kids (and adults) had to track us down and guess which country we were from. The idea behind it was to try and break the stereotype that all foreigners look the same to the Japanese (don’t laugh – i’m being serious!!!). The one thing I learnt was that most of the people there didn’t seem to know where Scotland was!
Anyway, I was also there to support a friend I met way back at the Edinburgh orientation before I came to Japan. She had entered to run the marathon and traveled up from Kobe for the occasion. In Japan, they tend to treat marathons very seriously and you have to get past certain check points by a certain time or else you are not allowed to carry on. The maximum time allowed is 5 hours, and after that point the finish line is taken down and the crowds have cleared off home. Liz however did really well and completed her first marathon (in baking heat) in 4 hours and 45 minutes. Kat and I celebrated by having a kebab and a beer, followed by an ice cream… the exact opposite of running a marathon we thought!
Liz - about an hour after the marathon!
The finish line.
Some dancers - there were lots of dancers! No Japanese event is complete without some dancers!
The setting for the marathon was really beautiful and as the cherry blossoms are in full bloom now I was a bit snap happy with the camera.
Sakura in all its glory!
Another weekend of glorious sunshine and in fact, I have pretty bad sunburn from spending the day at the Nagano Marathon on Sunday. Saturday was actually spent sunbathing on my balcony and then it was a very early start to get the train through to Nagano on Sunday morning. I managed to get on the wrong shuttle bus once I got to Nagano and so was a tad lost for about 20 minutes but after some severe guesswork and a very kind bus driver I was back on track and arrived at my destination only a little late! I had volunteered with some friends to help at an International Stall set up at the marathon which basically involved a group of us dressing up as “runners” and mingling around the crowds whilst some kids (and adults) had to track us down and guess which country we were from. The idea behind it was to try and break the stereotype that all foreigners look the same to the Japanese (don’t laugh – i’m being serious!!!). The one thing I learnt was that most of the people there didn’t seem to know where Scotland was!
Anyway, I was also there to support a friend I met way back at the Edinburgh orientation before I came to Japan. She had entered to run the marathon and traveled up from Kobe for the occasion. In Japan, they tend to treat marathons very seriously and you have to get past certain check points by a certain time or else you are not allowed to carry on. The maximum time allowed is 5 hours, and after that point the finish line is taken down and the crowds have cleared off home. Liz however did really well and completed her first marathon (in baking heat) in 4 hours and 45 minutes. Kat and I celebrated by having a kebab and a beer, followed by an ice cream… the exact opposite of running a marathon we thought!
Liz - about an hour after the marathon!
The finish line.
Some dancers - there were lots of dancers! No Japanese event is complete without some dancers!
The setting for the marathon was really beautiful and as the cherry blossoms are in full bloom now I was a bit snap happy with the camera.
Sakura in all its glory!
It's all RUBBISH!
Ok, haven't done this in a while - it's time to rant! So, life in Japan has many differences from life back in the UK. One of those differences is the precise and delicate way in which I have to throw out my rubbish. In Japan, it goes beyond the usual recycling good sense and most people have a standard 4 bins in their apartment, each with their own heading and sub-heading. "Burnable" rubbish has to be separated into food waste and regular burnable, "non-burnable" has to be separated into glass (which is then further separated into green, clear and brown) and tin cans (both washed with labels removed), "P.E.T bottles" have a bin of their own (washed with labels removed) and one final group "other plastics". I hear frequent complaints from my friends that the bin man or local neighbourhood watch has returned their rubbish due to the fact it has not been separated correctly, and more often than not, they are then forced to go through their rubbish and correct their mistakes. I was also quite smug at the fact I have never once had my rubbish returned, or been lectured in Japanese about the procedure.
Yesterday, this all changed. Not only have I apparently been putting my rubbish in the WRONG place on the WRONG day every week for the last 8 months, I have also failed to separate it into the correct categories. Apparently my local "bin men" (who, by the way, I have never seen... let alone heard!) have been sorting my rubbish for me. Oh the shame.
I won't bore you with the Japanese office politics I had to endure when I found all of this out, but let's just say it was a very frustrating afternoon!
Ok, haven't done this in a while - it's time to rant! So, life in Japan has many differences from life back in the UK. One of those differences is the precise and delicate way in which I have to throw out my rubbish. In Japan, it goes beyond the usual recycling good sense and most people have a standard 4 bins in their apartment, each with their own heading and sub-heading. "Burnable" rubbish has to be separated into food waste and regular burnable, "non-burnable" has to be separated into glass (which is then further separated into green, clear and brown) and tin cans (both washed with labels removed), "P.E.T bottles" have a bin of their own (washed with labels removed) and one final group "other plastics". I hear frequent complaints from my friends that the bin man or local neighbourhood watch has returned their rubbish due to the fact it has not been separated correctly, and more often than not, they are then forced to go through their rubbish and correct their mistakes. I was also quite smug at the fact I have never once had my rubbish returned, or been lectured in Japanese about the procedure.
Yesterday, this all changed. Not only have I apparently been putting my rubbish in the WRONG place on the WRONG day every week for the last 8 months, I have also failed to separate it into the correct categories. Apparently my local "bin men" (who, by the way, I have never seen... let alone heard!) have been sorting my rubbish for me. Oh the shame.
I won't bore you with the Japanese office politics I had to endure when I found all of this out, but let's just say it was a very frustrating afternoon!
Skip Church and Dye - Happy Easter everyone!
Easter Sunday arrived with glorious sunshine and an unexpected rise in the temeprature! Zia, a friend of Kat's from Saku, had invited me to her "skip church and dye" party to enojy brunch in the garden...
egg painting...
an egg hunt...
and an egg and spoon race in the car park!
Nothing Japanese at all!
Easter Sunday arrived with glorious sunshine and an unexpected rise in the temeprature! Zia, a friend of Kat's from Saku, had invited me to her "skip church and dye" party to enojy brunch in the garden...
egg painting...
an egg hunt...
and an egg and spoon race in the car park!
Nothing Japanese at all!
Sushi, Sakura and Snow Monkeys - 1st April
Went for sushi with Jo on Saturday and managed to sample squid, eel and some other fish I didn't know the name of. Yummy!
I then went out for dinner with Bel and her visiting friends from Hokkaido (far North of Japan) on Saturday night. We had planned to go in search of the snow monkeys on Sunday morning so I stayed over at "Hotel Berinda" so we could have an early start. With the milder weather closing in, we decided to visit Zenkoji Temple in Nagano city first in the hope of finding some cherry blossoms (Sakura). The Japanese make a huge deal of the Sakura season and organise outdoor viewing parties in parks or gardens where they eat sweets and drink beer! The season is starting a little too early but we found few buds that had started to open:
Some locals gathering smoke from burning insense - they believe the smoke will make them healthy.
Zenkoji Temple
Bel and me - Zenkoji Temple
After we found "the key to enlightenment" at Zenkoji, we then made our way to Shigakogen in search of the Jigokudani Yaen Kogen snow monkeys! The area has a natural onsen of hot water and the monkeys come down from the forest to play and swim in the water. Jigokudani is usually covered with snow and there are several famous photographs in Japan of monkeys with snow covered heads poking out of the water. Unfortunately, it has been too mild recently and there was no snow on the ground on this occasion. The monkeys come so close and don't really seem interested in the humans around them so I managed to get some good pictures anyway.
This one had a slight resemblence to Harry Potter!
Stumbled upon this little gem of an Engrish sign on the path to see the monkeys.
Went for sushi with Jo on Saturday and managed to sample squid, eel and some other fish I didn't know the name of. Yummy!
I then went out for dinner with Bel and her visiting friends from Hokkaido (far North of Japan) on Saturday night. We had planned to go in search of the snow monkeys on Sunday morning so I stayed over at "Hotel Berinda" so we could have an early start. With the milder weather closing in, we decided to visit Zenkoji Temple in Nagano city first in the hope of finding some cherry blossoms (Sakura). The Japanese make a huge deal of the Sakura season and organise outdoor viewing parties in parks or gardens where they eat sweets and drink beer! The season is starting a little too early but we found few buds that had started to open:
Some locals gathering smoke from burning insense - they believe the smoke will make them healthy.
Zenkoji Temple
Bel and me - Zenkoji Temple
After we found "the key to enlightenment" at Zenkoji, we then made our way to Shigakogen in search of the Jigokudani Yaen Kogen snow monkeys! The area has a natural onsen of hot water and the monkeys come down from the forest to play and swim in the water. Jigokudani is usually covered with snow and there are several famous photographs in Japan of monkeys with snow covered heads poking out of the water. Unfortunately, it has been too mild recently and there was no snow on the ground on this occasion. The monkeys come so close and don't really seem interested in the humans around them so I managed to get some good pictures anyway.
This one had a slight resemblence to Harry Potter!
Stumbled upon this little gem of an Engrish sign on the path to see the monkeys.
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