Sailing, sailing...I forget the rest of the words
So, I've basically decided that E5K is never getting finished because it was more than a month ago, now, so I don't really remember enough to make the write up particularly witty. I may still do something up about the summer festivals, but I'm not sure. Instead, we're going straight to last weekend. Or rather, the weekend before last, as this past weekend I did absolutely nothing of note except spend money at the foreign food/booze store in Nanao. Which strikes me as a good lead-in to a school story.
See, I was preparing for a class that was supposed to be about food, and one of the activities I had come up with was to give the students recipes of various examples of world cuisine to put in order. I am a big fan of having visuals to accompany everything, so I felt that I had to find pictures to print out of all the foods as well. Unfortunately, one of the foods was tacos and I am ashamed to say that while looking at all of thoes DELICIOUS pictures of LOVELY, SUCCULENT tacos, I nearly started to cry. Seriously! Look up tacos on Google image search and see if YOU fare any better. mmmm, tacos.
In other news, as I mentioned, my school had exams last week. For the ichinensei, I made up a listening portion that included listening to my directions to various places on a map and putting the correct letter of the building next to the place. One of these places was "school" and one of my...stranger students decided to forget the letter thing and just wrote "hell" next to it.
I gave him the point for creativity, even though I don't quite recall ever teaching him that particular word.
So, weekend before last, one of the Wajima nooblets (apparently we are not supposed to call them noobs because they find it demeaning. I am not sure that nooblets is any better, though) organized a trip out to this random island (name of Hegurajima) off the coast of Wajima. Now, this island is not mentioned in any guidebook, nobody in Wajima will tell you that you should go there, and the ferry costs over 4000 yen for a round trip. Why did we feel the urge to go, then? Because it's there, my friends, because it's there. We were also given to understand that it is an excellent picnic spot, although such stories could only be heard after the person in question had finished telling you about the Hegurajima mosquitos, which are apparently THIS big.
The day started off promising with two of our number failing to make the ferry on time. To be fair, one of them WOULD have made it, but was waiting for the other, which was quite nice of him. Sadly, I am not that altruistic; if I have taken the time to get up early enough to get to Wajima to make the ferry, then by god I will MAKE that ferry. The ferry ride was 1.5 hours, which I (stupidly) mostly spent up top staring at the ocean and getting sunburned. (I put on sunscreen, but it was not enough) The boat itself was pretty small, big enough for (I think) 130 people with a tatami room for lying down, a room with seats and a tv, and an observation deck up top. It wasn't full by a long shot when we went up, but there was still a decent amount of people, I'd say 30 or 40. Most of these turned out to be bird watchers, as the island is apparently an ideal place for that sort of thing. These guys were professionals, too. They had these big...I don't even know what they were, but they were big. and professional looking.
On the way to the island, we passed a chain of rocks that the natives of Wajima have charitably named the Seven Islands, although, seriously, they are rocks. One was big enough to have a lighthouse on top, so that people didn't crash their boats into the "islands." They looked nice and climbable, but the whole issue of "if you miss, you fall into the ocean" would probably keep me from actually climbing them.
We finally got to the island and immediately noticed that it was very...flat. It was also larger than I thought it would be, which, considering it takes two hours with plenty of stops for snacks, lunch, and picture taking to walk around leads me to wonder about my expectations. It also had a TON of shrines, although only 7 major ones. (One of my coworkers actually has this theory that the shrines are there because a decently sized wave could completely obliterate the island and they want all the help they can get) These seven major shrines, incidentally, were all marked on lovely maps and sign posts for tourists all over the island and even had explanations in (bad) English! We were somewhat mystified by this because the tourism industry of the island was hardly what you would call booming, until we figured out that probably some earlier JET had been conned into writing it as some sort of community activity.
As I implied earlier, we traversed the entire island. The shrines were charming and the rock formations looks exciting. I especially liked the pond that was supposed to hold the castle of a dragon that had died there and whose bones had later been found and enshrined, allowing its spirit to go on to the afterlife. (the explanation board was much more complicated about it) One of the highlights of the island, I would have to say, was the bit where we were walking through a path in a dense bamboo forest and started discussing how it was the perfect set up for a slasher movie. Naturally, at the next opportune moment, one of our members split off onto a different path (so it would be easier to kill them, naturally). The other bit was when we found the helipad and lay down in order to create a giant I next to the H that was already on it. A truly glorious day. We also saw the biggest spider I have ever seen and that is all I am going to say on the subject because it still freaks me out how big it was. bleh.
Oh yeah, and we didn't see any mosquitoes. Not even normal sized ones.
The entire day (except for the bits where I was getting sunburned while on the ferry) had been cloudy, windy and generally threatening rain on and off, and we were, naturally, not particularly keen on staying on an island whose secrets we had basically plumbed in two hours any longer than we had to. So, when random announcement started being broadcast over the loudspeakers, we naturally tried to figure out what it was saying. Sadly, this proved impossible, which meant that we had to ask someone to find out that there had been a heavy rain warning issued. This was quite worrying to us (also, it had actually started raining by then and we were getting wetter and wetter), and we hurried back to the ferry, to find out that it was leaving an hour early.
The trip back was a bit more rocky than the trip up. Now, I hardly ever get sick at sea (or in the air, or in a car), so I was fine, but at least one other of our group members did not take it particularly well. Still, we got back to land without incident. The "heavy rain", incidentally, never actually materialized, so our entire escape was not nearly as fraught with peril as it could have been, but I'm hardly going to complain, am I?
We rounded out the day with a stop at a really cute cafe attached to a temple somewhere in the wilds of Wajima, dinner and karaoke. An excellent evening that would have been made even better if not for the fact that I couldn't drink or spend the night because I was participating in a marathon with Eliza the next day.
Now, you may have noticed that I said "participating" instead of, for example, running. This is because I did not want to let on that I was actually walking, and only 5 kilometers at that. (that's 3.abit miles for everyone in the States). This is the same marathon that I participated in last year, and it went basically the same. Walked, waved at people, pretended to be more tired than we were in order to get drinks from the drink table, actually spent the entire time discussing the last Harry Potter book, etc. Nothing of note happened except that one of our number came in first in the 10k run, which is pretty impressive considering all of the high school students who practice sports every day who also ran (all students of Noto Seisho - the high school in Yanagida HAD to run)
After the races were over, there was dancing and singing and about 5,000 ceremonies, after which Eliza and I went to lunch.
The only other thing of note that weekend was the new Hokushin ALT's birthday party, which was very nice (we had pizza!). I will leave you with this brain twister that the new Waj ALT inflicted upon us:
Say you had two ropes of non-uniform thickness that would burn for exactly an hour each (so that the burning happened at an uneven rate, that is, you can't be sure when you reach the half-way point of the rope whether an hour has passed because the rest of the rope might burn faster/slower due to different thickness, but ultimately would take an hour) and a lighter. How would you go about measuring (exactly) 45 minutes with only those things?
First person to figure it out receives my eternal respect. and a smiley. Also, tell me how long it took you so I know whether or not to feel inadequate.
See, I was preparing for a class that was supposed to be about food, and one of the activities I had come up with was to give the students recipes of various examples of world cuisine to put in order. I am a big fan of having visuals to accompany everything, so I felt that I had to find pictures to print out of all the foods as well. Unfortunately, one of the foods was tacos and I am ashamed to say that while looking at all of thoes DELICIOUS pictures of LOVELY, SUCCULENT tacos, I nearly started to cry. Seriously! Look up tacos on Google image search and see if YOU fare any better. mmmm, tacos.
In other news, as I mentioned, my school had exams last week. For the ichinensei, I made up a listening portion that included listening to my directions to various places on a map and putting the correct letter of the building next to the place. One of these places was "school" and one of my...stranger students decided to forget the letter thing and just wrote "hell" next to it.
I gave him the point for creativity, even though I don't quite recall ever teaching him that particular word.
So, weekend before last, one of the Wajima nooblets (apparently we are not supposed to call them noobs because they find it demeaning. I am not sure that nooblets is any better, though) organized a trip out to this random island (name of Hegurajima) off the coast of Wajima. Now, this island is not mentioned in any guidebook, nobody in Wajima will tell you that you should go there, and the ferry costs over 4000 yen for a round trip. Why did we feel the urge to go, then? Because it's there, my friends, because it's there. We were also given to understand that it is an excellent picnic spot, although such stories could only be heard after the person in question had finished telling you about the Hegurajima mosquitos, which are apparently THIS big.
The day started off promising with two of our number failing to make the ferry on time. To be fair, one of them WOULD have made it, but was waiting for the other, which was quite nice of him. Sadly, I am not that altruistic; if I have taken the time to get up early enough to get to Wajima to make the ferry, then by god I will MAKE that ferry. The ferry ride was 1.5 hours, which I (stupidly) mostly spent up top staring at the ocean and getting sunburned. (I put on sunscreen, but it was not enough) The boat itself was pretty small, big enough for (I think) 130 people with a tatami room for lying down, a room with seats and a tv, and an observation deck up top. It wasn't full by a long shot when we went up, but there was still a decent amount of people, I'd say 30 or 40. Most of these turned out to be bird watchers, as the island is apparently an ideal place for that sort of thing. These guys were professionals, too. They had these big...I don't even know what they were, but they were big. and professional looking.
On the way to the island, we passed a chain of rocks that the natives of Wajima have charitably named the Seven Islands, although, seriously, they are rocks. One was big enough to have a lighthouse on top, so that people didn't crash their boats into the "islands." They looked nice and climbable, but the whole issue of "if you miss, you fall into the ocean" would probably keep me from actually climbing them.
We finally got to the island and immediately noticed that it was very...flat. It was also larger than I thought it would be, which, considering it takes two hours with plenty of stops for snacks, lunch, and picture taking to walk around leads me to wonder about my expectations. It also had a TON of shrines, although only 7 major ones. (One of my coworkers actually has this theory that the shrines are there because a decently sized wave could completely obliterate the island and they want all the help they can get) These seven major shrines, incidentally, were all marked on lovely maps and sign posts for tourists all over the island and even had explanations in (bad) English! We were somewhat mystified by this because the tourism industry of the island was hardly what you would call booming, until we figured out that probably some earlier JET had been conned into writing it as some sort of community activity.
As I implied earlier, we traversed the entire island. The shrines were charming and the rock formations looks exciting. I especially liked the pond that was supposed to hold the castle of a dragon that had died there and whose bones had later been found and enshrined, allowing its spirit to go on to the afterlife. (the explanation board was much more complicated about it) One of the highlights of the island, I would have to say, was the bit where we were walking through a path in a dense bamboo forest and started discussing how it was the perfect set up for a slasher movie. Naturally, at the next opportune moment, one of our members split off onto a different path (so it would be easier to kill them, naturally). The other bit was when we found the helipad and lay down in order to create a giant I next to the H that was already on it. A truly glorious day. We also saw the biggest spider I have ever seen and that is all I am going to say on the subject because it still freaks me out how big it was. bleh.
Oh yeah, and we didn't see any mosquitoes. Not even normal sized ones.
The entire day (except for the bits where I was getting sunburned while on the ferry) had been cloudy, windy and generally threatening rain on and off, and we were, naturally, not particularly keen on staying on an island whose secrets we had basically plumbed in two hours any longer than we had to. So, when random announcement started being broadcast over the loudspeakers, we naturally tried to figure out what it was saying. Sadly, this proved impossible, which meant that we had to ask someone to find out that there had been a heavy rain warning issued. This was quite worrying to us (also, it had actually started raining by then and we were getting wetter and wetter), and we hurried back to the ferry, to find out that it was leaving an hour early.
The trip back was a bit more rocky than the trip up. Now, I hardly ever get sick at sea (or in the air, or in a car), so I was fine, but at least one other of our group members did not take it particularly well. Still, we got back to land without incident. The "heavy rain", incidentally, never actually materialized, so our entire escape was not nearly as fraught with peril as it could have been, but I'm hardly going to complain, am I?
We rounded out the day with a stop at a really cute cafe attached to a temple somewhere in the wilds of Wajima, dinner and karaoke. An excellent evening that would have been made even better if not for the fact that I couldn't drink or spend the night because I was participating in a marathon with Eliza the next day.
Now, you may have noticed that I said "participating" instead of, for example, running. This is because I did not want to let on that I was actually walking, and only 5 kilometers at that. (that's 3.abit miles for everyone in the States). This is the same marathon that I participated in last year, and it went basically the same. Walked, waved at people, pretended to be more tired than we were in order to get drinks from the drink table, actually spent the entire time discussing the last Harry Potter book, etc. Nothing of note happened except that one of our number came in first in the 10k run, which is pretty impressive considering all of the high school students who practice sports every day who also ran (all students of Noto Seisho - the high school in Yanagida HAD to run)
After the races were over, there was dancing and singing and about 5,000 ceremonies, after which Eliza and I went to lunch.
The only other thing of note that weekend was the new Hokushin ALT's birthday party, which was very nice (we had pizza!). I will leave you with this brain twister that the new Waj ALT inflicted upon us:
Say you had two ropes of non-uniform thickness that would burn for exactly an hour each (so that the burning happened at an uneven rate, that is, you can't be sure when you reach the half-way point of the rope whether an hour has passed because the rest of the rope might burn faster/slower due to different thickness, but ultimately would take an hour) and a lighter. How would you go about measuring (exactly) 45 minutes with only those things?
First person to figure it out receives my eternal respect. and a smiley. Also, tell me how long it took you so I know whether or not to feel inadequate.