Right, I should explain. I'm living in Japan now. My blog title is finally accurate!
My town is a tiny place on the western border of Okayama prefecture. Well, I say tiny, but there are definitely smaller places. Out of all the inaka (middle-of-nowhere/rural places), we're probably one of the largest locations. Even so, it's pretty rural. I live in town, but the majority of the region is little more than hills upon rice fields upon yet more hills. It is absolutely gorgeous. I've already said that a thousand times to nearly everyone, but it bears repeating.
The street I live on is very much in the old Japanese style. It is a single lane (though traffic goes both ways, of course) that winds in something that may have been trying to approximate a straight line. The buildings on either side are largely wooden buildings with sliding door entrances. Nothing is larger than two stories and hidden alleyways lurk everywhere. Biking down the street is... well, feels a bit dangerous, but I haven't been hit yet. This is promising. I just have to ignore all the times I've almost been hit. :D
Next door to my apartment building is a Buddhist temple. If you're on my facebook, there's a picture of it there in my mobile uploads. I'm not sure what sect of Buddhism it is, though... to be honest, I'm a little intimidated by the place. I have yet to actually see anyone on the temple grounds. I could just pull out the gaijin card and wander in, but I'm trying to be a good neighbor!
Directly behind my apartment is what I've been told is a bar. I have to say that it looks pretty cool. It's kind of like a shed, the sort of thing that boys build in their backyard and claim as their fort. There are a couple shrines that surround it, too, and a small but well-tended yard in front. Some of the other ALTs and I have made plans to invade it at some later point... hopefully soon. It's another place I feel intimidated by...
I'm using a lot of ellipses today... I should cut down on that. Anyway, I hope that gives you a decent picture of where I'm living. My apartment itself is actually quite spacious. There's the genkan (entrance-way where you take off your shoes), a short hallway (about 15 feet long) with bathroom, washroom, and toilet room off to the side (each a separate room). Then there's a fairly large kitchen, a living room of equal size, and a Japanese-style tatami room of equal size. In Japanese measurements, it's a 6-mat room. For Americans/Canadians, I think that's about 9' x 9' for each room. It is, as I said, quite spacious.
As of tomorrow, I'll have been here for one week. It feels like twice as long, though, as every day has just been so full. Literally, every single day I've been busy. The first day we arrived, we had only enough time to get into our apartments and check out our bikes before we had to find our way to a nearby izakaya for our welcome party. Then the next day we had to set up our bank stuff and our phones (which took two days) and had another dinner out. The next day we went on a shopping trip for house items, finished getting our phones, and were granted an office-time trip to the art museum next door. That night was our first free night. I just went to sleep.
After that was the weekend and the summer festival (natsu matsuri). We had the days off to explore the town, but night time was reserved for the festival itself. The first night was the odori, or festival dance. As employees of city hall, we were expected to participate. That meant dancing in the streets for two or more hours. I lost track of time after a while. Because the dancers can't explore the festival stalls, though, we were all given booze and food for an hour before the dance began. The idea was: get drunk and dance. And yes, many people took full advantage. My alcohol tolerance didn't allow me to get super drunk, but I definitely appreciated the gesture. By the time the odori finished, I was completely exhausted. I checked out the remaining stalls and bought some yakiniku on a stick (which was so stringy - but delicious - that I nearly choked on it), hopped on my bike, and went home to sleep.
The next day was the hanabi (fireworks). It was also our sempai ALT's birthday (the ALT remaining from last year). So the town's local, unofficial, representative took us all out for some korean BBQ, which apparently is called yakiniku here (which confuses me immensely). Yakiniku means fried meat, which I thought was reserved entirely for fried beef, but I guess also refers to Korean BBQ. Anyway, that was super delicious and we headed out for the fireworks after. The fireworks were pretty spectacular themselves and I tried to take some video of it. Most of it turned out pretty blurry, but I think some of it might be usable. Apparently my camera is terrible at night-stuff. Sadness.
That marked the end of the natsu matsuri and the weekend. Yesterday I thought we would get some time just sitting around the office, but it turned out that we were off on a trip to the mountainous part of the area. One of us new ALTs has a house up there and will be teaching at schools in that area, so the bossman took us on a field trip. The mountainous area is, as is to be expected, even more rural and more beautiful. We drove around for a few hours and then got some ice cream, which was amazing. The day ended, I returned home, and I went to sleep again. Somehow, even that relatively easy day wore me out.
That was yesterday. Today has been much quieter. Our sempai ALT has gone back to the US for a few weeks. Apparently it's a big time for marriages. Go figure. I discovered that my washing machine doesn't work, so I got some help from one of the people around the office here and we went to my place to fix my washing machine. Hooray! Now I can have clean clothes! Super exciting, da ne? It was pretty funny watching him work. My Japanese isn't very good, so it ended up with him basically mumbling to himself and fiddling with things for an hour while I stood around like a scratching post. In the end everything worked out, though, and I am now eternally grateful. I was not looking forward to wearing curry-stained shirts to work.
That should more or less bring the internet world up to date. I could expand on any of the above points and illustrate the entire story, but this blog post is already long enough and there is just too much to cover!
Tomorrow the Okayama prefectural orientation begins. From what I've heard, it is not entirely useful, but I don't mind. I want to see Okayama City. And the final day we're going to Shiraishi, which is an island that has been described to me on several occasions as "a tropical paradise." I am quite looking forward to that. And it'll be cool to see how the other new JETs are doing. As I said, it's only been a week, but it feels like I've already been here for much longer.
~Jeffles
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