A little of everything

Yo yo.

Last night I had my "welcome enkai." (enkai - party..read earlier post for details) It's true, I've been here for almost two months, but better late than never, aye? It was all the teachers who teach first year (sophomore) and we went to this really nice restaurant. We were served about 6 or 7 courses including octopus, a plate of sashimi, and fried fishbone with the tail still attached. I managed to eat most of it, wasn't all that bad. The fried fish bone tasted like a chip! I was able to use some of my Japanese and my coworkers tried to speak some English. It was really cool and I feel much more comfortable with them. They kept telling me, "we hope you feel comfortable here, and we will help you with anything you need..." They are the nicest people. There is a group of about 4 25-year old women...hopefully sometime I can hang with them outside of work, they are about my age. :)

Today I went with Shawn to his school's sports day. It was pretty entertaining. Then we both came home and took a super super long nap. We were exhausted! It's been a much-needed lazy day around the homestead.

The shower is fixed! It is so great to take a relaxing shower...as a result I've been returning to my old ways and taking longer showers, sometimes twice a day! I know, I know...I just like it, ok? :)

Here are some pictures from our BBQ in Hita last weekend. Hita is really gorgeous, it has a few rivers flowing through it and is surrounded by mountains...I would live there. At night there are little boats with lights that take people on the river for dinner cruises. Hopefully sometime we can go.

This is Shawn and Phil being helped out by Tom on the bongos. They provided the entertainment for the evening...


Shawn manned the grill and did a fantabulous job, at that.


The BBQ area.


View of the river.


It was a really good time.

Last Monday we also had our first earthquake! It took us both a few seconds to realize what was really happening and then just like we had read, we ran to stand underneath our door and waited it out. It only lasted about 10 seconds, but that was long enough. At the epicenter it was a 5.2, but weaker when it hit us, about 3 or 4. It is such a strange feeling to have the ground swaying underneath your feet. I would hope it never happens again, but I'm sure it will in the time we are here. Japan is the land of volcanos, earthquakes and typhoons. We lost a mirror in the earthquake...it fell to its death and broke on the floor. We still have no mirror...which is interesting...I never know quite what I look like when I go to school :)

On Wednesday we rode our bikes about 30 minutes to Park Place, the very new and modern mall. It turned into a really nice little date night - we ate dinner, saw a movie, and rode the ferris wheel! We saw the second Pirates movie, pretty entertaining. The ferris wheel is for little kids so it moved incredibly slow but its situated on a mountain top and you can see some of the city lights. It was really nice. A great evening.

Overall, no complaints here...just going with the flow. Next weekend we are taking a trip to Miyazaki, a surfer town on the eastern coast. Our friends Lauren and Erik live there so we are staying with them. It should be a great time!


In other news...
I find myself with a large amount of time to read the news online during work. I comb the news pages until I have read the interesting articles and the boring articles...twice. No, just kidding, but I do spend a lot of time following world events. I must say, the world right now is in a sorry state of affairs. Tonight this one caught my eye...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/5394222.stm
Are we seriously building a fence along the US-Mexico border?
Wow. I am astounded.

Dreams

Last week seemed to drag on. It was only four days but there were many classes to teach. Although we are here to teach English, sometimes I feel teaching is really just a bother. I would rather just travel and live! I suppose that's the way life is - work to live, live on the weekends? Which reminds me of a very disturbing dream I had two nights ago...

It was just after graduation and all the college students were at this temple type thing saying goodbye to their familes. Shawn and I were there, but our families weren't. At the temple there were voluntary executions going on for people who just graduated. According to this dream, colelge was the best time of our lives so after it's finished, there is no reason to keep on going. It seemed a social norm - like the thing most people do. I saw people from high school there, also just graduated, hanging their heads walking to meet their end. This idea really didn't sit well with me in the dream, so as we searched for a phone to call our families and say goodbye, in a rebelious, revolutionary-type way, I said to Shawn, "What if we just don't do it?" He answered, like he had never thought of it before, "What do you mean?" I answered, "What if we don't go to execution? Let's get out of here, I'm sure it gets better. We can make life better, let's just try. And besides, if this is what everyone does, how do people ever old? What about our parents? We wouldn't even be here if our parents had done this like everyone else!" After that, we leftm while our friends, depressed at what life had to offer them, marched to their executions.

Then I woke up. I can't remembering ever having dreams as poignant and full of metaphor as this one. Of course, there is the uncertainty of graduating college...I won't elaborate on this obvious interpretation. But a friend of mine offered that it's about Shawn and I coming to Japan, but none of our friends are here. More of a symbolic leaving everyone else for something we think is a better option?

Anyway...the dream was a tad depressing, especially because recently we have been thinking: what's next? I have tried to not think too much about life after JET only because we just got here! Not two months into the program and I'm already thinking about it ending? I have always been this way - planning the next big thing, plans plans plans. But I really wanted to break myself of that habit and just enjoy the here and now, without looking at it as a stepping stone for the 'next big thing.' It's not a bad thing to plan, I suppose...

All that aside, this weekend we went to Hita where Phil lives. If you don't remember, Phils is our friend from Willamette and the other half of Shawn's musical pair. I'll post pictures and stories from this weekend tomorrow. Right now I'm feeling drained from an entire weekend of terrible allergies. We are going to watch Robin Hood and call it an early night. The melodramatic Prince of Theives one, Shawn has never seen it! Can you believe it? It's pretty much a classic... School tomorrow...boo.

どもありがとう Domo Arigato

Special thanks to Rachael and Stacy and the peeps at TIUA who so nicely sent me mail! I felt very loved yesterday when I opened the mail box to see mail - in English! - that I could read! Awesome, thanks!!

This is a three day weekend and we had plans to hang on the beach or cruise around Beppu, but instead we are holed up in our apartment due to Typhoon ShanShan. (Yes, kind of like Shawn-Shawn...hehe) We've had window-rustling wind, lots of rain and some thunder and lightning. Which, can get quite scary, but I think we'll be ok. In a few hours it's supposed to pass over Kyushu to the west of us, so we have yet to see the climax. I am kind of excited but also glad we have candles and a flashlight, and we just stocked up on food -just in case!

Yesterday we did go to Beppu for a while to seek one of their many many famous hot springs. Beppu is a tourist hot spot and sure enough right off the train we saw a family of backpackers making their way through the city. Tourists means lots of information in English! We'll have to take advantage of that sometime, but yesterday we were going to Kitahama Onesen on the reccomendation of one of my coworkers. Most hotsprings in Japan are separated by sex, and people bath naked...which...wouldn't be fun since the goal was to relax with each other. The onesen we went to was "german style" and outdoors facing the ocean. So, we got to wear our bathing suits and enjoy the scenes and hot water together. It was really nice.

Here is one highlight. Luckily, Shawn won, head intact.




We ate dinner, cruised some stores and then took the train home. It was a quick trip, but I know we will go to Beppu more when we have more time. It was fun to get away from Oita and find a new place, though.

Sports Day was on Friday and it was really fun. I took a few pictures in the morning until my battery died. I only got pictures of the first obstacle course event - these are a few of the obstacles. First they had to climb under this green net, then crawl through this bamboo ladder thing, and next jump over these white ropes, and finally hop in a gunny sack to the finish line.









We are now using SKYPE for internet calling, and it is so cheap! We are able to call anyone anywhere using our internet connection. It's worked really well and it makes us happy we can so easily talk to our families. Well, other than the time difference - we can usually only call on weekends because while we are sleeping and working people in the US are awake.

Holy crap. The typhoon has gotten so much worse since the time I started this blog! Crazy wind and rain! Neato! :)

Today is a perfect day for baking. We are going to make brownies from scratch, cabbage and chicken salad and tacos for dinner with homemade tortillas! We have to make homemade tortillas because they don't have them here. Gotta do whatcha' gotta do.