I have been so busy recently I haven’t had time to sit and write anything down! I used to have a lot of free time at school to work on my blog, but this year I’ve got a couple more classes than last year, so I don’t have as much time! School really is hectic this year, which is actually wonderful after a few weeks of nothing to do. On Monday I have 1st, 3rd, and 5th periods; Tuesday, 1st, 2nd, 4th, and 6th; Wednesday 1st, 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th (my busy day); Thursday 1st and 4th (my light day); and Friday 1st, 2nd, 4th, and 6th. Out of 6 periods.
After school is usually busy, too, going to Japanese class, studying, running errands, or hanging out with folk. My weekends are filled with activities so my house doesn’t get cleaned as often as it should.
HANAMI
So let’s see. After Hakone I went back to school and sat around wondering what the new school year was going to be like. Most of my days at school were spent studying Japanese or doing light preparation for class (since I didn’t know who I was going to teach with, or what the lesson would be, I couldn’t really make any big lesson plans).
In April, the cherry blossoms started to come out in full force, so I went to a couple of hanami (花見, “flower” + “look”) parties. The first one I went to was with a huge group of Gunma ALTs from Maebashi, Takasaki, and Saitama. My friend S from UNCG was there, too, as well as a lot of other ALTs I don’t see very often. I was happy to see everyone! Unfortunately the weather was not cooperating, so we spent most of our time there sitting on a tarp under umbrellas while the weather alternated between a light drizzle and actual rain. What a strange event hanami parties are: just a big picnic with all your friends, and using the beauty of the cherry blossoms as an excuse to drink sake, shochu and wine at 2:00 in the afternoon. I’m sure the history of hanami parties was perhaps more refined, but nowadays it just seems to be a drinking party. And yes, the Prime Minister did request that revelers take it a little easier this year in respect for those in Tohoku who are suffering, so we tried to keep our party relatively calm—relatively. It wasn’t just us, though; there were several Japanese parties going on that same day, too, so I didn’t feel too terrible. And after the sun came out around 4:00 p.m., it turned into a beautiful day to take pictures of the pink and white blossoms blooming all around us.
NAGANO
We disbanded around 5:00, and my friend Hayato and I got in his car and made a road trip to Matsumoto City, Nagano! It was about a two and a half hour drive away, on the big interstate/interprefecture highway that winds through the mountains and on around Japan. (It’s also a toll road, and expensive.) We stayed the night in a normal business hotel like the Marriott (but not the Marriott) that had a huge onsen on the top floor. The onsen wasn’t too crowded, and I soaked in two inside tubs and one beautiful rock-garden outside tub for about 45 minutes. I tried out the sauna, also, but after two minutes I gave up. That night I slept like a log.
Sunday morning we woke up early, had a kind of gross Japanese breakfast in the dining room—fish, miso soup, rice, and seaweed, not exactly my favorite breakfast foods—and went straight to the Nagano Art Museum. Or maybe the Matsumoto City Art Museum. In either case, it was really cool and full of fun exhibitions from local artists, including one woman who had lived in New York in the 60s and had 3-D exhibits that you could walk through. Other collections were photographs from a small island in southern Japan and paintings from the 1980s and on.
After the museum, we toured Matsumoto Castle, which is so much more castle-like than Odawara was. This castle was actually surrounded by a real moat, and had the dark, wooden interior of a real castle-castle. The view from the top was spectacular—the gardens and the wide lawns were starting their entrance into spring and were beautiful. I decided it would be nice to own a castle and live there in the summer, with the fresh breeze blowing in. I can only imagine it would be frigid in the winter, though: how did they heat it, anyway?
There wasn’t as much in the interior of Matsumoto Castle as there was in Odawara. In Odawara there were broken pottery fragments from a few hundred years ago, sleeve hooks (long wooden poles with barbs on the end for catching shirt sleeves, I guess), and armor. At Matsumoto the most detail I found was a room with a pillow on the floor and some woven reed (?) room dividers. The rest was bare. But somehow Matsumoto seemed more magical—maybe because there was nothing in it. I could easily imagine the hoards of samurai soldiers gathered on the floor discussing battle plans.
We finished seeing the castle and decided to find something to eat—preferably soba, since Nagano is famous for it. But weirdly enough we drove and drove and drove and drove and didn’t see more than one or two restaurants. We had to break down and use Google Maps to find a good place. But the place we ended up eating—maybe 30 minutes away from Matsumoto—was absolutely delicious! I had my hot tea, cold soba, and tempura: just what I wanted.
The restaurant was close to a glass factory, at least, what we thought was a glass factory, but it turns out it was more like a glass boutique. Three whole floors were dedicated to glass works—vases, jewelry, knickknacks, you name it—and it was all for sale. I bought a collection of four tealight candles, but nothing made of glass, since it was all waaaaay out of my price range.
Next on the list was the Wasabi Farm! I had heard about this from a couple of people and was anxious to see how it was. Hayato’s GPS told us to go this way, then that way, then this way, and then before I knew it we were driving on a one-lane dirt road with trees on either side, looking suspiciously like rural North Carolina. “Um,” I said. “Is this the right way?” As soon as I said it, the road stopped. On the right side and in front of us was a rushing river; on the left was a glade of trees and a stream that flowed until it met the main river. It wasn’t what we were looking for, but it was absolutely beautiful: the warm afternoon sun, the North Carolina feel, the rocks and the river. I was perfectly content.
We set out to explore, making our way by the banks of the stream and through the trees. Everything was still bare in its winter garb, but on the ground blades of grass were growing strong. We realized that we were on the other side of the Wasabi Farm, because we saw little wasabi shoots (?) near the water. I almost was happier for having gotten lost; the whole place made me think of the creek back home. I felt very content and peaceful.
But it was getting late, and we had to go back to Gunma. So we got back in his car, skipped the actual Wasabi Farm tour, and arrived back home around 7:00.
HANAMI PART 2
It was back to school again on Monday. I’m starting to teach almost all by myself in one class, with minimal interpretation from my JTE. It’s kind of fantastic: I feel like a real teacher! And the students are kind: if I mess up, they don't hold it against me.
It was a hard week at work, but I got to rest a little bit over the weekend. On Saturday, I cleaned my house: vacuumed, scrubbed the bathroom, did loads of laundry, and organized the kitchen. I had all the windows open to let in the breeze, which was actually turning into a rather strong wind. I didn’t realize it at first, but after I looked down at the kotatsu/coffee table in the early afternoon, I realized there was a fine layer of dirt all over it. Gunma’s strong winds were bringing dust all into my perfectly clean house! Luckily most of my laundry was inside by then, but the ones I had hanging on the line outside were completely covered in dirt! The wind was flinging swirls of dust up even to the second story. When I walked into the bathroom, I almost cried: the dirt flung onto the still-wet tub and shower had turned into mud. Yuck, yuck, yuck. I closed all the windows and stared at the dust clouds outside. It looked just like a duststorm you'd see in Westerns.
I was going to clean everything up on Sunday, but I decided to go to hanami instead. This time, my hanami party was almost all with Japanese folk! Two of my current teachers at school (the 24-year old girl and the handsome 24-year old boy, who is actually nice as well), plus three previous teachers (some of my favorites!) were there, as well as T from Glime, N and his friends, some of E’s friends from English club, and a couple of people I didn’t know. It was fun being the only foreigner! After a while, though, we joined forces with some of my ALT friends who were out, so we ended up having about 30 people, Japanese and foreign, all hanging out together under the trees! I felt like it was a good way to promote internationalization! Like my previous hanami party, this one wasn’t as perfect as it should be: because of the strong winds on Saturday, almost all of the cherry blossoms were on the ground. However, the weather was absolutely gorgeous, so we didn't complain about the lack of actual sakura.
I think that brings us up to date on the exciting happenings in my life. Oh, we are still getting aftershocks, but not too bad. Actually I was talking to my dad on Skype on Saturday morning and a pretty large one rumbled through during our conversation. And I think I felt one last night but I could have been dreaming . . .
Very soon I will be buying a plane ticket for North Carolina! I look forward to eating some good Southern food and seeing my friends and family! (Pay no attention to the order of that sentence.) I hope all is good back at home! See yuuu! :)
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