Aizu Homestay

This weekend all the new junior high school Jets were made to go to Aizu in the West of the prefecture to participate in a homestay so that we could experience 'real' Japanese family life and also do some Japanese lectures.

The last homestay I did which was when I was living in Yokohama went pretty badly, with me being the only person not to have a great family and I actually ended up leaving early as the experience was so awkward and boring.
Needless to say, that made me a tad nervous about doing it again and this time it would be for two nights and if I didn't like my family there was no escape, I would just have to gaman suru (endure it) or sleep on the streets.

We all arrived in Aizu on the Friday afternoon, paid our homestay and course fees then filed into a room full of desks. On the board were our class groups and where our seats were in the room. On each of the desks lay a brown envelope and when I found mine I pulled out random bits of paper with all sorts of informationa about Aizu and earthquakes that I expect I will never bother read. But, nestled among those bits of paper was the information about my homestay family. I was so nervous when I looked at it and everyone else had found their's... there were families with small kids, cats, dogs, who had requested certain kinds of people and had written about what kind of things they would do with their token homestay gaijin.

And then there was mine... three people and the youngest of them was 66. Oh dear. The section about what kind of person they would like... nothing written. The part about what cool Japanesey things they would like to do with their gaijin.... again, nothing at all.
I was totally gutted but not overly surprised. Just my homestay family luck!!!

However, when the time came to meet my host grandparents and be taken back to their place, it soon became clear that there wasn't any need to worry.
Although shy at first, they became chattier over dinner (and alcohol of course) and I had a really nice time with them. They were very keen to show me some good old Japanese culture so in the morning we woke up early to go and have a look at a near-by temple and then after a days worth of Japanese lessons and the most boring history lecture I have ever ever ever sat through, I was picked up by my grandparents and taken to some hot springs followed by some good old Karaoke.
I can't think of a more Japanese experience if I tried! I even had a man at the karaoke bar be rude and racist toward me. So Japanese!


They eventually sent me off with bags of rice and vegetables which they had grown themselves (as they are farmers) and told me to come back soon.

It's sad that I massively judged them before I met them but still, hanging out with an old couple really wasnt what I was expecting to be my 'real' Japanese homestay experience.

Fukushima in Beautiful!

I have been in Fukushima for three weeks now and for most of that time the weather has been pretty disappointing with it generally being cloudy and muggy.

But, last Friday the weather totally changed and the skies became bright blue and there were no clouds at all. As soon as I woke up and looked out of my window I knew I had to go outside and sit in the sunshine for as long as humanly possible (and without burning) and as I had a day off I messaged all the Fukushima JET crew to see if there was anything going on.
Luckily, I managed to get myself invited/ invited myself to a trip to the river about 1 hour north of where I live. So with the others we drove up there and spent half a day jumping off rocks, sunbathing and relaxing.

The weather stayed pretty sweet for the rest of the weekend which was great as I went down to a party in Iwaki on the beach with many of the other JET's in the prefecture.

Fukushima is jam-packed full of hills and mountains and is incredibly green. Before the good weather the mountains which surround the area couldn't actually be seen but now they look beautiful (well not right now, the weather is shitty again today).


Anyway, I think the point I am making with this post is that it is great to know that I am living somewhere which is actually pretty and nice and is far away from the industrial uglyness of many parts of Japan. And to let you know that Japan also has stunning countryside along with big buildings and robots.

Back in Japan!

I have decided to give this whole blog malarkey another go as, so far, I seem to have much more spare time on my hands than the last time I was in the Land of the Rising Sun.

So... where am I?

Well, last time I was in Japan I was in Yokohama, Japan's second biggest city (since it is pretty much attached to Tokyo), which is a huge meteropolitan area. And this time? If you haven't heard of Yokohama before then I am fairly sure you wont have heard of my new town... it's a place called Adachi which is in a city called Nihonmatsu which is in a prefecture called Fukushima... still no idea? oh well, just check out the map.

Last time I was in Japan I came as a student but this time I am here on the JET programme and that basically means I am an assistant language teacher and work in two junior high schools for kids from the age 12 to 15.
There are around 1500 new JETs sent to Japan each year and from most people that I have spoken to, I seem to be the only one who has actually started work! Not that I could really call it work yet- for this first week I have been coaching some of the kids who are entering an English speech contest, helping them with pronunciation and intonation, which essentially requires the skill of being a native speaker and not much else. All the kids are really nice though so I don't mind.
However, I finish doing this by about 2pm each day and am kind of at a loss for what to do for the last three hours of my working day. So far I have filled my time by reading a lot of wikipedia, learning about Japanese cooking and ingrediants and doing a little but of Japanese study.

The summer holidays will finish in a couple of weeks and proper school will be on again so I am looking forward to getting into the swing of things and actually teaching something- from next week I will use my free time at work more wisely and start preparing my intro lessons and get photos together for it.

So that's what I am doing in Japan answered... anything else?

I think I will leave it at that for now, will try to write something again soon

Spring Holiday

I'm finally into my spring holiday (struggled not to call it spring break then, I'm becoming Americanized, yuk) and everything is going well. The weather is finally starting to get warmer so I don't have to walk around in my clashing hat, scarf and coat combo and next week I'm off to the tropical Island of Okinawa to visit the wonderful Alice so I shouldn't need a coat at all.

Since my final presentation a couple of weeks ago I have been out and about quite a lot, had one too many bad hangovers and met lots of random people in random places. Unfortunately, not having to study until I get back to university in April I can already feel my academic Japanese slipping away and my Kanji knowledge flying out the window. I thought I would have lots of free time to study this week but as each day has passed my little schedule book has filled up and so I now only have one free day left until Okinawa which I'm sure will no longer be free by Wednesday.
Other than not studying I have been spending most of my time with friends at Yokohama. Lots of people are leaving now so I have to go to every leaving party to say my farewells. It's pretty sad and I'm not so fond of the change but it makes me appreciate all the awesome people from all over the world that I have had the opportunity to meet since coming to Japan and I hope to someday bump in to in the future. My friend Lauren leaves on Friday which I'm rather gutted about; my dorms are going to be quite lonely without her as she is my tea buddy and com padre. Luckily I only have two days in the dorms after she goes before I set off traveling so I wont have too much time to mope about.
Anyway, for one of Laurens leaving do's we all went out to AgeHa (the biggest club in Asia), and it was perhaps one of the most fun nights I have ever had. It was a good drunken night of general merry making, dancing and talking random crap to Japanese people. In Japanese clubs the use of cameras is banned but being foreign, drunk and having a general dislike of pointless rules Lauren brought one in anyway. This ended in her being caught taking photos by security several times and thus being chased around the club because she refused to put it in the locker and also resulting in many comedy style chases in which we were all involved. Eventually we ended up getting thrown out of the club with some people getting banned but it didn't matter- we about to leave anyway since it was 6 in the morning!

Other than getting drunk and general merry making I also went to visit my friend Jay in Kanazawa and have managed to meet up with lots of other Sheffield people. Always good to catch up with people and hopefully I'll be able to see a few people that I have yet to meet in Japan this weekend when I go to see the plum blossom.

I'm sat down on my bed with a rather over brewed cup of tea trying to waste time until I'm tired enough to go to sleep. I have my last presentation tomorrow, report is finished, as is my Sheffield year abroad project plan. Which means from 11.45 tomorrow morning I am a free agent, no more work for a month and a half. It feels really weird. I hope I don't lose all my Japanese in that time.
The next week and a half is pretty crammed full of stuff so I shouldn't be sat about in my room wasting more time on facebook and youtube. Hurrah!

Rather than telling you what I might be up to though, I'll tell you what I have done in the past few eeks. My amazing weekend of 'opportunity' turned out to be a rather quiet one; never made it out clubbing on the Friday night but I did manage to get drunk enough so that my hangover prevented me from leaving bed for the next day thus missing out on the Hakone trip! Better luck next time , eh!
I did however manage to have a week of childish fun which involved a ball pit, a trip to Disney sea (similar to Disney land... but on the sea), seeing dragons dance at Chinese new year and going out to a gay club. It really has been manic, not to mention expensive, but a lot of fun. I think my Japan cold has got even worse but I've learnt to live with it.
The gay club had to be one of the strangest nights I've had in Japan. It wasn't so different from gay clubs in England only there were more gay people and less 'breeders' (as Colleen so nicely calls straight people). The thing is, since most Japanese people don't actually believe that gay people exist in Japan and that it is some foreign evil culture, gay people here don't really expect straight people to have any understanding or tolerance for them. Which is ridiculous but understandable. Anyway, this meant that there was quite a lot of awkward explaining to be done but it turned out to be a brilliantly fun night and we could not stop dancing to all the cheesy classics that are expected from a gay club. There was even a bit of pole dancing. Luckily not too much from me but my friend Jaycob who must have some kind of pole fetish as we could not prise him off it for the life of us.
After an entire night of dancing, looking sweaty and an encounter with a scary fake French model we finally got home at 7.30 in the morning. I was ready to sleep for the entire day but it was a friends birthday so I had to get up after 4 hours sleep to go for an all you can eat buffet. I thought I was going to die, I have never been so tired in my life. Even worse than the night bus/snowboarding trip.

I think I have managed to catch up on my sleep now. I have got all my work done so that's a good sign and I'm going to go to bed relatively early as I have to get up in time for the presentation tomorrow.

Life here is either extremely tiring or it feels like there is nothing to do. The latter in never actually true, just feels that way sometimes. Not from now on though... yikes!

Taurus

My iGoogle daily horoscope told me this today- 'Don't be afraid of enjoying your own company, no matter what you are doing.' Of course being a highly reliable source and great guide to life I always take iGoogles advice very seriously, especially as horoscopes are so accurate... or maybe not. But this one really did make me think. It's something that I really do need to learn to do; be able to be by myself and not feel really bored, lonely and after a while, quite sad. I don't know if it's just that I am a really 'social' (i.e. can't keep my big mouth shut) person and love company or just that I have no idea how to spend my time if someone else isn't occupying it. It's probably a mix of both to be fair but from now on I'm going to try and learn to enjoy the time I have to myself because sometimes people are just too busy to so something. Like this week, where I have finished most of my work and everyone else still has exams.

Saying that though, I do have a pretty packed weekend ahead- I'm going out clubbing tomorrow night and then to Hakone to go to some hot springs on Saturday night and then I have to finish my report and presentation by next week sometime. So spare time to drive myself crazy in my room isn't abundant to say the least.
I'm really looking forward to having the time to go out and have fun without having to think about any uni work, meet new people and get to know the people I already know even better. It wont be long now, just two weeks I hope, I'm sure I can hold out for that long.

I decided on my new years resolution too- I always go for a nice vague one and it's the same this year- from now on I'm going to take every opportunity that I can. I feel like I've missed out on quite a bit here at Yokohama and also doing things in Japan in general so from now on I'm going to make sure I take every opportunity I have to do interesting and fun stuff here. No saying no to offers, no making excuses about lots of work; I forgot somewhere along the way that I did Japanese to have an awesome year in Japan having loads of fun, not just to get better at Japanese (albeit that is important too!). It's all about the experience and I don't want to waste my time in a tiny dorm room (Someone I know here who only goes out for lectures or to get something from the supermarket).
My opinion might change somewhat when I start all my hard classes next semester but then it'll be about balance I suppose.

That's all for my ramblings today; not got much to say, will write more after this weekend I hope