My New E-Journal

Hi. I've decided to start a new ejournal for my new life in Nagasaki. Out with the old. In with the new and all that.

It's at: http://biginnagasaki.blogspot.com

Check it out. That's where you can find me from now on.

Rock on!

Dawn

Another Year....

...Older.

Goodbye Ojika

I have been very fortunate in my 28 years. (Today is my birthday, BTW, so maybe I'm feeling especially reflective.) I have been lucky enough to have some life-changing experiences and one of my greatest fears is that as time trickles on, I'll start to forget all the wonderful people and amazing moments I've had as I've been away from home. Although I wish with all of my fist-clenched might that I could hold onto those times and what I felt while in those specific moments, I know that they'll fade over the coming years, and I'll be left with a vague, warm overall feeling. And, when people ask me what living on Ojika was like (for example) I'll be unable to say anything more to them than, "It was amazing."

I do, however, find solace in the fact that the core of my being was shaped by my experiences, and that will never change. So, even in thirty years, whatever I do, wherever I am, I will be a living, breathing small sub-section of Ojika island.

My Ojikan friends and Ojikan family went out of their way to make me feel like I was at home on that island and I will never be able to repay them the full extent. I can only do my best to give such love and friendship to those I meet in the future who are in a similar situation -- feeling lonely and far away from home.

Here are photos from my send-off on July 26th.

The storming of Nippon

Jodi and her husband, KC, decided to spend a portion of their summer vacation with me in Japan. This made me very happy as I haven't seen Jodi in a little over two years and her presence makes the grass a little greener, jokes a whole lot funnier, and anko ( sweet, red bean paste) a thousand times more delicious. -- Well, all that is true except for the last part. I don't believe anko could ever be 'delicious.'

Here we are at the shrine at the peak of Madara-jima's scenic park. Jodi and KC flew into Fukuoka, where I met them. Then, the three of us returned to Ojika for a few days before I left my island for good.

Because my contract ended and I decided to transfer schools, I had several good-bye parties on my island to attend while Jodi and KC were in town. Luckily, or unluckily for them -- you'd have to ask them--, they were invited to join the mayhem. Here we are at the apres pottery BBQ karaoke jam.
And, here we are at the Hammamotos.

And, here we are at the yakitori joint with HS teachers.

And, here we are at Mrs. Egawa's house.

Once we left the island, we continued our trip onto the central island of Honshu, with a couple of nights in between in Fukuoka. Jodi and KC are really laid back, so traveling with them was easy. KC only had two non-negotiable rules/requests. Because of an allergy ("arerugi") all dishes with shell fish was out of the question when we were eating, and we HAD to see a baseball game.

We saw the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks pull off an exciting win in the 9th when Zuruta hit a home run with a guy on second. The final score was 2-1.

Here, Jodi and KC pose with Kaoru and her brother. Kaoru is my friend from Ojika who now lives in Fukuoka. She's a die-hard SoftBanks fan and knows all the player's special cheers.

After Fukuoka, we moved onto Hiroshima for two nights. We went to Miyajima and spent a day at the atomic bomb memorial. Here, Jodi and I pose with The Hot Pepper near the Hiroshima shopping arcade.

Our next stop was Kyoto. Kyoto is amazing.

After two nights in Kyoto, we continued in the direction of Tokyo, and spent two nights in Nagoya. Now, Nagoya isn't really known as being a tourist heaven, but for some reason when Yoshino-sensei's wife asked me why we were going, I ended up telling her that Jodi and KC were interested in seeing the buildings of Nagoya. Now, this seemed like a logical thing for me to say at the time, but she didn't seem to understand why anyone would be in interested in that particularly. My lie became hilarious when we arrived in Nagoya and found nothing more than an average city with lots of strip-mall like shopping complexes. Really interesting, right? Well, we did make it to the castle, so that's gotta count for something.

On our second day in Nagoya, we got out of the city, and went to a near-by town call Gujo Hachiman. The town was criss-crossed with three rivers and we spent all day cooling our heels in the water. We were entertained for a half-hour or so of people jumping off of a rather high bridge into the river.

We also stumbled upon GODZILLA, but he'd befallen quite a fate by the time we found him.

Jodi and KC took the Shinkansen to Tokyo the next morning. They were there for two nights before jetting off to Hawaii for a cruise with KC's family. It was really, really tough to see them go.

Eh?

My ejournal needs a facelift. I shall change things around soon. I've got lots of pictures to post of my most recent adventure with Jodi and KC Spiro, which includes, but is not limited to, photos of the glorious buildings of Nagoya.

I also have to pour my heart out about leaving Ojika. I've only been on the mainland for a week, but I'm severly missing my bike rides and the fresh air.

More to come soon. I "yakusoku o suru" promise.

BBQ

No, we weren't just burning the weeds. We were getting our BBQ action on! I had my farewell BBQ last night and I learned a few things about myself.
1. I can't read when I'm nervous. My little speech was embarrassing.
2. It's hard to hold a plate, chopsticks, hand towel, beer and camera all at the same time. I never figured out how to add eating into that equation.
3. I really, really like fireworks -- especially those that are lit in people's back yard but still get pretty high.

Yakisoba Baby!

6th Grade

Me with the kids....
6th grade had a good-bye party for me. They made me cards and a large chain of origami cranes. We played "Fruit Basket." They sang me a few songs and we played a game of Typhoon. Some of the girls gave me more personal letters.

I took my indoor shoes with me when I left that day. That made me sad.

Miyazaki - Thumbs Up Or Thumbs Down?

Thumbs up! Way up!
Lori had an interview in Miyazaki prefecture and wanted some company on her trip over there, so I agreed to go with her. After a boat ride to Nagasaki and a five-hour bus ride to Miyazaki, we had a chance to check the scene out.
We met Hugh at a Jazz club. Hugh is a professor in Miyazaki. He's been in Japan for 23 years. We were feeling random and didn't want to tell Hugh that we were there for an interview, so we came up with a story about collecting "sweat rags" for a design label based out of NYC. Luckily, or not, Hugh was drunk so he didn't really see through our story. He did introduce us to a kinda cool bar, though.

Lori on interview day. She'll be working in Miyakonojyo, which is about an hour outside of Miyazaki. We rode the train to Miyakonojyo where her soon-to-be supervisor picked us up and started our day of errands.

Night number two should have ended way earlier than it did. If we hadn't been hanging out with Katsu and Joe, two of the bar tenders, until the wee hours of the morning we may have actually woke up to catch our bus. As it turns out, we over slept and wasted some cold, hard yen on a bus ticket that went unused. We're still smarting from the experience, but I'm sure it'll be a funny story in a few years.

Parties, Parties, Parties....

The ladies I made dolls with over the last two years treated me to an awesome dinner at Taiko. We had sashimi, curried chicken wings, fish bones in soup, fried shrimp and fried pork with cheese.

It was the first time I'd seen them all outside of our making dolls on Tuesday nights. Conversation was a little awkward to start, but when we left the restaurant at 9:30 I was shocked that we'd been there for three hours. I actually asked the woman giving me a ride home if the clock in her car was right. Time flies when you're eating curried chicken wings and listening to Ojikans speak their-Ojikan Japanese.

Yakyuu

Hokushou Nishi had their final baseball game of the school year a few weeks ago. I had a business trip in Nagasaki on Monday, so I was able to catch the game in Sasebo before heading off to Nagasaki.

I was especially interested in seeing the game because Tatsushi, one of my seniors, was playing in the position of catcher for the last time. He, and most of his teammates, were so gung-ho about the game that they all shaved their heads a week or two before the big game.

When I asked them all why they did it, they merely replied, "BASEBALL!"

Hokushou has a freshman pitching for them. He's actually pretty good. He impressed me by striking out lots of players while he was on the mound.

The game was pretty tense. It was a tie game all the way through into the 9th inning. Unfortunately, when Omura HS was up to bat with two outs, one of their boys hit a ground ball into left field and won the game.

Tatsushi and his teammates were crying when they left the field. Tatsushi's mom and the other people in the audience were crying too. I didn't cry. I did, however, sneak out early to avoid seeing a lot of people cry. Awkward.