It has been too long since I've posted. I guess I don't usually because nothing much happens. But over the last week or so life's been good.
Last weekend was spent alone and was very uneventful. Infact I just turned my place into a cinema and watched like 5 movies all weekend. I did venture out to Tanabe to see what sights and sounds there are now there. Tanabe is the 2nd biggest city in this prefecture with about 60,000 people in it. I think there is just under a million people in all of Wakayama-Ken and about 400,000 of those people live in the Ken's capital, Wakayama-city. So Tanabe was alright I just drove around and figured out the layout. As for all of last week, I spent that in the BOE.
I would have gone and seen my Japanese tutor twice, but he got a job in Tokyo teaching English. He had to leave immediatly. He was a big help and took me around to a few places. He was a great guy to have around here, I'll miss him, but I'll be up in Tokyo at some time and I'll look him up.
So on Tuesday I did the Myoko dinner thing, which is never bad. But I always stay lat for some reason and on top of that I stayed up doing some reading and didn't go to be till 2am. So on Wednesday I was dead tired. I had to take a nap before my shodou lesson on Wednesday night. At Shodou I am working on this old Chinese poem that consists of about 7 characters, but I have to write them in small size. It is so terribly hard, but feels good once you know you got the kanji to look just right. Oh yeah, so at Myoko's I found out about this new mall in Wakayama city so I decided to head up there and check it out on Thursday night. I left really late though, at aboout 7pm, and it takes a good 50 minutes to an hour to get there. I left from Gobo so it was quicker, but the toll was higher than if I had left from Kibi, which is closer to my house. It wasn't much though. A huge bookstore and supermarket. I picked up a movie magazine, there are some really good movie magazines here. I also so one of my teachers there. I know he noticed me, but he didn't say anything to me. I saw him again a few minutes later, but I didn't have the courge to say anything. Plus I wasn't 100% sure if it was him, for I thought he lived in Ryujin which would be like and hour and half drive for him. But it turns out it was him, because I later found he lives in Wakayam city now. Oh well.
And that Wednesday was so sad. All the teachers that were appointed new positions somewhere else, all came into the BOE here and said good-bye. I mean I have only been here for about 7 months. I hardly know anyone, yet I felt sad and was sad to see everyone go. On the other hand there are still a lot teachers and people that are staying whom I get along with great. The new teachers seem just ok, but they could turn out to be cool. Too early to tell.
Friday night was interesting though. Derrek, the ALT in Hidaka, held an onomiyaki party at his house. About 12 peopel showed up and we chatted the night away. Most people drank, I had to hold off because I was driving. It lasted until about 2 am. The next morning, Saturday, was sort of like a test for me in the shodou. I had to write out the poem using special hand made ink, suzuri. I think my practice attempt turned out better than the final, but it gets so hard. My arm was actually a bit sore after that. I am just really really out of shape. Well I don't think that I have ever been in shape to be out of it though. I should start. Following the shodou we had lunch outside at her house. We ate yaki-soba, which is soba noodles and other stuff thrown into table top cooker, and just pick what you want as you go. I was pretty tired though. I had to go home and nap. I napped until about 5ish. I suppose to go to Ryujin and meet up with some folks before Aaron's folk concert with his father. Well I made it out there, but the other people decided to eat somewhere else. Well, ok, so hunted down the community center, which was a massive white building set up on this cliff. The concert was awesome and they played a bunch of old tunes, even some classic Japanese ones like Sakura. There were a ton of ALTs there. Afterwards we went and invaded the Gusto in Gobo. This place is like a Denny's. They have one really cool service too, the drink bar. All you can drink coffee, soda, tea, and soup. Though the soup is sort of not up to par. Plus they have a good burger and classic fries which they actually serve with ketchup. Wow. Our gaijin group disbanded after that. It was my first time at Gusto, and nice place.
Sunday was a nice day too. It was really warm out and somewhat sunny, but as the day wore on it became cloudy and sullen and little cold. My plan for the day was to hike up a mountain, not a big one, in Mihama-chou, which is on the ocean here on the Kii peninsula. I thought that it was going to be like 4 ALT's, pleasantly it was like 10 ALT's and like 15 Japanese folk. The Japanese folk were all friends of Corri who is the ALT in Mihama. She seems to be very popular there and had a ton of friends. She organized this great hike too. Also on a side note, Mihama and my place Miyama always get mixed up with people too. Corri's one good Japanese friend who really helped here out had read an article about me as the Miyama ALT back in Novemeber. She's the first person that I've met outside of Miyama that I've met who has read that article. Some of the Japanese people where some of Corri's junior High kids and other's were friends of her friend. Some of them were some nurses that lived in Mihama that worked at the hospital in Gobo.
So anyways, we all hiked up this mountain. Candice, from Gobo, kept seeing snakes and freaking out. I only saw the tail of one snake that almost gave her a heart attack. I saw a few little lizard guys, but that was about it. It took about an out to hike to the top, some places were pretty steep. Two little pre-schools made the walk too, so it wasn't too much of a hike. At the top we hand and awesome view of Gobo and the HIdaka river flowing in to the ocean. We also had an awesome picnic and played some games. I won the jelly bean contest. I guessed 773 when the count was 883. Just before we were about to leave a storm front rolled it. It rained for about 15 minutes, but let up just in time for us to make a scary walk down. It was scary because the paved path, everything is paved in Japan, was pretty slippery. Everyone almost wiped out. Right when we made it to the bottom the skies opened up again and it poured. One of the nurse girls was nice of enough to hold her umbrella over me as the group said farewell to each other. This storm actually had thunder and lightning in it. A rarity here. Only the second time I have witnessed it here. With the rain came a cold front and it went from like 70 degrees to 50 in 5 minutes. Later we congregated in Corri's abode for some chill time. Most people left, but 3 of us, Corri, Candice, and I went over to Gusto to take advantage of the bottomless coffee at their drink bar.
All in all and very pleasant weekend. I am feeling more comfortamble about my area and going out too. I don't feel like I am in bubble any more. The area is starting to feel like a new home. I understand the geography of the area pretty well now too.
I still got a huge jar of jelly beans to work on now.
