gnome factories

Over the last few days the mountains in the area have been covered by a mist. I sometimes think that there are like little gnome factories in the mountains in the trees that are giving off plumes of white smoke. Sounds crazy but it sort of looks like that if you can imagine that. I stare at the mountains every day. I am still not used to being around them or surrounded by them.
Well the last month has had some difficult times but also a ton of great times. Most recently was today about 15 minutes ago. I am right now at Nakatsu junior high school, which is really in the mountains. You don't heard cars going by because there are no major roads around for miles. It's a pretty tranquil area infact. Other than the PE teacher who is constantly making load snorting sounds, you can pretty much hear everything that is going on in the school. This school is my biggest school with 70 students. Well I was assigned to this school today, Wednesday. I usually come here on Thursdays though. So it is a little out of the ordinary and I am just sitting here at my desk talking to teachers, thinking about new lesson ideas, trying to remember kid's names, and reading the newspaper when all of a sudden the principal asks me to come for a ride in his silver FairladyZ and go to the post office. Shit ya. It was such a smooth ride. It is has like more than double the power of my Toyata Sprinter. But it also costs like twice as much as my car as it was when it was new. So the principal is pretty cool. He also invited me to go hang out with the students when they go to Osaka next Wednesday. I have to pick one of the six students groups to hang out with in Osaka during their Osaka 'Town Telling' meeting at the end of the day.
Yesterday I did something new too. I went fishing. I have gone fishing like a million years ago on Lake Michigan, but this was more formal in that I had a real rod with a lure and everything. I even had the fisherman's vest on. I went with the third graders from Miyama JHS to a small dammed up part of the river that is sort of near the school, about a 10 mintue bus drive. The principal from that school is also really kind and let me use one of his new rods, reels, and lures. He showed me how to work everything and cast. It was enjoyable for awhile until the kids got out of hand with throwing burrs at each other and me. Storm clouds rolled in it started to to thunder a bit, but provided a nice cool breeze. I was not disappointed that I didn't catch any fish. We were fishing for bass not ayu which is real popular in my area and that is some serious river fishing where people use uber long poles that are like 20 feet long and wade in the river.
Last night I also checked out the Gobo masturi for a little while after going to Miyoko's for a nice meal and chat with some other ALTs. The masturi took place in a blocked off secetion of a semi-major road. The road was line with little food stands and game stands. There were serverl mikoshi's with facepainted kids in them taikoing away in them. It took almost 20 men to keep one mikoshi moving around and from falling, it did tip a bunch though but I think that was to add to some drama to the display. So the week has been pleasant so far.
I am glad for that because the weekend was a little rough. I attened two undoukais, sports festivals. One was at Miyama JHS and the other at Sougawa ES, on Saturday and Sunday respectively. I scraped my knee during a big game of musical stools on Saturday. I also did some dancing and got pretty far in the quiz game. One question was if July 4th is America's independence day. After the question was read like 30 people looked at me and to where I was going to go, to the 'true' side or the 'false' side. The last questions was false, so I was already in the false section, so where most of the people. So I waited and waited int he 'false' side until the very last second and then dove into the 'true' side. I think I managed to eleminate about 20 poeple with that move.
Both of the evenings of Saturday and Sunday were nomikais. One was at a Japanese style hotel in Miyama, and the one on Sunday was in the ES gym. Saturday's one was weird. It was the JHS teachers and some of the students' parents, about 30 people in all. We ate and then drank, they loved that I could drink sake and shouchu and of course beer. So I did that, I have no problem with the taste, I don't think many foreigners have any problems with the taste, it is just a pre-notion that foreigns don't like Japanese alcohol I guess some Japanese think this way. The only problem is that the drink is more like a spirit so it takes awhile for it to catch up with up you, but when it does it's 'BAM.' So I managed the drinking on Saturday and was felt fine enough to do it on Sunday again, but not as hard. In both cases some benevolent teachers drive me home. There was some crazy cross-dressing going on on Saturday night. I was a nurse with tits and danced to O-Zone with some other ladies, they were real ladies, except one other. Later on that night one father got into a red dress with no pants on. His dance was awful, he would turn to the audience and slowly raise the back of the dress up so you could see his ass. A teacher sitting near me adverted his eyes and kept saying 'minai, minai'(don't look, don't look) I heeded his advice. At the other party I met a group of early 20-something guys who were asking me to translate sexual questions like what is the word in English for 'ana-kyodai,' I didn't know, am not sure if there is a word. Ana-kyodai is the relationship that two guys share after having had sex with the same girl, but that could have been accomplished over a long period of time but I guess if it happened in the same night that would count too. So two of the guys that I met were 'ana-kyodai' with a girl that was not there. They also asked me some personal questions too. The guy asking all the questions was married and has a kid with one on the way, his wife was there too. But they were coold guys and were happy to have me there and we drank during the party and some good laughs.
Oh and the weekend before I went to Osaka with Derek. We met up with Joe and did some shopping and went to Yodabashi Camera in Umeda.
Last Tuesday I attempted the driving course in Wakayama at the Wakayama DMV for the 3rd time, and passed finally. I was really fucking nervous, more nervous than I can ever remember. Since my permit had expired a few weeks before I was having to be driven to my far away schools and was told not to drive anywhere by my BOE. It was tough peroid. I hit a curb during my first attempt in one of the narrow winding parts of the course. The second time I made a sharp right turn and sort of turned into the on-coming traffic lanes on the course. It is a closed course with no one else on the course but you and maybe one other person being tested. So there was nothing to really remind you of the traffic is flowing and where to be looking. So you really have to pretend and over-act every in ever situation and glance. On my 3rd and fianl visit I ran into another Wakayama JET whom I know and he passed too. He came with his supervisor by car, I came by train and by myself. We were a happy bunch and Chris' supervisor took us out to lunch. We then hit up Tanake Electronics for some shopping. Chris' supervisor is so cool that he drove me all the way back to Miyama, which was probably a total of about 50 minuntes out of the way for him. So that was a great and wonderful Tuesday.
Austrailians came and visited Nakatsu last Thursday and Friday and I hung with them both those days. Their group was 10 ES students and 4 teachers. Thursday involved some sightseeing and welcoming while Friday was spent at the JHS here and there was a bunch of planned events. For lunch was ate somen, white noodles, but they way you had to eat them was you had to catch them in a stream of water while they floated down inside a cut-in-half peice of bamboo. It was cut lenght-wise and set-up like a mini-aqueduct. There were 4 these set-up outside to feed everyone. You also had a small bamboo cup with some sauce in it. So you grabbed, dunked, and then ate. It took awhile to fill myself up.