Scary roads and cliffs. Cool views. Next time I’ll bring my real camera.

 

I guess I’m the new assistant soccer coach?

Okayama Theme Park with the 3rd year students.

 

Yukino wants to go outside, so I let her. I thought it wasn’t such a bad idea until the neighbors came to pet her and she ran away!
When I found her I thought, “Better buy a leash and take her on walks.” But in order to go for a walk you need a collar, and that didn’t go over so well.

I went to Nara with my coworker Yoshida Sensei. It was pretty neat, the temple is enormous, and the deer suck.

You probably shouldn’t look at these photos, most are pretty awful.

 

Genius.

Kentaro and I took a drive around Oboke and Iya valley. It was maybe an hour, hour and a half loop of pure beauty. The water is so clear you can see the bottom no matter how deep it is, and the valleys are so big you can’t even see the bottom. Really, these photos don’t do it justice.

 

What do you do when you find yourself peeing in a field, you don’t recognize any plants, you feel pretty drunk, and you don’t have a clue where you are?

Well, if your me right now, you do nothing. In fact, you even cancel plans of a more certain nature, just so you can see what happens “around the river bend”.

And it was worth it, every minute (I wrote that the moment I got back home, it was actually really painful the next day). On Friday, I was invited to the yearly firefighter softball tournament. It was great, and I have been invited to the volunteer fire corps in the next village, the local awa dance team,  the softball league, and to the home of the parents of some of my students.

The volunteer firemen in Mino are pretty much what you’d expect from a volunteer fire corp. Pretty crass, in a good way, and ready to have a good dinner beer with the guys. The firehouse, however, is one tatami room and a small garage containing the “Fire Truck”: an old Toyota pickup, painted red with some fire hoses on the back.

Right, so I forgot that softball, does not immediately connect to drinking outside the fire station, so I’ll elaborate. The softball game started at 9:00, my team played three games, and we won the tournament. I had intended to play some outfield position or something, but the Japanese being the Japanese, I was made the pitcher.

– Let me just say right here, that EVERYTHING I have done in Japan has been done headfirst, with or without my intention –

After the tournament, there was a yakiniku and beer party. I drank way too much as it seems is my problem these days. The conversation lingered around annoying wives, the size of foreign penises, and things of that nature. The next day I gave a not so lively introduction speech at Shibou elementary, which I felt pretty bad about. But all has ended well and will perhaps be described another time.

This was a long week; a full seven days. I have to write about a lot. I also just read the journally thing I was writing for the first two weeks, and I’m going to post it on here because I feel that it’s:

• really interesting
• useful for other prospective JETs
• it feels like such a long time ago now

So, I apologize for writing a post about a post I’m going to write. I just want to write it well, and tonight I have a work party to attend.

Also, I have some photos to put up, but I need to buy a microSD card before I can get them on the computer.

Just some words of encouragement from a friendly Japanese textbook:

You will be embarrassed if you cannot write the kanji

It’s a good thing that being embarrassed is my new forte.