Kokumin Shukusha Ashizuri Greenhouse Tosashimizu

... to the space bar (one reason I haven`t written more till now). The next morning I took a ferry to Yawatahama on the island of Shikoku. I was on the deck by chance to watch the pilot bow to the official on the dock who solemnly bowed back as we chugged out to sea exactly on time.

On the bus from Y. to Ozu: Modern Japan can be incredibly ugly and incredibly beautiful - electric lines everywhere, billboards, signs, concrete building blocks ...

... Station
910yen (about 10 dollars) from Beppu Station
Usuki is also accessible by ferry from Yahatahama Ehime, to Usuki Harbor (2hours and 15minutes)

Once you arrive at Usuki Station, you can get tourism brochures. With the English map that I found, I did the recommended walking route which is about 2 kilometers. There are also free bikes for tourists to borrow at the station and apparently these can be used to see the ancient Stone Buddah structures (6km from ...

... weren't quite as impressed, being used to the vibrant fall colours of the east coast, but generally the consensus was "wow!"

From the top of the rope-way there was a probably 15-20 minute leisurely hike to Joju a beautiful and quaint settlement nestled in the mountains around Ishizuchi. We decided this would be a good time to stop for ice cream, so we all took a few minutes to enjoy some very delicious soft-serve from a local vendor.

After riding to ...

... other smaller portable shrines down a very high set of stairs, followed by a brawl to collect the pieces.

I am not really sure of the significance of all this, but it was definitely interesting to watch! I will try to find out more about the meaning behind this festival and make another post about it at a later time.

For the first night of the festival Jess and I walked down to the water to watch them parade around. It was really ...

So many things to tell, and so little time!

My first week of teaching in Hojo has been very very busy, and very interesting. I have come home everyday too tired to even check email (so sorry for lack of communication, guys!). That being said, I am hoping to become used to the teaching routine and get my energy ...

When leaving Edmonton, I decided it was finally time to retire my 15 year old norco bush pilot. I left it unlocked in the bike rack at my apartment the day I moved out and hopefully by now someone is getting deteriorated black rubber handle grip all over their hands and cursing at the stuck pedal. Or maybe they have already gotten sick of it and thrown it in the river valley.

Anyway, in Japan everyone rides bikes. Go to any train ...

So we saw our first really cultural "touristy" type thing the other day. We were lucky enough to be placed only 25 minutes from one of the THREE places in Japan that still practices the traditional Cormorant fishing. I just want to make clear that this is NOT fishing for Cormorants, but with them. I'd also like to thank Etta ( one of the advisor people for the JET programme ) for putting this together and inviting us.

So there was twelve of us, 11 other ALTs and me and ...

... before we were in the air. Thank god for my trusty Nintendo DS and The Legend of Zelda.

The flight itself was uneventful, as is usually the case with my bad travel luck. I guess I should be thankful that my bad travel luck relates only to minor details such as missed planes, unstamped passports and fog and doesn't seem to effect important things like the engines.

Once in Kelowna, I spent the whole day with my brother who was leaving the next day to go ...

At some point through the flight, the entire in-flight entertainment system rebooted. Turns out its running on Linux. Pretty neat - yes I'm a geek - to see every screen on the plane with the little Linux penguin in the top left corner and the kernal boot messages scrolling up the screen.

... other one stated that it was the Ashizuri road so naturally that's the one we took. And our decision was bad. We ended up on the worst mountain roads we'd ever been on. They were so windy and so steep that we actually couldn't ride up them on our bikes. So we ended up walking our bikes most of the way, which was approximately 8 miles of mountain road. They were some good downhills for the last mile and a half but still, we were exhausted. But we'd made it. And the hostel owner ...