Welcome to the jungle! (my town)
Trip Start
Jun 27, 2009
1
2
47
Trip End
Jun 25, 2011
Nachikatsuura,
Japan
Thursday, August 10, 2006
Its basically this fake underground jail. You go inside and go right into a haunted house type thing, things popping out of walls, moving floors, etc...we were laughing the whole time and couldnt believe there could possibly be a restaurant at the end of it. We get down there (it was really dark, there were only a few black lights) and there are these women in really skimpy jail outfits, and they handcuffed the first girl in our group and lead us to our 'cell' where we sat on the floor to have dinner. They locked the cell door and came back a few minutes later to take our order. THEN...there was loud thunder sound and we were told the show was about to start...these 'monsters' start running around to all the cells and scaring everyone, everyone is screaming, then they have someone on the loud speaker saying 'the monster is loose! the monster is loose! save yourself!' and after about 5 minutes of this craziness, you hear the jail people 'shoot' the monster, and the voice on the loudspeaker says 'you are safe! the monster is dead!' and everyone cheers. it was so surreal, there are thinsg like this all over japan...its so strange because outside this restaurant you have business men walking by on their cellphones coming home from work at 10pm.
the next morning we met as a prefecture, and boarded a bus to a local airport. our flight was almost cancelled due to the typhoon, so we were going to take the shinkansen (bullet train) oh well! the flight was quick, and beautiful!!! the mountains are so green and look similar to those in hawaii, and the water is so blue. we were met at the gate by our supervisor 'Shima-san' and another man named 'Naka-san'. They were holding the cutest sign ever that said 'WELCOME!! "Catherine" & "Lily" Nachikatuura BOE We seperated from our other friends in the prefecture as we were whisked away to different cars, busses,and trains. I felt like I was being adopted because I didn't know how to talk to them! Thank god Lily was with me, it would have been so much more awkward if she wasnt there.
Shima-san told us the drive to Nachikatsura would be 4 hours. We drove along the coast for about 45 minutes, normal highway type roads, and then the highway stops. It became 2 way roads that were SO windy. We went through a million realy long tunnels too. But the view was beautiful, large green hills and towns on the left, and beautiful clear blue water on the right, huge waves and really cool rock formations. We stopped everyone 45 minutes or so and Shima-san would say "Let's have a rest" which we learned quickly meant cigarette break. Everyone smokes in Japan..well mostly men. And you can do it inside, wherever..The whole ride to our town we were speaking in broken English and Japanese, Lily and I were using a dictionary and Shima-san and Naka-san were using theirs.
When we arrived they took us right to our appartment, which looks pretty run-down from the outside. Lily and I like to make it sound nicer so we've started saying we live in a 'gated community' because theres a huge fence around it, with a really old gate. They gave us the keys to our place and walked us up to our appartments. I'm on the 3rd floor and Lily is right above me. There are probably 24 appartments in our building, and Shima-san thinks we might have one other person living in the building. It's set up like a motel though you walk outside to get to your appt. The insides are pretty nice, spacious, just SO HOT. theres only one AC in my bedroom that kind of works, and I have a really REALLY bad mattress on a Western style twin bed. The bathroom is so funny, theres one room for the toilet and one for the shower/sink. The bathtub is really used as a soaking tub in Japan so it is about 1/2 the size of our tubs, square shaped, and about 3 1/2 feet deep. It's so scary Lily and I both vowed never to get in it. I feel like I would never be able to climb out its so deep! So we just use the hand held shower because you can get the whole room wet. We went to dinner (ironically at a Chinese restaurant) with 6 other BOE people, had lots of food, and awkward conversations...then they took us to the supermarket to get food, and followed us around and looked at everything we put in our baskets...they were like 'over here! bread-o' because we told them we liked bread. We unpacked a little and they said they would come back and get us at 8:30am for work at the Board of Education.
This morning we went to the BOE, put on the guest slippers to go inside and met all the BOE people (which is only 7). No one has offices or cubicles in Japan, everyone just sits in one big room where all the desks are pushed together in 3 rows. A few of the men have these fish bowls full of plants and there are guppies swimming around in them. There's only one woman in the whole office, and I'm pretty sure part of her job is to serve tea to everyone throughout the day.
We didnt stay there long because we had a lot to do, Shima-san took us to city hall to register for what's so nicely called an "Alien Registration Card", and while we waited for that to go through, we went to the post office, bank to set up accounts, and the store to set up cellphones. Shima-san also drove us around town and showed us the train stations, and Nachi Beach. We also stopped by the fishyard to see the Sakana (fish) being unloaded from the boats. There were gigantic tuna, shark, and swordfish (which they promptly hack the nose off of). When we were driving around we would often have to slow down to let small bulldozers full of tuna and swordfish pull out infront of us.
I told Shima-san I wanted to buy a pillow because the pillow the bought us is literally full of packing peanuts. APparently that's what they sleep on here. So Lily and I told him that in the States pillows are very fluffy and made of 'kotton'. So he took us to a bedding store where we were showed more pillows full of packign peanuts, then finally they understood and handed us these 2 pillows that are kind of fluffy. They were still half full of those stupid peanuts. But we didnt have another option unless we wanted to spend $80 on one of those really squishy theraputic neck pillows. But the ones we bought are probably equivalent to the worst pillow you have ever used, its so thick and hard, almost like a sandbag...and we had to spend $30 for it!!! insane- but i am not sleeping on packing peanuts for a year, thats for sure!
Now we're back at the BOE, very happy to be in AC and using the computer. I won't have internet for a while because I have to apply for service. I think Lily and I are goign to go back to our appartments and then bike to the beach on our rusty old bikes from the 60's...its too hot to do anythign else. It's very humid just like DC, but the temperature right now is close to 100 degrees.
