Day trips, christmas parties
Trip Start
Jun 27, 2009
1
16
47
Trip End
Jun 25, 2011
Hongu, Nachikatsuura, Kumano,
Japan
Monday, December 18, 2006
So here's what I've been up to in the past few weeks...
After being here 5 months, Lily and I finally decided to venture up to the massive hotel that looms over our town. The only way to reach the hotel is by boat, as it's on a small mountainous island nearby. We had no idea what it would be like inside, but came to find out there are 7 onsen all spread out throughout the hotel! The hotel has rooms for over 2,000 people and looks empty most of the time. Apparently it fills up (a little bit) during big holidays. Still I'm not sure why they needed to make it quite so large...seems like a lot of money must be lost through the heating/electric bills, but anyways...not my problem
01 lily in the space walker escalator
! The Japanese love stamps that represent you have been somewhere, every shrine/temple I've visited so far has one at the entrance, as well as many onsen. Many people carry around stamp books just for this purpose. Lily and I took a stamp sheet where we would stamp each onsen we visited. Using the map the hotel staff gave us we set off to our first onsen of the day.
One part of the hotel is built on sea level, facing the town and port, but the other part is on top of the "mountain" and some rooms have 360 views of the town, mountains, and pacific! There is a huge covered escalator that crawls 36 floors up the mountain, the English translation for it is "The Space Walker" - haha...so we went up to the top and visited the "Jungle Onsen" which had a ton of tropical plants surrounding all of the hot baths, enclosed in sort of a green house type building. There was also an outdoor section to this bath where you could bathe while looking down at the town - very cool. Since the hotel is pretty much vacant, or maybe it's not, it's just so big you never feel like anyone else is there...I was able to take pictures inside the onsen! Don't worry, there aren't any naked people in them :) We did a mini hike while at the top of the mountain also, passing a shrine, large torii gates and of course, a karaoke bar. We then went back inside the hotel and down to the first floor to visit the "Cave Onsen", which were literally in a cave, with a low lying rock ceiling. That one was cool, but a bit claustrophobic after a few minutes. After about 5 hours of walking around we had finished all of the onsen, and needless to say were very clean.
I've been doing my Christmas lessons at each of my 7 schools, it's been going well - but just like every other lesson - I'm ready for it to be over
02 1st panaromic view shot
. I'm teaching 8 vocabulary words: Christmas tree, stocking, presents, Santa Claus, candy cane, lights, reindeer, and snowman. I've played countless games of bingo, made hundreds of snowflakes (which the Japanese kids think is the coolest thing ever), and sang Jingle Bells one too many times. They enjoy my "realia" and inside my big gift bag I have a Santa suit, reindeer antlers, "presents", and a stocking. I'm usually stuck in each class for 5 additional minutes while each kid tries on the Santa suit and runs around the classroom saying "Ho Ho Ho, Merry Christmas." I've also been showing pictures from America and activities we do during the holidays- they can't believe how big our Christmas cookies can be, that we actually bring LIVE Christmas trees inside our homes and water them, and they also wonder why the snowmen we build have 3 balls for their bodies (Japanese snowmen have 2). As far as I can tell Christmas isn't anything except another Hallmark holiday in Japan. Being a country so obsessed with anything cute that's animated/cartoon, the Japanese obviously love "Santa-san," reindeer, cute faux Christmas trees and all the other cheesy decorations that come along with Christmas. Just like in America too, you can't seem to escape the sounds of Christmas songs (in English!) everywhere you go. Most Japanese people (at least out here in the country where I live) do not receive Christmas presents, but rather money on New Years Day, the big winter holiday
03 2nd view
. Christmas Eve/Day is equivalent to our New Years Eve/Day and young people will often have a Christmas date and go out to a very expensive dinner and maybe a party afterwards. The Japanese follow the Chinese Zodiac calendar, 2006 is the year of the dog (my year, 1982!) ...and 2007 is the year of the pig (or Wild Boar as they call it in Japan). Signs at the train station, and local shrines are now changing, the dog is taken down and the boar is put up. A secretary at one of my schools, who thankfully speaks some English, told me that Japanese people eat wild boar, and that it's very delicious. Hopefully they are eating the ones that surround my apartment and tore up our trash recently! Apparently they're kind of mean and dangerous too, with their tusks and all. Thank god for Japan though, because I found a cute wild boar figurine at the 100 YEN store to compliment my winter flower arrangement in my living room - oh I'm becoming so Japanese it's scary!
Lily came to visit one of my elementary schools last week and we were lucky enough to visit on Marathon Festival Day! Apparently the Japanese think it will cleanse the body and toughen the kids up if they have them run long distances in the cold weather. Each class runs seperately, track and field style start, and then proceed to run a course through the neighborhood
04 3rd view
. Streets were blocked off by police men and parents and grandparents lined the narrow streets with cell phone camears in hand. Students were given a place card upon finishing and their times were recorded for their files. Lily ran with the first graders and I ran with the 2nd graders. It was fun, a nice day to be outside, and I only had to teach one class that day!The next weekend another ALT who we call "Hongu Dave" (so original....the name of his town is Hongu) had a housewarming party at his house. It's less than an hour from my town so Lily and I were both happy not to have to drive too far. As always the party was a lot of fun, good to see the other JET's from up north. Hongu also has 3 very famous onsen, one of which happens to be my favorite of the 12 onsen I've visited thus far. So before the party we went there which was so nice, dark outside, light rain, steam coming off the hot water - straight out of a movie! Dave has an amazing view from his living room, of none other than the largest torii gate in all of Japan, thus the world! After our Japanese breakfast at a new local restaurant, we spent some time exploring the gate and the area around it. Being the crazy, unpredictable gaijin (foreigners) that we are, some people ended up climbing the torii gate!! haha it was a funny sight, especially when Tristan found a large pole that he used to help him climb up the steep wall
05 4th view
. We ended our weekend in Hongu with another trip to my favorite onsen, twice in 2 days- I'm so lucky!!Katherine had a Christmas party this past weekend which was really nice, potluck and gift exchange. She even made cookies- a hard thing to do in Japan because they don't have ovens larger than 8 inches by 8 inches. Don't ask me why...Lily and I spent the day driving along the coast into Mie-ken, the neighboring prefecture, exploring Onigayjo caves along the coast. Too bad none of the information was in English, or else we would've been able to learn something about them...
We've been counting down the days until winter vacation, as I'm writing this I'm 3 days away from China/Thailand and only have 8 more classes to teach! It's definitely getting colder here, and I recently set up my kotatsu, which is a low table with a heater underneath. You lift up the table top, and place a special comforter underneath which spreads out beyond the table. Then you bring cushions, low chairs around it and everyone puts their legs underneath to stay warm. Why do the Japanese need these kotatsu's you ask? Because there's no central heating or insulation in Japanese homes or buildings. Basically all of my time is now spent sleeping (at least I don't feel the cold when I'm passed out), or under the kotatsu watching tv or on the computer. I'm also lucky that I have a heated toilet seat! My days at schools are spent teaching in my winter coat and sometimes gloves, outside running around to get warm, or in the teacher room. The teacher room is usually the one room in the school that's heated by a kerosene heater kept in the middle of the room - kind of smelly but it works. Could you imagine American schools operating with no heat? No way! I can hear the parent complaint now....
OK well next time I write it will be 2007 :)
Merry Christmas and Happy New Years everyone!!!
