Matsuyama, FINALLY!
After a 4 hour train ride, and constant reassurance to my aunt and uncle that i'd be fine, I arrived in Matsuyama. Even though every little city in Japan likes to tout itself as home of one thing or another, Matsuyama has fame as the home of the Haiku; the setting for Botchan, a famous Japanese novel; and the location of the first English school in Japan.
It's surprising that this city has so many literary claims to fame. I feel inspired to compose a Haiku in honor of this city. (yes, I'm being serious)
my japanese home
not too big and not too small
I am excited
Matsuyama is sister cities with Freiburg, Sacramento, and Pyeongtaek in South Korea. it also has the oldest bathhouse in Japan. I'm excited to see the inside of that.
I met up with Ashleigh after a confusing bus ride and some dumb luck on the street car. I was so stoked to find that Matsuyama still has street cars! The rest of Japan has done away with them with preference for subways.
The apartment is comfortable. It's not huge, but it's not tiny. I think it's a good size for 2 people. Ashleigh said it could probably hold a small Japanese family, and I think that it would be pushing to be a little too small. Our neighbors upstairs and next door are teachers at the kindergarten where Ashleigh is working.
Ashleigh got here 4-5 days before me, and spent quite a bit of time cleaning and buying things for the apartment. When I got here, I also spent a lot of time cleaning and buying things for the apartment. I was reminded severely of college.
It had the same kind of "filth" from college. I now understand why Japanese have a negative view on foreigners living in their apartments. The teachers that come here probably view this as a temporary situation, they're here for a year, and they're gone. Each teacher makes the place dirtier and dirtier every year. And they leave because they think the place is disgusting and don't do anything to remedy that. So it gets worse.
Ashleigh and I worked pretty hard to scrub and clean and decorate and move stuff around so that we could be comfortable here. I think we've finally reached that level, thanks to the 100Yen shops, the closeness of the malls and such around here, and some of the furniture left behind by the previous people here.
Whoever gets this place after us is going to be super lucky.
It's good that we're living together because we've got quite a bit of stuff that we couldn't buy on our own. Since we're sharing things, we got shelves, dishes, kitchen ware, cookware, furniture, etc.
It's super nice.
Now all we need is for you to come visit (-:
The city of Matsuyama is pretty nice, too. It's not as crazy as Tokyo or Osaka, but it's still a half a million people, and has nearly everything that those other cities have.
Ashleigh's school, Aiko Yochien, had a problem getting a teacher in from Canada. Apparently, she had some problem with her visa, and now it's going to take a month to get her in. Interestingly enough, Ashleigh had a boyfriend who's an English teacher looking for work. They've hired me on, showed me a few videos of previous teachers, and now I get to sing and dance and play games with 2-3 year olds!
I sing and dance kids songs anyways, but now I get to do it in front of kids and get paid. That's pretty damn cool. It's a super far reach from the Big R, I'll tell you that much.
I'm going to contact the other school that supposed to hire me in June to see if they're still interested in me for part time work. I hope so, since this Canuck I'm temping for is sposed to be here in the beginning of May.
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