My clock recently ticked over and I am now entering my 3rd year in Japan. I still haven’t decided if I want to stay. I re-contracted for another year with the intention of pulling out if I changed my mind. This is not encouraged by JET but they prefer it to deciding to leave and then trying to change your mind. So, unless something goes terribly wrong I will be here are another year.
This is part of the reason I have not written and entry in so long – I am now pretty much on round 3 of the same thing. I don’t mean to sound bored or ungrateful but it is a job and it has become routine. So here are some of the things I have been up to in the last few weeks.
August has been a pretty busy month. I was a group leader at the English camp where my team were robbed of first place. They came second despite winning 3 out of the 6 activities. I had great kids though and it was nice to spend time with students who actually want to speak English.
A friend from Miyazaki came through to Oita with her friend and I played co-host in showing them the sites. The one night that they were here we went to a 6-story entertainment arcade in Oita called Round 1. It is beyond belief. The first floor is just arcade game machines. Floors 4 and 5 were an indoor sports centre with single player golf, tennis, soccer, darts, archery, bull riding, exercise equipment, billiards, rollerblading, shooting and a bunch of other things I can’t recall off hand. Though my personal favourite has to be the fishing pool. Actual fishing. You could rent a rod and sit by the indoor pool in the hopes of catching a fish. It was totally bizarre. Then on the 6th floor roof they have the same selection of sports but big enough for team participation. We didn’t get that far. We spent nearly 4 hours on floors 4 and 5 alone. Somewhere in between is a spa and bowling. It is the ADHD sufferers dream.
August has also been the month of summer festivals. I went to Himeshima again this year for the Fox Dance Festival or Bon Odori. I dragged along some of the other ALTs from my area and I was made to lament the lack of accessibility that my peninsula suffers from.
Summer is the time for fireworks and of course more festival food. The firework displays are really spectacular and go on for ages. I always expecting them to be short lived, as it would be in South Africa, but these last almost an hour. I managed to get to 2 this year. I would have tried a third but it would have meant 3 festivals in a row and my stomach can only handle so much delicious fried food. Of the two I attended, one in Kunisaki and one in Kamegawa in Beppu, Kunisaki’s was the best in terms of fireworks. At one point it felt like I was going to be showered with sparks when they exploded almost directly overhead. The only thing about that festival is that almost every student at my school attended it. So for the first hour I was bombarded with students and almost tackled at one point. It is great being popular but when you can hardly move 3 steps without being ambushed by underage paparazzi.
Otherwise life continues as normal and summer is spent sweating, complaining about the sweating, killing gianormous spiders and mukade, complaining about the insects and eating copious amounts of ice cream.
I suppose it could be worse :)
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