Gaijin Girl

thank god for respect for elders day!  it provides the same type of post-summer vacation relief as labor day does for workers who hate mondays back in the states!  (except for millsaps college attendees, as i so sorely remember….)  anyway, so today i have the day off work, and i have spent it talking to josh about our options for his upcoming surgery.  for those of you who don’t know already, he will be having a basal cell cancerous spot on his nose removed on October 22.  i think the procedure will be fairly minor, but the nose is quite a sensitive spot for surgery, and we are hoping and praying that the cut will be as minimal as possible and not cause any damage to his tissue, leave a huge scar, nor be too damaging to his beautiful nose shape.  fortunately we both feel really comfortable with the japanese medical system from our experiences here so far, and the insurance benefits are quite good and affordable.  of course the language barrier is always an issue, but a bilingual friend of ours is helping us out a lot with the negotiations and decision-making process.  anyway, of course, josh is doing fine but is definitely dreading the surgery date.  i am just glad we caught the bastard cancerous thingie now while we can do something about it, and he will be ok!!  if any of you would like to send him a personal message, please e-mail me or leave a comment here, and i can send you his e-mail address and/or our mailing address.

so now i would like to tell you about what we did in may, which was one of my absolute favorite times in japan.  at the beginning of may was golden week, kinda like a late spring break in japan.  anyway, josh and i spent three days and nights of this week on a trip to niijima island, one of the best surfing spots in the world!  we went with an outdoor adventure gaijin (foreigner) group, with whom we’ve actually done several trips.  the first night consisted of taking a ferry to the island

(notice the non-japanese flag on the ship, not sure what is up with that?), and we slept in bunk “beds” in several rows in the ship.  i write “beds” because they were basically just raised compartments of carpeted floor–absolutely no padding or anything else of any comfort typical of most bed-like structures.  the ferry ride was beautiful, with views of giant ferris wheels and distant well-lit harbors across the bay on our way to the island.  anyway, sharing our “bed” area was a group of five friends who happened to live within walking distance of one of the schools where josh teaches (about 2 hours from our house!)  we ended up totally hitting it off with them and hanging out with them almost the whole weekend.  we remained close friends with the other couple in our group from that weekend, although they have recently left japan for australia & are dearly missed! 

so after a basically sleepless night on the fake beds, we were awakened by lights turning on and noises of fake birds chirping (seriously, this was the “alarm” for each stop on the ferry) when it was almost time for us to leave the boat.  as sleepy and grumpy as i was, i was happy to discover sights such as this when i stepped down from the boat ramp into the sunshine:

i sleepily followed our group on a short walk to the bicycle rental shops, pausing to take in sights such as this along the way:

finally i ended up with this tiny, permanently flat-tired, squeaking-braked beauty of a bicycle, which we promptly took on a ride to the surfing beach after setting up our tents in the park:

after eating lunch and exploring the small island a bit, we went to an onsen that was clearly inspired by greek architecture.  it was definitely an interesting experience.  there were four pools of varying temperatures, the very top one overlooking the beautiful ocean, but it was rather cold and drizzly while we were there, so we mostly stuck to the lower pools, which were much warmer.

our second day was spent beaching it and attending a local festival.  josh decided to try to catch some waves, and i headed to another onsen (hot springs) overlooking the ocean and a glass museum displaying items crafted using a rare stone that is found only in two places in the world–niijima island and somewhere in italy.  it was quite beautiful and a really nice day.  that evening when we returned to camp for dinner, we were greeted by a torrential wind storm.  little did we know that we were in for a completely sleepless night, when others’ tents would blow on top of ours, sometimes tearing the fabric and rendering their owners essentially homeless for the night.  we packed one guys’ belongings into our tiny tent and gave him one of our sleeping bags, while he tried to sleep just outside our tent, pushing against our tent for warmth every now and then.  a bunch of people decided to just give up attempting to sleep and sat up inside (or outside) their makeshift (or destroyed) shelters for the night playing cards, drinking, laughing, and screaming at the sounds of the ferocious wind, which made sleep for those of us with well-protected tents even more impossible.  however, in the morning, we couldn’t help but laugh.  in the light of the calm beautiful day, the cold destroying wind didn’t seem so theatening, and the piles of mulitcolored tent canvas strewn all around the grass looked comical and almost beautiful.  here is just some of the damage that was caused at the beginning of the storm.

so ours is the closest yellow tent on the right.  check out how much better we fared than our neighbors on our left, who happened to be some of our dear friends.

the bikes weren’t quite the same after the storm. 

so the next morning, not exactly rested but determined to see more of the island, we ventured out on a hike (which actually turned out to be more of a walk on a paved road) to a lookout point with some friends.  we got too hungry to make it all the way to the top, but we did get a nice view:

after lunch josh and i headed to a sculpture park next to our campsite, which was really one of the strangest and most wonderful places ever.  this is just one of many interesting things we saw that day:

after that it was time for one last trip to the beach before boarding the ferry again:

and this is how we spent the way home on the ferry:

it was such a great trip; i’d love to go back someday!!

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so i need to take a little break from all this presidential campaigning nonsense to relive one of my favorite times in japan–hanami, which means “cherry blossom time” (or something).  i find it very interesting how so many eloquent japanese words lend themselves to clumsy multi-word translations in english.  anyway, in this case pictures speak louder than words.

here i am at a park in our city after a picnic with my japanese class:

here is the outside of the community center where i take japanese class:

the blossoms only last a few days and then start to fall, so hanami parties have to be timed perfectly.

of course we also went to kamakura, where we saw beautiful blossoms, but the sights in our own city were very lovely, and i was sorry when the last of the blossoms were swept away (by the diligent street sweepers–as in people with brooms and dustpans, not some noisy truck or something-employed in ageo city; i am not kidding.)

in april we also went to a wonderful earth day celebration at yoyogi park in harajuku, and i experienced my very first gynocological visit in japan, which is probably a story only for those really curious.  anyway, after a lot of confusion and knee pain from japanese-sized stirrups, i left feeling slightly less confused and even a little accomplished.  stay tuned for more exciting updates. 

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