week 12

Not a lot to report this week. School was ok although teachers decided to cancel heaps of my lessons because of preparation for the mid term exams. Obviously being English I am unable to help the students prepare for their ENGLISH exams grrrrrrr…..


On monday the maruoka people were at the matsuri to see if anything wonderful and amazing happened on the second day of the festival....it didnt. we missed the main events and procession which had been during monday whilst we were at school. we still hung around and ate some yummies though- and some weird gloopy thing!









I visited a different elementary school on Thursday. Hyogoe is a lot smaller than Ozeki the school I visited a few weeks ago. It was also a lot harder to teach the kids. Not only were the teachers very unresponsive to me and looked like they didn’t really want me there, they failed to help during my classes or to control some of the naughty little ones. The lessons went quite well nonetheless and I especially enjoyed watching the kids wrap each other in toilet roll to make themselves look like mummies for Halloween.






On Saturday I spent a day with Meagan in Ono. We visited the Hakusan shrine which was situated in the middle of a very atmospheric forest. The trees were incredibly tall and had the ability of making one feel rather insignificant. There was also a glorious familiar smell of trees, moss and damp bark. It was a smell I hadn’t smelt for a long time. There were a couple of small shrines on lower levels of this forest slope. We were lucky enough to see a monk chanting at one of the shrines with his bell and prayer beads. The sound was as it always is, like a rhythm that streams through your ears and so smoothly around your head. There was something very special about this hidden shrine in the middle of nature. It felt like a tranquil place to be, especially with the gorgeous sunlight trickling through the canopy and highlighting the green spindly finger-like appearance of some of the moss.

























After walking around the forest looking for bears, we drove to katsyama museum which is situated within a huge traditional style Japanese building built by a millionaire who grew up in the area. He began building it in 1989 and finished about 5yrs later. It is a spectacular sight although it was slightly odd because everything was obviously brand spanking new inside and it just didn’t seem right! We went up in an elevator to the 6 different floors and had a look at some of the artifacts on show. I especially enjoyed looking at the coats of arms on display. Each was so elaborate and really quite scary. I’m not surprised that people use to be scared of the Japanese warriors in battles. The masks they wore were terrifying and some had hair attached to them for moustaches and beards too. We were also hoping to visit the Buddha statue in Ono but we were too late. But it was nice to spend time in the local area seeing some of the beautiful sights of Fukui.



















Saturday evening I went to a gaming center with John and Kim to go bowling and play air hockey (wearing the new boots I bought at Lpa earlier in the day- yes I found shoes to fit by huuuge feet, quite embarrassing being a LLL though). The center was soooo noisy because of the gambling machines, and incredibly smokey too. It was also really busy. Although the Japanese work like silly people all day and night, you can always be sure that the pachinko parlors and gaming centers will be thriving! Nice to know the mafia are making a nice living (they apparently own all of them). Bowling was fun, but not quite as fun as getting the sexy bowling shoes from a vending machine- that was exciting. John ‘professional bowler’ McMillan stole the show even when he decided to play left-handed! We were put to shame. But at least I won a game of air hockey against him! Get in! we then headed into Fukui to meet other JETS at Bears bar. It was nice to chat with them as I don’t get the chance to meet up with them that often. The evening turned rather sour however when we had a little encounter with the mafia….




We had parked the car in a little parking area near to Bears. There were no signs to say we couldn’t and so we thought we’d be fine especially as we were only planning on being there for a few hours. When we returned to the car there were two cars blocking us in and 5 shady looking characters around the cars. John and kim pretended to not speak the lingo (I didn’t have to pretend) and acted like poor defenseless Gaijins who were sorry for whatever heinous crime they had committed but were wanting to go home. It didn’t work. Mr yakuza with big sunglasses (it was midnight) wanted the manager of Bears to come out to help extract stupid amounts of money from us. Apparently we had parked in a spot that this fellow and his chums rent out. Inside the car were his chums who were organizing a pinboard which had hanging from it, row upon row of what looked to be different house and car keys… hmmmm. Well to save getting beaten up, robbed, having the tyres slashed or other such behaviour, john handed over the money and we left. I was really angry at being treated like that but we really didn’t have much choice to hand over the money. not a good end to the evening. We now know where not to park in fukui….

On Sunday I played tennis and then went into fukui to have sushi with jill, bruce, ryan, shari and Lauren. Was nice to be with them and have a giggle. We followed our sushi with the obligatory Seattles coffee which rocked. I then took bruce and jill on an adventure to Uniqlo where I bought the nicest pjs in the world EVER. Pink fleece with blue and white spots. They are-as my fellow Americans have taught me-‘sweet’.