Shimoda

To my adoring and potentially disgruntled (long time no write) fans: a blog.

Putting me behind the handlebars of a bicycle without before having a can of coffee is a dangerous proposition. My existence is already in a hazy state due to the fact that I’m not wearing contacts. My glasses broke in half over a month ago so I’ve been relying entirely on my contacts for sight. Unfortunately I’m not a morning person and my eyes reject them if I try to put them in during the first two (waking) hours of my day. And it does take about that long to wake up. However, I have found that if I drink a can of coffee right after waking up, I have at least the superficial faculty of a fully conscious person. It’s a very odd sensation. I realize that I’m really tired, and my brain feels mushy, but somehow my body moves in these fluid and productive motions. By 10am I have even discovered several pages of completed work lying in a stapled pile on my desk.

Here is a brief bit I wrote in the morning hours at my apartment before coming to work:

“I could feel the coffee hit my vanes like sweet meth, icy and smooth. My heart rate increased like the slow turn of a dial until I was nowhere near the floor.”

You may be confused by “can” of coffee. Think can, like the ones Starbucks sometimes is found in at a gas station. These cans are found everywhere in all different brands and blends stacked in vending machines, konbinis (convenience stores), eki (train station) stands and grocery stores. In the summer vending machines dispense icy cold cans of coffee. In the winter they drop boiling hot cans (let me remind you cans are made of metal) that must be passed from hand to hand to prevent scalding. One interesting thing that I’ve discovered about cans here in Japan is that they are heavier than the cans in America which gives the impression that there’s a lot more liquid left than in actuality. Kind of disappointing when I get to the bottom.

This past weekend I traveled to Shimoda on the southern tip of the Izu peninsula. I really had no idea what I was getting into- I simply responded to the call of a fellow ALT to visit the beach and spend a night tenting on the sand. We got going at about 1pm Saturday afternoon, a little later than expected, but I figured we’d still have plenty of daylight, and this way I wouldn’t get so burned. Remember now that I live 40 meters from the ocean, so I was thinking about a 30 min. drive and we’d be there. Four and a half hours later we pull onto the beach in Shimoda. This was an excursion. It was a very beautiful drive and we had quite interesting conversation along the way, it was just getting there almost at sundown set me up for an entire day of sun on (fitting) Sunday that I simply wasn’t prepared for. I got burned like a cooked lobster. Not quite as bad as last year when I went tubing down a river in Wisconsin for 4 ½ hours without suntan lotion and received one week later a new layer of skin. But enough to be taught the word hiyake (sunburn) by several different teachers and students upon my return to classes.

The two guys I traveled down with were John and Ben. John’s in his third year as an ALT and Ben is John’s good friend from back in the states who is (not actually, long story so will simplify it to…) just visiting for the next 3 weeks. They’re both from Tennessee. Ben has a very Type A Southern personality – Loud, brazen and unabashed, with the accent and waving arms and everything. He basically talked non-stop for our 4 hour ride lingering mostly on politics and popular music. One of my favorite quotes from him (it made my pocket planner) came during his overly-animated conversation with two Canadian ALTs we met up with at the beach. Describing Americans he exclaimed, “We are loud and boisterous and mean and we are exactly like the Australians. And we are proud of it.” Ok, it was mostly in the way he said it with his arms all out of control.

That quotation subtly tells more about the typical westerner I’ve met here than it does about southerners. It’s in the comparison of cultures Ben made. I’ve found that most people I’ve met here have an extreme awareness of world politics and global issues. Everyone is different and unique, but we’re all tied together by our knowledge of, or awareness of things beyond our daily perspectives in our respective cultures. Not only have I learned a lot of things; Entire worlds of possibility have been opened to me through my interaction with these people. I find myself moving down alleyways and side streets, over winding trails and mountain passes, blocked by the occasional dense forest along the way. This is the result of my mind stretching and growing, making new connections and wielding the machete that forges these paths.

Breathe deeply, Luther, for you are alive.