Sunday Drive

Here is a picture of me after my first day of classes: harrowed, but hanging on. I think I said earlier that I punted and the kids made a touchdown on their opening drive. That’s not quite true. I punted and they returned it for a touchdown.

Ok, ok, let’s not get too hard on ourselves…

I had one lesson today. And it was with the class that I had the English camp with, so maybe that makes a difference. I know that I think their English level is a lot higher than it actually is. Imagine trying to sit through a 10 or 15 min. presentation of a person entirely in Japanese. At some point you check out and start talking with your neighbor. I just hope the kids don’t treat me too casually this semester because I was their camp “counselor” a few weeks ago. Camp counseling was great. You could wind up the kids, get em all high on sugar, teach them a bunch of annoying songs, keep them up all night, run them silly in the woods and then dump them off on their parents at the end of the week. But here, I’m the parent who has to deal with them if I get them all wound up. So, there has to be many more activities, I have to move more slooooowly, and I have to engage their producing skills as much as possible. Get them in small groups. Get them with a partner. Have them work towards a goal that can only be reached using English. Lecturing is never going to work on this level.

All in all, ok. Tomorrow I will move a little more slowly and cut out a bunch of what I say about myself. I planned an activity where students have to go around and interview each other, so hopefully that will replace my blabbering over their blabbering. Cuz that’s what we sound like to each other. Literally. Except they can’t make the ‘l’ and the ‘r’ sounds, so to me they sound like they’re ‘buraburuingu.’

Let’s leave this lesson on a high note. Two things that worked better in my lesson: teaching my name, and playing the guitar. I will spend a little more time tomorrow teaching my name. Teaching the ‘th.’ I told them it was ok to stick out their tongues at me. I doubt any of them got the joke. But after class and after school many students who saw me were saying my name with a really exaggerated ‘ttthhhhhh’ and it was really great. Also, I did a cloze activity where the students filled in words that were missing in a lyrics sheet of the song I sang. I played and sang “Wouldn’t Have Nothing” from the movie Monsters’ Inc.

This past weekend I went for a lovely Sunday Drive. I was meaning to get up and started about 10am, but decided to get 12 hours of sleep instead, so after getting up and getting something to eat and doing some laundry I got started at 3. Which I thought would have been totally fine given how long I thought my afternoon to do list would take. Basically it consisted of 2 items:

To Do:
1. Bike to Shimizu
2. Buy Hannah a Birthday present

I began my ride off in the direction of Shimizu, not knowing what roads were daijyoubu (alright, or ok) to bike on….excuse the interruption....I just got jumped up because I had rice warming (and thus dehydrating) in my rice cooker. I have no idea how to work the thing, I just press buttons until I think it is going. Oh, so weird to be eating this much rice. I had the fan above the stove going too because I had made ramen (fairly similar to the ramen in the states) going on the stove. The fan leads straight outside through my wall; a little lid opens up when I pull the string to turn it on. Thus, being open to the world, my lovely bug friends try to fly through it into my house. As I was typing this I kept hearing a ‘ting’-ing in the kitchen and went to investigate. Yep. It was Mr. Bug trying to fly through a spinning metal blade. My bowl of ramen was right underneath the fan and I’m pretty sure that this meal was flavored a la Mr. Bug’s innards. Back to the story.

I knew where Shimizu was but I didn’t know specifically what roads to take, so I just started off in the general direction. The road I was on took me into Yui, Kambara’s next door neighbor and only a 20 min. walk away. I had never been farther than the grocery store or konbini (convenience store) so I was pretty excited. Not 2 blocks beyond this I stopped to take my first pictures. There was this little graveyard up on the hill from the road that was absolutely fantastic. Well, as fantastic as a graveyard can be I guess. I am still just awed by the organization of the cities around me. We’re considered “out in the country” yet every flat space is occupied by road or building. It’s the order of buildings that fascinates me. Apartments are propped right up next to gas stations which are flat against houses which are flat against grocery stores which open up to parks and another house then a rice paddy. Then a train station, restaurant, apartment and a graveyard. There really doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason…or city planning. The graves seemed to be little shrines to an entire family, if my understanding of kanji is superb enough. There was even a Japanese man there burning incense at one of the gravestones. Many graves had long, wooden stakes with beautiful kanji brushstrokes placed in front of them. Maybe they were prayers or well wishes. Past the graveyard were another apartment and a string of power lines, but beyond that you could see a view of the ocean and in the distance green hills softened by the haze. I love the contrast of concrete and lush forest.

I fell more in love with Yui the further I biked. I wanted to stop at every shop and every open garage to take in the life each one of these individuals exudes. There were stairs going up through the floors of garages and tiny counters selling vegetables and fish. And banks and posters and children and bicycles. I loved it. My road soon came to the major throughway so I had to turn right up into the hills. The whole area from the foothills of Fuji on the Ocean down to Shizuoka City and beyond is squeezed right up against the ocean by steep, green mountain. In Yui there can’t be more than 200 meters between the ocean and the slope, so the city grows dense and wide. Here is where Shoguns and samurai would pass on their way from the ancient capital Kyoto to the new capital Edo, which would later become Tokyo. Many famous paintings were created by men right here in the Kambara area because of this road. That’s why the south side of Mt. Fuji is so much more famous that the north side.

Going up the steep road I had to get off and walk my bike several times. Even on this incline there were still houses and shops. On the way I stopped by a shrine to look around and take some pictures. It didn’t seem to be widely used because it was in kind of shoddy shape, and the swimming pool nearby was filled with a grass green glop. I continued on, always taking the high road rising higher and higher. Soon there were orange groves on the sides of the road. These orchards became my main companion for the next hour or so of my trip. Every once and a while there would be a rusted metal track and a basket of some sort attached to the top where it could be hauled by motor up and down the hill carrying oranges. I never saw anyone working, but there were a few cars parked along the way, so obviously these fields were still tended to.

I figured out I was on the Satta Pass by the signs that said “Satta Pass.” I was over taken by one car along the way which I ended up seeing at the only rest stop I encountered. Here there were bathrooms, a lookout and what appeared to be a trailhead for hiking. It was cloudy, but had it been clear there would have been a majestic view of Fujisan rising up out of the ocean. I have been told that it is much easier to see him in the winter when the air is not so humid. All the better, for in the winter he will also be robed with his garments of snow.

I never made it to Shimizu (sorry Hannah). I only went as far as the light and my hunger would let me. I spent a some time staring out over the Okitsugawa river watching the Shinkansen fly by overhead while old men fished down below. Another strikingly beautiful contrast- the leisure of fishermen overlaid by the breakneck speed of commuters rushing by. The first time I saw the Shinkansen was from a distance of about 1 kilometer while I myself was riding the local train. It literally took my breath away. I have never seen anything so fantastically death-defying.

I biked back along the edge of the throughway completely in the dark on what I (hope) was a bike path. I only had the tiny wheel powered headlamp that pointed 2 meters in front of me so I had to take it whiteknuckled. It was a solid 50 min. of biking on flat ground to get back to my house.

Well Hannah, I talked to you on Saturday so you know I’ve picked you up a couple of things already, but I’m still looking and asking people where to find one more gift to send in a package home. I should still make it in time for your 21st.

Luther