I’m afraid that these blog updates are becoming less prompt
as time goes on, but I will try to keep up with doing them every couple of
weeks. This may be due in part to the vast variety of Japanese hobbies that I
seem to have taken on. So far this includes Japanese cooking classes, ikebana
(flower arranging), karate and next week I will be giving tea ceremony a try!
This doesn’t even include the yoga that I do and the various JET meet ups and
so on…
Karate is the newest addition to my “hobbies”. I just tried
it out properly a few weeks ago. My style of karate is called Shorinji Kempo.
Never actually having done “normal karate” (does that even exist?), I’m not
actually sure how they differ, but my supervisor told me it is more theatrical
in style and more like a performance. This seems more like my type of thing
than the judo I witnessed at Sports Day when I saw some tough looking boys
literally hurling each other to the ground without even uttering a sound. That
certainly killed my curiosity to try out judo since I’m a rather dainty girl.
Not really knowing what to expect, I went along to karate.
It turned out that the majority of the class consisted of children. Some even
as young as three! The warm-up was tough, but after the copious amounts of
fried food and noodles I’ve been eating here, I certainly need that extra
shove. I was slightly embarrassed when a 10 year old girl managed to beat me in
the one of the warm up races when we had to crawl along the floor worm style. Though
in my defence, it’s been years since I’ve done anything like that! I also
couldn’t manage to get my legs into the zen style (crossed legs but with feet
up on the opposite knee), when all the little kids and all the adults seemed to
be able to do it. Oh well, they say practice makes perfect.
After the warm up and various back and forths across the
room kicking and punching the air saying “Hya!” (I swear, it’s more organised
and impressive than I make it sound) we were put into groups. Much to both my
relief and slight embarrassment I was put into the white belt group, which
obviously was made up entirely of young kids. Still, it was fun and I will be
returning. The children were literally having a field day at the sight of a
white gaijin girl desperately trying to keep up with everyone else.
When Japanese people say they have a hobby, they don’t quite
mean it in the same sense as you or I. When we have a hobby it’s something we
do for fun every now and then when we’re in the mood, but for the Japanese a
hobby is to be taken almost as seriously as a job. Which explains why everyone
else at karate is miles better than me since they are pretty damn dedicated to
the sport. Still, I intend to stick with karate at least for the duration of my
stay in Japan as long as it’s feasible. It’s even tougher for kids and their after
school clubs, which run every single day after school, even on Saturday
mornings. Sometimes I wonder how much the kids really do enjoy their “hobbies”…
Anyway, onto more light-hearted topics! A couple of weeks
ago I went to an overnight beach party in Niihama, organised by a subsection of
JET who run events in Ehime for us English teachers. To put it briefly, this
involved a lot of alcohol, barbequed food and night time stealth-swimming. What
is stealth swimming you ask? Well for some bizarre reason, despite it still
being the middle of September and around the 30 degrees mark, the beach had
decreed that swimming was “out of season”. So naturally we just waited until it
was dark so that they couldn’t see us. Though it honestly gets dark here around
6pm so we didn’t have to wait long. Much to everyone’s relief, no one got stung
by jellyfish, unlike the year before, so luckily there were no conundrums of, “Okay,
so who’s going to pee on the sting then?”. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves
greatly and have a very merry time, probably aided by beer, tequila, Strong
Zero, wine and whatever else happened to be on offer. By the way, Strong Zero
is lethal! It’s essentially an alcopop that tastes lemonadey and positively
harmless, but for some reason just one is enough to get my head spinning. Be
careful, or as the Japanese say “Ki o tsukete!”.
The next day, I went on a mini road trip along with two
other ALTs. The first stop was at a highly refreshing waterfall which was
definitely a good shout for getting rid of the hangover. That was, until I saw
a water snake and suddenly didn’t want to be in the water anymore… We later
made our way to the Shimanami Kaido bridges, spanning 70km from Imabari on
Shikoku, where I live, all the way to Hiroshima on the mainland. The bridges
were, simply put, absolutely stunning. The bridges all connect a series of
islands, and when the sun begins to set and the haze sets in, it creates a
mystically beautiful view. Unfortunately my computer won’t let me post a
picture, but you just have to trust me. This may sound odd, but Japanese hills
are a different shape from any hills I’ve ever seen. They seem more defined and
dramatic somehow, rising up from the surrounding landscape very deliberately.
The next view I saw was also absolutely amazing. As the sun was setting, it
literally turned blood red and huge, to the point where the sky actually looked
like the Japanese flag. The land of the rising - or in this case setting – sun indeed.
I should write travel brochures or something. After such breath taking sights
we were back in the hustle and bustle of Matsuyama city and I got to eat my
first proper Indian curry here, which by the way, was considerably spicier than
I had expected, given that Japanese food is never spicy. Still delicious
though. After all, I am a good British girl that can never turn down a great curry.
Despite being very tired, I can never resist travelling to a
new place, so the next day I set off for a town quite close to me called
Uchiko, home to another JET. Uchiko is a very quaint town and still very much
preserved in the Japanese traditional style with lots of listed buildings. We
originally went to watch a kids sumo wrestling tournament, which quite honestly
was brutal at times. Japanese children are tough! Several times a scrawny
little boy was put up against a huge fat kid, who simply flung him out the ring
as if he were just a rag. Though I have to say, some of the scrawny little boys
did put up a good fight. Sometimes I feel like the Japanese can be rather
masochistic at times! What with all the excessive sport and lack of regard for
injuries.
Whilst in Uchiko we also tried out some rather exotic ice
cream flavours ranging from pumpkin, to sesame seed, to sweet potato to green
tea. Green tea ice cream has become a new obsession of mine! Sweet, but still
very refreshing.
Just the past weekend I was in the neighbouring town of Ozu,
having a movie and pizza night at the house of another fellow ALT (I know, I
know, I should probably try to hang out with more Japanese people but the language
barrier is a bit of an issue..). We were literally fed until we were stuffed
and sleepy. To say that pizzas are small in Japan is a massive understatement,
but despite this we were still full from the sheer number of pizzas. And just
to top it off, the next day we had homemade waffles with syrup and yoghurt
before setting off for a girly shopping trip to Matsuyama, which involved more
food and ice cream. Food is kind of becoming a common theme here, I’m beginning
to think I should go on a diet..
But food is a very important thing to the Japanese, similar
to the Italian take on food. Food should be enjoyed fully and in the form of a
proper sit-down meal, rather than us Brits who like to rush around stuffing
sandwiches into our faces. However, the Japanese are sticklers for never
wasting food, and this is evident in the school lunches when kids simply have
no choice to force whatever horror may be on the plate before them, even if
this is a pregnant fish. And yes, that is a food that exists in Japan. It's called shishamo, look it up if you don't believe me ;) Yes, I
was confronted with it the other day during a school lunch, but I managed to
slyly give it away to some students who were more enthusiastic about eating it.
Anyway, that’s all for now. My next blog update will most
likely entail my adventures to the sake festival in Hiroshima, so stay tuned
kids!
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