Frail Human Bodies...

So quick update. Just went to the Doctors. Had a fever of 37.9, so that explains the killer headache I've been sporting all day. $100 Later I'm now armed with an arsenal of tablets and casuals for every symptom, from the coughing and chest infection all the way to the bright green mucas I heap heaving up. Couldn't they just make one super pill?

He wasn't too sure about my foot. At first he told me it could be gout but I let him know it wasn't seeing as though I frigging well felt it when I hurt it. So he took a blood test, and will get the results back to me tomorrow. I guess he's thinking there might be some blood infection or something, because I don't want to here ring up to tell me "Yes, there seems to be some pain floating around your body."

For the moment I'll just presume it's a strain and deal with it myself. He was a good guy and really nice but it's just not reassuring to hear a doctor say "Wow, I've never seen that. You bandage it really well."

Now, after that I have to budget myself until pay day. I wonder how long I can live off $90...

Japan's Hidden Torture Cells

So it's been a while since I last posted.... Well try over a month. It's become a lot colder since last time I posted. The nice weather still appears here and there but it's usually followed by a night freezing cold and we've started to notice how quickly it turns to dark now.

With the cold weather most people around Kitakami are sporting a cold or chest infections of sorts, including myself. Since the medication I bought from the chemist doesn't seem to be doing anything and I've been coughing for three weeks straight now I thought I would head for one of the English speaking doctors today, plus seeing my right ankle is the strapped up in bandages, double the regular size and sends a sharp pain up my leg every time I step on it, I think it's a good idea I get it examined. What can I say? A big night out in city - Causalities can be expected in the war against boredom. I'll be sure to let every one know how I go, until then just call me 'Mr. Limpy'

Anyway, after six months of being in Japan my hair had grown fairly long. Much to my mum's annoyance I wanted to keep growing it for a bit longer but that was until last week when I had a herd of wild five year old girls realize: "Hey, our teachers hair is long - let's pull it, and then plat it with elastic bands!"

Needless to say an hour of this was more then enough time to reconsider my decision, and the next day I found a hair dresser and had it cut. Going to the hair dresser's in my opinion can end in one of two ways. First, you come out liking your hair cut, or second you come out bitching and moaning about what your hair now looks like with your sister in hot pursuit reminding you how much you look like a pineapple.

While I was pleased with my hair cut, this was the first time I came out of a hair dresser's thinking "What the hell just happened?!" It was the strangest experience I've ever had a hair dressers and so I thought I should give you a low down of the two hours I spent in that chair.

Things began normal, after inquiring about the price and being seated I showed the lady the picture of how I wanted my hair cut and she began to prepare. Placed paper around my neck and then the cover over my shoulders. I watched her prepare the basin to wash my hair, and was asked to move towards it. In most cases where this has happened I would be asked to place the back of my neck in a little cradle and have my hair washed while secretly serving down the hair dresser's top - What can I say, my old hair dresser's was full of young girls. Not this time. Face first into the basin, with a hot jet of water searing away any dirt and grime. Hot soap and water dripping over my face, going into my ears, eyes, nose and mouth.

So five minutes later a towel is wrapped around my face and dried. Then I feel her press in on my eyes, drying them. Then over my mouth, drying that. Then one each side, a single fingers pressing into my ears, cleaning inside them. Finally she tried my hair.

The hair cut was fairly standard, but no clippers. All scissor work, it took ages, but these people are perfectionists. After the cut, she had put in what ever the hell the smelly stuff was to spike my hair. She stood up, walked over to her boss who then examined my hair. Not good enough yet! He then proceeded to fix up my hair where he saw fit. Once he was done, I was glad. Time to go home, lucky because I could feel a poo cooking inside.

I was wrong. Face first into the basin again. Wash, condition, clean every orifice possible and back up. A few more cuts where she decided she had missed. Blow dry. More cuts. Smelly shit. More cuts. Style. Inspection. Still not good enough! More cuts. Mess up. Then finally... Finished.

I stared to move in anticipation of finally standing after all that time when suddenly. WHACK! Too the back of my neck. I had no idea it was coming. WHACK! Another. I was under attack. The lady was punching my neck. Then the back of my head, little chops with the ridge of her hands. It took me a few dazed moments to realize that she was massage me. After twenty minutes of being punched in the neck, the head, shoulders and my back she let me know that the whole processed was finished.

So I payed my $30, or however much it is these days, and walked out the door with every one in the place yelling in Japanese "Thanks for the hard work!" And after being forced to go through water torture twice and then finally having the shit beaten out of me while strapped into a chair I was inclined to agree. It was hard work, but my hair looked damn cool.

Around and about...

Well not much has happened since last time I posted. I've been going about my business as per usual, you know how it goes: Go to work, have a kid try and stick his fingers up your butt, tell the kid off in a language he doesn't understand and finally have that same kid try and stick his fingers up your butt again.



The weather has been really nice here lately, I think because it has started turning towards Autumn now. The days are still warm but not humid like they were in Summer and the nights are getting cold so at least I'm starting to get a decent night's sleep for the first time in a few months.



With the nice weather I thought I would take my camera out and grab a few shots of my favorite haunt. It's about five minutes away from my apartment and deadly quiet. I don't think I have ever seen another person there. I like to take my books out and study my Japanese there, it's pretty nice.



Maybe next time I will get around to taking some pictures of my actual apartment and the area just around here. I think that's the one thing people have been asking to see the most so I'll probably do that... Eventually. I also found a place where a really big eagle likes to hang out, so I'll try and get a decent shot of him too.

Eagle!!!

Yeah... Sorry for the big break in between my posts. It was Oban week, and I was away for the whole time. Then when I returned I had other things on my mind and things I needed to do, so I just kept putting the blog aside, until today when I realized it's been nearly three weeks since I updated it.

Oops... My bad.

So in that time quite alot has gone on in my life, the biggest been I climbed Mount Fuji, Japan's tallest mountain.




It was an insane experience that I loved and will always remember but there isn't a snowball's chance in hell that I'm going to ever do it again. I climbed Fuji with my mate Brendan, and his friend Michie.

The fifth station which we started our accent was jammed packed with people from all walks of life. I was actually amazed at how many people were there to climb Fuji. It ranged from young kids to people who I at first confused to be the walking dead. Seriously, these people were like skeletons they were so old. It was incredible. I later read that the number of people who climb Fuji daily is approximately 7000 people, and as you start to climb I really seems like there are that many people.



We began our climb from a small hut not far from the fifth station. We had a short sleep and some food before we started in the dark. Headlights strapped to our foreheads and beanies atop our heads we began the walk from the hut to the sixth station, which was about 1.5 km from where we began.

It was easy. As we continued walking Brendan and I could see a red Toori Gate up ahead which we took to be the top of Fuji...

We seriously underestimated the shear size of Fuji. The gate was the seventh or eighth station. We had a long walk in store for us. As the climb progressed the tracks became more like obstacle courses, in which we needed to climb over rocks and actually think about what we were doing. It was a lot of fun, we moved insanely quickly overtaking people we had seen walk past us hours before. We were really enjoying it up until the point that the oxygen began to thin.



I slowly began to go blank. For about three hours or more, I can't remember now, it felt like I would never stop walking. Even when I closed my eyes to stop and rest I could still see the person's shoes in front of me, and thought about how shiny they looked with my torch light reflecting off the back of them. It was a seriously odd experience, more so when people began to vomit every where. It was impossible to walk ten meters with out needing to have a break.

So we kept walking. As we neared the top the sun began to rise over the horizon. People had stopped to take photos. It really pissed me off that they sat right in the middle of the track in every ones way. By this time I couldn't give a shit about the sunrise, as pretty as it was. I wanted one thing. To get to the top of the mountain so I could start heading back down.



It felt good to finally reach the summit. We were able to sit, where ever we could find room. We were absolutely shitted. While Brendan rested I decided to take some photos of what I could as I had intended to take so many more but with out a tripod with me walking during the night didn't present many opportunities.

The view was incredible to say the least. From the summit I could see that too my left a huge lighting storm was terrorizing a city that I may have known, but couldn't recognize. To my right the sky was clear and it was evident that they would be enjoying a beautiful day. It was bizarre to be able to see the two so close together but so far apart.




After some time we decided to track back down Fuji. Compared to going up the mountain going down was like hell. With my inherited 'spaco' feet combined with the gravel that slid from beneath you as you walked I was in absolute pain nearly the entire way. So much so that by time I had nearly reached the bottom I was so pissed off at the mountain that I just wanted it to be over. All I wanted was to sit down so my feet would stop hurting. I was seriously pissed.

So after nearly sixteen hours or more of nearly non-stop walking we reached the bottom. The wooden sticks we had bought, that we were meant to get seared at every station, remained blank and we didn't care. We threw the sticks down behind us and couldn't have cared less that we paid 1200 yen for what was now nothing more then firewood.

We both walked over and bought the most expensive vanilla ice cream we had ever paid for and they were awesome.

Sansa Odori Festival = Awesome

After a week of Summer School I'm back and ready to go. So I've finally got a chance to update my photos and I have put some new ones up on flickr for every one to see. Those the choice photos of my day in Tono Valley, home of the Kappa as well as the photos I took at the Sansa Festival last night.



Sansa in one word was awesome. It's a hard feeling to explain but I'm sure other people who are living in Japan for the first time have had it, where a light bulb goes on in your head and you think to yourself: Holy shit, I'm actually in Japan.

The Sansa Odori festival takes place each year in the main street of Morioka City in Iwate. Over the few days that the festival takes place over 20,000 people participate in various events, the most exciting being the parade that takes place each night. Dressed in colorful traditional clothing and carrying drums they dance down the street for three hours nearly non-stop. Why?

Story goes that long ago a Demon of sorts plagued the people of the land. With the pitch forks locked away for the night, and the flaming torches all lost the people turned to the only logical solution. Pray to the right God and he will fix it. So the God and Devil talked long and hard, and finally getting fed up with the Demon's wise cracks the God through sand in his eyes. Cheap, but it gave him the chance to crash tackle that son of a bitch to the ground.
Holding the Demon down and threatening the Demon with a long string of spit slowly descending towards his face the Demon pledged to never terrorize the hicks again. The God dragged little Devil Boy to three stones and forced him to place a hand print upon one of them to seal his pact.


The name Iwate came from this hand print, meaning 'Stone Hand'

Alright, so not exactly how the story goes, but I think its more entertaining this way.

So similar to what I expect happened when I left home, the people threw a huge party, while the Demon stood at the side 'Purse Watching' like a fat kid at a school disco.



Now in the first week of August the city is alive with drum beats and people wearing summer kimono's called Yukata where ever you look. The drums make a tremendous noise, and luckily it's not just random. There is a great deal of practice and choreography put into the dances. Believe me, I tried at the end of the night and looked like a total nutter trying to keep up with the girl who was in front of us. She helped as much as she could but it would seem I'm a bit of lost cause.


The parade is truly special and girls take a great deal of time preparing their robes and making themselves look pretty. I think by time they reach the end of the parade however their make up is long gone after the amount of sweat they have lost. In fact, the men sweat so much and are so enthusiastic that you can see beads flying off their arms and faces as they dance. It's incredible the effort that everyone puts into the Sansa Odori Festival.

Indeed it will be one thing that I never forget because it was so much damn fun.



The night only begins when the festival ends though. From then on it was party time. After the parade Megan, Sarah, Renee and Myself headed back to one of our Japanese teachers houses for drinks. It was hilarious watching their son-in-law pouring a drink that he claims is 50/50 - Vodka and Orange Juice, when I knew perfectly well he had filled that damn glass to the brim with Vodka. I drank it regardless and we talked for ages.




I was surprised how much Japanese I could understand and actually speak back to them. It was the kind of experience I had imagined when I left for Japan.

As the night went on we headed back to the main street to meet up with the other Native Teachers for more drinks. Darts, cold chips and this really awesome curry-omelette rice dish. Combine these for a good time. We spent the rest of the night here, talking away generally about nothing of any importance, before we all staggered off to where ever we were going to sleep that night.

I think I can safely say that a good time was had by all last night.