Still in Japan

Still in Japan : A Day at the Bridge of Heaven

I went to the beach this weekend with some JETs and some locals who speak awesome English. We went to Amanohashidate, which is this famous bay area nearby. I drove to the train station which was about 45 minutes by car along some crazy narrow roads. It was a little unnerving because drivers round those corners at a million miles per hour (rather, a million kilometers per hour) in the MIDDLE of the road. Lucky for me, my car is small so I fear them less. Though, the safety features on my car are no more fancy than those on a tuna fish sandwich.

The bay was totally awesome. Amanohashidate (天橋立) means "Bridge of the Heavens". The story says that the gods dipped a sword into the sea, from whence Japan came into creation. The land bridge that goes across a bit of water in Northern Kyoto is where the sword first touched the sea. It is also one of the top three "beauty spots" in Japan, which is conveniently close! There are two sides where you can view the land bridge, one in Iwataki and one in Miyazu. If you bend over and look through your legs at designated 'viewing spots', the land bridge is supposed to look like a dragon in the sky. Does it really? I think that's a personal decision.

We got some delicious sandwiches and ice coffee beverages and then went for a swim. I got burnt. Stupid American. I didn’t think I would need THAT much sun screen and we were only in for 40 minutes! But the parts I had put sunscreen on (such as my shoulders got MORE burnt than the rest of me. So that just goes to show, that white people always get burnt and there’s not a lot we can do about it. That is how I validate my pink skin.

Anyway I made some friends and it was all good! There is a South African guy named Scott who has also done film stuff so we chatted about that. And a girl from Los Angeles lent me a swimsuit that was soooo small (the girl is barely 5 feet tall). She is awesome. I met a New Zealand JET named Bryn who lives nearby and a girl named Desirae who lives in sin with a Canadian JET, Andy, in Mineyama. I also met two awesome Japanese girls, Yumi and Jun. They were really tall for Japanese girls, like 5 foot 8 or something! And they were hysterical. I got to practice some Japanese on them, and they got to practice English on me (by practice English, I mean they are fluent already). A fair trade. Then we went for stew and more ice coffee. Then the train ride back to Miyazu station and the long drive home. I had a splitting headache the whole time which sucked, but I don't know what it was from! Probably just the humidity. I blame everything on humidity. Later I learned that Amanohashidate is about a 30 minute drive from my house, so the 45 minute drive to Miyazu station and train ride from there actually took me backwards in distance, and in logic.
I watched quite a bit of TV this weekend... they have weird shows on Japanese TV. One show was a race to find the biggest bug-thing. I don’t know what they are called, but they’re almost a foot long and they have pincers and they are slow moving beetles or something. Anyway they are GROSS. Then they have these commercials for cell phones with Cameron Diaz everywhere and Tommy Lee Jones is in canned coffee commercials where he is working as airport security and then turns into a monster and frightens children. I think he could probably just frighten kids with his face... regardless. Isn’t he supposed to be in MENSA???? Its weird. My favorite thing this weekend by far was the Egyptian game show that had Japanese people in Egypt exploring museums and stuff for the sake of a question game show thing. It made no sense! But it was cute seeing tiny Japanese women interviewing old decrepit Egyptian women with unibrows. I was feeling strangely at home watching both of them. They also had a reenactment of something to do with Pharaohs? And in it they had Japanese men dressed up like Pharaohs and a Japanese lady who was supposed to be... Cleopatra? Everybody knows she looked like (see Elizabeth Taylor).