Hooray for Wood

In order to procure a day off on Monday to head down to Osaka to revive my poor iMac (it breaks annually!) I went on a school field trip to somewhere.

I didn't have any idea where we were going actually or what we would be doing! As it turned out we went to a little "world energy design park" in Hioki, the next town over from Ine. The bus ride was fun because the trees have turned all sorts of colours here and it was nice to be able to look at them instead of having to look at the road.

It was field trippy, which was a bit fun in itself. We were told about the park's design and how it's all about reusable energy (solar power and stuff). Then we were told they were building a water wheel for a little 'swiss chateau' (it was the size of a closet). So we got to work varnishing the wooden pices they would use to build it. There's a twinge of child labour in that, if you ask me. I mean... not chlid labour, learning. It was actually a lot more fun than I thought it would be. It was really cold outside but I had my warm Rochester sweatshirt (from the airport, where sweaters were $30 instead of $60 on campus!)

Some first year girl said "your sweatshirt looks warm. Can I have it?" and I said "yeah you can, if you can read it." They couldn't. They froze.

Anyway while varnishing, I was adopted by two second year girls who have never talked to me before and we basically hung out for an hour and they asked me how to say stuff in English. This is the stuff that's supposed to happen more often to remind me of why I like my job! Although 50% of that is my fault because I hide in the teachers' room all day (IT'S WARMER).

We varnished things that will some day be an actual contraption. Although we may never live to see that day.

Then we went on a long hike in the hills and saw... hills! And a precariously placed tree house over a cliff full of small children. Japan is a generally precarious place for small children. No helmets on bikes, no seatbelts in cars. I mean kids are made of rubber so I can understand the lack of concern, but stiiiill, if you get HIT by a kid in the head it still leaves a bruise. That's all I'm saying. Aside from hills and autumn foliage, there was a wooden train that you could ride! But we didn't get to ride it, so we had to walk along the tracks instead. I felt rather cheated by the photos of laughing children on the fun wooden train. Laaaame. I guess this is what poor kids do on field trips -- skip the fun stuff and do the venue's chores (like varnishing and gardening). Just an observation.

I spoke to my English-speaker student K-chan and to the two teachers who secretly speak English but only when they are bored and I'm around H-sensei and I-sensei. It was kind of nice having to communicate as best I could in Japanese since my English teacher wasn't around today.

Also M-sensei (the hot one) completely disappeared after lunch. We decided that he'd gone to meet a secret lover in the forest. Wahahahaha.

Then we had lunch... and DAMN Japanese moms just love their kids more than American moms. I've never had such a spectacularly prepared lunch (aesthetically). It's retarded how nice their lunches were... and I felt ashamed of my peanut butter and banana sandwich on cold toast that I'd thrown together mere hours before. However they thought it was 'cool'. Because they don't know better.

After lunch we went into the woods and cut small shoots of bamboo and collected them for 90 minutes. That's all we ever did with the bamboo and I have absolutely no idea why.

Then we made dragonflies out of construction paper and drew on a piece of wood. I guess all the visiting schools do it. So my kids wrote out things in random kanji and laughed hysterically at it. Presumably it was funny! I meanwhile, when prompted, simply wrote "Hooray for Wood!" and felt accomplished.

Now I am at home curled up in blankets because it's freezing and I am probably going to get a terrible cold from being out in the cold air for so long... oh well! Too bad this will be the busiest weekend EVER. Next adventures may include a bus ride to Osaka and having nothing to do for 6 hours on a Monday in a city.