Bali, day one.

3500 miles in 20 hours : Ine to Denpesar

I woke up at 7am (early, considering my flight wasn't until the early evening) and packed a few last minute items. Early morning logic had convinced me that I would need 15 pairs of underpants, 12 pairs of socks, and at least 7 outfits that I would find some sort of reason to wear. It's not every day you travel to the southern hemisphere, after all.

I drove down on what I would consider one of the more beautiful days of the year (at least in Tango) and rolled down the windows so I could get a good taste of the warm air and the spring smells that were permeating the winter chills (even in late April).

Thanks to a gracious Kameoka JET, I was able to park my car for free in front of her apartment complex. An older, more out of place building surrounded by beautiful houses and stunning flower gardens. I walked to the station with my over-packed bags and met up with Ian at Kyoto Station.
"You looked stressed," he complimented.
Though I didn't feel stressed, I certainly recognized that I sounded nervous. Maybe it was the excitement from driving and the idea of going some place new, or maybe it was just that I was going to spend the next 7 days straight with Ian -- something that was equally new.

We arrived at the airport, bought sandwiches and beer, and hunkered down in some massage chairs (which, to be fair, we did use for 10 of the 90 minutes we were there for). After our second beers, we boarded the airplane along with the horde of Japanese people also taking a Golden Week holiday to some place warm.

The flight wasn't terribly long, about six or seven hours. Ian and I spent the time drinking wine and watching movies (and no doubt pestering every one around us in doing so). Ian suggested watching Jurassic Park, though we couldn't find it in English. The dubbed version wasn't so bad, though I understood absolutely none of it. Not long after we realized how to put movies into English and felt dumb. We followed it up with AI (in English) and then went our separate ways on our individual entertainment systems. I attempted to study a bit of Indonesian (so I could be less clueless) but only retained the word for milk, which is 'susu'.

The plan was to stay in Nusa Dua (a peninsula in Southern Bali) for 6 days. Hours and hours of poolside reading, prepaid tours, and non-Japanese food awaited.



Upon arrival, we felt the thick warm air at once. It was a spectacular change from the chilly Japan nights we've been having this April. We coughed up some money for visas and went to collect our bags. Being white and foreign in Japan can earn you some attention (people speaking slowly to you, being overly polite or condescending, and someones avoiding eye contact with you). In Bali however, it just makes you a target. Three men rushed up to me and offered to help me carry my one suitcase. Being exhausted from traveling 3,500 miles in about 20 hours, I didn't argue. All of a sudden, Ian and I were surrounded by about 6 men, some of who had helped us with our things and some who had just showed up for no apparent reason. They all demanded 100,000 rupiah each (about... 8 dollars maybe?) for their 'troubles'. HIGHWAY ROBBERY.

Annoyed and cranky, we found our tour guide (whose decent English was masked by his thick French accent and creative syntax). 40 minutes later, we had arrived at the Ramada hotel in Nusa Dua (the Tango peninsula of Bali, I joked). We were greeted with fruit punch (even at midnight, what service!) and on the assumption that we were married, the hotel staff gave Ian the paperwork to fill out. I meanwhile spotted that the gift shop was a money changer. "Phew. Now we won't be completely screwed if more helpful Balinese show up and hold our things for ransom."

The room was big and comfortable (I was thrilled to see an air conditioner). After quick shower and a look around the mini fridge and porch, I crawled into my bed, eager to put the day behind me.

Unfortunately I didn't get more than two hours of sleep... whether for general excitement that we'd actually made it or the cup of coffee I'd had just before landing. So, I laid in bed, listening to the intermittent squalls outside, waiting patiently for the sun to come up so I could see what was outside of our window.

New School Atmosphere & Hanami

Monkeys Take Over Neighbourhood, Spring Arrives

Monkeys clambered out of the jungle into the fields to eat everything that was starting to turn green.

I reckon I should write a little bit about what I’ve been up to this month (besides losing all the teachers and school comforts I hold so very dear).

After Aimi sensei left Ine JHS, everything felt like it was falling apart. The new teachers were SUPER nice (especially the Japanese teacher, Ms. Tomonaga and the new Principal, Mr. … Principal). I felt excited about working with my new JTE, Mr. Yamagami (fun to say!) However the week started out with us moving desks. And instead of me moving my desk somewhere, I had to give it up altogether. I moved all of my personal belongings that used to sit upon my desk (the little stone that says “stone”, my elephant from a Thai restaurant in Shiga, and a kangaroo keychain from Scott) into a box in the trunk of my car. They told me I could share a desk with the art teacher, whose desk is full of art teacher things. I felt inconsolably sulky about the whole affair. WHO AM I TO BE DENIED A DESK? I AM RACHEL K. ENGLISH TEACHER! But in the end, I don’t really need that much room and the art teacher gave me some drawers to put my things into. So, it’s not the worst fate in the world after all.
Flowers! Life could be much worse.
 The new teachers at Honjo JHS are spectacular. My favourite is the new science teacher, Ms. Oe. She has the most sincere laugh I’ve ever heard out of a Japanese woman – guttural and low. A boisterous, “hur hur hur”. I love her to pieces already. We speak a mixture of English and Japanese because she wants to practice. She told me, “I have lost my vocabulary and I can’t remember my idioms!” Then we talked about intransitive verbs. <3 Friends forever. We also have a young teacher named Yamashita-sensei who is a big computer dork and likes to talk to me about Mac computers. But now I know about some fancy new Beta Windows program that runs simultaneously with the Mac OSX. Technology! It helps that all the words about computers are katakana English. Pu-ro-gu-ra-mu, so-fu-to-we-a, and haa-do-do-rai-bu. Fantastic!

I haven’t had any classes yet, but I am starting to go to them again with Yamagami-sensei starting today. I hope they go well and that I can help! I miss being useful! It was really a treat getting back to kyushoku (the school lunches) as well. I really missed the miso soups and even the white rice that my stomach lining loathes on a day-to-day basis. The weather getting warmer and more pleasant every day is also helping everyone’s mood! It’s so nice not having to use the heater anymore. I like to think of this as my last horrible winter just because America has all the ‘central heating’. Faaaancy.

On Friday I had a meeting with the elementary school homeroom teachers who will be helping me team teach this new elementary textbook to the 5th and 6th graders starting this school year. I was really excited about it, but after 30 minutes of stumbling through Japanese lesson plans, it became quite clear that none of us knows what we are doing. Who knows how this lesson will go, but at least I finally have a textbook to work off of. SUPPLEMENTS!!!! Huzzah!



School aside, I went to Kyoto and Kameoka this weekend to finally spend some quality time with Laurel and the other Kameoka girls who have replaced the friends I still miss deeply and dearly (you know who you are, you southern women). It was really fun hanging out with Laurel and spending time with a different group of people. I think that when you spread yourself among groups of different people you can learn to appreciate the people who aren’t there, as well as getting comfortable in different situations. I’ve always been most comfortable as a social butterfly, fluttering amongst groups of people and never getting that close to any of them. I feel like this year has been an exception, which would explain a lot of the social anxiety I’ve been having.

Sakura and ear lobe massages in Kameoka...

On Saturday I met up with “the usual suspects” (Ian, Natanya, Rachel2, Lauren, Greg etc) and we had a picnic under the sakura by the Kamogawa River to celebrate R2’s birthday. It was a lot of fun, but I ate and drank too much and had the worst headache later.
R2, Natanya & Ian eating delicious gyoza by the Kamo River
We had grand plans to do karaoke, but those dissolved after we ate bananas foster (rum soaked bananas on FIRE over ice cream) and were stricken with extreme sleepiness. We all just ended up falling asleep in a pile at Rachel’s apartment and had one of the least exciting, but most comfortable, nights in Kyoto ever.

Sakura in the Imperial Palace Grounds & the Rare Blossom Rachel2

The next day we did mini-hanami and walked through the Imperial Palace grounds on the way to the pet store, where we played with a pug. I picked out some Kirby food, R2 got her brown curls grabbed by a spider monkey, and Ian and Natanya fell in love with the pug. After a quick stint at Starbucks, Natanya and I drove back to Tango.

Natanya snores louder than you could possibly imagine! 

Kirby was really happy to see me and I was really happy to get some sleep, since the night before had been interrupted by Natanya’s GORILLA SNORING. That’s right! You know who you are!