There and Back Again

本庄〜またね！

Well, I'm home now! That is to say I'm back in Seattle, Washington -- town of the needle that reaches SPACE and the 1962 transportation gift to mankind: the Monorail (you're welcome, world). I will no doubt face new adventures in this strange yet familiar land... such as unemployment, making friends, and reminding myself not to bow to Asian people I see on the street. This will take time.

The last few days in Honjo were spent huddling over my toilet and, in a way, letting my feelings out. Anxiety hit my stomach with a wave of vengeance such as the world had never seen. I spent my last Saturday night in Japan with a high fever, body aches, and nausea while Kate and Natanya , Champions of wellness and friendship, spoon-fed me ginger ale as we watched "Walk Hard" (which certainly didn't help my bout of illness).

I continued going to work, usually just for a few hours to talk to people, feel like the butterflies in my stomach were stabbing each other for drug-money with ice picks, and rushing home to finish packing and cleaning. On my last weekend, besides feeling ill, I shipped my two enormous suitcases to the airport via 空港サービス (airport service). Thank God for Japan -- my suitcases weighed 110 lbs together and there was no way I could have handled them by myself on the trains to the airport without the guardian angels of Kuroneko Yamato special delivery service. I also completed and handed out all of my gift bags, which were comprised of folded paper cranes and Hershey kisses thrown into adorably patterned plastic bags. I managed to gift these to 70 people -- おつかれさまでした!

On Sunday I felt well enough to drive down to Mineyama to have dinner with Megan, Kate, Eric and Yumi at Honeycomb and to ship my iMac desktop computer to the US via express delivery service. However, the delivery people, who usually deliver within Japan, wanted to charge me about $600 for their services, which I declined. I decided instead to use the FedEx/Kinko's in Kyoto city and save about $350 in doing so. Still, it meant I had another 25lb box to schlep down to Kyoto on my final day in Japan, which would not be fun.

Monday was a particularly sad day for me as I said goodbye to all four of my schools, my neighbours, and my entire Board of Education. I gave a speech, managed not to choke up, and left the building for the last time with Nishihara-san (my supervisor for two years who has done everything for me). We said some teary goodbyes and had a nice big hug and a final photo together. I sure will miss that lady.

I then sobbed, "DON'T FORGET ME INE~" while driving away from Ine and its beautiful boathouses and bay and continued my way South to Miyazu. I would spend the night at Yumi's family's house in hopes of finding comfort my last night with a familiar family. The Okkuda family showed me a great time! We watched Japanese game shows on TV while eating delicious steak and shrimp -- yum! Yumi's crazy mother then insisted that I take one of her "antique" vases as Japanese omiyage... though I feel that I was snookered into taking something she didn't really want anymore. Still, it's the thought. I then took a nice hot bath and curled up on a futon and watched cartoons with Yumi until we both fell asleep.

The following morning was another sad, teary, Japanese goodbye. The worst of all because it was a goodbye to YUMI. I can't imagine what my life would have been without her, but it would have been bleak and without dental appointments for certain. In any case it was completely awful and afterward she went to work and I drove to my car lease company to drop off dear Shadowfax the Car. The company owner was kind enough to drive me, my carry-on luggage, and my ridiculously large iMac computer to Mineyama station to meet Kate and her entourage of merry high school teachers for one last Tango goodbye.

A photo of Kate and Natanya at the Mineyama post office, sending their boxes home.

Kate and I hopped the train to Kyoto City, meeting up with Natanya along the way. It was nice to have a relaxing train ride before our final goodbye to Kate, who has gone back to Minnesota since. Natanya and I then wandered over to the FedEx/Kinko's and were successful in sending home my desktop computer. My arms were very thankful to relieve themselves of the bulky burden (ouch!). We then grabbed lunch at a really strange cafe -- the servers were all attractive young men and the patrons were nearly all middle-aged Japanese women. It was a bit eerie, but they served sparkling wine, so who were we to question their practices?

Natanya and I then returned to Kyoto station to seek out cheap and adorable souvenirs from Japan for our friends and family. I bought a lot of small handkerchief type presents as they were the only items I was able to squeeze into my ridiculous luggage. Who doesn't need a handkerchief, right? ...right?

The best part of the day was meeting Danielle and Lauren for ramen and beer at Kyoto station -- I hadn't seen Danielle in months and we talked more about her wedding next March in Colorado and about the house that she and her fiancé are having built. It's so exciting to hear about these things and it's nice to know that Danielle will continue living her life in Osaka and that I'll be able to stay in contact with her, and thus stay in contact with Japan.

Lauren, Natanya and I went to stay at Lauren's apartment for the night. We studied vocabulary in Lauren's GRE book (Avert your eyes, you captious braggart!) and hunkered down for the night watching some of Grey's Anatomy (THERE'S A BOMB IN THE PATIENT! CODE BLACK! CODE BLACK!) It was my last night in Japan, but I managed to catch a few hours of sleep anyway.

The next several hours were uneventful. I went to the airport, picked up my enormous suitcases, managed to get them on the flight without paying extra, ended up in Seoul, Korea for five boring hours, hopped another flight to Seattle where I sat next to an elderly Korean man with the CONSUMPTION, and ended up in Zaydeh's condo on Alaskan Way. Yes, I realise that's all one sentence, but it feels like I did the whole thing in one big breath.

So now it's over (the blog and the flight and all that). I'm pleased and punch to be back in a familiar yet exciting area and I'm looking forward to what's happening next. So far, I've been helping Zaydeh look through Bubbeh's old things. Not that the things are necessarily old, but I suppose one starts calling things 'old' when somebody passes away. I'm not sure I agree with it. Let's just say, we're going through Bubbeh's "effects". That woman kept 5 can-openers and 5 sets of silverware. Don't even get me started on the margarita mug shaped like a cactus or the entire cabinet of paper plates. This is going to be fun.

So until I decide on what to call the next blog, このブロッグを読んでくれてありがとうございました。Thanks for reading my blog. It was fun to write, fun to look back on -- and I hope it was fun to read.

Rachel

Solar Eclipse : Moon eats Sun

Yesterday there was a solar eclipse that we could see in Japan! I learned that the word for solar eclipse is 日食 -- the first kanji means sun, and the second kanji means 'to eat' or 'food'. So, I suppose that the meaning comes from the sight of the moon eating the sun. Delicious!
The students and teachers grabbed some nerd-glasses and were able to view the eclipse during the few sunny parts of the day. From the sound of it, most others in Kyoto couldn't see the eclipse through the cloud cover. Alas!
Anyway, it was neat. A lovely spectacle for my last day at Honjo JHS. I felt sad cleaning out my desk and taking my shoes out of their cubby, but I'll be seeing those folks on Friday for what will go down in enkai history as "the drinkiest day of all." Honjo JHS loves their beer.

After that I went home and finished up my "thank you presents" for people around my town and schools. I'm making each person an origami paper crane and throwing it in a plastic bag with some hershey kisses and hugs (thanks to my sister). It's not much, but I have 70+ people to thank, so I was thinking thriftily.

In the evening I drove to Sutenten in Iwataki to meet my friend Yasuka to have dinner with her. We only lasted an hour before we were both full and sleepy. It was nice to see her one on one again (usually I see her with a lot of other people around). I will certainly feel the sting of leaving all my Japanese friends. Boo.

Penultimate

These two weeks have been very busy and I've had to say goodbye to a lot of things that have been constants in my life for two years now. To name a few; schools, calligraphy, Ian and Kirby.
I've visited both of my junior high schools and elementary schools and read speeches that skim the surface of how I feel, but in Japanese that I can manage (which matters to me!) I received colourful cards from all of my schools, some with photographs, and all of them with notes from the students. It was a really perfect gift for me. The elementary schools sang me songs and the junior high schoolers read English speeches, which I was surprisingly touched by hearing. It's hard not to remember what those students looked like two years ago when they were all much smaller and less brave.

Classes have gone on summer holiday, and now all there's left to do is wait out the week, pack up the rest of the house, and go to Seattle.

Ine JHS couldn't find a free day to go out to dinner with me, so they threw me a farewell lunch on the last day of school. We gathered in the Principal's office and toasted with cups of tea and bentos. Then the staff sang me a surprise English song -- oddly, Edelweiss. Broom and glow forever.


On Friday I had a farewell party with the staff from the Board of Education (9 of us in all). We went out to a pretty izakaya in Nodagawa with a koi pond in the back and suggestively-shaped pudding on the menu (which we ordered, naturally). Mrs. Nishihara, my supervisor for two years, gave a short speech, followed by a slightly less short speech by the Head of the BOE. They gave me a beautiful bouquet of flowers, a card with the Japanese hina-sama (dolls) on it, and a mug made by Ine's own potter, Mrs. Kura. The handle is a fish! Afterward there was drinking and story-telling and we went home considerably early since it was an exhausting week.

The following morning, I drove with Kate and Natanya down to Kyoto City to take Kirby to the ferret adoption agency in Nagoya. Natanya, champion of friendship and love, came with me for moral support. We took the shinkansen to Nagoya station and met up with a unique-looking Japanese woman, Ms. Ishihara. She took Kirby and all of his documents and gave me a BIG hug and left with him. As I watched her carrying him away, I burst into tears. I think that all the stress from leaving plus saying goodbye to so many people plus losing my pet, the only thing that's really kept me from going insane in my house, was more than I could bear at that moment.

However, I had planned for this outburst of emotion and Natanya and I immediately changed into party dresses for the long, local train ride back. We briefly explored the area around Nagoya station and were disappointed but how unexciting the post office was. We did however find a lot of cheap wine in the department store basement. By the time we arrived at Kyoto station in the afternoon, we were delightfully smashed. This helped me feel less empty since I was coming back without Kirby's travel cage.

We met Ian and Kate at Nijo station and went for a quick dinner at a ramen shop near the movie theatre. Then, after meeting up with Lauren, we went to see Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, which received mixed reviews from the group. I personally enjoyed it. Following this, I fell into a sleepy/sad stupour and we wandered over to a nearby bar for drinks and french fries until about 1am, by which time we went to bed in various locations.

The next morning I took a bus to meet Lauren at the Kyoto Station Starbucks to hang out for a bit and say goodbye. We talked about how it's hard for things to feel as definite as "I'll never see this person again" because of facebook and twitter and skype and g-chat. That helped us both feel better, I think.



After a hearty Hawaiian hug, I took off for Kameokoa to say goodbye to Laurel and eat donuts at Mister Donut! It was really nice to see her again, and I'm pleased that she'll be taking over the Ganbatte Times newsletter for me as well. Rachel2, Natanya, Ian and Kate then showed up in Kameoka and we drove up to Ine together after saying goodbye to Laurel.

The last hurrah in Ine was exactly what I needed so as not to feel awful about coming home to an empty, ferret-less house. Instead, the lot of us cooked up a curry and played dominoes until the wee hours. Cake was thrown, wine was spilled, and allergies were developed -- a perfect evening.

Ian would soon teach Kate how to throw a punch. Kate would soon take a Benadryl and pass out.

The next day after a leisurely breakfast we all walked over to the Tsutsukawa Buddha statue and followed giant crayfish down the gutters. We also spotted a lot of tiny frogs (some with tails still) sitting on the hydrangea bushes!

Can you find the frog?

After the walk it was time to say goodbye, so I gave Rachel2 and Ian some big hugs, we took photos, and off they went. I'm not sure when I'll see them next, but I feel optimistic it will be sooner than later.

Today I went to my last shuji (calligraphy) class with Mrs. Kamitsuji and the junior high school students. When my daily calligraphy was done, Kamitsuji-sensei presented me with some binders of all the work I've done in 2 years and a letter from her. I was really touched, and saying goodbye to her and that class and that room is something that I'm still having trouble with. That seems more forever than saying goodbye to JETs. On my way out, some of my elementary school students gave me some plums from their garden and I drove home feeling overwhelmed with happiness.

Yep, that's right -- I feel happy, not sad. I can easily say that some of the worst days of my life have been in Japan. And working on the JET Programme hasn't exactly been a dream job or a career path for me... but I feel so fortunate that I got to live here for two years that I can't help but feel happy instead of sad. I learned Japanese calligraphy, I've watched the rice in its circle of life, I've seen frogs and snakes and eagles and boar and tanuki. I've become conversational at a language I never really set out to learn. I've fallen in love with teaching. Really, I've fallen in love with life. I think Ine will always be the place where I learned how to be a person, and I learned how to be accountable for things other than myself. There's no amount of bad days that can reverse that experience, and for that I will be eternally grateful.

This blog will soon draw to a close, but it will always be here to remind me of all the memories I've had these two years. There's just not enough room in my heart and in my head to keep it all inside, so I'm glad that I've written it down where it can't be erased.

So, in this last week of living in Japan and living in Ine specifically, I'm going to take the good. I'm not going to accept the sadness, but I'm going to hold onto the profound gratitude that I've been feeling ever since it sank in that I'm going onto a different kind of future. So in the end, I really think it's going to be OK.

Farewell, Bike!

I sold my bike! The Yasaka JET, Megan (Leigh's successor) offered to pay me for my lovely, Dr. Pepper can-coloured bicycle! Hooray! So, she drove the long road up to Ine and I introduce her to her new fly ride.

After re-homing a few rogue spiders, we pushed the bike over to her kei-car SUV and tried to put it inside, failing spectacularly! We would need a wrench to take the front tire off the bike... but where could we find one?

A-ha! Surely the gas station would have a wrench. Don't cars have bolts or whathaveyou? So, I valiantly rode the bike one last time in the humidity of this fair seaside village all the way to the gas station.

When I arrived, Megan was standing off to the side while everyone at the gas station (all two people) stared at her unapologetically. We explained what needed to be done, and the trusty gas station attendant, Mr. Mitsuno, went to work and deftly removed the front tire of the trusty mamachari bike. And lo, the bike fit within the confines of her trunk. But what about me? How would I get back home?

Double lo, I also fit within the confines of her trunk!

And so we celebrated with the washing of our dirt-covered hands and the eating of local tempura-don.

Goodbye, bike! You were one of the great ones.

Poisonous Centipedes Dream of Electric Sheep

Centipede Celebrates Independence Day; Dies

The weather can't seem to make up its mind. Sometimes it's sunny and warm, and more often it's rainy and very humid outside. Usually they call this 梅雨 (tsuyu) or "rainy season". Ian always says that Japan can't have both "four seasons" and a "rainy season". Someone's lying somewhere I guess! In any case, rainy season is usually over by the first few days of July from what I remember, but it doesn't seem to want to leave this time.

I went to a 4th of July BBQ hosted by Natanya's English conversation group ladies in Kumihama. The weather wasn't exactly BBQ-esque -- it was misty with on and off drizzling. However, the BBQ was a lot of fun! They prepared meat, fish, vegetables, and squid. Yum! Not to mention that Rachel2 and Greg came up from the city/Yagi to come celebrate Americamas™! Thanks to the rain, nobody got bug-bitten or sunburned.

Afterwards we went to Natanya's house to sleep and have dinner. We clonked out pretty early (around 1 or 2am) and slept through the snores, murmurs and heat. And by, "we slept", I mean everybody made a lot of noise in their sleep while I prayed for dawn.

The next morning, I got up from underneath my desk bright and early, packed up my blankets and put my things in my car. After awhile, Kate, R2 and Greg also woke up and joined me in the kitchen for general sitting around and yawning. Natanya woke up last, and with a blood-curdling scream.

"MUKADE ON MY CEILING! IT'S ON MY CEEILIIIIING".

The rest of us ran to see, and sure enough there was an 8-inch, crimson, poisonous centipede crawling along the crevice connecting Natanya's bedroom wall to her ceiling. About 5 feet above where I was sleeping 30 minutes previous. Shudder.

"Natanya, calm down and get your mukade spray."
"It's HUGE."
"Yes! You're not wrong. But you need to get your mukade spray now."
"OK."

Natanya then handed me cockroach spray. It was worth a shot.

So I sprayed the mukade, causing it to fall with a loud 'thwup' onto her bedroom tatami floor. It started chasing me because I was spraying it with poison (poison that wasn't doing a lot!) This was when I called for backup.

"Natanya! GET THE SHOE! GET THE SHOE AND KILL IT! KILL IT NOW!!!! NOOOOOWWWW! DON'T CHASE MEEEEEEE!!!!"

Natanya pummeled that centipede with her hiking boot six times before it stopped moving. Six! After the hard part was over, it was time to extract the crushed, poisonous mukade from the floor and throw it in a bag... but mukade are really disgusting to look at, so this was harder than we'd thought. First I put on rubber gloves and got tin foil to pick it up and throw it in a garbage bag. The adrenaline from moments ago had me shaking, and I wasn't able to hold my hand still enough to pick it up. So, Natanya tried while I held teh garbage bag. The mukade's head then twitched and we shrieked like banshees.

"HOW is it still ALIVE?!?!?!"

Eventually we had Greg "Hero of Our Times" Khezrnejat come and pick up the mukade, wrap it in newspaper, and throw it in the garbage bag. Success!

There wasn't much to do afterwards except eat toast in silence and every so often make a comment about how big centipedes in Japan can be. Natanya's feelings of deep regret for not re-contracting or staying in Kaya longer rapidly dissipated. I thinks he's happier to go home now.

Natanya: "I want to go home now."
Kate: "This is my impression of Golem doing Disco"

Later on, I drove home and Kate joined me at the Honjo beach for some sun in the afternoon. We talked about leaving and what we want to do next. Nobody knows the answer to that question, no matter how many times it's asked. What I do know is that I'm moving away from the hills filled with poisonous giant centipedes and back to a country full of gnats, small spiders, and the occasional housefly. Because I am an American, and that's the sort of insect my emotional capabilities can properly handle.