Kyoto Conference & the long way home

The Kyoto Conference

Not too much to go into about the conference this year. My JTE (Japanese Teacher of English) was Aimi Sensei, and I finally found out that her first name is Ayako. Nice name! So we had fun learning new ideas for activities and realizing how awesome we are in general. I never realized how lucky I had it being at a small school with only two JTEs and generally lax lesson planning restrictions. I’m sort of living it up, as it turns out! No wonder I’m not unhappy at work!

Other than that, we got to see some riveting workshops run by fellow JETs, most of whom I am acquaintances with to say the least. I won’t go into Lyle’s, but his was definitely the most memorable. Other than that, Raymond and Audrey gave very good workshops as well, and all of the moderators were outstanding, in their own way. Keeping time and all. Tough job, but somebody’s got to do it!

We also had an interesting guest speaker. She’s a translator (native Japanese) in her 50’s who discussed the growing social crises in Japan along the lines of drop in birthrate, marriage, etc. She was interesting because she kept trying to denounce the fact that she was any sort of ‘militarist feminist’, although clearly she has some sort of faith in women in the workplace, as she is a notable example of one such lady. Ah well, Japanese. They even contradict their own facts. I was sort of hoping Godzilla would give a speech, but he got stuck in traffic or something. Alas.

After the work, I went and played with a number of JETs. The first evening I hung out with Amy, Lauren and Greg and we went to get okonomiyaki, which is a sort of egg pancake with meets and cabbage and veggies that really hit the spot. Having a beer with dinner was a real treat too, as I had nowhere to drive for a change. Afterwards, Amy and I wandered around Kyoto station mall (the one underground) and had some frappucinos and Christmas drinks at ye olde Starbucks. We wandered for a bit and met up with Rae, the kumihama JET, and chatted about the more interesting parts of the conference. Amy and I then hopped a train back to Kameoka (where I was staying with CIR Megan B.) and found ourselves to Megan’s apartment. We then met up with the fabulous Oirish John B. and scuttled off into the cold night for some karaoke, which was wonderful! I can tell you right now, those three Kameoka JETs are some damn good people to do karaoke with!

The next evening I stayed with Leigh and Simon (who were my carpool back to the Tango Penninsula). We went to dinner at Café Independence, which is a nice place with good wine in the Sanjo area (cool area of downtown Kyoto). After chatting a bit with the city kids, we left pretty late to get back home. The car ride home was interesting. First, all three of us managed to miss our turn completely and we ended up fairly lost in Hyogo prefecture, which is not at all where we live! Thanks to the help of the stealthy Rae, we found our way back only to realize we BASICALLY had no gas in the car. We may look like grown ups, but I assure you it is not the reality of our situation. We managed to ‘ganbatte’ all the way to Mineyama where we stocked up on some badly needed gas and get home to Leigh’s house in Yasaka. Unfortunately for me, Yasaka is still 45 minutes away from where I live in Ine. So I hopped in my car and began the trek homeward.

The Detour of Terror

There was a detour on a main stretch of coastal highway that leads directly to my town. I was hesitant to take it, but I also really wanted to go home and sleep. I was beginning to feel so tired that my eyes were shaking in my skull. It was as much fun as it sounds. The road was going the same direction as the adjacent highway, although it was winding considerably through some mountains, and dark only became darker once I entered some very thick woods. Every 5 miles or so, I’d see a construction man waving me in some strange direction, further on this detour which I was convinced would see me straight to my terrifying demise. Mind you, this is around 1am, why are there even construction men hiding in a forest at 1am? Farther into the forest I crept, my car doing its best to putter along at 15mph (maybe 30km/h). The farther in I went, the more tanuki corpses I began to see.
Now, this may sound ridiculous, but I had NO idea tanuki were real animals. I thought they were mythical or extinct animals only seen in Japanese folktales and temples. So, when I saw a dead one sprawled in front of me, jaws ajar, eyes glinting a menacing green, you can imagine my surprise (read; complete terror). As many JETs have already heard me say, it was like seeing a dead unicorn in the middle of the road. I had nooo idea what the animal was. A coyote? A mutated raccoon the size of a golden retriever? It finally hit me as soon as I’d passed the third road corpse that it was in fact, a tanuki. The more you know. Anyway I eventually did make it out of the detour forest and home, and collapsed in my bed around 2am, not at all ready for my Friday at elementary school.