My birthday trip!

So the rest of silver week wasn't that exciting for us here, except that we went into Omuta (the large-ish city to the south of us) on Wednesday to have dinner for my birthday. We chose a restaurant named Jamaica. They served pizza, hamburgers and various japanese dishes. Jamaica. We had a delicious curry pizza. It was pretty much curry sauce with carrot and broccoli, etc. put on pizza with some cheese thrown on.

But then this weekend, we rented a car and went on an adventure to Yufuin! It is kinda like the Banff of Kyushu.

First part of the adventure: renting the car! I'd like to point out that in Canada, we won't be able to rent a car for about 2 years. Here, it was no problem. Also, most of the driving took place on the expressway, which would have been terrifying enough for Dylan who was still a little uncomfy driving on the left side of the road. But to make things interesting, no one is Japan even remotely follows the posted speed limits on the expressway. On the way there, the limit was 50 kph and most people were happily going along at about 90-100 kph. I think me panicking and yelling at Dylan helped the situation! On the way back, since it was later in the day and speed limits go up on some roads at night, the speed limit was 80 kph and we drove at about 120-130 kph most of the way and were going just slightly faster than most of the cars in the slow lane, but kinda slower than most in the fast lane.

We got into Yufuin at around 1pm or so, and promptly decided to take a nap in the car. Once we woke up, we wandered around this lake and downtown Yufuin for a bit and went and had lunch around 3pm. Then we decided that we should it up the hot springs before they all closed. And this being Japan - hot springs just mean baths in water that you don't have to heat yourself! Meaning more nakedness! But this time it was fine. After convincing Dylan that I really didn't want to go to a segregated bath house because it would be really boring for me to sit there being stared, he asked around and we found this nearby bathhouse that had a family bath. More importantly, after some confusion, we found out it had private family baths. Meaning that we rented out a room and didn't have to be naked in front of other people. It was lovely. I strongly believe that that is how every hot spring should be and that every house should have one, or at least my future house. After that, we went and had diner and headed back to our bed (read: car) for the night.

The next day, we woke up and started our trek up Yufudaka. Interesting facts about Yufudaka: it was a volcano, it is about 5 times the size of Mt. Finlayson, walking up it is VERY tiring, and it has screaming deer on it. Oh, and climbing up near the top is terrifying since it is really steep, really windy and has chains that you need to hold on to so that you don't plummet to your death. But we made it up (after I lost more or less my body weight in sweat) and it was pretty. By the time we got down, it was time to head home. We got back filled up the car, returned it, and come home. All in all, a pretty good trip!

The End.

Our weekend thus far.

So, as you might know, this is a suuuupppperrr long weekend for us here in Japan. Monday was/is Respect-for-the-Aged Day, Wednesday is the Autumnal Equinox, and Tuesday is a holiday simply because it falls right in between two other holidays, thank you Holiday Act of Japan! What have we been up to, you may ask?

Well, Friday we went down to a festival held each year at Hakozaki Shrine. It had roughly 700 stalls with various foods and traditional japanese festival games. Both my favourite and least favourite ones were the ones where they give you a really delicate net and you try and catch as many of some sort of an animal (they have ones for gold fish, beetles, and baby turtles) as you can and then you get to keep whatever you catch. You take it home as a pet. Weird. Anyway, we wondered around these stalls looking at all sorts of neat things for a few hours. And we went into the shrine, which was amazing. There were all of these traditional performances (?) or prayer (?) or something, that were pretty neat. And we did the whole practice of washing our hands and mouths, and going in to pray at the shrine with all of this clapping and bowing. But it was just so fascinating to see how religion plays a role in Japanese life. Everyone enters into the shrine and prays - everyone. My favourite was this really cool looking guy, about 25 years old, praying with a beer in one hand. Because when you go to the festival, you pray - it is just what you do.

Saturday, we went into downtown Fukuoka and met up with Aoki-san and Yuuko-san for lunch at this delicious all-you-can-eat buffet and wandered around window-shopping. While we were doing this, Dylan mentioned that we were planning a trip to a hot spring next weekend and were going to rent a car. They worry, so they took us to a travel agency to see if maybe we could find a cheaper train/hotel deal so that we wouldn't have to drive. But Dylan proved to be right in that it was a lot cheaper to rent a car, so he actually won that one with them. However, they drive on the other side of the road here, so Aoki-san decided that the only way that she would let us rent a car was if she took Dylan out to practice first. And since we were coming back into town the next day, it made the most sense for us to stay with her for the night, since she lives so much closer and so that Dylan could get the most practice possible. She won that one. So we went out, bought a change of clothing and and spent the night at her house.

Oh, darn, actually, on the way back to her house, it was decided that we should go to the giant ferris wheel in Meinohoma since Dylan had mentioned that he wanted to take me there sometime during the weekend for my birthday and it was on the way. I'm not sure why Dylan wanted to take me there, since I'm scared of heights and this freaking ferris wheel is 120m tall and is tied as the fourth largest ferris wheel in the world. But the weather on Saturday was kinda lousy, so it was closed due to wind and the four of us went on the smaller (and by smaller, I mean about half as big, but still the largest ferris wheel I'd ever been on by far). It was scary, but really pretty. It had a lovely view of the wedding theme park that was nearby!

Which brings us to Sunday. We woke up, headed over to Yuuko-san's to say goodbye and then headed out so Dylan could get some practice in. We went for a really pretty drive along the coast, saw this CRAZY big motorcycle groups (seriously, there were at least 100 of them), stopped and dipped out toes in the ocean, went to this hippie/surfer art gallery, and then she decided we should stop for a snack. So she took us to this golf club that overlooks the coast. As you can imagine, golfing in Japan is for the very rich, since golf courses kinda take up a lot of room. It was ridiculously fancy and they made me take off my flip flops and put on slippers, which was kinda embarrassing. Our snacks (of juice, edamame, and gyoza) cost her about $30, which we felt pretty guilty for, but she wouldn't let us pay and it was her idea to go there in the first place.... Then we continued on driving for a while, stopped for ice cream at Baskin Robins (where they put Alyssa's ice cream scooping to shame! Seriously, these were the most perfectly round scoops of ice cream I have ever seen) and she dropped us off to meet up with Samantha and her boyfriend, Jake. Wow, this paragraph is getting long.

Time for a new one. Samantha, Jake Dylan and I met up at the school and wandered down to Canal City, this huge shopping mall thing and had ramen for dinner from this ramen food court where each restaurant served ramen from a different region. We then decided to have desert, so we wandered down to another part of the mall and watched the hourly water show on the way. Hourly water show. It was set to Abba and Dylan took a video that we'll eventually get around to posting on Facebook. In another part of the mall, they had this fountain that had this sheet of water droplets falling that would have gaps in it that would spell things. We also stopped at a pet store, but decided not to buy the ¥30,000 bunny since we thought communication would be difficult, it only speaking Japanese and all. ¥30,000, seriously, for a bunny. For desert Dylan had a strawberry/banana/chocolate crepe and I had a bubble tea float. We finished up and headed home.

Monday, we met up with Samantha and Jake again. We had told them they day before about the ferris wheel and they'd been interested, so we'd decided to head there to go shopping, have lunch, and go on this freaking wheel. We headed down, and I WENT ON THE FERRIS WHEEL!! Yay me. It wasn't actually that bad, since I'm just a big wuss. We then had some food, walked around for a while, and headed back into downtown Fukuoka (which is called Teinjin and will make this easier if I just refer to it as that...). Samantha and Jake went home, but it was still early, so Dylan and I decided to wander around for a while. Dylan bought a book, I bought some socks and leggings, and Dylan bought a shoulder bag. In that order.

And that, my friends, was our adventuring from the last couple of days. Today, I decided that it would be best if I hung around home, did laundry, and got caught up on things. I hope that was epic enough of an update for you, Pauly.

I made a new friend today. Her name is Samantha. I go to school with her.

The end.

I was getting really frustrated this morning that everything was such a mess and that there was nothing I could do about it, and then I realized today that I've been living out of a suitcase since the end of July. I would just really like someplace that we were going to be staying long enough to unpack, long enough that it makes sense to buy things that would make it possible to unpack. Because right now, every time we buy something, I think of how full our bags are and wonder where we are going to fit it.

That's my story for today. I gotta go to school now.

School

So school yesterday was confusing as heck. I thought I was screwed and was super disheartened about this whole Japanese thing. But, so far today has gone a lot better! Even with her still primarily speaking a language I don't yet know. I think the trick is in reading the lesson before hand, so that I can focus on what she is saying without worrying about missing important things. If that makes sense. Anyway, I've been reheartened.

Oh, and if this makes no sense or there are horrible spelling mistakes, it's because I'm writting this on my iPod while on my lunch break.

Anyway, people are back from buying lunch, so I should stop being rude.

P.S. If learning Japanese isn't hard enough, most of the people in my class speak French, so I'm trying to understand and participate with them during breaks. Good times.

Nakedness

So this weekend, Dylan and I went into the city both days. Saturday was kinda boring. He showed me where the school was (today was my first day and was really really hard - as in they are trying to teach me Japanese in Japanese), we had dinner, we walked around, and we were going to go to this international bar, but they were really slow and the train we needed to catch left pretty early. So we just went home.

Ahh, but then Sunday. Sunday, we went up to Susenji (about 1.5 hours away by train from Yanagawa, where our apartment is) and met up with Aoki-san, her new billet, and her friend, Yuko-san. We went to Yuko-san's house (which was really cute) and she gave us some drinks and snacks, and then she gave Dylan and I some adorable bowls she had bought us. They go well with the hand towels she gave us earlier and the chopsticks and bath towels Aoki-san gave us earlier. I will post pictures of them next time. When we were done, we all left for the bath. This is the part of the story where I'm naked in front of a whole bunch of people, including Dylan's previous host mom and her friend. So, you go in, get naked, shower, and then walk around going into whichever bath suits your fancy for a while, shower again and leave. It was kinda weird, but not as awkward as you might expect since everyone is naked. Surprisingly relaxing. It is more or less like sitting in a hot tub (or a variety of hot tubs - both outside and inside), except you're not in a bathing suit. You do get a towel that you can cover yourself with when walking between tubs. Actually, I think I would have found it less awkward if it had been co-ed. Then I could have talked to Dylan and had him translate things for me. Silly Christians coming and telling them it was a sin for large numbers of men and women to be naked together. There are apparently still some that are co-ed, but they are more rare. 

After the bath, we all went out tempura - which Yuko-san paid for. And we went shopping for work shirts and ties for Dylan, as well as a pot, a pan and some cooking utensils. We also briefly looked at rice cookers, but decided they were too expensive. After we finished up, they gave us a two second ride to the bus depot and gave us the rice cooker they had bought us as a present. Apparently they worry. Have I mentioned that they are absolutely adorable?

First day in Japan!

The way over was pretty rough. Long and boring and by myself. Lots of time to think of how potentially disastrous this could all be. And then the Japanese immigration was less than keen on letting me into the country seeing as how I didn't know an address or phone number for where I was staying. And then the guy tried to tell me that Dylan wasn't in Japan. (All of this is happening in Japan, not somewhere useful like Vancouver, by the way.) But then I went and talked with the senior immigration inspector, she went away for a couple of minutes and handed my my visitor's visa. I liked her. 

Now Dylan has gone off to work and I'm sitting here with his host mom downstairs. Her english: very poor. My Japanese: very poor. Good times. 

Ok, I know that it is kinda lame to update my Asia blog so many times while I'm still in Canada...

This is the last time, I swear.

In the middle of packing. Would have been further along if I hadn't of switched suitcases about 30 mins ago; I needed more room. I had to cut back on books - it made me sad, but we kinda need clothes. Just doing laundry and then I'll be done (take that Dylan!). Kinda sleepy.

T minus 3 hours. Goodbye Canada. Try to stay out of trouble while I'm away!