Today I took the bus to Ohyama...

Which seems pretty straightforward. On Tuesday I took the bus to Ochidani. Got on the bus. Got off the bus. Full stop. Ohayama... not so much.

So for 2 of my 4 schools, I have to take the bus. The first time I went, I was picked up by teachers and took the bus home. It was lovely. However, now that I know where the schools are, I’m on my own. My supervisor gave me a bus schedule and highlighted the times and places for me to take the bus. Except for Ohyama she didn’t realize that I couldn’t take the bus from the regular bus terminal, so last time I went to Ohyama I had to call her and she had to drive me. Today, now informed of what bus stop to go to, I rushed out to the stop to make sure I wouldn’t miss the bus. I have an unstoppable paranoia about missing buses. Trains I feel run on time, buses seem less reliable and more likely to just not stop at some places. Anyway, I got there super early and was waiting, and thinking, "my, it's odd that the bus stop I was told to go to has traffic going the other direction.. hmm oh well, maybe it pulls into the parking lot."

No.

The bus approached, it did not put on its signal, it did not look like it was going to stop, so I frantically waved my arms and tried to catch the eye of the bus driver. He thankfully understood that the big gaijin girl waving her arms wanted his bus, so pulled over on his side of the road to the bus stop that I should have been waiting at. I get on, do my usual bit where I say my destination and the driver confirms it. But then, as we are going, it turns into the Awaga bus
terminal-- where my bus schedule says it doesn’t go... where it would have been much easier to catch the bus. but whatever, after a brief stop picking up some Senior High kids, it carries on back the way I know we are supposed to go.

The closer we get to school the fuller the bus gets... of small children. They don’t have regular school buses here like back home, everyone just takes the city bus and elementary school kids don’t pay. So now it’s me, about 5 senior high kids who are taking up 2 spaces each, and about 25-30 elementary school kids packed onto this bus. At one of the stops I see one of my teachers from Ohyama and she waves, I wave back, thinking, "hmm, why would she send her kid to her school by bus and not drive them?" The answer, as I learned once I got to school was that she had seen me, waiting on the wrong side of the road and decided to make sure that I caught the bus by just checking at one of the stops. Why she didn’t stop and point me to the right bus stop, or even give me a ride instead of me having my crazy wave down, I’m not sure.

Anyway, on the bus and we get to the Ohyama stop and all these kids start streaming out, in a rather orderly fashion. So I get up when it seems to be my turn, and proceed to walk off the bus, BUT the bus driver notices that I haven’t paid (I just totally forgot, getting caught up in leaving) and reaches out and grabs my arm-- but there is no way I can stop at the front to dig out my money because there are still a good 15-20 kids behind me waiting to file off. So I try to give him the, *I know, just a sec* look and wait just outside the bus door, getting the stare down from the bus driver whose look is full of *You better pay...*, get out my 200Yen and once the kids are all off pay him.

Now I’m at Ohyama, waiting to teach 1st and 2nd graders stand up, sit down. or as they will surely say it, stand up, shit down. Just another day.

Where my bike took me today

In the rather refreshing rain, I biked to one of my schools to see how far it was and then found a few temples, shrines, and some of Kamikawa's "beautiful nature" as Mr. Yamada would say. A very enjoyable trip, one that was delightfully downhill the whole way home.

Awaji Antics

*blogspot and I aren't quite friends yet, hence the lack of organization of photos.. I will assume you can match them up to what I talk about*

This weekend I headed down to Awaji Island with the hopes of spotting monkeys in the monkey park and good beach times. My school had it's Sports Day (I can't think of anything in Canada to compare it to except a combination of track and field day, marching, and Japanese line dancing), so I didn't make it there till Sunday, but it was OK as I had Monday (a national holiday) and Tuesday (because I worked Saturday) off.

Awaji,
http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en-commons/9/94/Japan_prov_map_awaji.png I made it with only vague directions and my little phrase book. I got a little confused in Kobe, and confused some Kobe-ians when I asked them for directions, but then got it sorted. It feels really nice to be able to travel solo. Awaji is connected to the rest of the Hyogo prefecture via the world's longest suspension bridge (take that San Fransisco) which was very snazzy. Once on the Island I met up with Gabrielle, Myrie and Paul and we headed to the famed Monkey Center. While driving I got to hear of their amazing adventures setting up a tent in the dark while it was raining, which made me feel better about the "American"* pizza I ordered. Another person's misery always puts your own into perspective, yes?

* Somehow "American" translates into potato, corn, sausage, and mayo. VERY disappointing.

S0, we finally made it to the Monkey Center (after many deceiving signs) only to find out that in September the monkeys go to farther into the mountains to eat nuts. Nowhere in anything we read was this mentioned. We took a lot of photos of us frowning, and some of 2 deer that showed up. No monkeys.

After that let down, we admired the beautiful coast and then decided it would be a good idea to set up camp before it got dark. We parked ourselves on a beach where some other people were camping and wound up randomly meeting another JET who was there with a "drinking club that has a running problem". Paul cracked open his unbelievably large jug of whiskey and after happily finding some ginger ale (Canada Dry!) there were happy glasses of rye and ginger.

After a restless night's sleep on the hard sand we hiked up the mountain that was next to us and found some castle ruins, went to an amazing "theme park" that consisted of random rides and, best of all, famous landmarks in 1/25th their size! Sadly, no Canada love, but oddly the Christchurch Cathedral in NZ made it in. Many ridiculous photos were taken.

As Gabrielle, Myrie and Paul all had to work on Tuesday, I bid them farewell and headed to Kobe for some shopping and the visited Luke, revelling in the 2 days of good ol' English conversation. Today Suzie and I went to Himeji to try and obtain a re-entry permit for our visas, only to be distracted by buying Yukata and then realizing that the bus we needed to take wasn't going to leave for another 90 minutes. Suzie had just returned from adventures in Kyoto so she headed home. I wanted to stop by Gabrielle's on my way home, but as she didn't finish school for a while I amused myself shopping, perusing the 100Yen store, foreign food store (yea, real cheese!) etc. I met Gabrielle at her apartment in Fukusaki, we bought some groceries, chatted and then she went off to teach english to some adults and I home to unpack my goodies and do the laundry that I had been avoiding. All in all, a pretty decent Awaji adventure and fake long weekend.

Countable

2: meetings I didn't understand more than 90% of today... make that 95%
3: adorable girls blowing bubbles that Suzie and I met on the way home today
3: giant wooden buddah's viewed (with 1000 small ones surrounding)
4: schools I teach at
5: hours spent dancing in Osaka on Saturday night/Sunday morning
5: festivals I've attended
6: number of tatami mats that are in my tatami mat room
9: different ways to separate your garbage properly
10: million square km of Canada
15: minutes by bike to the train station
14: classes I've given my self-introduction to
14: sets of students I've perpetuated Canadian stereotypes to
46: number of "letters" in the hiragana "alphabet"
80: minutes on the train to get to Kobe
100: yen equals 1 dollar (about)
128: million people in Japan
150: yen for one apple
380: thousand square km of Japan
500: yen the largest coin they have (and I was sad when they got rid of the 2$ bill...)

My Neighbourhood

The clouds tend to rest nicely on the mountains on a regular day. After the rain it's more like a blanket.




The view down the street, towards the schools that I work at

Me at the train station, second only to my bike as my mode of transportation, and that is largely because I have to bike to the station

Flowers spotted on my way across town. I wish this could be scratch-and-sniff photography because the scent of lilies was just amazing. They grow wild here and it is lovely.