And so, two more months down the track and finally another post. It’s Summer Holidays for me in Gifu at the moment and unlike the rush and general craziness of last years holiday which saw me at all ends of Japan, this years has seen me… at all ends of Japan. The big difference with this year being that I have spent a lot more time at home and tried to take things much easier. I can now add five more prefectures to the list of ones I have visited (Shizuoka, Fukushima, Miyagi, Yamagata – the one in the north – and Fukui), using the ‘it doesn’t count until you go outside of aiport customs/past the ticket gate at the train station’ way of counting. I’ve been rather productive I’d say. Instead of just suffering from a case of keyboard diarrhea, as is my usual want, I’ll throw up a couple of photos from my summer…
One of the few things you’ll see in downtown Sendai (well actually this is a couple kms away from the action) that did sucuumb to the earthquake is this statue in the picture on the left. I was very impressed by the level of work that had gone into clearing up most of the coastline. While there are still obvious signs of what has happened, and you can see little demountable villages in south Sendai, I admired the resilience of the Sendai people to keep going out and having fun and moving on with their lives after the earthquake and tsunami.
Yamadera, and Yamagata Prefecture in general seemed to be very laid back and quiet places that moved a little slower than the rest of the country. If ever I needed a long retreat somewhere in Japan to get away from it all, this kind of area could do it for me… (and I got to say I worked in the other Yamagata while I was there – it was funny to hear the Yamagata prefecture people say they didn’t even know my one existed!)
One of the few times you’ll ever see me post pictures of the towns where I work, the picture on the left is from the Ijira Summer Matsuri. Only a recent invention (just 3 years old), it was very small and very rural. But because it was my part of the world, I think it rocked just as much as some of the big festivals. My students were awesome with their dancing, dragon carrying and taiko drumming. A part of me wished I didn’t have to leave early and that I’d wore my yukata.
Beach!!! Finally!! I’d been looking forward to a beach day for a long time and while the standard was never going to be as good as Australia, it was an awesome road trip to the Hokuriku region and the Sea of Japan. As I’ve said in many posts before, I miss that feeling of being near the beach. Having the wide open expanses so close to me is something I miss a lot. Thankfully I went on a weekday and so crowds were not so bad and on this beach there was no blaring j-pop from every corner. What this picture doesn’t show though, is that in the next bay, there is a nuclear power plant. Or Dr No’s secret hideout. I couldn’t actually tell.
This final photo is from the Gujo Odori, one of the most famous dance festivals in Japan held over Obon in mid-August (in Gifu that is). During the main few days over Obon, people dance (the bon odori – traditional Japanese line dancing basically) all night. While I didn’t make it that long, I was in my yukata for the evening which seemed to surprise most people that saw me. Obviously not many other foreigners who come to Gujo rock the yukata like I do! Haha.
I still have about two more weeks of my holiday and I’m hoping that things slow down a little more so I can get energy back for my return to work. I’m hoping that my summer aim of doing more Japanese study is fufilled because while I think I can understand a lot of the conversations I hear, I still feel as though I need to work on my speaking and sentence structures. I’m mulling over the prospect of doing the JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test) in December however, concrete questions over my future are coming quicker than I would like so I must consider my future. It was in Tokyo at the start of summer holiday that the first real feelings of ‘I’m done’ came to me. Perhaps it was because of Tokyo, a place that I’m none too fond of, the loss of purpose and schedule due to having a break from work that has left me feeling aimless or maybe even the feeling that I really am done that drew me to that conclusion. Maybe with the return to work in a few weeks, the fire in the belly for this place will come back to me and the real questions about my situation that must be faced will be. But whatever happens, as I always do, I’ll keep on keeping on. I’ll continue to try to say ‘yes’ to everything, go do many various and exciting things, as the pictures show, and make plans to enjoy my time here. And hopefully next time I’ll avoid keyboard diarrhea. (ギリギリまでネバーギブアップ！) =D Until next time…
How Far Do You Wanna Go? 