It has been a trying few weeks at work but I am still standing despite a bunch of bull!@#$. I was about to lose my mind because I had to participate in work related activities three weekends in a row and never really had a chance to get any proper rest, but last night I stayed in and ate a lot of fruit and watched online movies and I feel like a real person again. I can't imagine how exhausting it might be to actually be Japanese. They are building some new apartments next door to my house and I swear it was just a dirt field a week ago, but everyday from sun up to about 9:00 pm there are about 50 construction workers building the quickest apartment in the history of mankind. Japanese efficiency is kind of overwhelming sometimes. I'm afraid it doesnt' result in happiness a lot of the time though, utilitarianism at its best/worst. It is about one thirty, the sun is finally shinning outside after what seemed like one of the coldest winters I've ever experienced (only because I can't sleep with my heater on), the cherry blossoms are going to start to bloom in a about a month- and half of my contract will be up. It feels good to be somewhat rooted where I am but not obligated to stay forever. This weekend has been pretty good but not long enough. On Friday my coworker and I went to the infamous yaki-niku (cooked meat translated literally) but it is more of a salad bar and cook your own meat and seafood restaurant. On Saturday the office manager at my school, Akemi, had me and my other coworker attend an International Game day at this community center/shrine out in the middle of the country where we had to entertain a bunch of Japanese kids that spoke no English for a good part of the day. I typically get pissed off at this kind of weekend event because I normally get there and find out that I am supposed to come up with some sort of speech or self introduction and that I should try and speak English as much as possible even though nobody understands it and it is the weekend and I am sick of talking. This event was okay though, my bosses daughter and son are really cute, the people at the event were really nice, and all the men cooked a big dinner in women's aprons for everyone that we ate on the floor Japanese style - my feet fell asleep as usual. They even gave me ten dollars (1,000 yen) for showing up. On the way home my coworker accidentally ran a red light over some train tracks (they don't have bars that come down here when a train comes) and almost got us both killed by a couple of seconds. Maybe he felt bad for almost ending my life but he took me to a really cool outdoor market where I got a bunch of fruit for practically no money and then we went to a cake shop and had some sweets. Because Japan is a country all about tradition and detail, getting cake can be a really cool experience. My little piece of cake was wrapped up in about three different containers, had a cold pack in it to keep it chilled, and then I was given a spoon about the size of a needle so that it took me about a half hour to eat it. I also went and got a new headset so I can make skype phone calls because I thought my mic was busted, but it still isn't working. That makes me sad. I think there are many things wrong with my computer. I think I'll have it looked at when I am in Tokyo next month. Other then this, last weekend, we took all of our kids to the zoo about an hour and a half away where we had to entertain the kids and their parents all the way there. It was not very fun and the zoo is often depressing, especially in Japan. The people hardly have any room so you can imagine the animals don't either. One thing that was interesting though, they let the really wild animals like mountain lions out almost in the open with just a few bars separating you from them. A kid could easily stick their hand in the cage and get eaten for lunch.
I guess people don't really do stupid stuff like that here like they would in the US. The weekend before that I had to MC and English speaking contest but the upside is that we met a really nice Australian guy that has been living in Miyakonojo for about three years. Afterward we all went out to a super cool Izakaya ( traditional Japanese restaurant where you order bbq scewers of veggies and meat and drink shoujou or beer). The weekend before that I went to Nagasaki for the lantern festival which was crazy crowded, we had to look for parking for about an hour, but definitely worth it. We stayed in the center of the city with my co-workers friends mother in this awesome house. We woke up and they cooked us a traditional Japanese breakfast and then we went to the peace park, the epicenter of where we dropped the A-bomb. I didn't have a change to go the actual museum but I heard the one in Hiroshima is better anyhow. On our way back we stopped in Fukuoka and went shopping at Costco where I spent a lot of money and horrified all the Japanese shoppers with how much I was purchasing. In Japan people normally only go shop for that nights groceries so it is weird to go to Costco and see most people only have one thing in their basket. I was able to get a lot of things that are impossible to get in Miyakonojo, although it is not necessarily healthy stuff. Ohh yeah, and on the way to Nagasaki we stopped in Kurume where they have this huge shrine where people go to heal if they are sick. You can climb up this shrine and see the city and hear a recording of monks chanting. It was pretty cool. I guess that about sums it up. We had picture day the other day, I put one of the pictures up above. One of the pictures and below is a sideways(couldn't figure how to turn it) video of one of my students crying and another of the view of Miyakonojo from Mochio Park.

Far and few between

If anybody is reading this, sorry for taking so long to post anything new. I am still mentally recovering from my visit to Seoul and Okinawa and have been relaxing every weekend- reading a lot but obviously not writing so much. A short version of what happened from then until now: my brother bought a plane ticket to come visit for the end of March. He will fly into Miyazaki city, spend one day here, we will go to Kagoshima, catch a plane to Osaka, take a train to Kyoto, maybe Nara, and end up in Tokyo. He will bring a suitcase full of goods not available in Japan and I may die of happiness, we will eat sushi, and inevitably karaoke. This is definitely something for me to look forward to because it is my last week off until August, my brother is a lot of fun, and I STILL haven't been to Tokyo, Kyoto, or Osaka. in other breaking news, my bike was stolen this weekend, but the thief was kind enough to hang up my umbrella that was in the basket. In other words, they had a lot of integrity to only steal a little bit from me, they didn't get greedy and take it all. I was a bit surprised this happened, but well.... it gave me the excuse I needed to buy my new bike I bought today. There are some really nice parks and waterfalls around the area that will be good to bike to when it warms up a bit. My new bikes has six speeds so that I can take it up in the mountains. Last week the school I work at took our kids to go pick strawberries. I ate a lot of them because they are normally too expensive for to afford. We have a lot of events like this that occur frequently and sometimes on the weekend. This weekend I have to go be the MC to this English speaking contest, the week after that there is some international game day I have to attend on a Saturday, and the weekend after that is our goodbye picnic for our graduating students. Sometimes I get the following Monday off. This weekend my coworker and I went to Beppu, check it out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ the hotspring capital of the world and took a mud bath, a sand bath, and toured the Jinkoku or "Hells" Beppu has to offer. These are really cool geothermal hotsprings that are the most incredible colors and are too hot to get into. They made each one a theme, one even has alligators in it, one had an elephant, one cooked eggs, you name it....This picture is at a Jingoku onsen as well.Beppu is a city worth going back to because hotsprings are always nice-and the ones here are really extensive. I finally made it to the one a few blocks away from my house and that one is worth the four dollars as well. In Beppu they even have hikes out in the mountains where you can find hidden hotsprings, AND they have a Hello Kitty Land I didn't have a chance to go to yet, they have a cable car that takes you into the mountains so you can get a view of the whole steamy city, a park full of wild monkeys, and a lot of nice people. I think the people are so relaxed because there is a hotspring on every corner for when the Japanese way of life proves to be too stressful. The highlight of the trip may have been getting into the mens only hotspring on accident and getting yelled at by the attendent, or it could have been going to Hit Parade, a sixties style club where you can request whatever songs you want with all you can eat and drink, which- turns out to be alot. Other news since the last post, my coworkers Sarah has put in her notice to quit so it looks like I may be a little more alone in Miyakonojo for the duration of my contract, however, I went to a gathering of most English teachers in the area and met some other really cool girls that live only a few blocks away. This weekend, my coworker Kerry, Sarah, and I are going to Nagasaki for Chinese New Year. I'm not really sure what to expect but we are stopping by Costco in Fukuoka on the way back so that will be about the most American thing that will have happened to me since my departure. What else what else, or as they say in Japanese, etto.....etto..........Sarah and I tried out Sushi Tora, a rotating sushi restaurant in Miyakonojo. Picture c/o Sarah. It was excellent and it helps alleviate the task of figuring out how to read the menu which can be painstaking and often doesn't happen. We also found this all you can eat pizza and pasta place for about 13 dollars that is pretty good, without too many weird varieties of pizza. Japanese pizza can get really weird, there is almost always corn and mayonnaise on it and sometimes mochi. What else...Oh yeah. They have this holiday here called Setsubun where a monster scares the bejeezus out of the kids and they retaliate by throwing peanuts at him.
My coworker dressed up like a monster to scare the kids and they freaked. It was hilarious. Here are some pictures.