TV Star Me

I was on TV! A few weeks ago on a freezing Saturday night, I made buckwheat noodles in a community hall with a bunch of kindly older people. There was a man recording it all and I never asked why (note to self, must not let strangers video me). Turns out he was from the regional TV station and I was on the 6 o'clock news last night, red-faced, messy haired and chopping soba with precision. I remember that everyone was so surprised that I was competent in the rolling and chopping of the dough that they all gathered and stared and lo and behold the camera caught them all gathered around and gaping at my culinary expertise. Now the whole of the Sanin region know how jouzu I am at soba.
Neways... Merriest Christmas and Happy New Years!!

Make it stop!

Since my last writing (post? hehe technical terminology) it has not stopped snowing for any significant period of time. It has broken all the December records and is not looking like stopping. The current cold front is supposed to peak today but there will be another one here by Thursday or Friday. I have taken to wearing three pairs of socks. The outside pair is expendable warmth-wise and can therefore be removed if too much snow collects in my shoes when I try to get out of the house.
My house is becoming more and more nest-like. It is too cold in the sleeping room to be anywhere except bed so my unsorted clothes are piling up around the futon. The other night I must have been rather chilly because I woke up under a mountain of clothes that I had scooped onto my bed. Everything I need in the living room is within reach of the Kotatsu so I never have to remove my knees from their toasty place.
My predictions of enforced decisiveness of a few weeks ago were greatly exaggerated. When I went to hand the papers to my supervisor she asked me if I was sure and I said absolutely not and she asked me to think about it for another week!
Fortunately there was an opinion sharing session over on the mainland that weekend and I managed to find an Irishman to tell me what to do. So now I am just avoiding telling people as best I can until I find out whether or not I got the transfer (January sometime).
SO after that wee tempest in a teapot... (cup?)
I'm off to Korea on Friday (actually Saturday, Friday is the 10 hour bus to Tokyo) for a white Christmas.
Hope y'all are having good Christmas times and have spectacular New Year plans!

Let it snow, let it snow...

(Customary apology about extreme writing slackness)
It is snowing muchly. I woke up and refused to get out of bed until it was far too late and then looked out the window and got back into bed. Everything was covered in a thin layer of whiteness. I managed to get ready at great speed which kept me from being snap frozen in my drafty apartment and now I am at work and it is really coming down. So much extremely exciting snow.
I haven't seen snow like this since the German times!
It will be a very white Christmas if this keeps up. (Though I will be in Korea for Christmas where it is much colder than here.)
I went to Hiroshima in November which was awesome. It was a flying visit, I got in late Friday night and left early Sunday morning but fitted a lot in to my Saturday. We got up early and went to Miajima to see the famous gates in the sea. I was attacked by many scary wee deer when I touristishiously bought some food for them. The man yelled at me to get away from the food stall after they looked rampagious.
In the afternoon I shop-shop-shopped (and bought a T-shirt with the baffling slogan "Stupid people shouldn't breed. The president Clinton is a two-timer" surprisingly good English actually) then did the serious stuff.
It was difficult to stop the tourist holiday whirlwind to really see what is and was in the peace park and peace museum. I want to do it again at a slower pace now that I know what there is to see and contemplate.
Life on the island keeps on as usual. I am starting to get invites to a few more events here and there. Last Sunday I went to a mochi naku. When a family moves into a new house it is customary to throw mochi (a kind of rice cake) from the roof. Four big mochi with money in them are thrown from the four corners of the house and little ones with 100￥ in them and chucked all over the place. It was a lovely morning and the villagers, grandmothers and children alike were chatting happily and politely and there was much bowing... but as soon as that first mochi hit the ground they went nuts! I sustained a big red scratch on my hand from a particularly zealous Grandma when I reached through a bush for a mochi baggy. Very scary. I also copped a mochi in the eye and got a nice red bump. But they are delicious! I still have plenty because that afternoon I went to a mochi festival at one of my primary schools (paying for my own taxis bites! I was a $40 meal of mochi!) and they gave me a bag of them to take home instead of the Donna-unfriendly cookies they had baked.
This weekend just gone I played soft volley-ball on the Friday and then went to Karoke with the people from work. I didn't realise how frightening Bohemian Rhapsody would be if you had never heard it before. Hehem.
Final news is that I have been driving myself (and those unfortunate enough to be in ear- and mail-shot) insane trying to decide about what I'm to do next. If I want to transfer off the island for next year I have to hand over the transfer papers today. BUT in the beautiful way of Japanese bureaucracy I don't actually have to decide if I'm staying until February. So it is a matter of IF I stay, where will I stay. By the next time I write I guess I will have decided... by then end of today I will have decided one way or the other... what a frightening thought!

Abunai Ushi (the danger cow)

What a long time it has been since my last entry!
Life is settling down here into a rhythm of teaching and evenings at home watching Meg Ryan boxing movies and crotcheting/knitting/sewing.
The weekend before last I went to the mainland for one of the JET gatherings. I took half a day of leave to get off the island on the Friday night and went to stay with Wellington people on the mainland. It ended up being 7 New Zealanders (4 imported from other regions) and a few other JETs and Japanese supervisors hanging out for the evening. Was just lovely. We played the 'oh so you studied at Vic?' and 'you were in the hostel with twelve of my cousins and lived in three of my flats?' and 'ah so that was you in met at beats and bubbles in old Bodega one ill-fated Tuesday... well then...' game. And we listened to Kora. And others played guitar.
The next day (after bacon, eggs, paua and pineapple) we travelled to the party proper and due to the universal laws of road-trip without actually getting lost we managed to arrive about 5 hours late in a car painted like a cow.
The actual party wasn't terribly exciting, a lot of drinking in dark alleyways between cabins keeping the noise down to avoid waking other campers but it was good to see (squint in dark at) the mainland people again. I even met someone from Paraparaumu.
The next day one of our drivers had lost his keys. This is not good at any time but I think a secluded mountain holiday park in a foreign country has to be one of the worse places to do such a thing. Many hours of search and then waiting to key-man to arrive from the nearest town to charge a ridiculous amount of money ensued.
The Monday was a public holiday and since I had to spend most of it getting home I planned to spend the rest of it shopping and instead spent most of the rest of it sleeping... but! in a super organised speedy shopping mission I bought a sewing machine! (had I been less speedy I might have realised it had no foot-pedal but I am slowly getting used to button control). Then I ran around buying all the ￥100 wool I could find. Now have enough crafty supplies to keep me at home for months.
So that's sort of what I've been up to I guess.
In other news, it looks like I am going to Korea for Christmas. Exciting stuff.
In all the diary writing I neglect to talk about the little things that preoccupy me every day so here are some.
Cool little things:
1- The giant yellow and black spiders outside my house have gotten tiny little mates. I check daily to see if they have eaten them yet.
2- Biking without a helmet makes my hair large and furry, and is quite exhilarating. (I have tried to be good but the only adult-sized helmets on the island are for motorbikes.
3- Eel. it is the best food ever.
4- I have a plush leather armchair with no legs. It makes me feel like an emperor of a nation of tiny people.

Park 'er 'ere

Goodness it's a whole 'nother month. What have I been doing? A more interesting question, what have I been? I have been a park is what at a Halloween gathering/ pub crawl (a frightening (for the locals) combination in a small Japanese town. And I got tonsillitis grrr). I made my costume out of fake grass from the local hardware store. It tested the limits and patience of my new, dear, wee sewing machine that I have tentatively named Lorna. I wanted to be a rugby field but could find no players. I wanted to be a farm (even made fences) but could find no animals. So I was a park with dogs, trees and rabbit. I won most original costume and got grass burn on the inside of my upper arms.
Another something I have been is sick again. Grrr indeed. My own silly fault for park-being but grrr anyway. I went to school after being anti-bioticed to spare my dwindling (and few to start with) sick days only to be told I was to sick to teach and that I should sit in the corner and face the wall. I gave up and went home. I hate tonsils. What are they for anyway? grrr again.
Now that I have thoroughly cleared my throat...
Also I have made some delightful jandals (zorri). The are good for stimulating the nerve endings in one's feet and stuff. Very fetching when made in paisley.
ANOTHER making of mine was cookies for the culture festival. As they were laced with butter and flour I didn't try them and was rather nervous about their sales. I shouldn't have worried. Once a student saw them they sold mighty fast. Yay for giving children sugar (three kinds).
Twas a lovely day despite the gusty rain and wind shaking our little sale tent. I ate a lot of Filipino coconut rice.
Nice.

Weak/weekend

Hello all.
Sorry to not write for so long, but I have a brilliant excuse.

Last week I was sick. Properly and dramatically sick. I got a nasty infection that went to my kidneys and I had a fever and I kept vomiting up the anti-biotics so I had three visits to the doctor. Number one discovery... the time when you are whimpering because the pain is bad and fever is so high everything is bright and confusing is not the best time to finally watch Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas... it was the first thing I found to put in the video player and that took so much effort I couldn't get up to change it. Had the craziest dreams when medicine finally made me sleep. Fear and Loathing made more coherent sense than either Gigli or Totally Blonde though I don't think this is health related. The doctor ordered me two days off and thus I worked only one day last week because Monday and Friday were both public holidays.

On Friday I was up and about and feeling much better and my very first ever visitor arrived on Oki! Carole from Canada was a most excellent first visitor. We bummed around on Friday and then went to a singing festival at one of my schools (endless enquiries about my health).

Saturday we purchased peanut butter (cheaper here than on the mainland) and went to the school sports festival for the dances... they were one of the strangest things I've ever seen. The students were divided into two big groups and had choreographed their own dances to 80's music. All the boys were in little skirts and glitter, the was a lot of body paint and one child was randomly dressed as a horse. I kept waiting for the horse to do something cool but he just followed the same choreography as the other chorus dancers. I felt cheated.

We then embarked on a whirlwind sightseeing tour of Oki with Rika as our guide and ended up having afternoon tea with an ex-English teacher Akiko who has two adorable kids and a four month old baby. They were so much fun we ended up going out for dinner with them and then stole Akiko from her young family for a night in a karaoke box. Boy can she sing! We were as enthusiastic as ever but she put us to shame. I even found Crowded House and Bic Runga (someone else found doh-a-deer...)

Yesterday we visited beautiful Nishinoshima one of the wee islands near me and wandered around the tallest cliffs in Japan before watching a primary school sumo tournament. All very action packed and exciting.

I'm starting my adult English course soon and hopefully will begin playing badminton this week... slowly working my way in to island life!
Hope you are all well and happy.

I'll put up some photos next week. Email me!
donna

I have managed to get into yahoo again so I'll start email people back. Yay you say.

School girl

I survived the typhoon... actually it was a lot less exciting than we thought it would be because it ended up missing the island. All we got was really really strong winds and heavy rain... and a day of school! My very first day off school was a half day because of the approaching typhoon and the second day was cancelled. Apparently this is really unusual but this year everyone is paranoid because last year there was a really bad direct hit and the kids had to go home in the middle of the typhoon the the power and phones were out. In some areas the power was out for three days and the damage was extensive. So we were super prepared this time, all the windows were taped and some of the trees were tied to things, cars were put as close to buildings as possible and so on.

I spent the day listening to my house rattle and watching movies. It was nice. I also made a woolly hat and started crocheting a tree out of plastic bags. Unfortunately they gave me the wrong tape for one of my movies (I KNOW it said subtitles on the box because both boxes were the same and the other movies was in English) so I ended up watching Vanilla Sky in Japanese. Twice. And I still have absolutely no idea what went on. Maybe I should try again for English? Is it worth it?

Anyway... school is fun. It is kind of tiring trying to introduce myself every hour in an energetic and appropriate manner to kids who are often too scared, too excited, too busy sticking cut out pictures of poo to the blackboard, or too hot to listen but for the most part it is good.

Today I was at a primary school. I did the introduction thing and then we around and shook hands with all the kids. One poor wee girl was shaking with fear with tears rolling down her face (I like to think it was talking in front of all 17 students in the school and not me that was the problem) and all she could do was hold out her hand and look away... but after we had made traditional riceballs and green tea together she was my best friend and gave me a lovely self portrait to take away. I like the little ones.

The big ones are a bit scarier. I went for a run the other night (blisters on blisters owww) and thought I would be safe from students at 6:30. But no, I ran straight into and through a whole bunch of them. Nothing like a group of whistling and cheering 13 and 14 year olds to give you a spurt of genki energy.

So that was the week that was. Hope you are all well in your times and places. I can probably only get to the Internet on Mondays now and probably not for all that long as I'm skipping off to primary schools all over the place. Next Monday is a public holiday so I'll see what I can do.
loves
donna

It is kind of scary not understanding the warning system there have been two while I have been writing.
Wish me luck for my first day at school tomorrow!

Typhoon

The typhoon is coming!
Very scary. We keep getting warnings over the loudspeakers that are all over the town. It has been raining heavily on and off for the past couple of days. I have never seen such heavy rain, it is truly amazing the drops must be bigger or something because while it is raining the ground is flooded about 5cm deep and it disappears as soon as it stops. The boats are cancelled from tomorrow and if it gets bad enough the kids will be sent home from school (not the teachers though) so we will see how my first days go!

There was a typhoon while I was in Tokyo and it didn't seem like anything too exciting... rain and wind, just a Wellington day... but here on the island things are a bit different. We are such a small land mass or something that the wind is truly incredible and changes fast. Also last year the electricity was shut off during most typhoons, once for three whole days!
There was a fireworks display in Goka on Saturday night (just as the wind and rain arrived) and I went with someone from the office and their family. We tried huddling at the hot-springs with everybody else and then gave up and went back to their warm dry garage for BBQ and watched the fireworks from there. Very pleasant.

Yesterday I was invited out for lunch and dinner! Lunch was a BBQ huddled on a front porch getting a we back but very tasty nonetheless and my hosts gave me a bag of rice they grew themselves when I headed home.

For dinner I was treated to big purply boiled squid... it was better than I thought it would be the tentacles were not as tentacly as they looked and I became a master at squeezing off the eyes with my chopsticks. We had to go home early before the weather got worse and driving was too dangerous though.

Eye of Newt and Toe of Frog

Hello all just a quick end-of-the-week update!
I spent the first few days of the week being oggled at as I went around my soon to be workplaces, sitting in very hot offices talking to principals and leaving little sweat-pools on their lovely leather chairs... mmmm. one principal had his fan aimed at himself going full strength (doing terrible things to his combover) while the rest of us sweated it out. But all in all they seem like a friendly lot and most of the other teachers seem goodly too. They all do the oggling and then suddenly when I leave yell in English "good bye it was nice to meet you!"
So next Tuesday it will all begin. I have a kiwifruit, a kiwi and a weetbix box all lined up for my first day as a human computer.
In other news the heat is back with a vengeance. There were several nights earlier this week when I slept with a SHEET on one occasion I even closed the ranch-slider. But yesterday got up to 36 (although the mist never quite cleared) and I was splayed under the air conditioner for the better part of the evening.
One of my English teachers got me to read out her daughter's competition piece on video and pronounced me "most dramatic person". She then took me shopping and recommended all sorts of things that looked like dried entrails of toad and squid... some are quite tasty...
Righty, fireworks tomorrow!
Have a lovely weekend in all your corners of the world.
lovely
donna

Thanks for the seaweed sympathy Debs and Fran! It has given me the courage to share my phobia with the youth of Oki (i have included it in the 'my secrets' section of the third year jepordy quiz)

Good to hear from you Alana! I don't think we are going to the tournament in October, we are going to somewhere in south Shimane on the 9th but i think it is just a friendly. Can you still swim in the sea now? These parts have been infested with jellyfish since Obon. Grrr.

Superstar me

What a week it was last week. I am sort of glad to be hidden away in this tiny corner of the world, I don't think I could handle the pace of life on the mainland for too long... it was like being back at uni with the daily/nightly drinking but this time with karaoke, high-tech cameras and confusing foreign money.

I spent Monday to Wednesday biking around the city (which is scary, the roads are narrow and people bike in both directions on both sides of the street) shopping like a manic with a credit card (but of course you can't use those here). I have never enjoyed shopping in New Zealand, I think it is just an absence makes the heart grow fonder thing. Having been deprived of shops for so long I went a little crazy at the range of goods on display. Most of the damage was done at the 100 yen shop though so it wasn't as poor-making as it could have been (those shops are incredible everything from cushions to garden rakes, peanut butter to lap-top carry bags... I purchased many, many pairs of toe socks there).

But most importantly of everything... I believe I have found me a sewing machine. Oh blessed day! One of Nic's workmates had one but it doesn't go so well. I will pay the repair costs and it is all mine, mine, mine. I have bought fabrics in anticipation.

My new favourite thing is biking at night and singing. I frightened some locals with a particularly enthusiastic version of 'horse with no name' at one traffic light.

The conference itself was goodly, more useful information to try to cram into my poor wee head. I am sure it will all fall into place once I finally actually start doing my job... I keep telling myself it will anyway.

Saturday I started exhibiting unusual behaviour and played soccer (in a team called the Shimane Samurai Superstars) and watched the rugby. I thoroughly enjoyed doing rather badly at both. Playing soccer I managed to give someone smaller than me a bloody knee and shut my eyes twice when the ball got too close... but apparently I will be allowed to play again should the occasion arise. In the general excitement of the rugby I managed to consume 5 chuhais (the cheapest most potent alcohol I have met) and spent the night talking thirteen to the dozen to anyone foolish enough to be in my general vicinity... so I think it best that I hole up on the island for a while...

In other news I have gone technological and purchased me a cell phone. They don't have text here, they just email from phone to phone so you can email it and I can email back any old time anyone feels like saying hi. I won't put the address here in case the odd message leaving person is as scary as they seem.

Sorry to people who are eagerly awaiting emails from me (you know you secretly are) but I can't get into yahoo from this computer. I think I may just have to suck it up and convert to evil gmail... can someone send me an invite just in case I get into my account one of these days? Sorry to non-gmailers but these are desperate times. Hotmail has stopped working here too.

Matsue

Hollo!
Just a quick note because I am in an Internet cafe over on the mainland. I got here yesterday and it is lovely hanging out with another kiwi! I am staying with Nic who was the Japanese teacher at Hutt High (well after our time to those fellow HVHS personnel)
I spent today wandering round a very old castle and a rather dilapidated English style mansion thing that replaced lots of samurai structures when it became the done thing to modernise just over a century ago. I spent the afternoon biking in a storm that even Japanese people mistook for a typhoon! much fun. very wet.
On Saturday I met the Japanese learning club on Oki. They are a lively bunch of Filipino women and I think it is going to be a fun class! We had a BBQ at which I was plied with alcohol from 11am and then given several children to watch. My new best friends are 3 and 5. I'll see if I can load the photos.
I'll be here until Sunday so I don't think I'll get another chance to write. Am looking forward to Wednesday and Thursday night in a hotel with delightful air-conditioning. Mmmmm. Sweet cool air.
Must go as the Internet cafe very expensive (but has all you can drink slushies and tea)

Run run run run run runaway

Well,
You know how I said I was going to a sesai festival on Monday... to my eternal disappointment (oh no! no more bitter crunchy slime?) we either couldn't find the festival, or it actually didn't exist (I couldn't quite figure this out) so instead we ate oysters and went on a boat ride around a bit of the island. I think the pictures attached themselves to the last entry. Not a bad day at work.
The rest of the week has been pretty uneventful.

On Tuesday I had a meeting with my supervisor and my English teacher friend and I found out all sorts of things. Apparently my not eating certain ingredients has caused a spate of meetings about my school lunches (which I would happily not eat) and this is still causing some headaches. And also I have three summer holiday days that they want me to take next week. So after a flurry of emails I am off the the mainland for a week! It works rather well since I have orientation (flash hotel, free food) Thursday and Friday anyway.

The heat is still preventing me from sleeping well or long so I decided last night that I needed to exhaust myself so I wouldn't notice the heat.... so I went for a RUN.

First to the actual run. I was apparently quite a sight. I caused cars to miss their lights, people to stop and exclaim and in the dark I nearly ran down and old lady. (I credit myself with one actual crash so far. Last week this man on a scooter was staring so I called out konnichiwa! He konnichiwaed back and then made a right turn into a small side street with an SUV in it. No one was hurt but I think the SUV got a bit dinged.)

The run went well to start with, I ran away from home and down the river and as I got around to town I realised the only way I knew how to get home (apart from the considerable distance I had just come) was through a badly lit tunnel and up a rather overgrown road. So I chanced running through the town. Not a good idea - I got so lost! So many tiny, narrow identical streets!
And as soon as I slowed to a walk I noticed my heels seemed to have turned into giant blisters. Eventually I found the river again and ran a few hundred metres at a time before resting my blisters and then deciding that the faster I went the sooner I got my shoes off and running again.

Just before I got home I bought what I thought was water from one of the many many vending machines. It was that super-sugared sports water that makes me really jittery but I drank it anyway. I have resolved to belatedly desensitise myself to sugary drinks. I will endeavour to drink at least 1 over-sugared beverage every day. I may even try to drink coke. This will protect against future accidental sugar jitters from sports water should I ever run again.

I took photos of my blisters, they are well worth photographing. I should have done mugshots of them holding a ruler... the cover most of my heel and are red and angry. I am wearing socks now and you can see them sticking out. Mmm.

Anyway. Blah blah blah had a visit from SUV man while I was cooking today's lunch (generously seasoned with running sweat mmmm) all very embarrassing. Had cold shower and then made discovery of the day... running makes you hot. Not just while you are running but forever after. It was like all my cells were combusting or doing their thing at a faster hotter rate. No amount of standing under the air conditioning in my native-frightening-stubbies would cool me down. I am still hot today. Amazing. I will keep this in mind for winter. So less sleep, more heat last night but I am now so body-tired that I think I will sleep tonight no matter what (surely I will have cooled down by then?)

Wow. That is a lot about nothing. Next week I will be all exciting and on the mainland! Promise!

PS Simon! what could possibly be wrong with Korean BBQ? It is not like a REAL BBQ I know, but surely there is nothing offensive about a gas fired hotplate and a cook-your-own pile of marinated meat and veges? It is one of my favourite foods! I like to well overcook everything - to a state of extreme crispiness - to make up for all the raw stuff they feed me.

Sesai

Goodness it is a while since i wrote.
I tried on Friday, honest I did but I was just too tired to lift arms to keyboard and brain was reluctant to form coherent sentences. In a good way... I just rather over exerted myself on Thursday.
Where to start. Hmmm....

I had my welcome party on Tuesday at which the head teacher got decidedly sloshed and kept asking me questions like "So tell me, do you find sumo wrestlers arousing? no? why? they big strong men!" delightful dinner time conversation. But it was a very pleasant evening. They all seem like really good people (although one doesn't speak much English) and I am much reassured about starting school.

Surprisingly, the head teacher recalled the next day that he had invited me to attend the ceremonies and activities of an exchange between his school and one on the mainland. Wednesday was not so exciting but Thursday was marine sports day!

What a way to start the day! I ended up arriving at the sports beach by speedy little boat. Unfortunately it was cloudy and really windy (wellington styles) so I was semi-drenched by the time I got there...
My first marine sporting of the day way a tandem-style jet ski ride. My driver seemed to be suicidally intent on heading as fast as he could for large obstacles like the jetty or the odd rocky island and at the last moment turning and yelling LEAN! LEAN! (at least I think that is what he was saying).
I spent the remaining hours before lunch diving for seafood with with boys. I was rather surprised when they made it clear I was expected to keep my t-shirt and shorts (almost longs) on over my togs. Made swimming much tougher since I didn't have flippers.
I managed to collect nothing truly edible and have conclusively proved I suck at finding things in the seaweed-infested ocean (more on that later) but it was much much fun.
Finally back on land I managed to feel cold(!) for the first time i think since i got here. Sitting in the wind in soaking clothes will do that in most conditions I think. So I got showered and changed and failed to re-sunscreen my arms. Within an hour I had my very own two-bar heater. It was fascinating for the kids. They poked my glowing red skin and said atsui? (hot) in surprised voices. Yes I said, hot. And sore. Stop touching me!

In the evening we barbecued our catch (well supplemented by market-bought local delicacies) and the teachers got drunk on two beers in front of the students. Good family fun.
Then we played games and I had the best most exhausted sleep (apart from the occasional ow! sunburn! wake up).

Friday night I met Eri the High-school assistant English teacher who has another English-speaking friend staying and we went out for Korean BBQ, Saturday we played pool and talked the night away.

The swimming... I like the sea. I love the sea. I hate being away from it... but I can firmly say that I never want to go to that bay again. I don't remember exactly when I started disliking seaweed. I have scrambled semi-formed bad childhood memories but I didn't realise just how horrible it is until yesterday. Who knew fear could come in so many shapes, forms and colours. I spent a terrified hour or so in the water desperately trying to convince myself that these were discrete, mindless, plants and not some malevolent being out to entangle me. It was horrible. everywhere I turned another infested rock loomed. At one point I couldn't handle and scrambled madly out of the water on to a rock and scraped up my leg. I wanted to howl, not cry, but actually howl in desperation. Maybe that is what people feel when they shriek at the sight of a spider? But do they dream of evil spiders? Getting back to the beach was the worst, the shallower it got the closer the seaweed was... I would swim and perch and shudder on a rock and then get the courage to go a little further. yuck yuck.

On a nicer note, I danced around another lantern-lit tower last night and impressed at the locals with my energetic interpretation of the dance steps.

But the absolute highlight of the night has to be my stirring rendition of the Guns 'n' Roses classic "Don't you cry" in a private Karaoke box down the road once the festival was over. I was shocked and disgusted to discover that some of those present had never experience the wailing beauty of G 'n' R. Aye me.

This afternoon I am off to a sesai festival. Sesai are the gross periwinkle things and the festival is all you can eat! I can't eat so much... and tonight there will be more dancing. Good season to arrive I say.

Hope all is good welly and your various other locations? Thanks for the emails it is nice to hear from y'all.

Taiko

Rarrgh how annoying I was at full tilt describing my weekend when I was informed (in Japanese) that using a computer was very bad. Then someone managed "electricity!" and I shut it down fast without saving anything...

umm...

the weekend.

Friday was the 60th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. I spent the evening watching horrific TV shows about it with the dairy lady and the Chinese CIR. The dairy lady, (who is in her 60s) is from Nagasaki. Not much you can say. That was one of the few times when it is better not to have words. Some things are best communicated in silence.

Saturday... due to some miscommunication I believed I was swimming on Saturday and so waited for Rika to call. by the time I realised she wasn't going to I had the house spick and span and had wasted away the afternoon reading. At around 6 my predecessor's friend Ken turned up in his big black SUV to go to a taiko drumming festival.

The festival was over the other side of the island at a village/hospital/hospice type place for mentally disabled people. There was a big tower with a drum and chanting men set up with lights all around it and the place was full of extended families and locals.

When it got dark the villagers (including an English teacher yay!) all began to dance around the tower using what looked to me like an impossibly complicated step... after some hours of my future students pointing and giggling and the patient attentions of the English teacher and a lady in scary white pants and a mickey mouse t-shirt I was a pro! (until I fell in behind some boys and accidentally mimicked boy-steps causing much laughter from the sidelines)

Sunday I went swimming and got to explore the island. it is just beautiful. There is one little rocky bay that is incredibly home-like. Kuoatunu with pines for pohutakawa (and a concreted walkway), or the west coast. Nice.

Swimming went better than last time... but we now think it is the little animals on the seaweed that are eating me, didn't I always say seaweed was evil!

Righty
Have decided to learn taiko and failing that, will take flower arranging classes.
donna

So-ba

Hello all I had a brilliant day yesterday! I was trying to do my japanese learning at work and it was the hottest day this year on Oki (don't belive the thermometer thing on the homepage those reading are taken at the port, our thermometer said 35) when I realised someone had been calling Donna-san for some time and was approaching me rather menacingly with a telephone. On the phone was Rika, one of the English teachers that I met at my predecessor's farewell, and she was asking if I wanted to go buckwheat noodle (soba) making. I surely did! five teachers and me set out to find this buckwheat mecca and ended up deep in the forest on the other side of the island in a tiny soba restaurant with a gnarled old soba-making couple to teach us. I have to say it, my soba dough was the best. I had the perfect combination of buckwheat flour and water and made a smooth, firm, yet moist dough. (cullinary genius) sadly the rolling it into a wafer thin disk didn't go so very well and I was rather scared of the ruler/razor sharp knife combination used for the noodle cutting, but everyone seemed impressed. AND I got to wear a cute apron. Very housewifely (I later heard that the male teachers were doing a manly activity in the forest). After eating my own soba served in two traditional styles (I couldn't finish it soooo much soba) we went to visit some of my future students at their class camp. Oh my. Every single one asked me "do you have a boyfriend?" when I got bored of saying no, I started asking "do you?" the girls blushed and the boys lookind confused. Two boys who wanted to be my boyfriend, but I said were to young, came up with "together we are old enough". Delightful teenagers. Made me look foward to the primary schools, but they assured me "you very popular teacher". Then, while the other teachers went off for a communal bath in the hot springs, the English teacher and I went to the sea! Sweet sea! Bath-warm on top but blessedly cool underneath. I swam for two hours. This seemed like a long time to be stared at but somehow my many starers didn't lose concentration. At least I put on a good show. It was all going well until the giant jelly fish showed up and the biting animal got into my togs and gave me big red spots all over my tummy. Still, I wouldn't have missed it for the world. As soon as my bike is fixed I will be there every day. Mmmmm sea. Apparently Rika, my English teacher friend, is going to try and persuade my various bosses that exploring the island is offical work. It is indeed very important that I am geographically orientated .

Sun scorched, itchy, tired and happy.
donna

lisa! I was indeed rather alarmed when they showed me what to do in my litle house in case of an eathquake and gave me a textbook in Japanese about emergency proceedures... but I am assured that Oki hasn't been shaking for a while? I hope I understood them right!

Make party

Life continues to be hot hot hot and my body doesn't seem to be programmed for hot climates. It has come out in peculiar rashes and refuses to sleep for more than a few hours at a time with demanding to be watered. Oh well, it will have to learn or pop or something. At the moment popping seems to be the favoured option my feet are swollen and huge, and not just bigger than anyone else's feet huge, but sideshow bob huge, and my hands feel like I am wearing rubber gloves. Maybe they have secretly sent me to clown island... on top of that i have somehow managed to catch a cold! It must have been the single only piece of coldness on the whole island. Goodness this sounds moany.
Enough about the heat!

I continue to be that talk of the town with my peculiar feeding habits and people are coming up with ever stranger things for me to eat. There has only been one wee stomach churning disaster... the other night the old dairy lady, who seems to be feeding me at the moment, pulled a periwinkle out of it's shell and left the room because a customer came. Not wanting to be rude, I ate it... the whole thing, not just the edible bit, but the bit full of periwinkle poo and mud. So gritty and so gross. I had grit in my mouth all evening.

Next week there is a welcome party for me with the other English teachers. first we have a meeting and I introduce myself then we "go somewhere and make a party" I am intrigued.
Speaking of party making, tidying my house I found a quite considerable stash of alcohol much whiskey and shoyu (fruity white spirits) so I can make my own party anytime. And I just may.

Thanks for the messages! It lovely to hear from you all.

Sylvia, sorry i accidentally deleted you! i am not so good at making this site go.

Mate! (that is ma-te, japanese slang for see you soon, not aussie-style mate)
donna

All by my se-el-elf

Not much point in starting this thing if I don't tell anyone about it! I'll send out an email today. This is my first day at work as the only English speaker... the English guy who I am taking over from left on Saturday and the Canadian girl who I'll be working with has gone home for a month so I am all by my confused lonesome. But! this means people are being ultra nice to me.

I don't seem to be able to leave the house without being whisked away to some wee house for dinner. I set out on Saturday evening to buy cornflakes for breakfast and ended up watching crazy TV and being fed (and fed and fed) three courses by this lovely lady who runs the local dairy. She is a friend of the Chinese JET who lives upstairs and apparently I am eating every meal there for the foreseeable future!

On Friday night we had the leaving do for Phillip - a BBQ Japanese style. This means small chunks of flame grilled vegetables for starters and then buckets of still-living sea creatures tipped onto the fire. I can't name most of what I have eaten in any language. I will post a picture when i can. As the evening went on and the sake flowed people began discussing karaoke. Due to language difficulties my conversations consisted of people naming songs and me singing a phrase to make sure we were on the same wavelength. By the time we got to the bar I had apparently promised to sing just about every Beatles song and an unhealthy amount of Billy Joel... all good. I specialise in making an arse of myself in public and it went down well (as far as i could tell).

Anyway. life continues to be hot (33), muggy(90%), confusing and exciting.
Hope you are all keeping well.
donna

OKI

Hello people. I am now on the island. It is tiny and wee. I think half the town knows I am here and I have been here less than 24 hours. There is an aussie on an island about 3km away and an American on the next island which is offically the most isolated JET posting in Japan. So I guess I am the third most remote posting. I have so far eaten many kinds of raw fish and some sea snail things that have a salt fire lit under them while they are still in their shells and been given beer and rice balls by random people in the street at a festival. Day 1 has been interesting.
I don't have a house yet because the guy I am taking over from is still in there. I am accross the hall with the Canadian girl who is staying for another year. The houses are very cute a pretty spacious... remember there is always a spare futon should anyone want to visit!
Unfortunately I am unbelievably mind-numbingly tired! This comes from total lack of comprehension of anything, I believe. I keep thinking people are talking about me (which they often are) becuase my name is Japanese for 'what'.
Ah yes, and to explain the title of this thing, these islands emperors and aristocrats were sent into exile here for hundreds of years so some of the wee nearby islands have cool castle which I hope to explore some time.
that's all I have time for today I think.
hope everyone is well and good. I don't actually know how the message board works on this thing so please email me still.
no sign of monkeys yet...
donna