Dartboard

I finally got to video-chat with my mother! She can only do it when she goes to the university and has high-speed internet so it’s a rarity! Some pictures of us “together.”

Telling some crazy story…

(Yeah, and that funny light is my heat lamp. It’s getting cold enough at night that I’ve brought out the heat lamp. I feel like Iggy, our pet Iguana, that loved to bask in the heat. Sometimes I even close my eyes and stretch out my neck like she does—but only when I’m alone in my apartment and no one is looking.)

The most exciting news yet: Yesterday I went scuba-diving with Yoshida-sensei. He's the visual/audio specialist at the high school. Fukuda-sensei (my junior high school English teacher) was supposed to come, but she canceled and it was just the two of us. It was scary and exciting and breathtaking! Literally breathtaking. I was so afraid to breath! The concept of breathing underwater is just so wrong! The first time I went underwater I had a bit of a scare trying to hold my breath, but obviously I couldn’t do that for long so I took shallow breaths that weren’t really effective. I came up and realized that wasn't going to work so I practiced inhaling above the surface and then slowly went under again. Drowning must be the worst death.

But anyway…

Diving is amazing. I felt like I was on another planet! It's not like earth, but it's definitely not like swimming either. Swimming is staying near the surface so you can come up for air, diving is like being on the moon!! I don't think anything will be like that first time again. It was beautiful! We saw so many fish and amazing underwater life. I had no idea what was down there. I thought movies and photographs made it seem better than it really is; movies like "Finding Nemo" spice up underwater life to make the movie better, right?? No way! Movies don't do it justice! It was when I found a little nemo swimming around some coral that I fell in love with diving. I thought, “How can I make a profession out of this? How can I do this everyday?” Yoshida-sensei had a little metal pointer underwater and he kept pointing out the fish that looked like rocks and touching the critters that did funny things. He made me look up to see a school of fish and the sun rays as they shone down through the surface of the water. Yeah, nothing will be like that first time.

Yoshida-sensei told me we dove about 10 meters deep for 30 minutes. Sometimes it seemed like it was over in an instant. Sometimes it seemed longer than that—particularly when the water started creeping up in my goggles and I had to blow air through my nose to get the water out. And also when the salt got in my eyes and they started stinging but I couldn’t touch them through the goggles. Yoshida-sensei lent me all the gear (we are about the same size) so I only had to pay for filling the tank. I gave him some banana bread and extra money for the inconvenience, but it was really kind of him to take me. We dove in Wakamatsu, a few miles from my house. I was really surprised how warm it was for November. Can you imagine diving in the Oregon coast in November? I couldn’t do it with a dry-suit in July. I’m so lucky to be here with all these opportunities to do new things. I love this place!!

My patient teacher, Yoshida-sensei.

Me after the dive. I’d show you a picture of me in my wetsuit, but it’s not complimentary to my hips… =)

Who knew there was so much life under there?

Tonight I had “Children’s English Night: Third Edition.” There was absolutely nothing English about the evening, except maybe the songs we sang, but we had a great time anyway. I had some clay left in the apartment from my predecessor and we made little animals and a Christmas scene. Oh! I did make them name the animals in English, does that count?!? I know it’s a little early for Christmas, but I didn’t think they could do a Thanksgiving turkey and cranberry sauce.

Pictures from the evening…

Mami and Haruna show us their ice cream cones.

Sota (Haruna’s older brother) made a really good soft-serve ice cream.

“Mold me a rabbit!” I said.

Rie and her niece, Tomoka, were our special guests. Rie is a part-time Japanese teacher at Nakagoto and Tomoka and her mom are visiting the grandparents in Narao for two weeks.

Sota’s rabbit.

I made a bunny too!

Mami-chan made this great little Santa Claus for our Christmas scene.

After the other kids when home, Rie and Tomoka stayed for a while. I even got to cuddle under the blanket with her! She’s so adorable!

Tomorrow night I’m going over to Rie’s house to have dinner with her family. We’re eating sukiyaki—a wintertime Japanese meat soup. I’m excited to experience it for the first time! It’s not exactly Thanksgiving dinner, but it will be nice to be with a family. Some of the ALTs are having Thanksgiving dinner at my house on Sunday afternoon. I’ve agreed to do all the cooking and host the party for our friends who’ve never been to a Thanksgiving party before.

Well, that’s all from me today. I’ll write again soon with pictures from Thanksgiving dinner!

Love, Sierra

So I’ve been really busy with stuff (the prefectural mid-year conference and traveling to Fukuoka for a whirlwind sumo weekend) and so I apologize for taking forever to get even pictures posted. You didn’t actually think I could keep up this blog like I did my first few months though, did you?

The JET Mid-Year Conference was in Nagasaki and it wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. I had fun and enjoyed getting off the island—got a few days off work, but I was disappointed with the actual conference. I went over on Sunday morning and I couldn’t get ahold of Noelle who I was staying with for the weekend so I sat in this park overlooking the bay and read for hours. There was a huge Harley Davidson festival going on so there were lots of Japanese cowboys and country music to be had. I’m not sure how I feel about Japanese hicks in cowboy boots, hats and lots of leather. It was interesting to say the least.

In the afternoon I met up with some other ALTs in the area and played soccer for hours! We even got to play on grass!! The ground was slanted and led right into a canal where we lost our ball several times. We had to throw rocks to make ripples to bring it to shore. We played a group of junior high schoolers that also happened to be in the park.

The park where I read my book for hours in the sunshine and was called “gaijin-san” by passerbyers.

Watching the boats come in…

When I got home from the conference I was feeling pretty down. I enjoyed playing soccer and hanging out with the guys in the evening. I really did not want to come back to this tiny little island practically devoid of male life aged mid-20s. I had a really good talk with Masami in the Career Center Wednesday (she seems to be my lifesaver on more than one occasion) and we’ve made a plan to get me more involved with younger life!

And this weekend I went to Fukuoka for Japan's last sumo competition for the year, the Kyushu Basho tournament. Kerry and I decided to take the 7:40 a.m. ferry to Sasebo Saturday and take a bus up to Fukuoka, but we missed the ferry by just a couple minutes and had to wait for the next one at 10:30. Why we missed it is a long story, but basically I had to drive Koichiro up to Aokata to get his car and we didn’t leave until 7 a.m. which wasn’t really enough time, but I felt bad getting him up any earlier on a Saturday morning.

Eventually we made it to Fukuoka, but only got to see the last 10 matches or so. They were the final matches and probably the most exciting anyway. Here are the pictures!

Kerry and I are still smiling despite our long journey!

They do these little squat moves and leg warm ups for about five minutes before they actually start wrestling.

On your mark... Get set... Go!!

And then the wrestling begins!

Paul and Laura watching the tournament.

Here’s the winner of the tournament, Asashoryu. He’s Mongolian!

Peter and Dean (some guys I met at the Halloween party in Sasebo weeks ago) keeping close track of the winners and looking annoyed that I’m interrupting them.

The sumo celebrities giving out their signatures as they leave the building! Notice the guy on the left in the blue yukata is Caucasian?? Apparently he is a wrestler-in-training, but he needs to gain a little weight before going out on the sand!

Peter and I had to get our picture taken with the winner! I rub his belly for good luck!

Laura and I with Mr. Sumo.

We stayed one night in Fukuoka. Finding our hotel was quite a challenge as Asagami booked it for us, but they couldn’t find our reservations. Even with some stressful moments we managed to get a wonderful hotel room with futons on tatamis. We had dinner at a Mexican restaurant and it was so good! They even had tacos al pastor and frozen margaritas!!! I totally fumbled up my Spanish because I couldn’t stop thinking in Japanese. Even easy, polite words like “por favor” totally escaped me. “Onegaishimasu” was all that came to me! Kerry definitely showed me up in that department!

The owner of the restaurant, Suu, studied Mexican cuisine in D.F. for two years so he spoke beautiful Spanish which complimented his external beauty. He was also really helpful as I was trying to find this bar that Asagami asked me to go to. He called the bar several times to get directions for me and talk to the owner who was sending out her staff to meet me in front of some random hotel—it was really confusing. Then Suu even called the bar back to tell them I wasn’t coming when I realized how far away it was. He gave me his business card but I’m too embarrassed about my Spanish to actually email him.

We had one last meal of Indian before making the long trek back to the island. Kerry and Laura were able to sleep on the bus, but I was wide awake from my Starbucks coffee.

Tomorrow is a day off and I’ve been invited to go scuba-diving with Yoshida-sensei. He’s a history teacher here at Nakagoto and runs everything audio-visual at the school. Fukuda-sensei is coming too so if there’s any confusion she’ll be able to help interpret!

A picture of Sierra’s Spot last week. Posted Oregon brochures/magazines and an article about our rainy weather.

I’m so surprised to be experiencing 70ºF weather in November!! I love it here!

Love,
Sierra

Sending my picture off to friends at 7 a.m.!