Dartboard

I had my first Japanese visitor!! His name is Teru and I met him on the hitch-hiking trip with Peter. His English is pretty good.

This is Teru.

Teru is a DJ, he loves music.

Teru wanted to see some of Kamigoto, so he came out this weekend. I showed him the best parts of Kamigoto.

I also showed him some funny parts of my island.

These deer stood in the middle of the road for a long time.

It was my first time to this “Deer Island” and all I could say was “chotto hen.” We didn’t know what to make of it.

It was fun having a visitor on my island, and there were never any cultural problems that some people warned me might arise. I should trust my instincts. On Sunday he drove me to the Fukuoka Bullet Train Station where I met Catherine and then we went to Kobe together.

My favorite word Teru taught me was “bimyo” and it means “so-so.” Not that we say so-so, but you know what I mean. “Alriiiight, Okaaay. Sorta good, but not great.”

I also named his car. I named it Hunter. Hunter Toyoda. It’s not a Toyota, but Toyoda is Teru’s last name.

And also this weekend I was explaining to Teru that in America the company is Toyota, not Toyoda and then I couldn’t remember if it really was Toyota or not. Do we spell it with a “t” or a “d?” I couldn’t remember, but I know we definitely SAY “Toyoda” even if it’s spelled Toyota. So yeah, someone do some research on that for me. Which is it?

Japan spells and pronounces it “Toyoda.” Britain spells and pronounces it “Toyota.” In Australia it’s spelled “Toyota” but pronounced “Toyoda.” I think it’s the same in America.

Here’s a map that shows where people come from. Specifically, people who visit my website. Lots of west coasters, but even more Japaners. That surprised me because I think of my website as targeted to my family and friends back home, but even more people living in Japan read it. Also, a fair number on the east coast or somewhere in South America. Who could that be? David in Chile? Is that you? And then I’ve got some Indian readership as well. I bet I know who you are! The Middle East readership, small as it is, surprised me a lot. Who is it? Did someone out there stubble across my website?

The bar for “Japan Standard Time” is a little off. I’m not sure why but I think it has something to do with the fact that there’s no daylight savings here. So maybe the East Coast/South America readers are actually Mid-west readers and that’s just my mom… But there's definitely someone in Eastern Europe/Africa or the Middle East there. I want to know who you are!

Bye-bye, Sierra

the next post has nothing to do with farts

I just turned into the school martinet. Some of my first year students haven’t been taking my homework seriously. Today I gave them a little incentive! No club activities until they are completely caught up! I didn’t even know I had the power to do that!

About eleven students hadn’t turned in their English notebooks regularly (okay, eight students had not turned in even ONE of the four assignments in the last month) and I finally asked if I should just give up on this. Hatakeyama-sensei found out one of his volleyball club members was blowing it off and he said, “Okay, he doesn’t practice volleyball until he turns it in.” I was like, yeah, way to go Hatakeyama-sensei! Then Sasaki-sensei said I should do it with all of them. Huh? Can I do that?

I asked their homeroom teacher, Tsuchiyama-sensei and he said, “Of course! School comes before club activities. Inform their club advisers they won’t be coming to practice today.”

Then I had to do the dirty work of informing their club advisers I was keeping them from practice today. Ouch! But each time I told a teacher and apologized they would say, “No! This is important! They HAVE to do their work. Keep them as long as you have to!” Everyone was so supportive. I was so afraid to tell Takeda-sensei because there were three of his table-tennis boys, but he said to me, “Do whatever you have to do to get them to turn in their homework.” This coming from the guy who told me over my radio show he didn’t think it was important to study English!!!

Wow! I don’t WANT to keep them from their club activities, but how else can I get them to do their homework!! So, in homeroom after school I marched my black list up to class and read their names off. No club activities until I see ALL your assignments. Seiya’s face was the greatest. Mouth dropped open—completely shocked! I’m sure he was thinking the same thing I was thinking a few moments before, “Can she DO this to us?”

But it sure got them moving. Kids were “Sierra-sensei shitsureishimas-ing” me constantly from 3 o’clock until the time I finally left school at 5 p.m. I’ve never gotten so many apologies in one day, but it felt good to be getting a little respect.

Seiya was grabbing an attitude because I wouldn’t accept his two sentences as a completed assignment. He obviously wanted to get to track club with his friends. Finally I said to him sternly, “Seiya, you’ve had four weeks to do these assignments. You can’t write two sentences in three minutes and expect me to accept that!” I opened a notebook on my desk and said, “Your peers worked hard to get these turned in ON TIME. Look how much they’ve written. Now don’t come back to me until you’ve written that much.” I even got some of the teachers around me to watch that display. I think he understand less than half of my words, but he knew I meant business.

Then his track teacher said, “Seiya, you don’t participate in the Prefectural Sports Competition next week unless Sierra’s satisfied with your work. Now go!”

Holy shit! Until I’M satisfied? ME? I’m just an ALT!!! This is the biggest sports competition of the year!

After he left Hatakeyama-sensei said, “You’re turning into a Japanese teacher!” (Because I’m always really worried when teachers yell at students in the office, but now he implies I’m doing it myself.) I certainly didn’t yell at Seiya, but I was serious and he knew it. I was already letting him off too easy, but I was still unsure about how to execute my new-found power.

Another smart and outgoing (but lazy if he thinks he can get away with it) student who I taught at Wakamatsu last year came in and gave me his notebook and apologized for being late. As I flipped though his notebook I saw he wrote “I like dancing. I dance a lot,” so I said, “Dance for me.” He froze for a second and then broke out in a cute little dance for me! I softly hit him over the head with his notebook and said, “Get out of here. And next time, turn your homework in on time!” He smiled and agreed as he ran off to soccer practice.

There were plenty of other students who spent the rest of the afternoon coming in to ask me, “Is THIS enough? Is THIS acceptable?” And most students are much more respectful than Seiya was. It was fun and exhausting—and I’ve got a huge pile of homework sitting on my desk to correct before I leave for my business trip on Sunday!

I think I’m gunna like it here.
Sierra “The Disciplinarian” Sensei

Middle Eastern readers, who are you?

We were picked up by Hamada-san in Karatsu and he drove us all the way to Dazaifu Shrine in Fukuoka City. He was really friendly and said he knew Peter must be an American because he had such a “cute face.” He said it twice and then as an after thought said about me, “And she’s pretty too.” We think he was gay. Never been married and he said by his own choice. I didn’t pick up any gay vibes from him, but Peter did and maybe he would know better than I.

This is him, anyway.

We strolled through Dazaifu pretty quickly because we had both been there, done that. We had a hard time getting our next ride because we were in the city and buses and trains are so frequent. Eventually this old man offered us money for the bus, but when we insisted on hitching he told us we would have better luck if we stood on the actually freeway. So he drove us there and that’s where we quickly got our next ride from Teru and Yusaku, old college buddies in Fukuoka for the holidays.

Teru and Yusaku didn’t drive us far, but Teru’s English was pretty great (and because we were still gung ho on getting everybody’s contact information) we got their emails and phone numbers. Yusaku has emailed a couple times, but actually Teru and I email almost everyday now. He is a salesman in Saga-ken and wants to go to graduate school in the U.S. after next summer. He wants to be a translator.

Teru and Yusaku left us at the Fukuoka Dome. (Too bad his eyes are closed! He looks super genki in this photo, but he’s pretty cute!) You can still see my sunburned face from the hiking day at my school two days ago. Ouch!

Teru is my visitor next weekend too! It’s a bit weird, I know, a complete stranger coming to stay in my apartment for two nights, but I’m sure everything will be fine. Goto Peter says I should be careful about what Japanese men might be expecting when they come all the way out to visit me and stay in my place for the night. I’m sure that Teru just wants to practice his English though. The last thing I’m worried about is a Japanese man making a move on me!! They’re all much too scared and intimated around me! Ha, ha.

We paid much too much for these seats at the Fukuoka Hawks baseball game. I’m glad I got to see them, but I’m probably not going to go again for a while. We left after the seventh inning because it was too boring and we were itching to move on.

Glad we stayed until the seventh inning though because they blow up all these balloons and release them after some cheerleaders dance around a bit. Did you know the 7th inning is supposed to be lucky? I didn't. Apparently the Hawks didn’t either because they didn’t score.

After Peter climbed the Fukuoka Tower (I refused to go, I’d already been) and we ate some Hataka ramen (the food challenge for Fukuoka) we bused and trained over to the freeway entrance to try and get to Oita-ken for the night. We were optimistic about getting through one prefecture a day, even though we were both already tired and amazed at how far we’d already come so quickly.

Peter eating Hakata ramen.

Yukari and Kazumi picked us up because they said “Peter looked harmless.” They both worked in a warehouse, had just had dinner and were on their way home when they saw us. They offered to drive us to Yukuhashi, but got kind of lost and left us somewhere in Kitakyushu instead. Very sweet girls who bought us drinks and snacks as well. Peter says he would have asked them to make out with him (lots of extra points for making out with a driver) but they had smoked cigarettes when we stopped for drinks.

We stayed the night in a bicycle park, after hopping the fence to get in. As it turns out it rained all night and although lucky to have the tent, it didn’t keep us completely dry. Peter woke up in a puddle of water in the early morning, but had no long term effects from the rain. My jeans, however, got soaked and I couldn’t wear them for the next three days while they dried.

We got up early and had breakfast in a nearby Joyfull (Western-style restaurant). We were really lucky it was there. We got fed, dried off a lot and made plans for getting to Oita-ken. The rain died down a bit and we were picked up by Hiroki, a young fishmonger relatively soon. He was also pretty cool, took us to his house first, then we picked up his girlfriend, Naoko, who he warned was “not cute” before we met her. As it turns out, she was really cute and the two had a very happy, fun-loving relationship—dating for about 5 months.

Hiroki said he worried about picking us up because he didn't speak any English, but then he thought, “What the hell!” and did it anyway. He once hitch-hiked from Kitakyushu to Osaka in one-day by knocking on people’s car windows and asking for rides. Hiroki was very outgoing and cheerful and I think we were pretty lucky to get picked up by him. Then when Naoko got in the car, it really made the cake and we had a wonderful time. I ranked this couple as my third favorite drivers for their free spiritedness.

They drove us the whole way (two hours) to Usa Shrine in Oita-ken, even though we’re pretty sure they didn’t have plans for the day, but saw us as an adventure. Here we are with them in front of the torii at Usa Shrine. I’ll never forget the look on Naoko’s face when she hopped in her boyfriend’s car to find two foreigners hanging out in the back seat. Hiroki loved the surprise!

We’re officially in Oita-ken now, so I’ll leave those stories for the next post.
Love, Sierra

smack down

Well, here they are. Some of them anyway. This is the first installment of the long awaited hitchhiking pictures. It’s about time, I know. I’ve decided to post by prefecture, as one entry for the whole trip would be too long for anyone to read. I hope you enjoy my stories even a fraction of the amount I enjoyed living them!

A little debriefing first. The hitch-hitching was a charity event, a race to raise money to build some school in some country that needs more schools than they have money to build. Don’t think I’m a horrible person for saying this (or do, maybe I deserve it) but the charity part was not the reason I was doing this. Here I am asking people to drive me around everywhere—I’m sorry, but I’m not going to ask them for money on top of it! I raised a fair sum of money from people I know on Goto before I left, but we didn’t ask anyone who picked us up to donate. I would have felt uncomfortable and extremely guilty. I thought of it as a cheap vacation, and an opportunity to see Kyushu and spend time with my friend Peter.

There were three challenges in each of the seven prefectures on mainland Kyushu. We didn’t go to Okinawa, even though it IS a prefecture in Kyushu and Peter and I could get into a huge debate about whether or not Okinawa is considered Kyushu, but we already did that and it wasn’t fun. The challenges were like “take a picture of this waterfall” or “take a bath in this onsen” or “get an entry ticket for this museum.” We only had to do one of the challenges in each prefecture, but Peter and I did all the challenges in all prefectures because we wanted to see as much as possible. (And ‘cause Peter was a bit neurotic about points.)

And since it was a race: Our start time was 12:21 on April 29th in Imari. We ended at 19:34 on May 6th in Nagasaki. So, we clocked in at 7 days, 7 hours, and 13 minutes.

Without further ado, let’s see these pictures!

This is our first driver. Seigo Matsuda. It took us about 2 minutes to get this ride. He drove us a short distance: Imari to Okawachiyama in Saga Prefecture. We had to set the camera on his car roof because there was no one around to take it. (Also, please note the number of pictures where I’m the tallest person—it’s most of them!)

I was surprised how hesitant I was to make this first hitch. I’ve actually never hitch-hiked before (minus one time when I stuck my thumb out for my mom because she wasn’t getting any stops and I knew a youthful sport like myself would have better luck). Japan is still pretty innocent and I never felt unsafe during the trip, but I didn’t really know what I was getting myself into before I started. As Peter and I were planning where we would stand for our first ride I thought, “I don’t want to do this anymore! I’m scared!” I hate inconveniencing people and asking for help, but I eventually got over it (and had a lot of fun doing it!) Standing there with your thumb out, you have no idea who your next driver is going to be or the adventures you’ll have together.

The first place we went was this little pottery village called Okawachiyama. Imari is well known in the world for it’s pottery. Someday I’d like to go back and really look at the pottery from the area. A beautiful town.

The challenge was to take a picture of a kiln. This is a kiln named “Seira.”

We took a walk, rather a hike, up to this little shrine built into/under the side of the mountain. It’s called "Shrine of the Throat God" in English, but Peter says the Japanese name was not like that. The unusual name got us up there though!

The view of Okawachiyama from Shrine of the Throat God.

Saga’s second challenge was an onsen in Takeo. I wasn’t too impressed with the onsen actually. There were a TON of old women in it and I wasn’t prepared with shampoo and conditioner because in my experience most onsen provide it for you. But an old woman noticed I was without and she brought me her little bag of soap and shampoo and told me to use whatever I wanted. It was really sweet. The water was really hot and so instead of relaxing, I just boiled away in the water for as long as I could handle. As I was leaving the old woman goes, “Hayai, ne?” (You’re fast, huh?”) and I can’t help but think, “I’m not stewing myself for dinner. It’s a bath!”

That reminds me of a Friends episode where Monica is trying to convince Chandler to take a bath to relax and he says he doesn’t understand how she can do that, sitting around in her own filth and Monica goes, “How dirty do you think I am?”

Probably funnier when you see the episode yourself, but I swear those women just sit in that bath all day. They spend hours, stewing in their own filth everyday. It’s relaxing, but I don't need to spend eternity in there.

We had a late lunch/early dinner in a little ramen shop in Takeo. I noticed the ramen-boy was kinda cute—he was wearing a towel around his head and for some reason I think that is really appealing. He seemed pretty uninterested in us though. We were his only customers, being an odd time of day for a meal, and he looked busy with cleaning and prepping. However, when it was time to pay he asked us where we were going and offered to give us a ride to Taku, closer to the highway and our next destination.

His name is Takeshi. It’s important. It might come up later. Remember it.

From that point on, Takeshi seemed so excited to be associated with us. His family, which we learned later in the car, owned the ramen shop and the gas station on the same street corner. I sat in the front seat and we bashfully smiled at each other, trying to have a conversation while Peter translated for us. He spoke basically no English, but we flirted plenty with our eyes and our smiles. He bought us tea and gave us a map of Kyushu from his car. Really sweet. We exchanged phone numbers and email and as it turns out, Takeshi and I emailed (on our keitai) several times a day for the entire trip. We email much less now, but I still heard from him yesterday. He still wants to come visit me on Goto, but I’m beginning to doubt it’ll ever happen.

(By the way, Peter and I decided to tell people we were siblings in case people felt awkward thinking we were a couple. People have asked us if we were brother and sister a lot in the past anyway. We later changed “siblings” to “cousins” because lying about that just got too complicated. And in the end, I think just saying we were friends wouldn’t have ever been a problem either, but we didn’t know. So Takeshi still thinks we are siblings. Whoops.)

So this is Takeshi where he dropped us off in Taku. (Yeah! ALMOST taller than me!) Unfortunately he took the towel off his head, but he’s still pretty adorable!

Our next ride, from Taku to Karatsu was from my all-time favorite drivers. Nishi and Ryo rank number one for the entire trip. They exuded cool. An awesome young couple in an awesome car listening to the awesome Beastie Boys. Nishi (the woman) was driving and Ryo was really talkative. We spoke mostly in Japanese, but eventually I discovered that their English (especially Ryo’s) was spectacular! They dropped us off on this beach in Karatsu where we got this beautiful picture, but about 40 minutes later they came back and offered to let us stay at Nishi’s family’s house for the night. We, of course, took them up on it!

Ryo was super skinny. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone that skinny and not be malnourished. He was such a sweetheart though. The way he was able to keep the conversation going reminded me a lot of my father. He works for the post office and Nishi works in the Prefectural Office.

So we got back to Nishi’s house and there was a ton of extended family there. Here’s a picture of us with the lot. They fed us dinner and gave us futons for the night. The house was really nice, about 4 years old and really big for Japan.

The next morning we got to meet Sherry, the family dog. A very smart puppy would loved my shoes!! Nishi’s father obviously trained her very well as she did everything he asked—including jumping over his leg in the air! This was a wonderful family with whom I felt right at home. If we didn’t have to move on I might have stayed all week.

Unfortunately, we also told them we were siblings and had to get deeper into the lie about our family. It was after this experience that we decided to be cousins. Fewer questions. They drove us to the Karatsu forest the next morning and this is where they left us to find our next ride.

It took us about 5 minutes to get our next ride—all the way to Fukuoka, but that’s where I’ll pick up next time.

Love,
Love, Sierra

I just looked at the calendar and now I realize why last Friday was so unlucky! Well, now it was two Fridays ago, but nevertheless, it was an unfortunate day! Koichiro and I had another “misunderstanding” but these are beginning to be quite common—daresay, even expected—every few weeks with us. Things are patched again already so I won’t go into the details. I have a very good feeling that we’re on the same page now. Of course, not the page I want to be on, but I’m beginning to think that page was ripped out of his book.

This weekend I’ve watched a lot of TV sports. Mostly baseball and sumo, as this is Japan and those are the major sports, but also some soccer. I don't usually like watching sports, especially on TV, but honestly the background noise (in English) is very relaxing. And I’m learning a lot about sumo culture. Right now I’m watching the same (Mariners vs. San Diego) game that was on two days ago, but I missed the first 4 innings… Huh? Is this really ME saying this? I don’t give a lick about baseball! Shut up, Sierra!

I studied Japanese a ton today, which I’ve really needed for do for a while. I’m so interested in kanji. Every new word I learn I have to look it up in the dictionary immediately to see if I recognize the kanji. If I don’t know it and it looks relatively easy then I use my Kanji and Kana book to learn the readings, stroke order and common uses. I rewrite sentences in my textbook to include the kanji I’ve already learned even if they haven’t taught it yet. I’m such a nerd, but I’ve decided I’m going to take the Japanese proficiency test in December and I want to pass the 3rd level. Still waiting confirmation about the summer Japanese course in August, but I think I’ll be going to Okazaki City in Aichi-ken for about 4 weeks.

There are just 8 training days left before the triathlon. This doesn’t count the days I’ll be on my business trip to Kobe and the days I’ll have a visitor on the island (more on him later). Eight’s not a whole lot so I have to be very serious on those days. I’ll go to the pool or the beach everyday next week and try to swim at least 2,500 meters each time. I’m basically writing that because if I write it on my blog then maybe I’m more likely to do it. Nah… but it’s worth a shot.

I’m about to go out to dinner with Asagami-san. I want to eat fish. I’m craving some Goto tai. And I hope he pays because I’ve got 40 yen to my name—refusing to pay a $2.00 fee to use my own bank's ATM just because it's a weekend!

Yesterday I made curry rice and it was very successful. My first time to make Japanese curry (on my own) and it was very easy and delicious. Except I ate a ton and then had a stomachache and had to go to the gym to feel less guilty for stuffing my face. I made enough for lunch tomorrow too and I’m very much looking forward to it.

I'm so boring today. I had a nice, quiet weekend which translates into boring when you write about it on the internet. I just hadn’t written in a while so I wanted to write something. All my posts can’t be exciting—wouldn’t want you to have too high expectations! I’m really close to getting my hitch-hiking pictures/stories up. Stay tuned!

Love, Sierra

let’s get hitched!