Finally in Sasebo!

So now that I have finally caught this journal up to Sasebo, I have to manage to smush enough pictures into here so I can start talking about much more RECENT events. Like that's night's Obon festival! I will write about that tomorrow, as I am just about caught up but this is gonna be a long journal on its own!!

So Ogawa-sensei picked me up from the airport, and we piled into her rather nice little car and started to drive outside of Nagasaki. The airport was actually on its own little island, I think man-made, and we first entered Omura, then Nagasaki...I think. Anyway, the drive all in all was about an hour and a half I think, but on the way we stopped to get a drink from a vending machine. Ogawa-sensei bought me this green-tea drink that is supposed to be very popular, but it was not so much in my tastes. I drank it, thankful for the generousity, but yyyyeah, I don't think I'll be buying that for myself in the future. At the rest-top I took some pictures of the area, the beauty here is so striking!



This was the view from a point on the rest top, as is the other picture, over looking the ocean. You can see how the air is a little murky, which is something that many of my pictures in Sasebo display! The humidity really does a number on you.


Check it out, palm trees! They are all over Sasebo, I was totally not expecting them! The other day I got caught in the rain, with the biggest, fattest rain drops slapping against me, and when I told my mum she said it sounded like I was describing 'tropical rain'. I realized, Sasebo IS kind of tropical!

There are a lot of Japanese-style houses in this area, and I was in such a stupid state of mind when I got here, when I saw the first one, so pretty and detailed, I turned to Ogawa-sensei and asked her "what kind of house is that?!" She looked at me a little oddly and said, "A house."
"I mean, is it a spa or a store or something? It's so beautiful!"
"No no, its just a Japanese style house."
"Oh. Ahahahahaahaaaa. I see. SO BEAUTIFUL!!" I'm such a dork. *laughs*

So after Ogawa-sensei and I arrived in Sasebo, the first thing we did was head to the City Hall and register for my Alien Registration card. I'm still waiting for it, but the process was relatively easy. Next was my school, where I met a number of teachers, my Vice-Principal (who speak wonderful English and is an awesome man), and my Principal, who immediately remarked that 'Canadians have high noses!' in Japanese. I think he also meant big, but either way I just laughed.

I got to take a few pictures of the school though, or at least of the office where the teachers work and some of the baseball field.




Apparently our school's boy's softball team won the National Championships two years ago, and they were given a huge grant, so we actually have two seperate baseball fields!



Here you can see some of the boys practicing, but I think it was for soccer. Clubs and sports are taken extremely seriously here. Right now its technically summer vacation, but any of the students who are involved in any sort of extracurricular (and most of them are) come almost every day to practice.




And in case you were wondering (oh and I know you have been), here is my desk!! Currently I just use my laptop because the computer you see behind it is busted. I also have this huge printer/scanner on my desk, and I'm not sure if its supposed to be 'mine' or if it was placed on the ALT's desk because they needed the space. *laughs* Either way, I have my very own little printer!

So after I chilled out at the school for a little bit and another teacher here set me up with the internet on my laptop, Ogawa-sensei and I headed to my apartment and I beheld my new haven for the next year. Things had been moved around, very little had been left behind, but it was mine mine mine! The school actually bought me a futon and duvet set, which I have put on top of a mattress, and its veeeery comfy. I have very noisy neighbours, but they're all young families so I can't get too upset.

That night, Ogawa-sensei took me out to 'Yakitori', which I just refer to as 'various meats'. Along with us came Rika, who is also called 'Ogawa-sensei', and she is a young teacher who is close to my age and incredibly sweet.

I think that they really wanted me to try new things while I was there, and I always enjoy that, but that night I discovered where I draw the line. And that line is....

...pig's foot. Yes that's right, that is a pig's foot, y'see the little toes there? To be honest, it was salty and tasty, but the texture was very melt-in-your-mouth, and that just didn't sit right with me once I really thought about what it was I was eating. I asked the ladies if they ate it a lot and they said no with a smile (before it was "just try it!" with what I swear were sly smiles), but apparently its supposed to be good for your skin. Never before have I been put off of a food just because it originally was something, but pig's feet are just not my thing.


The restaurant was one where you sit down on raised tatami-mat floor, with low tables. In the back there was a seperate 'room' that was hosting what looked like a 'boy's night out'. I took a couple pictures to get an idea of the layout.



There was also a pull-up bar, where some people who were by themselves sat to eat or either drink. The two Ogawas (as I suppose I must call them!) insisted that I try different kinds of alcoholic drinks, but I only had two. They were sweet cocktails of different flavours and were really delicious.

After that night, Ogawa-sensei (my supervisor, who I will from now on call by her first name: Yuka) went on a trip to London, so for the past few days I've been mostly on my own! Rika (the other Ogawa) has been sort of a surrogate-supervisor, and has been incredibly generous with her time. She swears she doesn't mind, and I honestly don't think she does, but I still appreciate every minute she spends on me.

So most of the pictures I have after this are just ones I have taken along the way in Sasebo, but they all have little stories.

First off, this is essentially my 'neighbourhood.' Just a hop-skip away from me is the bus station, which is increeeedibly handy. I was really paranoid about taking the bus the first couple of times, but Yuka helped me figure out how to say "does this go to Ono (the stop I needed to then walk to school from)? Could you please tell me when we get there?" So generally things went allright, and now I'm riding it (almost) like a pro.

The day after I arrived, Rika took me to get a bank account and a cell phone, and it was one of the most draaaining days I've had here. Though I did a lot of sitting around and waiting, everything took twice as long because Rika had to translate back to me with what English she knows. I got to see more of downtown Sasebo though, and I think I'm going to be spending a lot of my free time down there!


Or at least at the electronic's store in the 'Massage Chair' department. Ooooh daisy, that was a neato chair. A saleslady came along and set me right up. Even gave me a towel to cover my legs below the knees!




Over the weekend I was basically on my lonesome, so I decided to do some adventuring. Adventuring=walking. It was so hot, I was literally drenched with sweat. In Canada we hate to sweat, but here there's no choice, so everybody just carries around hankies or towels. Men and women also carry parasols to avoid the sun, since being pale is more fashionable here. I even bought myself one, after I realized how tanned I was getting.

Don't worry mum, I'm also wearing 50 SPF sunblock.

That day I wandered down within my area a bit more, following the bus route and off of it a little bit. Sasebo is a city that is apparently buried within a valley, surrounded by lush mountains with many of the buildings constructed on the hills. The streets in my area are quite narrow, and lined on one side by huge rock walls covered in vegetation. Buried in the wall I found a little shrine somebody had set up, which looks like a little memorial, but I'm quite probably wrong.

After a while of walking I managed to find a temple that I had seen in Rika's car, and I took a lot of pictures of that place.


There were so many stairs leading up to it! I managed to make it up them all, but after my long walk and heat, I was way too pooped when I got to the top.







Thankfully nobody seemed to mind when I sat down on the temple steps and just fanned myself for a little while. The only people inside the temple were elderly for the most part, and I have found that any time an older person sees me sitting someplace and trying to visibly cool down, they come up to me and say "Aa, atsui desu ne?" which means "It's hot isn't it!"

Once I reached the top of the temple, I was again struck by how beautiful it was. I couldn't fit the whole temple into my camera's little screen, but hopefully you can get some idea of it. Facing the temple, to the right of me was a little shrine set up with a few standing buddhas, and they each had red napkins draped over their fronts. I'm not sure what that is for, but it was a very cool little shrine.

To the right of me was another similar little shrine, but it was so bright out I had trouble seeing my camera screen and I took a rather blurry photo of it.


I did manage to take a great picture (for me anyway) of the main gate that you pass through after scaling all of those stairs.

There was also this really lovely tree in the yard, that had the prettiest branches and blossoms. I took this picture with you in mind daddy, I thought you'd have really liked this tree.

On the way down from the temple I decided to avoid the stairs and go down a winding sloped road, and it looked like it was the choice of elderly people heading there as well. From there I had this great view of Sasebo, so I thought I'd take a picture and give a better idea of the city. It was more clear that day so this turned out better than some of my other pictures do.

So that was my excursion out into Sasebo, or at least part of it. Tomorrow I'll be almost completely caught up, and then I can start talking about things in the very-recent-past tense. *laughs*

TTFN!