So apparently it has been over 3 months since my last update, and let me tell you there has been A LOT going on in those 3 months. Last thing you all read about was my trip to Tanegashima in July. So I guess I’ll just start with the big things that happened in August.
- New JETs arrived and we had Kumamoto Orientation! Yay new people! As much as I miss people from last year its nice to have some new faces and conversation buddies. I was responsible for a presentation on life as a rural JET at Orientation which was interesting.
The Beer Garden event put on for new ALTs after the 1st night of orientation and before we all headed out for pub crawl.
- Also my new role as one of the leaders on KumAJET (our local branch of AJET) which helps plan events throughout the year for JETs in Kumamoto, was ramping up. We had 3 events in August (our busiest month) The bar crawl on the first night of Orientation, a hike to Mt. Aso and onsen after, and the Ashikita Beach Party. All were a great success and we had a lot of fun.
Everyone looking down into Mt. Aso
- During August I also took a week long trip down to Okinawa again for some more scuba diving. I went with Mary and we both had our underwater cameras to play with this time. It was fun to be down there again and do some more diving!
Mary in front of the Yonaguni underwater Ruins in Okinawa.
September was a little more relaxed, I had a few weekends to myself, and had less planning to do. (Technically the Ashikita Beach Party was the first weekend in September)
- This year I participated in the Ken Taikai for swimming. I was supposed to participate in the Gun Taikai as well, but that was the same weekend as when I went to Tanegashima. Anyway, I competed in a few relays and the 50 freestyle. It was sort of silly, but fun.
- I also (with the help of the other Gun leader) arranged a weekend trip for the people in my area to the Kurokawa Onsen town outside of Aso. We drove a long ways and spent the night in a hostel and then spent the next day soaking in various onsen. It was quite the adventure and very relaxing.
Finally we get to this month (though I’m sure I’ve missed things and/or glossed over a lot, but really its not all that exciting :p) But this month is more recent so everything seems more fun and exciting.
- The first weekend of October was split between the Kyushu Beach Ultimate Frisbee day and my Elementary School Sports Festivals. The Frisbee Event was a KumAJET Event but mostly planned by Adam with the help of the owner of a frisbee organization here in Kumamoto. It was open to anyone in Kyushu so we had a lot of people show up and it was a combination of Japanese players and ALTs.
Bamboo set up with candles for the evening of the Kumamoto Kunichi festival.
- The second week of October fell over the 9th of the month which is a holiday here. I drove up to Nagasaki with Mary to go to their Kunichi Festival. It was nice to finally get to Nagasaki though we didn’t stay too long or see too much. It was a long expensive drive, but I love driving, and we took the car Ferry back so it was all an adventure. At the festival we played a game called Kametsukui. The normal version of this game is something like kingyotsukui. Basically you are given this bowl and flat paper net and have to catch (goldfish in the original) Turtles in the Kame version. The paper gets soggy and wet so eventually your “net” breaks and you’re done. But you are given a turtle as a pet as your prize for playing, regardless if you win or not. Mary and I both played, but she already had goldfish so didn’t want her turtle so now I have two! I’m calling them Tom & Jerry, though really I don’t know yet if they are male or female because they are still babies. And I’ve spent far more money than I realized I would setting up a large comfortable home space for them. It’s really quite nice to have some sort of pet around and I wish I had done it sooner.
- Here they are the day I got them.
- On the way back we stayed in Kumamoto and cheered for our friend Justine who was participating with her school in a taiko event at the castle. They were trying to break the world record for most people playing taiko at one time, and they did! They had almost 3000 people there playing taiko, it was crazy.
You can see all the sticks for taiko raised in the air in front of the castle.
- The weekend of the 15th and 16th was spent Rafting and hiking. KumAJET had planned for the Kumagawa white water rafting this weekend and we got about 15 people out to enjoy it with us. After that CJ (owner of the rafting company) put on a BBQ for all of us and the guides. It was great to just sit around, socialize, and eat food. The following day, some of the ALTs from Kuma-gun got together for a hike. Rebeca and Yusuke had also stayed the night so they joined our adventure. We decided to find our way to the Kumagawa Suigen, or head of the Kuma River. It’s somewhere I’d been wanting to go to for a while, but hadn’t yet. It was a bit of a drive, around an hour to get to the trail head, but with beautiful scenery. The hike had challenging parts, but definitely wasn’t as difficult as Ichifusa.
Here is the Kumagawa Suigen. Or Head of the Kuma River
- Finally, this weekend. On Friday some of us got together at Melissa and Ians for a pizza/drinking night. It was nice to have almost normal pizza!!! We stayed up VERY late and I got up REALLY early the next day to watch my sisters soccer game online. But it was worth it. Saturday night we took the train up to Yatsushiro for their annual giant fireworks festival. It’s apparently one of the largest firework events in all of Japan and you could see why. There were SOOOO many people, and the fireworks were pretty spectacular with quite a few of them being coordinated to music. Sunday I slept in (glorious!) and sort of relaxed (though I should have done more cleaning) before driving into Hitoyoshi with Melissa and Ian to run a few errands and meet up with other ALTs at Baskin Robbins. And on the way back we stoped at Pizza Pino in Asagiri. Don’t let the name fool you, they only had 2 pizzas on the menu and the rest was typical family restaurant Japanese style food. And the pizza they did have wasn’t nearly as good as the ones we had made as Melissa found out. But still it was nice to finally stop at a restaurant none of us had been to before despite it being so close.
I think that’s it for now, Halloween is next weekend, November so far isn’t looking too busy, but December will be an adventure. Since you know, it will probably be a bit before I update again possibly. No promises one way or the other.
