monkey poses with nice buddies

I am in pain! My calves, my arms, my abs, everything. Everyday I am doing something involving physical exertion. Even at home, I am constantly cleaning the dishes, hanging my laundry, cooking, making lunch, and folding my laundry. And all of that seems like a break compared to the bike ride I’ve made a total of four times in the past 6 days.
Excuse my explanation of my journey because it will seem rather archaic, but I have no other options. Luckily my bike is a mountain bike, or else I think it might be impossible to climb the intense hills. I start at my house and make a left at a bright sky blue building, and proceed down the main road (there are only two main roads on the island, so the chance of getting lost is slim) past a fire station, baseball field, tennis courts, the hotel I stayed in, then past the beach until I reach a tunnel. Before I go in the tunnel I turn on my little bike flash (I can choose blinking or solid light) and have to push through an uphill battle until I can sail down the other side. The coast always stays on my right, so if you are inept at directions that means I head south the entire ways. Past the tunnel I think I am still in Arikawa, but I am not too sure. Yesterday I got to see junior high kids as well as elementary school kids practicing for a boat race. Their form of boating is between crew and canoeing, because they are fatter looking canoes with flat bottoms but they have a teacher directing them (like crew) and they each have an oar like crew. However, there are pairs sitting side by side, so maybe they actually reflect a Viking boat more than anything. Unfortunately my school doesn’t participate in this event, which takes place this weekend.
Anyhow, to get back to my trek, I bike past the boating area for a small ways and bike up another incline through a second tunnel, which is much shorter than the first. For certain I know when I break through the second tunnel I arrive in the town of Uonome, where Deborah lives. Uonome has a much more urban touch than Arikawa. So, to go to karaoke and many restaurants I have to bike through the two tunnels. I have found this bike ride seems easy compared to going all the way to Aokata (the next town over). Uonome gives me some rest, because it is so flat, before I have to bike up the steep never ending hill to Aokata. I think it might be a five minute uphill battle. Very long, and very tiring. At first I gave up after biking half way up the hill. It is disheartening when you have been biking so hard and make it around the corner of the hill and see that you are only half way there. It tricks you into thinking it is only half as big with the curve. But (sound trumpets) I FINALLY DID IT! For the past two times I made it up the hill without stopping. I have to shift to the very lowest gear in order to make it up all the way, but the point is that I did it (DEKITA!). Bragging, I feel, is warranted in this situation because it was one early goal I accomplished. So, in a way, it makes me feel like I can reach any goal that I set. Metaphorically my hill climb represented to me the uphill trek I have to make with everything I do, but once I finally can make it to the top (even though it is really really hard) the rest is an easy downhill descent that requires little if any effort. And not only did I make it up one side of the hill, but both sides on the same day. When I had to go back home, I didn’t stop all the way from Aokata to my house.
Once again, this Monday, I attended TaiChi class. Talk about an uphill battle for me, TaiChi makes me sweat more than biking. I thought the second time I could understand more, but I think that I ended up making more mistakes! When I looked in the mirror I got confused and realized that I turned my movements into the actual mirror image of what everyone was doing. We (the gaijin, Robin Deborah and me) have no clue about the correct order of the movements. TaiChi, like other martial arts, relies on stances and focusing your energy. Being the only one with experience, Deborah explained to Robin and me a little bit of what the heck we were doing. Excuse me if I am mistaken, but from what I understand TaiChi relies on focusing your Chi –or your energy- and you breathe in not a set rhythm, but with your own movement in the steps. When you place your foot down, you breathe into your leg so that all of the energy is focused on one solid leg while the other is free to kick or attack. But, as many of you know, Tai Chi movements are very controlled and fluid. What I didn’t know was that many of the arm sweeps represent batting a kick away, grabbing a foot and redirecting momentum, or attacking. I think the basic purpose of Tai Chi is to understand the flow and energy of your body and using that energy defensively and aggressively against an attacker.
Let me tell you, I felt embarrassed that these fifty year old women were kicking my twenty two year old ass. They were flexible, fluid, and strong. I, on the other hand, looked rigid, clumsy, and weak. So, I have a lot to learn, and I have to work hard. Some lady showed me a manual of the steps that was in English and Japanese, and I realized that they had been memorizing the steps at home. At first I thought that everyone had just remembered from class, but now I know that I am not hopeless forever. I have a chance to not be half a second off of the steps. Right now, the new students stand in the middle of the class while the more experience students stand on the corners of the room. Because we just follow the moves of everyone else we need constantly watch what everyone else is doing. This way we can see someone who knows what the heck comes next, but it makes the movements look awkward because we constantly have to be looking to someone. Sometimes it seems like the blind leading the blind. Occasionally I will watch someone doesn’t really know what to do next, and so I get screwed up. Eventually I will learn the moves and know who to follow so that I don’t look completely ridiculous.
Yesterday I was so busy that I almost didn’t make it to “Adriene- looks-ridiculous-doing-the-monkey-pose time” also know as Tai Chi. I, as my JTE (Japanese Teacher of English) tells me, “Very active.” Before monkey-posing I went to a scuba diving information session at Nice Buddy!! Isn’t the name so Japanese? Japanese are talented at taking two directly translated words, smashing them together, and synthesizing a truly unique phrase, such as “Nice Buddy”. Meeting the other divers was so exciting! I have wanted to scuba dive, since as long as I can remember, and the opportunity here presented itself. So now it is full throttle on the diving goal until I have my license. Luckily a co-worker (Nishimura-sensei) dives all the time, and she is the person that really got things moving for me. Once you mention you are interested in something, right away the wheels start turning. I know how to get what I want.
Even though I had been introduced to Megumi-san, a Japanese girl my age interested in diving, and she offered to take me sometime, but I had a sense she was busy and I wanted to start right away. And as luck would have it sitting in the desk across from me sat Nishimura sensei with a Nice Buddy T-shirt on. I got really excited because I knew if I mentioned anything about diving she would start to help me right away. It is the Japanese way (at least as I have experienced) to help out foreigners as much as possible, and take anything you mention into action (example: the blue bunny shoes). So slyly, using this knowledge to my advantage, I mentioned to Nakamura sensei that I want to go diving while I am here. Right away she looked surprised and said, “Oh, Nishimura-sensei dives too. I will talk to her.” And she did, and before I knew it Nishimura-sensei called Nice Buddy, came over to me and asked when I had a free day, and offered to take me there herself. Everyone is very generous here, and don’t assume I plan on taking advantage of this all the time, but I really really want to dive! It would have been very difficult setting things up on my own.
Yesterday afternoon – between school and Tai Chi – ended up being the perfect time to meet the crew of Nice Buddy. Unfortunately for me, Nice Buddy might be a little too far to bike since it takes twenty minutes by car to get there (and there is a hill twice as large as the one between Uonome and Aokata!). Nishimura-sensei drove me, and the views were absolutely breath taking. I am so lucky to be in such a beautiful location with very steep mountains completely covered in bright green foliage and crystal blue water. So, I will have to take the bus or get really strong in order to have the physical capacity to bike all the way. For now, I accept the free rides they offered me!
Everyone at Nice Buddy, as the name says, is nice - they will be my new nice buddies from Nice Buddy. And in Japanese custom they offered Nishimura-sensei and me delicious homemade pudding with strawberry jelly on top. I could have eaten about twenty bowls of pudding and have had room for more. Then came in Natsun-chan (woman) and Techa-kun (man) both extremely tan, fit and relatively young. Fortunately for me I understood a good bit of their Japanese. So I am either getting used to hearing Japanese or they know the type of Japanese to use with foreigners. Immediately they began filling up my schedule with dives, classes to get my license, and parties! They invited me to two Nice Buddy parties: a BBQ on the 12th and another on the 16th. Instant friends! On the 12th we’re on a boat (yes, think of the Lonely Island song, and if you don’t know it look it up on youtube) that will cruise the bay around a smaller island Wakamatsu where there will be fireworks (hanabi) after a small festival. My wish is that everything is free, because I don’t have much money left. Maybe I have enough set aside.
Right now, I am reaching the end of my cash supply. I should have exchanged all of my money in Tokyo, but didn’t get a chance since the hotel wouldn’t accept everything in one day. My money has to be saved for my new pink ketai (cell phone) and my trip to Nagasaki where I can exchange currency. Nowhere on the island offers currency exchange because, really, how often would they need to here. So, I need enough to make it to Nagasaki and enough to pay for my cell phone which means I cannot spend any more money on food. The stock of food in my fridge keeps shrinking, but luckily I have enough rice to last me a while. I have been very resourceful with making new combinations of food. Like today (a salad I am very proud of) I combined half a cob of corn – I cut the kernels off – with deli ham slices – which I further sliced into rectangles – and I added miso sauce and sesame seed oil, stirred: instant corn and ham salad. I impressed myself with my salad because it actually is something I’d make even if I had a fridge full of food. Corn and ham salad plus a rice ball (filled with chicken and wrapped with seaweed) was lunch. I haven’t gotten sick of onigiri (rice ball) yet, but I feel like the time may come soon. Since food is low, I made an onigiri filled with tiny chicken bits from Saturday’s BBQ for each lunch this week. So my lunch will be corn ham salad and onigiri everyday this week. Rice for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Rice, rice, and more rice! Thankfully, on Friday I’ll be in Nagaski by 3:30 I can exchange money and have some real food, maybe I’ll indulge in some champon (look it up)…yummy Nagasaki cuisine.
And, to add to my cash surplus on Friday, comes my first pay check!! I was unaware of the fact that orientation counted as work, but I am happy about it. So the 14th I get my pay check for the month of July. Extra money than I was expecting! So far since I exchanged only a bit of my money, I actually am way under my budgeted spending (yay for Adriene). But, my diving expenses will eat up the rest of what I have not spent so far.
Off topic, but funny, is the subject of typhoons (commonly known as hurricane). Typhoons regularly graze the Goto islands, but are hardly ever destructive. Now, we are in typhoon season so Nakamura-sensei tried to explain the typhoon procedure. I use the term procedure loosely, mostly because, there isn’t one. The procedure as far as I know means that the teachers either risk their lives coming to school (even if the kids don’t have to) or you have to take a day of paid leave. I kept asking, “What if no one can get to school?” And the response I kept getting, “Oh, no I think there is still school. You have to come.” To which I asked, “Even if the students don’t have to come.” “Hmmm, yes, I think so.” And from what I learned there is no real safe place to be, but inside your house. I feel a bit uncomfortable about this. I am trying to reconcile safety plans between the other JETs and me in case there is a big typhoon. The chances are slim, but better safe than dead.
*Students have felt more and more like they can come and talk with me. I am probably going to start an English board and newsletter at my school. If anyone has any ideas for me, or wants to ask a question, go ahead and leave a comment!