Golden Week 2012 part 1: Beppu

Golden Week is a string of 5 national holidays that occur in roughly a one week period (4/29, 4/30, 5/3, 5/4, and 5/5). And so, with all these days off it`s quite common for people to go on holiday/vacations, and personally I think it is probably one of the busiest times for traveling within Japan. And of course, as I am always eager for an excuse to travel, my friends and I decided to join the masses and planned a nice trip through Kyushu for our Golden Week.

Julianne, Jessica, Ciaran and I enjoying Beppu!

April 28th

This marked the first official day of Golden week. I hadn`t made any plans for this day originally because I was keen to save money for my second half of Golden Week. And after some discussion with some other Yamaguchi ALT`s who had no plans for the day we decided to drive to Costco in Fukuoka. I was surprised to see they didn`t sell a number of the things I was hoping to buy (Colgate/Crest Toothpaste, Refried Beans) and I was also surprised by some of the things they did have (really odd Japanese cleaning products, gallon packets of kim chee). I had to remind myself that while Costco is an American franchise they of course have to market their products for Japanese consumers. But overall I came out with a fairly decent haul of things for not too bad of a price. I bought, a tin of rasberries (which the evil costco employee placed at the bottom of my Costco-sized shopping bag, thus squishing them, grrr.), a tin of black berries, a brick of American Chedder Cheese, a wedge of Gouda cheese (imported from Holland, legit), some baby leaf lettuce, 2 canisters of guacamole, 2 tubs of salsa, 2 bottles of cranberry juice, Spinach and Mozarella ravioli, and other odd bits that I cant recall off the top of my head.

Another major success of the day was that while driving home we also stopped by a shopping market, I think the name is Sunny (or something like that). And the reason why we made the special trek to this particular grocery shop was that it is one of only a handful of places in Japan that have recently began to sell Resses Peanut Buttercups. So, I now have a stock pile of Reese`s sitting in my kitchen. Happy Day!

This also marked the first day that I have ever driven on the IC/expressway. There are 2 major reasons I`ve been a bit hesitant to drive on the expressway before and here is why.
1) The expressway is expensive to use since the entire length of it is a toll road. In general the amount you pay is determined by how far you drive, but some of the smaller expressways you pay a set fee. The cost to use the expressway for an average sized car is about $0.50 per mile plus an initial $1.88 terminal charge. So,  driving a mile on the expressway costs you about $2.40. But really, the expressway is usually used for traveling longer distances. On our way back from Costco our toll cost about $50.00.

2) And here is the second reason I haven`t driven on the expressway before.            

                               

May 3rdLet the Kyushu Roadtrip Begin!

      Here is a map of the route/sights visited during Golden Week (yellow and green dashes) 

This was the real beginning of my Golden Week plans. And here is a general outline, as well as a few anecdotes about our travels.

 The night before, Julianne, Jessica, and I stayed the night with Ciaran at his home in Yanai so that we would all be together in a fairly convenient location to begin our adventure. That morning we woke up quite early got into the car and drove about an hour to Tokuyama ferry port and loaded our car and ourselves onto the ferry and settled in for our boat ride to Oita. Seeing as it was Golden Week (the busiest travel time of the year) the ferry was fairly crowded with other passengers and so the 4 of us opted to sitting on the rooftop deck of the ferry alongside a group of Highschool and Junior highschool girls who were going on a school trip. And the next 2 hours were spent having conversations in Japanese/English with curious school girls, toddlers, and other inquisitive passengers.

Awesome Yamaguchi ALT Ciaran and I with some Inquisitive Passangers

 Once we arrived in Oita we said farewell to all of our new friends, piled into the car and requested that Betsey set our coordinates to direct us safely and soundly to Beppu.  Seeing as I had done the first shift of driving for the day I decided to let Ciaran be in charge of driving us from the ferry port to Beppu, which Betsey kindly informed us would take about 2 hours. I think Betsey must have selected the most sceneic route because instead of traveling a legitimate looking road we ended up taking off along some of the smallest country roads, which Ciaran maneuvered quite nicely. However, about an hour into our drive while cruising along at around 45mph (73km/h) what should happen, we got pulled over by police, for speeding! Japan has ridiculously low maximum speed limits, the road we were driving along had a the speed limit set for about 31mph (50km/h). And we were then held up for an hour while the cops went through the standard (and some not so standard) procedures of interrogation. `Where are all of you from?` (Ireland, Hawaii, Chicago) `Sir, you know why we pulled you over?`(Yes), `Do you know what the speed limit is?` (yes), `Where are you going?` (Beppu), `Why are you going this way, this is very out of the way! (Betsey told us too). `You are a really handsome chap, do you have a girlfriend?` (No), `You said your friend is from Hawaii, is it very nice there, I`ve never been. By the way, what did you eat for breakfast your breath reeks of garlic.`, and so on for an hour. The police then proceeded with insulting me by questioning my abilities to drive because of the fact that I am a female. Sexist much?!?!?

About halfway through the interrogation

 After the interrogation and a brief stop at the police station we finally got to continue on our journey to Beppu. Thankfully, the police station was along the way and so once we were through with that we only had about a 30 minute drive to get to Beppu.

A leisurely stroll 

  Due to a high level of geothermal activity Beppu is most famous as being an Onsen (hotspring) resort. The city is literally surrounded by hot springs. While walking along the streets steam rises up from the drains and out of every possible crack in the ground. At night it was a pretty ethereal experience because there were colored spot lights set up amongst many of the steam vents. Anyway, that night we decided to eat a really interesting meal at the tourist information office where you cook your dinner (fish, meat, veggies, whatever you like) using the onsen/hotspring steam. It was really delicious, but we were a little overzealous in our excitement to try this odd meal and ended up ordering way too much food. After dinner, a few rounds of drinks, and aimless wandering we ended up at one of the larger bathing onsens (around 11pm, nbd) and spent around an hour and a half soaking in water and relaxing in a hot sand bath before calling it a night.

Our dinner getting steamed

10 minutes later and some of our veggies and dumplings are ready to eat!

Sand bath at Hyotan Onsen (photo courtesy of Google)

The next morning we woke up early to visit 2 of the 9 famous "hells" in Beppu. These hotsprings are referred to as hells due to their resemblance of the Buddhist vision of hell. These 9 hells have extremely high temperatures and different unique characteristics (one is bright blue, another is red, etc.). We visited Umi Jigoku (Sea Hell) and Yama Jigoku (Mountain Hell).

Umi Jigoku. Not the best photo, but I liked that you can clearly see a differentiation in color between the hot spring and the normal water in the background. (90degrees C)

Yama Jigoku, a mud volcano that spouted so much mud it became a small steaming mountain surrounded by muddy pounds reaching 90degrees C. The steam at this "hell" is so strong that it could pull one and a half train cars. 

And that is all for this post! There should be two or three more Golden Week posts for you to look forward to in the future!

Things to look forward to: The rest of my Golden Week, I took a practice driving exam today and next week I am going to attempt to get my Japanese driver's license (ganbarimasu!!!), I've also been offered an interview on a Japanese television program only problem is that I am scheduled at school the day they want to film, so I'm currently in negotiations to see if we can possibly reschedule for another day (wish me some luck on that front!).

Leaving Beppu and off to our next destination! Look out for the next update to learn more!

Until next time!

Keri

Chaos

Hey there readers
I am trying my best to keep this blog fairly updated, but some days I feel so unmotivated to write that it is hard. And other days, such as today I have so many trivial things I want to write about that it seems pretty hard to determine where to begin. So if this blog comes out a bit non-sensical, scattered, etc that would be because it is essentially reflecting exactly how my life currently is right now. So, be prepared for odd disjointed thoughts that may disappear only to reappear 3 paragraphs later.

So here I am. Stuck at the BOE today. doing...well a ton of mixtures of nothing. clearly I am now typing this blog, earlier I sent out an email to one of my best friends, and I guess for the rest of the day my goal is to finish reading Dexter as slowly as possible to try to make the last 35 pages last me 3 hours (wishful thinking).

I think I can officially say that I have reached the Stage 2 party that was so often brought up at Tokyo orientation as well as Yamaguchi Orientation. And Stage 2 parties are a hoot, let me tell you that. Here are some warning signs of a stage 2 party: 1)A small break out of pimples sends you into a fit of rage and anger at Japan for destroying your usually flawless skin,2) frustration at one of your JTE`s (Japanese Teacher of English who you team teach with) for asking you a gazillion questions that you are too tired to bother answering (not to mention she also rifled around through some of your belongings without asking permission), 3) feeling lonely as heck, 4)Irritated at really horrible Japanese drivers,5) Feeling that you want to get out of the country in a hot second, 6) Feeling like your Japanese language class is a waste of time because really, when the heck are you going to use some of these phrases , and sensei can you try to make the lesson a little more structured than my blogs! oh yeah and how could I forget 7) Have your car in a ditch. Any or all of these signs?, `Welcome to the Stage 2 party` population: Keri
Did I forget to mention the best (see worst) part about the stage two party. You are usually the only one in attendance. Yippie!

Right now you are probably wondering one of two questions.
1) Why was your car in a ditch
or
2) How did your car end up in a ditch

Answer:
Ask me later, I am too into this stage 2 party right now to bother answering.



You know you live in the country (or Oshima) when they call a forklift to get your car out of a ditch.

All of this negativity aside, I think i am doing pretty okay.
But I am facing a lot of tough decisions that need to be decided kind of soon, or at least soon enough.
Tough Decision 1) I really like being in Japan (stage 2 parties aside) and I would really like to be here a second year (I think) but Oshima (aka isolated old people central) might not be the ideal location. So do I try to transfer locations within Yamaguchi prefecture with JET? Or do I tough it out and stay put?....I dont know. Transfers are pretty difficult, so even if I do put in the request, more than likely it will be declined. Which leads me to tough decision number
2) Do I quit JET and join a private English teaching company in Japan. Well maybe, but the benefits aren`t nearly as awesome (aka pay, healthcare, housing, and my return tickets wont be paid for) but the nice thing, you usually aren`t way out in the sticks (such as Oshima) but then there is also tough decision
3) Do I stay in Japan at all? I am going through some really rough transitions in my life right now emotionally, and I am feeling extremely vulnerable here due to the extreme isolation throughout the work week. I think maybe it is best for me to go home where I have an amazing support network of friends and family but then I will be a member of the 99% who is out raging against corporate america for not letting me have a sliver of the pie that I have worked my ass off for. (but lets not go into that now).
At the soonest I need to make these Decisions by Nov. 4th (if I want to stay but transfer with JET) at the soon enough-ist I have to decide by Feb (if I want to stay with JET in Japan). Ughhh if you know me, then you know that choices are the bane of my existence.

Stage 2 party, Choices, and Ditches aside, I think life is trucking along well enough.
This past weekend I did some small scale retail therapy to hopefully help pull me out of my stage 2 slump. So I went with one of my friends Kris to a shopping mall in Hiroshima prefecture to buy sensible things (such as heat tech clothing, some work outfits) and less sensible things (leopard shorts, funky earmuffs[to be work together]) and random things (a vegetable steamer). I think the say out doing mindless shopping was exactly what I needed to get my mind off of all the small stress factors in my life. That evening we were also going to meet up with a few other friends to have a dinner pie and movie night (rocky horror to celebrate the spirit of Halloween). Since Kris and I were in Hiroshima (where there happens to be a pretty decent, but small foreign foods shop) we also decided to pick up wine (on Steph`s suggestion and Kris` agreement) and cheese (my suggestion because really nothing makes a better coupling than cheese and wine). And I think that turned out to top off a great weekend off of Oshima. The pie was extremely delicious it was a veggie girl wonderland filled with potato, broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, eggplant, you name it (wish there had been some artichoke that would`ve been grand). Dessert was an equally delicious apple crumble followed with amazing wine and cheeses. I suggested that we make wine and cheese night a monthly ritual, because lord knows I need cheese in my life.


Hurray for Wine and Cheese (extra hurray)



And now for a topic that is coming straight out of left field (or my completely scattered brain, take your pick)
Dodgeball!

Some of you may recall that in college i was on one of the most winningest dodgeball teams ever! (at least we had a complete losing streak, that`s hard to do, right?)
Well Japanese Dodgeball is the oddest thing ever. I am glad I waited until now to post about it because at I have only finally begun to understand fully exactly how it works. (assuming you know the fundamentals of dodgeball so you would be able to pick up the differences)
So my first experience with dodgeball in Japan:
I was placed on the white cap team (its cute Japanese elementary school uniforms have this little cap that are reversible and the inside is white and outside is red, which is perfect for differentiating different team members for dodgeball, soccer, etc) anyway, like I said I was placed onto the white cap team (which happened to be 3&4th graders) vs. the red caps (5&6th graders) I think the idea was that I was supposed to help even the playing field with my age advantage (laugh). It started out familiar enough, we drew out the court and the half way median. But instead of having a plethora of balls there was only one. hmmmm, intersting,but I can deal with that. And we begin with a basketball like duel for the ball at the center line. And as expected my miniture team mates were not able to get the ball from their older peers. As the game progresses and the first kid is hit and told that he is out, this is where the oddity begins to really appear. So instead of just sitting on the side line waiting for a team mate to catch a ball so he can be summoned back into the game he is running around the edges of the court on the opposing teams side. Confusion is certainly surfacing. One of my teammates then throws the ball outside of the playing arena to our outed team mate who then catches it and attempts to hit one of the red hats. Confusion is completely kicked in.
As it turns out in Japanese dodgeball being out does not mean you stop playing. It means you play on the outside, and once you hit an opposing member with the ball from the outside you get to go back into the game. Very very confusing. Also if you catch a ball that someone on the other team threw they are not out and it does not bring one of your outed team members back in. It just means you got lucky and are not out. Very odd. But by far the oddest thing is that you have to worry about the people on the opposite end of the court from you as well as the people circling the outfield of your end of the court. So this means you can get hit from all sides. TERRIFYING! nowhere is safe!

And the other day I discovered first hand why they generally tend to play with only one ball, because that day I got the pleasure of playing dodgeball with 2 balls. And oh geeze, I was terrified before, no, this was a new level of fear. The opposing team is now able to be in possession of two balls at once, which also means that one can be behind/to the side of you while the other is facing you down from the opposite court. FML. Thankfully I told my kids do NOT hit Keri sensei on the head! And please for the love of hello kitty do not pummel me with the ball. I have not yet witnessed a more terrifying game than Japanese dodgeball with 2 balls. Thank goodness the most we have played with are 2, I cannot imagine what kind of hell would break loose with 7 balls flying around.


This should kind of give you an idea of how a Japanese dodgeball game is set up.

And to end this random blog post on a high note here are some things that make me happy:
I have a block of real cheese sitting in my fridge at home, This weekend we will have our Halloween party, My mom is visiting me in Dec, and I hopefully will be taking a small trip to Korea in Jan. to visit some of my friends from college.

Now back to reading Dexter.