Almost the end....

Well, here I am only a few days left in Japan. Everything’s pretty much packed but I have some amazing friends who are coming over this weekend to help do the final cleaning and somehow help make my overweight overflowing suitcases manageable for Air Canada hopefully! It’s been an emotional few weeks to say the least. Lots of excitement but tears way too often. I can’t believe how much I fell in love with this place… and my kids… and friends of course! With how emotional I am saying all these goodbyes you’d never know that I am actually leaving by choice…..

Anyways recap of the last few weeks/months since last I wrote.

In June I went to Tokyo with some friends who came over to Japan with me from Canada. It was so great to catch up and share experiences, although we realised that we are all going back and Alberta sure didn’t have an impressive recontracting number this year! Oops. Still we all had a fantastic year and had hours to tell lots of stories as we waited in line at Tokyo Disney : ) Disney was great, albeit crowded. Good laughs all around and some cute pics too. That night after a slight detour (hehe after we were bragging about how easily we’d all mastered Japanese subway lines) we arrived at a very very cool restaurant called Ninja. I highly recommend it albeit a tad expensive! The food is superb, atmosphere very cool and they even do magic! What else could you ask for? Code words and drawbridges- oh yes they have that too! The next day we went to Shinjuku and wandered a few places around the city before I went back to Nagoya to meet up with a Japanese friend for dinner and then headed back to Neo.

June was also filled with much paperwork and preparations for the big move. It was just slightly stressful trying to find a new place when overseas and getting ready to leave this place and filling out thousand and one papers required to do so. Guilt stepped back in, letting down the community and everyone surprised I was actually leaving didn’t help either. I have gotten so much closer with my kids and staff this spring/summer which makes it a lot harder, but I still know I should go.

Rika surprised me by picking me up to take me to see fireflies one night. It has an absolute blast riding around in the back of her truckish thing with her mom and dad… and then uncle, aunt and cousin too! I’m such a country girl! Even when I ate bugs it was super fun standing up and riding in the back.

At JHS we had lots of spring/summer events like properly learning to wear a yukata (which I got to join the grade 1^s- JHS for) and cleaning the school swimming pool How did those kids not start a full on waterfight I’m still not sure! Both of those events were major bonding moment for me with them, as they taught me Japanese comedy and we took many pictures and played together.

Another weekend, I went to Gifu city and saw the famous cormorant fishing with a boat full of Jets. It was pretty interesting and fun- thought probably more so because we were all there together and alcohol and fireworks were involved. This evening was followed by karaoke in Gifu city of course too!

Rainy season came and went and starting July 1^st it’s been above 30 degrees everyday and every night. It’s quite overwhelming and humid. Summer is usually my favorite time of the year, but some days are definitely painful here being permanently sweaty. Mushi atsui ne?

Along with my leaving, comes news of my successor. She’s a girl from Toronto who I am sure will fall just in love with Neo as I am. We’ve been in contact quite a bit and it’s been sort of cathartic telling her about her upcoming life and prepping her for what she’s about to get herself into. So many of the same questions I had… seems like not so long ago. Ah.

Student teachers came and left the elementary school, along with guestspeakers and baby rabbits!

News in Japan, companies are getting fined if they have overweight employees. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/13/world/asia/13fat.html?_r=1&no_interstitial&oref=slogin for a little more information. So different from home sometimes!

Random facts from my convo ladies… celebrating birthday is a western tradition. Before, they only celebrated a babies 1^st year of life by putting mochi on the baby’s back and celebrating that they didn’t die. Interesting… Also as always it’s interesting discussing their opinions/knowledge about other countries and the reasons/stereotypes behind wanting to go to them. Lately we have also talked about the health check bus that comes around to small towns, how to make tofu, and I taught them a whole hour of random beauty type words about fashion/makeup etc. It was tough to say goodbye to them as I adore all four of my lovely ladies. We went out for Yaki Nikku and surprisingly I held it together for our party, although not quite as much the last time I saw all of them back at my house the next week. I really cherish the time I got to spend from them and all the memories we made and things we learned from each other. Them and the Tarui family were my family and my life lines here. They made an incredible impact on my time here and I will miss them dearly.

Japanese words

Fushigi-　ふしぎ Mystery, I wonder

Hotaru- ほたるFireflies

Sanshyou-さんしょうFish spicey herb thing that turns your tongue numb

Kenketsu suru-けんけつするTo donate blood

Shupatsu-しゅぱつlet’s go! Depart. (in the back of Rika’s truck anyways!)

Mizumoshi-みずむしathlete’s foot- literally water bug,also blisters

Megu　めぐ take off clothes (as opposed to putting on which has many different verbs attached depending on the article)

Samishi- I’ll miss you/sad

Akita- tired of

Iroiro- man

Osusume-recommend

Hospital/beauty salon – bi-Youin or biyoin

Sanen- too bad, unlucky, pity

Kawai so- poor ___

Nani nani, dochi demo ii, nan(i) demo ii, nantara kantara

Sapari- healthy

Gejigeji- natural eyebrows are furry like a bug

Morao- take

Well another interrogation investigation day complete. I had my second major presentation class of the year this week. It entailed about 25 people from around the school district (both elementary and junior high school teachers, ALTs and administration, as well as 3 people from the board of education) watching my 16 first year (grade 7) English students. They were super shy of course but the class went pretty well. Afterwards we had a 2 hour meeting to analyze everything and critique. I could understand quite a bit but glad I wasn’t Murachi who had to fend off criticisms, comments and questions by every person in the room. My Japanese has definitely improved (thanks Narin!) but I will never ever come close to Kiri (when she speaks the whole room lights up because WOW I didn’t think it was possible for a foreigner to speak Japanese that well!) While there’s lots of things that I would suggest changing from a university trained ESL position, it’s difficult to give too much constructive criticism in those meetings. The most effective changes would be wholistic ones which are way too hard to set up/change on your own. So, while changing a little bit within my school day to day life in regard to second language acquisition is happening… I’ve joined the Japanese attitude of don’t rock the boat/speak out too much. Just slowly try to implement small changes realizing where they are at and taking it from there.

Haha oh yah and a big “ you are driving me nuts!” to all the English teachers who speak in such terrible broken English when they are talking to non-native language speakers! Leaving out particles and sounding ridiculous does not help someone understand!

Unfortunately, this month I also experienced a Japanese funeral. My vice principal’s father passed away and so the entire Elementary staff went to the funeral to show our support. If you want to read more, I suggest checking out this Wikipedia page. One interesting difference was giving gift money and in exchange getting a take home bag of gifts for each visitor filled with cookies and seaweed etc.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_funeral

Sayonara parties were in full bloom this month, the first of which was at Kashimo with Gifu Jets. Later there were more with the JHS, town hall, convo class, Rika’s family and friends. Busy busy! Definitely not going to lose any weight this month with all the drinking and enkais!

Although summer is unbearably hot in Japan, I will definitely miss the fireworks and festivals. I’m sad that I’ll miss Obon, and even the next sports festivals at school and Soujiro concert.

Random thought: to every season turn turn…fruits especially in Japan are very seasonal. For example, may is for strawberries, june for cherries and peaches, july for corn, august for pears and melons and autumn for kaki (oops persimmon). It’s pretty much impossible to find the fruit out of season, so it makes shopping interesting anyways.

In elementary news, something that had been bothering me since September has finally been resolved. In August, the first day I met the kids swimming in the pool, they had a Q/A session getting to know me, where one of the kids spoke fluent French. When I had regular classes in September, I was trying to remember which kid wasn’t Japanese/would be able to speak French so well and it was driving me crazy. Finally yesterday I figured it out when the Principal introduced our “summer student” from Belgium who lives in Neo for July and August every year. Strange in some ways, but I guess it’s a good way for him to meet the other kids during the last bit of school and play with them in summer.

So of course since I’m leaving in a matter of weeks, I only now find all the cool restaurants. Even some in Gifu!!! Funky places to sit and unique food : ) However, after dinner at one such restaurant that we nicknamed Hobbit, I was driving back to Neo when Gloria (my car) decided to rebel and overheat. It took 10 combini stops and two hours plus a train ride the next day, but I made it back to Neo alive. Gloria however, will no longer be in my successor’s future, but will have to be put down when I leave : ( Very sad about that one.

Last weekend we went to Kamakura, Yokohama and Tokyo. Another few places off my list and we finally went swimming in the ocean too! Whoo!! Ooh and to ER Alcatraz theme restaurant in Tokyo. Lol good times!

Oh, the announcement just came on the town speakers “It’s hot out, food goes bad quickly! Be Careful”…. Lol good to know, but so random that they announce that every few days. Lol oh Japan.

I suppose I should get to starbucks and see my friends for one of our final coffee/frap dates. This year has been an absolutely phenomenal experience and I could not be happier with how everything turned out. The last few weeks spending time with my kids playing volleyball, swimming, teaching, and goodbye speeches (by the way mine was a whole page all written by me in Japanese) has realised just how precious they all are. I’ll miss them so much.

Narin, Kiri, Jess, Jords, Sanj and more…. I will never ever forget you guys! You’re the best! Love you all!! Many amazing memories and quite a bit of crying lately all due to you!!

For those back home…. See you in a matter of days! I’ll try not to go on and on about Japan tooooo much!!!