Land of harmony and peace. Land of contradictions. Land of volcanoes, geysers, hot baths, mountains and forests... -> the New Zealand look-alike. Land of 3G (clamshell) mobiles - ONLY. Land of no money exchange, no acceptance of credit cards nor international ATM cards... n of course the land of sushiiii!
Pere said lick, suck do whatever necessary to be present at the wedding. My RO (Reporting Officer) said I was lucky, again. No, not lucky 'like that'; lucky when it comes to taking an annual leave at the time when other staff cannot (one of the benefits of being an IF (i was a) teacher). The lucky break came in the form of an e-Learning week. During the week students do not have to come to school, instead they do the work on-line, and so my RO kindly approved my trip (even though some rules had to be bend a bit - thanksPam).
And off I was for a week in Japan.
Pere lives in the place close to the small town, Taketa. In this area tourists, especially the ones that need a passport to get there are rather rare, hence the unavailability of things such as money exchange; and the place is small, thus no credit-cards. Fortunately for me, even though I was running late - as usual - I got some cash out and bought some yen at Spore airport; and also Pere agreed to take on yet another currency. By the way, though he was kidding about opening his own currency exchange business, Pere actually earns his rice by teaching English in different schools - some 15-20 of them - that are located in the area. My initial though was that after the wedding I'll go and travel around the island, Kyūshū, as the love birds would fly off for their honeymoon. Yep, that's what happens when one thinks, s/he (probably) needs to re-think it... The love birds postponed the honeymoon till August and Hiromi had to be back at work (library at one of those 15-20 schools) only few days after the wedding.
Thanks to these circumstances I got an opportunity to spend more time with Pere (once more, 'Thank You' to Hiromi for letting me spend time w/ her hubby during the 1st wk of their marriage - actually I felt quite uncomfortable bout this at the beginning - it just did not seem right; they had to reiterate to me number of times that it was life as usual for them, and the ceremony was more of a formality then anything else). And not only did I get to spend time with Pere, but instead of going around and doing the usual touristy things, I got to spend time with his in-laws. I got a chance to see (the sample of) 'the real' Japan.
I'll talk more about how great I think both, Pere's family and in-laws are some other time, here I'll just mention one of the in-laws, Muku. Muku is the 13 yr old dog that is adored for many things out of which none relates to dog-smarts. Pere's nick names for Muku range from psycho to 'professor'. Well, all this I found out after Mike - Pere's brother - and I decided to take Muku for a walk on the morning after the wedding. As we were walking the road that leads towards the top of the hill we ran into two white dogs standing on our path. Thinking we can pass by them w/o much trouble was quickly proven wrong as both the white dogs and Muku were very keen to get together. Not to sniff, kiss, or exchange regards in any way, but to kill each other. Muku, especially, was keen on clamming the alpha dog of the hill status. After managing to pull him away initially, the two white dogs caught up with us and the brawl started again. This time, as I was trying to protect Muku by pulling him away, my right leg found its way between him and his arch enemies so he stuck he's canines into my calf, upon which he copped a blow into the head from me - reflex. Thereupon, we ran back without stopping to the house. By that time my leg was rather bloody and the thing did not look pretty. Though as it wasn't hurting that much I knew it wasn't bad, but I was wondering if I needed an 'after a dog has bit you' injection. Unfortunately as Pere and Hiromi were not around, we needed a local doctor's skillful use of Japanese-English dictionary to explain to me that the dog was just recently vaccinated and that I was safe. While at the doctor's they cleaned the wound (including some shaving) and proscribed me little bag full of medicine (antibiotics, pain killers and killers of pain killers' side effects; I only used the 1st one).
Luckily, after the bleeding stopped, there was nothing impeding my walking and I was good to go. The next day Pere's patents and brother left for their Japan trip, after we dropped them at the train station we went on to check out the Monkey Mountain and a bit of Oita. Wednesday was the active day when we covered quite some walking distance on an uneven terrain. First, early in the morning, as part of Muku's walk, we climbed the hill near Hiromi's place (now I was bit very as he would run by my leg, especially the bandaged one, though he acted as though nothing happened - asshole :). Following this, we visited ruins of the Samurai's castle at the top of the hill near Pere's house. We took Pere's neighbor's dog along for this walk. After lunch, at Hiromi's, we jumped in the car, Muku accompanying us again, and drove to Mt Kanji (or something rather similar - ?) where we climbed 2 peaks. Shortly after the dinner when we got back to Pere's place we crashed at the floor, pleasantly exhausted and fallen a sleep straight away - at least me, that is.
12+ hours later we woke up. And following omelet, salami and cheese brunch we hit the road - no dogs this time - for near by prefecture in search of the beach. After driving south for couple of hours Pere wasn't sure at which intersection to turn east in order to get to the beach that he had in mind. And as he couldn't contract Hiromi for directions he turned left towards Tomi Peninsula. After a while on the road towards the Pacific coast Pere planted a seed for pleasant surprise to himself; he said that there's (probably) nothing worth driving-for over there. What we found over there was the great little bay with no one around; clear, and very refreshing water; and rocks for easy climbing.
After two days at Tomi Peninsula it was up to me to choose the activity for my last day. The choice was between touristy thing in Fukuoka or rice planting w/ Hiromi's family.
Pere said lick, suck do whatever necessary to be present at the wedding. My RO (Reporting Officer) said I was lucky, again. No, not lucky 'like that'; lucky when it comes to taking an annual leave at the time when other staff cannot (one of the benefits of being an IF (i was a) teacher). The lucky break came in the form of an e-Learning week. During the week students do not have to come to school, instead they do the work on-line, and so my RO kindly approved my trip (even though some rules had to be bend a bit - thanksPam).
And off I was for a week in Japan.
Pere lives in the place close to the small town, Taketa. In this area tourists, especially the ones that need a passport to get there are rather rare, hence the unavailability of things such as money exchange; and the place is small, thus no credit-cards. Fortunately for me, even though I was running late - as usual - I got some cash out and bought some yen at Spore airport; and also Pere agreed to take on yet another currency. By the way, though he was kidding about opening his own currency exchange business, Pere actually earns his rice by teaching English in different schools - some 15-20 of them - that are located in the area. My initial though was that after the wedding I'll go and travel around the island, Kyūshū, as the love birds would fly off for their honeymoon. Yep, that's what happens when one thinks, s/he (probably) needs to re-think it... The love birds postponed the honeymoon till August and Hiromi had to be back at work (library at one of those 15-20 schools) only few days after the wedding.
Thanks to these circumstances I got an opportunity to spend more time with Pere (once more, 'Thank You' to Hiromi for letting me spend time w/ her hubby during the 1st wk of their marriage - actually I felt quite uncomfortable bout this at the beginning - it just did not seem right; they had to reiterate to me number of times that it was life as usual for them, and the ceremony was more of a formality then anything else). And not only did I get to spend time with Pere, but instead of going around and doing the usual touristy things, I got to spend time with his in-laws. I got a chance to see (the sample of) 'the real' Japan.
I'll talk more about how great I think both, Pere's family and in-laws are some other time, here I'll just mention one of the in-laws, Muku. Muku is the 13 yr old dog that is adored for many things out of which none relates to dog-smarts. Pere's nick names for Muku range from psycho to 'professor'. Well, all this I found out after Mike - Pere's brother - and I decided to take Muku for a walk on the morning after the wedding. As we were walking the road that leads towards the top of the hill we ran into two white dogs standing on our path. Thinking we can pass by them w/o much trouble was quickly proven wrong as both the white dogs and Muku were very keen to get together. Not to sniff, kiss, or exchange regards in any way, but to kill each other. Muku, especially, was keen on clamming the alpha dog of the hill status. After managing to pull him away initially, the two white dogs caught up with us and the brawl started again. This time, as I was trying to protect Muku by pulling him away, my right leg found its way between him and his arch enemies so he stuck he's canines into my calf, upon which he copped a blow into the head from me - reflex. Thereupon, we ran back without stopping to the house. By that time my leg was rather bloody and the thing did not look pretty. Though as it wasn't hurting that much I knew it wasn't bad, but I was wondering if I needed an 'after a dog has bit you' injection. Unfortunately as Pere and Hiromi were not around, we needed a local doctor's skillful use of Japanese-English dictionary to explain to me that the dog was just recently vaccinated and that I was safe. While at the doctor's they cleaned the wound (including some shaving) and proscribed me little bag full of medicine (antibiotics, pain killers and killers of pain killers' side effects; I only used the 1st one).
Luckily, after the bleeding stopped, there was nothing impeding my walking and I was good to go. The next day Pere's patents and brother left for their Japan trip, after we dropped them at the train station we went on to check out the Monkey Mountain and a bit of Oita. Wednesday was the active day when we covered quite some walking distance on an uneven terrain. First, early in the morning, as part of Muku's walk, we climbed the hill near Hiromi's place (now I was bit very as he would run by my leg, especially the bandaged one, though he acted as though nothing happened - asshole :). Following this, we visited ruins of the Samurai's castle at the top of the hill near Pere's house. We took Pere's neighbor's dog along for this walk. After lunch, at Hiromi's, we jumped in the car, Muku accompanying us again, and drove to Mt Kanji (or something rather similar - ?) where we climbed 2 peaks. Shortly after the dinner when we got back to Pere's place we crashed at the floor, pleasantly exhausted and fallen a sleep straight away - at least me, that is.
12+ hours later we woke up. And following omelet, salami and cheese brunch we hit the road - no dogs this time - for near by prefecture in search of the beach. After driving south for couple of hours Pere wasn't sure at which intersection to turn east in order to get to the beach that he had in mind. And as he couldn't contract Hiromi for directions he turned left towards Tomi Peninsula. After a while on the road towards the Pacific coast Pere planted a seed for pleasant surprise to himself; he said that there's (probably) nothing worth driving-for over there. What we found over there was the great little bay with no one around; clear, and very refreshing water; and rocks for easy climbing.
After two days at Tomi Peninsula it was up to me to choose the activity for my last day. The choice was between touristy thing in Fukuoka or rice planting w/ Hiromi's family.
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| From Japan, 5-13May07 |
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