Adventures in Tokushima

As the title would suggest, I made it out of Kagawa, into the next prefecture. Yesterday I was taken rafting, destination unknown, my favourite sort of adventure.

Before arriving, I did a lot of research on the net and in bookstores, on Japan and Shikoku especially. The number one place I wanted to explore was Oboke Gorge, which slices through the mountains in the centre of the island. Pictures I saw were beautiful and it was held up as the last unpolluted river in Japan. Sooo lush.

So guess where our rafting destination was. Not hard really. I was sooo excited, prepared to be happy with scenary and a tame boat ride down the river.

The weather here has been unrelentingly hot, sans breeze of any rustle. Ive become used to Australian (non) summers again, when you know that the heat will be followed by a few days of cooller weather or rain. Though we complain about the lack of hot days, I must say I rather like the variety, for appreciates everything more.

Where to start? I had the most fun Ive had in I cant remember how long. Like we are talking years here. After waiting around for an inordinately un-Japanese amount of time we were fitted out with helmets and life jackets, wetsuits for those who wanted them. However the guides said the river was pretty warm and I was quite happy to be refreshingly cold for a day. It hasnt rained in weeks, drought seems to be following me, so the river was low. Tae, Netties 5yr old son was thus allowed to come, making him the youngest person to raft the river. Go Tae, the man!

We headed down to the river and ran through basic safety procedures, shown how to float and roll, how to hold the paddle so you dont knock your neighbour for six, and then got to board the boats. If the rapid is not too fast the guide yells "hold on", a big one and we are instructed "get down" doing just that, crouching in the bottom of the boat, holding on. When the river is faster you might have to "go to the right" or "go to the left" to keep the balance in the raft and avoid flipping.

It was so cool. Descriptions defy me. After negotiating a rapid we all clashed our paddles together and yelled in unison. Water fights with other rafts were encouraged and we jumped off the boat and went swimming between rapids. Admired the view. Floated down the river. Chilled out. Probably annoyed everyone with my constant and unimaginative gushings about how beautiful it all was!!

Teru san, our guide, spends summers in Tokushima and summers in NZ. Rafting constantly. This explained his perfect english and radiantly spunky smile. What a life. We tied up to a big rock and climbed up to the top, a feat in mountaineering itself, especially with a recovering ankle. Thank God for frequent swimming and freshly acquired upper body strength. The rock was 5 metres high and we were encouraged to jump off. Teru san demonstrated with a perfectly formed back flip. I stood at the edge and looked down. Five metres seemed an awfully long way down from up there. How deep is it? I asked. He said no one had ever touched the bottom. My next worry was belly flopping or landing wrong. Itae! (ouch). Scary thoughts were careering through my head and I realised I could be the last one up there. Frozen. Dont think, I told my self, 1, 2, 3: I let out a yell and leapt. A split second of "oh shit" looping through my head and then I hit water.

The most refreshing water to swim in ever. Pools are nice, the sea is great, but I dont really like the sticky after. Rivers and dams have to be the nicest swimming. Last time I swam it was New Year and freezing cold. I think Ill be going back up to Oboke a lot while it stays hot.

I couldnt find a waterproof camera before I went, so just got a disposable. The photo guy this morning wasnt positive about how well they would turn out when I explained in scratchy japanese why it was all wet. But its just film and plastic, so Im hopeful. Stay tuned for wicked pix.

Some time later, here they are. Check out pix link to ur left for more.

Free advertising: http://happyraft.com/ja/

MADE WITH 100% VIRGIN PULP

The Japanese revere nature as being beautiful. However, since humans are a part of nature, anything produced by humans is also beautiful. This includes the rusty car I drive and the lego land house I live in. A twisted upside down romanticism.

I nearly got irate with the checkout chick this morning. I wander into the local supermarket to purchase some juice and a slab of watermelon for my breakfast. As always I refuse the proffered carrier bag. She then tries to put my glad wrapped watermelon into one of those bags you get in the fruit and veggie section. No, I kindly but firmly thank her. Then she starts getting all insistent about how I need a plastic bag to keep my watermelon separate from my juice. Or something along those lines. My Japanese is still based largely on gestures, smiles, and when absolutely necessary, frowns. I finally escape sans bags into the scorching 10am sun.
Back home I’m enjoying my cold and juicy breakfast, laughing at Japanese foibles; I reach for a tissue and notice the side of the pack.

180 2PLY TISSUES ELLLEAIR “WHITE” MADE WITH 100% VIRGIN PULP

Huh! My brain is confused. That’s an odd way to refer to recycling. I’m trying to figure out how that relates to post-consumer recycling and whether the Japanese have such a concept. Virgin – hang on, that’s original forest. Original Pulp! They surely can’t be advertising that they’ve chopped down beautiful virgin forest for you to wipe your snotty nose on.
Bastards.

Boxes to go

They have a car here called The Cube. No kidding. In fact most of the cars look like the angular boxes with wheels most of us drew in kindergarten. Personally I’m still there! Maybe they’ve finally conceded that streamlined cars designed for speed is a redundant concept here. The speed limit is often 30km. Even on the big roads it’s only 50km. But strangely it feels fast. Maybe because the car I’m driving is so small. The streets are so narrow you have to drive slowly as there’s often not enough room for two cars to pass. It’s a messy drop into the concrete lined rice paddy next to the road should you swerve too far. It amazes me I’m yet to see a car deroaded.

The new trend seems to be retro cars. They’re pretty cool. Someone took the redesign of the bug and the cooper a step further and came up with a pseudo historic feel. Cars with a flavour of the forties or fifties designed in. Maybe it’s the front grill or a sweep of a line on the body. Neo-retro, post-old-fashioned, call it what you will, they’re a lot more interesting to look at than the boxes here, or the bubbles back home.

Strike a pose - theres nothing to it - vogue

It’s the little things that I find weird. The way time is organised. Vending machines, symbols of modern Japan; those dispensing cash (ATMS) close at 5pm, as do those dispensing cigarettes. But you can buy beer (or soft drinks) 24-7. There’s one a couple minutes from my house. It’s great on stupidly hot nights. Unfortunately, they tend to foam a lot if you open them immediately preceding drop. But who wants to wait when it’s this hot!

Supermarkets don’t open until 10am. That one really spooked me the other day in need of breakfast before school. Neither does the gym. It doesn’t close until midnight though. People go to classes on Friday, Saturday night. Late. That’s their night out.

I’ve been swimming most days. I think I’m the youngest person that swims regularly. All the twenty – thirty somethings seem more into the aerobic and weight machines. Lots of my students tell me that their favourite sport is swimming but I think they have pools at their schools.

The Japanese that do swim are really good at it. I wonder what they must think of my persistant sploshing up and down the pool. The preoccupation here appears to be with style, not speed or stamina, as it is back home. Women glide up and down the pool, hands meeting at the end of perfectly straight arms in front of them. They pay acute attention to the precise curvature of an arm, the tilt of a head - but all so slowly. It’s a wonder they don’t sink.
Most people go to the pool to walk though. It’s bizarre. It’s like John Cleese has John Malkoviched himself into the bodies of little old ladies, and some not so old or so little. Great long strides with arms at the side doing impressions of demented power walkers. I saw this women the other day, she had forgotten to take off her makeup, hat and sunglasses (we’re talking indoor pool here) and was recreating a 60s fashion show as she transformed the pool into her own personal catwalk ::: I’m too sexy for my swimsuit. Post swimming chilling out I was gob smacked. Then I had to hide underwater trying to contain the eruption of laughter that was smoking in my brain. Lips pursed, posture perfect, sense of humour choked to death, she didn’t look like she would have appreciated my not so kind-hearted observation!

Cicadas forming the soundtrack to my life.

Its like being on some tropical movie show.

There is no daylight saving here, so it gets light about 4:30 in the morning. At which point the birds wake, closely followed by the cicadas, and then me. It finally being cool enoughto sleep, I relish not sweating profusely for a couple of hours, curl over and snuggle into my sheet.

Yesterday was a public holiday. The Day of the Sea. I didnt know this but was told by some sailors who I was trying to suck up to in broken tongues of many varieties. I wanted to go to the beach,which meant catching a train and a ferry. Caught the wrong train which was exciting because I ended upon the big bridge to the mainland, considering being freaked out about being busted by an uptight ticket inspector,but being too stoked about the view to really care.

I got toTakamatsu and stood overlooking the Inland Sea on one of the clearest days Ive expereienced. It was soo beautiful. And then, low and behold, I spot dhingies heading into a har\bour a km away. Wahoo! Have been looking, unsucessfully, for a boat since I got here. I weave my way around the back streets and finally find a few guys sitting around in a carpark come foreshore.

"Hello. Excuse me very much. My name is Kirstie" i bravely state as they look curiously at me.
"Im an Osutoralian person".
"I like sayringu."
"I like sayringu very very much."

Ive run out of things to say and start looking around for an embarrassed escape exit. Someone decides to brave their high school English, smiles and says hello back. I breath a sigh of relief. After another few minutes of awkwardness another guy ventures " You want to join sayringu club."

"Ahh, so, so, soo desu ne"

Then the English teacher comes out to help and they tell me this is day of the sea, the race is a special occassion, and its difficult for me to join a club. But we swap sailing stories and one guy tells me his friend owns a yacht and a dhingy. Oops. Ive forgotten my phone number, so I give him my email address and pray to the gods of the sea he willcontact me.

I never made it to the beach, but the beach will wait. I think many more hot days lie ahead. Hopefully I will get my wish to learn to sail inJapanese. Sugoi desu ne.

Boing boing boing ... oops!

That promise to come back in a couple of days . . . unfortunately life has slowed down somewhat.

Going up and down is especially difficult. Im not sure if my anke let me down, or if I let my ankle down, but I got to see the inside of a Japanese hospital last week. Nothing serious, just boinging around on crutches again after spraining my ankle after karate. Not even during karate, how lame is that? Ive been telling all my kids this really scary big guy was chasing me and I fell over, which is somewhere near the truth but we were joking around so it doesnt really count. Ive been boinging around the classroom and they all think its hilarious, which i guess it is!

I am scoring lots of sympathy though, and my neighbour brought around a six pack of Haagen Daaz aisu kuriimo, which is almost worth having a football instead of an ankle! I wanted to get some crutches, but had to see a doctor first, which was kinda expensive not having med insurance organised yet. The doctor who livesa couple of doors down came over and had a look and said if i went to the hospital the next day hed sort me out. We did x-rays and apparently ive broken the cartilage, which i didnt know was possible, but hey! Then he put a five minute cast on my leg, and so it would be cooler, sawed half the cast off.

Truly! Attacked my leg with this scary circular saw and cut away the front part of the cast, meanwhile asking me in very broken English if I trusted him. I went white and sweated a coupleof litres as he was doing it. It got really hot, and i could feel the heat near my skin, freaking out about what would happen to my leg if he went too deep. Then, when he had scared the pants off me he said it was vibration only and touched it with his hand. B#$%&@d!

So with the front bit cut away, I can take it on and off, which is pretty cool. The down side is that it stays on by wrapping a bandage all around it. I was sooo excited about having my first cast ever, and getting heaps of people to sign it in Japanese, but it doesnt really work.

Other than that, its been raining lots. Raining wolves and tigers in fact. We had the most amazing storm last friday. Ive seen monsoon rain before but I figure we must have caught the edge of a tyfoo. So much water. All the rice that was planted a couple of weeks ago has shot up over the past couple of days and everything is pretty beautiful and lush now. The temperature thankfully dropped a few degrees too which is nice.

I havent been doing much else really. I went to karaoke on Sunday with all the karate guys and drank my first warm sake in Japan. Thats the third time ive been to karaoke since i got here, and im getting into it, which is bizarre, since i was way too embarrassed in Korea. Everyone here is soo friendly it blows me away. Im more content than i have been in a while. Ive been studying a fair bit too and my Japanese is coming along. Word for the week is suberashi which means excellent, or some such.