Well I am afraid to say there won't be any posts until the 5 or 6th of January. On friday I leave for India and will be there until I fly back to okinawa on the 4th of Jan. I am going with a bunch of other JETs from okinawa and we will be meeting even more JETs (from mainland Japan) about 6 or so days into our trip to volenteer at an orphanage, teaching english mostly. Why we are going to torture the wee mites with our terrible langauge I am not sure, but hopefully we will make it fun and do some Christmas stuff for them. Well here's hoping I'll make it back disease free, with my ass relatively intact and with lots of stories and pictures to share with you.
Have a Good o'l Christmas and a Happy New years
Craig

I hope this 'making craig be a pink fairy' is a tradition that is nipped in the bud.... or do I, maybe I kinda secrety enjoy it. Maybe...

The message on my cake made me smile alot, thankyou all involved!


I and David enjoying the cake

I arrived back on my island today (Wednesday) having missed two and a half days of work and wearing the same clothes I had been wearing for the last five days. Also I was a year older. What on earth had happened to me to bring about this situation? I was also the happiest I have been since I got to Japan. The best bit was that when I rocked up to school, no-one batted an eyelid. Well not true, I got some smiles and even an ‘otskaresama desu’ (good job!). Of course you are going to be disappointed when I describe how this situation came about but I don’t think I can leave you hanging. The simple truth behind it all was that I went to the mainland to spend my birthday with my good friends there. But once there terrible storms descended from nowhere and caused my ferry to be cancelled three days in a row (Sunday through Tuesday). I was perhaps a tad worried that I might face some trouble, but all is quiet so far, it is quite possible my supervisor does not even know. I baught them some pretty nice chocolates as omiyage and they have just decended on them en mass as I type and seem very happy with them. I also noted with a little relief that there were some other BOE employees also on the ferry, I was not the only one stranded on the mainland. Stranded on the mainland trying to get to a small island, a reversal of the usual position. So there we go. I had a wonderful birthday weekend and I say thank you to all those involved in making it so. I also thank the gods of the weather for whipping up those nasty looking waves and having the ferry cancelled for me. I had a jolly good time on the mainland and even accomplished some useful things. That is to say I got my vaccinations for India completed, that was due to another serendipitous happening! On the Tuesday because my phones battery was empty I had to take the bus up to nago on the speculation the ferry was running, it wasn’t but as a result I bumped into Elina in the Nago Jusco just before she was off to meet Ben to go down and get their vaccinations in Naha. I also made a Christmas wreath but that’s by the by. Ah yes we also went to the peace park but I don’t have anything to say about that, it was quite nice. Oh and then the icing on the cake, when I got back to school on my desk was a parcel. Always fun but especially when it’s a birthday present and a graduation present, joy joy happy happy joy joy. Ahem yes well. Anyway it was an awesome gift which has heightened my admiration of the Japanese. It is a marvellous example of technology fused with art, and innovative technology at that. The Japanese do make good stuff, they really do.

Look Mum I finally used the finger puppets you sent although at the junoir high not the elementry school. I had the students in my english conversation class act out some little plays I had writen while the others filled in sheets with questions based on the plays. It was pretty amusing, so much so that the my Japanese english teacher ran to get her camera and another teacher to watch. I am still not sure how to use them in the elementry school. Any ideas?

Ach! Have a pretty sunset picture, I've got lots.

Another delightful weekend on Izena. Again nothing which was planned happened and much which wasn't planned did. I had planned with Teru to play the keyboard with him but this didn't quite happen. It seems to me things randomly happen on Izena and I think the same may be true for the natives here too. I had definitely planned to play keyboard with Teru on Thursday, then on Friday he called me and said he would be round in an hour to pick me up and then we could go play. When he arrived he told me we were going to do the some sea rangers dialogue instead with Kaich. However when we arrived at the Stagi Kaich was spreading out some food and awamori and we got drunk and watched a DVD instead. Anyway my point is there is little point in planning things on this island and you have to be prepared for anything at a moments notice. Again on Friday we were going to do the keyboard thing but Teru got a call from Yoshiaki-san (Mr Christmas music) to come to a fish party. Yes a fish party. You heard. Yoshiaki-san has got some fish from Sendai (just below Hokkaido) which he was very exited about. Anyway we had a barbeque and ate his fish amongst many other things. We were told that the next day 30 odd senior high school student from Kyoto were arrived and enlisted us to help. Help with what I of course had no idea but it sounded fun. So Sunday I had a very leisurely and large breakfast of pancakes and then went for my long run. Once I had recovered from that I called Yoshiaki san and he sent someone to pick me up and take me to the beach. It seemed a barbeque and several traditional okinawan performances were being stages for the students. After a stunning sunset the students arrived and we got the barbeque underway. My goodness they were a hungry lots, I was hoping for leftovers as I had not had dinner, but no such luck! I was hanging with the eisa crew and asked the chap who usually plays the Chondera (or is the Chondera) if he was performing tonight. He told me no, his knee was hurting, then asked me if I would take his place. I wonder if his knee really did hurt but regardless it was too good an opportunity to miss! The Chondera is a sort of clown who leads out the eisa dancers and then dances around and is generally goofy. So that’s what I did and it was great fun, the students got into it too and even tried to copy my okinawan dancing. After the tidying up we did the usual all sit in a circle on the ground and drink. It transpired that a number of other people had not had dinner either and had also hoped for leftovers so we made our way to Fuckasushi (my favourite eatery) and had a hearty meal. After that I was pretty tired but managed to hold on until there was enough of a group consensus to head home to sleep. Drink plus lots of carby hot food equals sleep. Just found out my English conversation class today is cancelled as they have exams this week, that frees up my evening. Wow I could finish tidying my house; I actually busted out the Hoover on Saturday.

The Sea Rangers performance and the Taiko workshop with the international students.

Be careful what you wish for! I had expressed in my post yesterday that I wouldn't mind if my JTE didn't make it in today either. As it turn out she has a fever and won't be in for a few days, and being a Japanese worker you have to be pretty ill to not turn up to work. Regardless I have been having fun playing with the kids. Although this morning was a little harsh, last night was the last night the foreign students and the whole language forum team where on Izena. It seems they have been involved with Izena for years and emotions where high, lots of laugher and some tears. A good time though. I spoke some with the Japanese girl who had masterminded the litter presentation. She had some good ideas, a little ambitious I thought but I am going to try and come up with some ways to educate the kids on litter. I think that’s the best way, I expect the grown ups will be set in their ways.

This past week, Tuesday to Saturday, I have been in Naha for the Mid Year Conference. As with all JET conferences it was as much a lesson in drinking and sleep deprivation as anything else. Certainly is you are a crazy islander that is. This said the seminars were in the main super useful and fun. Each night was completely different but equally crazy and fun, although I must say Friday night was pretty much the best. It all came to a climax when I had to get back to my island to give a speech on saturday afternoon. This meant catching the 10.30 ferry from Unten port which in turn meant leaving naha at about 7.30. I think I got about 45 minutes sleep on Friday night. But mostly due to David being a freaking Hero I made it back in time. The speech I was to give was on my impressions of Izena to a group of high school kids from all over the world plus some mainland Japanese kids too. I think it went pretty well and I got lots of good questions from them. Afterwards we also did a taiko workshop which was interesting too. They chose some random piece to teach the students which I hadn’t seem before and after a few failed attempts they decided I should be demonstrating the piece. EEEEEEGGGGGHHH (if you don’t know what sound that is then you’re not an islander from Okinawa)! But I used my ninja powers to do the piece (they come in so useful) and the kids then 'got it' enough so that we could all have a jolly good time banging our drums. There was a festival at 6pm that evening and I did plan to go but I passed out and slept soundly until 10am the following day. I needed it. Sunday was a rainy cold day, just like home! I had planned to quietly study Japanese and get my lesson plans down for my Monday English conversation class but I got a call from Kamiyama-san. And that only means fun stuff (and drinking) so off I went. We set out crab traps in the wind and the rain and then had warm sake afterwards which felt wonderful. The day was finished off with some sushi from my favourite izekaiya ‘Fukasushi’ and naturally orion beer. One interesting titbit thrown up in my discussions with Shunichi (a shoen tiako member from naha) was that the Japanese don’t really use the word commitment (in personal relationships). Or more specifically they don’t use it in spoken Japanese. There was some confusion as to the point so I looked the word up and he thought about it for a while and then told me people would not say this but it might be used it written Japanese. Seemed a little odd to me. I would have asked Natsu sensei about it today (my Japanese English teacher) but she is away. I took both my classes by myself today but that was no problem I am a pro at that now, maybe. Maybe I just get them to play games and don’t really teach them anything. Just before lunch today we had a presentation by the foreign students and their Japanese counterparts, a lot of trot about how pretty izena was etc. however they did bring up the issue of litter in a little presentation called ‘Keep Izena Beautiful’. I think I have harped on about the litter problem here before and it is definitely a problem. The British girl was one of the students who gave that presentation I am proud to say. She’s going to study chemistry at Edinburgh university and wants to do JET after, just what I did more or less! Unfortunately I will not be able to go to the beach barbeque with the internationals tonight because my English conversation class is on at the same time. Not sure how I can get around that one. Oh! a couple of students said ‘cut cut!’ to me today while miming hacking motions at their faces. Also during lunch some of the teachers were asking me if I was going to cut my beard and telling me I looked like father Christmas. Oh they are a fickle lot! Last week they were giving me compliments left right and centre about my beard. Humph. I’m not sure what I am going to do with it. I suppose it is getting a little bit straggly now. Apparently it was pretty lucky of me to have come back on the first ferry on Saturday as on Sunday the ferry was cancelled and all the teachers had to pay 15 thousand yen to take the plane back (that’s about 75 pounds) except my English teacher who didn’t. Actually I kind of hope she doesn’t make it tomorrow either so I can do the classes again by myself and this time I will have more than 25 minutes time to prepare before the class.

-I am in the distance in this picture, sorry! But it does show how the fishing worked very well-
This weekend I stayed put on my little island and what a good decision that turned out to be! As most of my friends where leaving Izena for various reasons that weekend I was looking forward to spending some down time and chilling by myself. I also had a number of things to do; planning lessons studying Japanese and such like. I also planned to get round to some painting and keyboard practice. However one should always expect the unexpected here. On Saturday morning as I was outside my house stretching in my skimpy running gear, about to go for a run. I had pegged this weekend to try for the full 20k, up to now I had just been doing 10ks as my long runs. As I was about to set off Kamiyama-san my neighbour trots up saying “cycling now! Come!” I managed to gather he wanted me to take part in something called the ‘Tour de Izena’ and to do this on my granny bike (no gears and a basket)! Well that sounded like a lot of fun to me so we popped my bike into the back of his van and off we went. It turned out not to be a race but rather a sort of bike tour of the island but that didn’t stop lots of Japanese turning up in lycra on racing bikes. There were a lot of people from off island included a cute American couple (air force) as well as a number of Izena people. The tour/race was already underway by the time we arrived so Kamiyama san just drove to the middle of the main group of people and dumped me out there, I am sure this shocked the Japanese riders, having a gaijin suddenly dumped in their midst (wearing my red jump suit none the less)! After we had completed the tour we took part in some kind of harvest ceremony which involved everybody taking it in turn to go out into a rice paddy and cutting a bushel of rice with a kama (sharp knife on a stick). My friend Kaiich took some pictures of me doing that so hopefully I can get them from him at some point. After that was done I managed to squeeze in my run (but only 10k) before the barbeque and after party. We enjoyed performances by the junior high girls (dancing to techno music with pom poms) and of course eisa. The highlight for me was a dance to a Japanese version of an Abba song. I had already had dinner but I sat with some older people from Okinawa honto and the old lady next to me kept bringing me more food and an old man kept bringing me more beer, not that I was complaining! The following day I got up at 7am to go fishing, urgh! This fishing involved herding the fish into a long net. Everybody walked in a long line making as much disturbance in the water as possible driving the fish into the waiting net. Along the way a poor lady got attacked by a tiny octopus, it attached to her foot, but always at hand in times of need our island police man whipped it off. He then dismembered it then and there and I had the pleasure of a tentacle. I quite like octopus but perhaps not so early in the morning. After the fish herding a number of us went out onto some exposed sand (it was low tide) and dug for shell fish (cockles I think). After about 20 minutes we had a whole tub full! And back on the beach the older people got stuck in with relish. I tried to hang back but the ever enthusiastic cook from my junior high made me have some, it wasn’t bad, quite sweet but as with the octopus it was a little early in the morning. It was interesting to note some of the younger kids (15/6 at a guess) from the Okinawa mainland wouldn’t try the cockles. Tastes are changing! After helping clear up some things from the night before with Yoshiaki-san I had lunch with the Tour de Izena people before they took the ferry to the mainland. After digesting I went off on my run and did the 20k for the first time. It was actually pretty good. It's going to be a long slog but I will crack this endurance malarkey, well I suppose I better if I am planning to do a triathlon next year. And I am.

No comment!

I had a most pleasant weekend. Teru and band were once again playing on Okinawa honto so I went across to see them again. This time it was a slightly larger venue and a number of other bands were playing. Teru’s band definitely got the crowd going way more than any of the other bands, and I gave my all in the head banging and moshing. For the rest of the weekend I hung out with some of the Okinawa honto JETs, and had a bleedin’ good time too! Aside from seeing the other JETs it was mildly shocking to see so many foreigners around. Although I was in Okinawa city with has a large population of US military so I should have expected it. The one upshot of this was that I was able to buy a number of English books, yippee! Until that moment I was rapidly finishing my last novel and facing a bleak bookless future. Back on the topic of seeing so many Gaijin (foreign people) around, I do feel that I am leaving Japan and entering some weird Japanese American hybrid country when I come to the Okinawa honto from my island. There is American food, signs in English, shops catering for American tastes, menus in English (English in the broadest sense of the word) and of course hoards of Americans. It is nice though, it lets me take a break from the Japaneseness of my island, pollute my body with fast food and partake in any other western delights I had been missing. Back on the island I got back into the rhythm of running and hanging out with the taiko crew down at the stagi. Next week we have seven international high school students coming to Izena as part of a cultural exchange and language learning program. The students will be from the US, UK, Australia, china, Korea and New Zealand and will stay on Izena for 4 days during which they will complete some sort of project on island life. On the Saturday I will give my speech to them, my speech which I have yet to write. There will also be a taiko workshop and a performance of SEARANGERS! This is the marine equivalent of the power rangers performed by the multitalented Shoen Taiko group. They tried to do an English version on Monday but I couldn’t be around as I had my evening English conversation class so I spent yesterday going over that and today we will re-record sections. They did pretty well but I think someone has been teaching them some swear words which they had incorporated into the dialogue. And before you ask I did not teach them! We have also been working on a TV commercial promoting Izena island for some sort of small islands festival which will be held sometime later this month on Okinawa honto. It is surprisingly tricky to make even a simple commercial but we are making progress and I am now the voice of ‘WELCOME TO IZENA ISLAND!’. This Monday was my first evening English conversation class, I take 16 of the 1st years from 6-7 and 8 2nd and 3rd years from 7-8. The class is voluntary and they actually pay a small fee to take it, I think it is supposed to be something like an English club in a senior high school. I take this class by myself, i.e. with no Japanese English teacher to help translate so I was a little nervous as to how well it would go. Especially with the 1st years as their English is not quite brilliant but it went swimmingly and was great fun. The class with the 2/3rd years stretched on for half an hour extra before the JTE came and broke up the fun as they were turning off the lights and locking up the school. Admittedly I did use sweets to help motivate the pupils but I felt it was justified. The one down side of the class is that it overlaps with the teacher’s basketball practice so I cannot take part in that which is a shame. I also have an English conversation class with ten of the 3rd years for one period during school hours on a Wednesday, I have just finished taking that today. One activity I did today was to give them Calvin and Hobbes cartoons with some or all of the text blanked out and have them be creative and create new dialogue. It was hilarious! Perhaps I can scan them in and show you the best ones, they made me laugh allot!

If any of you remember when I got wierded out when I was at this chap's house drinking and he starting playing a Maria Karey Christmas album. Well I was at the same guy’s house last night and he put on another Christmas cd!! And then they were talking about how they were going to have a big party at Christmas, a carnival even. I think they should leave Christmas alone, they have enough festivals as it is. Anyway it was a trying night as I still haven't caught up with sleep from Saturday night, oh it's a hard life! Peace

A scene from the play, when one of the lovers get a letter from the other....lover.

Some people can't handle the late nights, poor lads.

Me as Obi-wan, I am having fun honest! I was just trying to look serious and Jedi like for the photo.
Wellllllllllllllllll....it’s the beginning of the week and time to blog about my weekend! I was once again off to the mainland to party with the other ALTs. Although I did stay on Izena on Friday night. I watched a traditional okinawan play; it was all in Hogan (the old okinawan language) so even the young people on Izena couldn’t understand it. It was pretty easy to follow that it was a love story and that both lovers die, and there was quite a lot of physical comedy to keep me going. I had missed dinner though, and it was a bit torturous towards the end, it lasted three hours!! With no interval. It was worth it afterwards when a few of the old lady’s gave me, ‘otsukaresama deshita’ (good job!) and one said ‘thank you’ to me, in English. I am not certain but I think it is the same old lady I said, Niheydaiburu to a few weeks back at the undokai, after her family invited me to sit and have lunch with them. If I am correct then that’s pretty cool. Oh Niheydayburu is Hogan for thank you. After the play I got drunk with Teru, Nagi and Kiichi while watching some old Jackie Chan movies, awesome. So I then got up bright and early for the 9am ferry and went off the mainland. While waiting at the port of Elina who was kindly giving me a ride, I sat and watched some mudskippers and fiddler crabs doing their thing in a little patch of mud next to the road, it was good fun and they are the silliest creatures. I played some ultimate Frisbee in the afternoon with other jets, our team won of course. We were quite clearly superior throughout, and the fact we only started winning when Big Ben joined out team is by and by. After that it was off to Naha for Halloween fun!! And it was fun, many awesome costumes and very good to see some people I hadn’t seen in a few weeks. After having woken up painfully early, well only 8am BUT this is after 3 hours sleep, I did some shopping and then took the bus up north. This time I was about 2 hours early for my ferry, but I suppose that is better than being 5 minutes late. I’ll get it right one day! Once back on my island I planned to sleeeeeeeeeeeeep but I noticed Teru’s car outside the stage, so I showered and popped down to say hi. We watch a couple of movies before heading to a restaurant for dinner with the rest of the taiko group. It was actually dinner and drinks, and we stayed up until 12 drinking, that wasn’t fun as I was fighting to keep my eyes open! It was a blessed relief when they decided to call it a day at 12 but I almost got hysterical when they cheerfully asked if I wanted to have the 2nd party at my house. Japanese tend to split the night into two parties, the second one being more relaxed and at somebody’s home usually. I’m afraid I had to kill that plan, and headed home to sleep.

Having my T-shirt signed by Masa, the lead singer in Teru's band

The islanders ROCKIN' it in our jump suits

What a crazy weekend! On Friday night the three islanders were reunited and boy did we hit mainland Okinawa in style! We threw caution to the wind and bought retro adidas jump suits; I wore the red, Brett the blue and Andy the yellow one, complete with colour coordinated head bands. They cost a silly amount of money but they were utterly worth it. After making our purchases we heading up to Ginowan with Nick my predecessor to see my friend Teru’s band play. Teru is from Izena, he’s the chap with the long bleached ‘blonde’ hair you may have seen in previous pictures. The band is called Tetsukabuko and are an Okinawan Metal band. Anyway so we rock up to this Japanese metal concert in our outlandish gear, quite in contrast to the black and denim worn by everyone else! It was a tiny venue, can’t have been more than 50 people and the band was wicked (I bought their cd the very next day). After wards we had the band members and general people from the audience write stuff on the white t-shirts we were wearing. We then went to an Izekai with all the band members, it turned out although they are very Metal on stage and definitely looked the part they were in fact all the nicest, sweetest guys. Much fun was had, and Jasmine and Chris turned up for a bit as well. I think we left the Izekai at 3am but then hung around outside chatting until 5am. We then headed to Naha and swung by Paul and Mikes. A bar run by two Canadians and often frequented by ALTs and other gaijin. I met somebody else who was born in Zimbabwe there which was cool. We chatted for ages with Paul and some other dude behind the bar and got given a bunch of free shots, good times. Then we went and got curry at a 24hr curry house near to our izekai before heading back to the izekai at about 7am. Unfortunately Andy had to fly back to his island on Saturday because he had his school sports day on Sunday. So sadly bereft of a member of our trio, I and Brett headed north to Bens party with Teru. Bens party was awesome and again I only had a couple of hours sleep but it was worth it for sure. On Sunday after fun on the beach with the other ALTs and a crazy Japanese dude I accompanied Elina and Kelly on a wee road trip upto point Hedo, the northernmost point of the main island of Okinawa. It was super pretty, cool rocks and the clearest ocean I have ever seen. I made it back to my island with Teru and after having some soba in the cashinoshima we headed our separate ways to sleep mostly! I slept at least 11 hours!

Pretty views 

I encountered fearsome beasts! 

I am ready for an adventure! 

Me running home the baton for the Board of Education Relay team 

Eisa to end it all 

The Costume relay

This weekend was the school sports day, or Undokai, for both the junior high school and elementary school. It was a big event involved the whole community, parents of course but also the various professions as well. The children have been rehearsing the opening ceremony and various performances for weeks now and it all went swimmingly! There was a bit of marching around and flag carrying followed by stretching and then the various performances and games. Parents of the children and people from the old folk’s home were involved in many of the games; it was nice to see how the whole community came together. There was a lot of relay running, and I ran for the kyoko innkai team, the board of education. I was running the last leg, and by the time I got the baton the first two teams had already finished, but I made them up a place so I guess it wasn’t too bad. The taking part was by far the most important thing of course! Afterwards all the teachers and people who had helped set things up gathered outside for some food and drinks. The local police man was there too, and in his speech he actually said it was ok to get drunk and drive home as long as you were careful. Ah island life. Absolutely everyone gave a speech including me, although mine was all of four sentences long. After wards I and a couple of the younger teachers went to the hotel for more food and drink and karaoke. It was most enjoyable. The policeman amused me by always topping up peoples drinks, when they weren’t looking he would sneak in some more! This at least annoyed one of the teachers though, as apparently this is an Ishigaki custom and not done on Izena (or Okinawa honto). Unless I misunderstood the police man also gave me an open invitation to come around to the police station and have a drink with him, I quite believe it. As we had worked Saturday and Sunday, Monday and Tuesday were holidays, wooohoo! I completely bummed out and relaxed for those two days. Monday I spend on the beach and then went running before crashing with my book for the rest of the evening (although I did find time to have a crash on my bike – no injuries amazingly though!). And Tuesday was followed a similar vein but this time I did some exploring/hiking during the day before running and then crashing. I really like the Ryukyu pines trees, and took many pictures of them, I will have to take my paints out once it’s less windy. Teru tell me it is rare to have so many Ryukyu pines all together so Izena is special in that regard. Anyway I love em’.

My secret beachi

Free food and drink at the closing party! sweet

The ALT athletes!  

International friendship meeting 

My bike is just as good!

What a fun weekend! This weekend was the Izena 88 triathlon and 5 ALTs took part. It was my job to look after the ALTs and also do the international friendship meeting. I and the students had been practicing the welcome songs for the friendship meeting all week, I played the piano and they sang. So the ALTs arrived, John, Andrew and Pat were to be staying at my house, while the three girls, Kori, Wendy and Karen opted to stay at a hotel. So once the JETs had arrived and had all registered and had their bikes checked I took the three boys on a tour of the bike course as they could not attend the actual orientation because of the friendship meeting. I dare say it looked quite amusing, me on my Japanese bike, basket and all, and the three of them on nice racing bikes. There were lots of Japanese athletes going round the course as well, and I got a few amused looks and giggles. We barely made it back in time for the friendship meeting at four, I had to stuff the keyboard in my backpack and race off down to the gym on my bike, and again I got some amused looks and giggles when I stormed in all sweaty with a huge keyboard on my back. I also had to MC the friendship meeting, which was all fine and good, except no-one had told me the schedule or even what we were doing, but I bumbled my way through more or less! The songs went well I only made one or two minimal mistakes, I don’t think anyone noticed, woohoo! The rest of the friendship meeting went very well and included a game of charades which was pretty funny! On Sunday, the day of the race I was up at 6am to take John and Andrew to the start of the race, Pat had come to cheer so he followed on later. The was a wonderful atmosphere and I was wishing I was racing too (I had arrived in Japan too late to register) although I know I would have died shortly after starting. So I and Pat became the official photographers and rushed about trying to get the best photos as the ALTs came in and out of the water and then transitioned to the Bikes. While they were riding the bikes we found time to do a little snorkeling, didn’t see anything much except a crown of thorns star fish, horrid thing! With the help of Kori (from Hawaii) we made Lays from hibiscus flowers for the three ALTs who would be finishing the run. John finished in five hours 3 minutes! A truly awesome achievement! The time limit for the whole Race was seven hours, so at 6 hours and 45 minutes and no sign of Andrew we were worried. But he made it! With 6 minutes to spare, happiness all round! And then unbeknown to me, the English teacher from the elementary school here was also running, and he finished with 4 seconds to spare, it was pretty amazing, all the kids ran the last bit with him. After the race we had an hour to chill before the closing ceremony and party. It was pretty fun, lots of free food and drink! The shoen taiko group preformed the piece they will be playing next week in Tokyo and it was sounding good! A group of elementary school kids decided they wanted to play with me, oh boy, of course if you play with them they just get more and more energetic! Lol it got pretty crazy, luckily Pat joined in too and we did some weird dance/sumo thing with kids on our shoulders. Then some Japanese dude, apparently from a famous Japanese 70’s rock group started playing this ENOURMOUS drum set. I was walking around with a kids on my shoulders and I spied a couple of athletes dancing with their tops off to the drumming, so I joined in with the kid on my shoulders, we moved onto the stage and my t-shirt came off as well. And then all of a sudden the stage was packed with half naked athletes all bouncing to the music, a lot of them with kids on the shoulders as well. I remember just picking up some kids and giving them to people to put on their shoulders. We must have danced for hours! It was a bit nuts, my neck is very, very sore from having a child sitting on it all night! Everyone had a good time though including the kids! Amazingly it was only 11pm when we got back to my house and passed out; it had been a long and exiting day. Monday was a holiday so after the ALTs had left, although not before I had time to do some diving off the pier with John and some elementary school kids, I decided I need a relaxing day. I went back to the beach I had found with David and Ben a few weeks ago. The one which you have to go down some random little paths in the jungle to find. It was beautiful, even more so in the sunlight. So I spent my day lying in the sun, reading, dozing and climbing the various rocks there, I had my lunch on the big one I, Ben and David had climbed that night. I had planned to go hang with the taiko group and Nick afterwards, but in the end I just chilled out in my house, read a little more, had dinner and then slept at about 10pm. It was a very nice and peaceful day, just what I had needed.

Beach clean-up!

Taking a well earned tea break with some of the kids.
Well today the islanders slightly redeemed themselves, the students from both the junior high and elementary school did beach clean-ups this afternoon. Those beaches were so dirty! Of course it would be better if they weren’t to callous with dropping the litter but there yah go! Also I spend about 3 periods doing gardening with the head master, I planted tons of plants, you can see a picture of the plants I planted on my flickr site. So I think iv managed to work on my tan a lot today if nothing else!

Hangin with the Eisa crew 

Bald Spot!!

I have a bald spot! But we will get to that later. I have had quite a pleasant weekend, seems like sometime since I have had a ‘normal’ weekend on Izena. I spent Saturday relaxing on the beach with a book and doing a spot of swimming. I amused myself chasing a puffer fish around. Later that evening I went to a mini festival/ birthday party, similar to the one several weeks ago but this time it was for a 97th birthday. I met Yoshiaki-san there who I had not seen in a while so we shared a few beers and he invited me back to his house once the festival was done. The eisa group from uchihana village were performing and I chatted with them, and from what I gather I will practice with them for three performances they will do in November. I am looking forward to that, they eisa I did a few weeks back was with students and teachers who had not done eisa much or at all. This eisa group is a bit more serious, some of the things they did looks quite demanding. Anyway I went and had some food and drink with them before heading off with Yoshiaki-san to his house. It was huge! I am curious as to what his job is now, definitely one of the nicer bigger houses on the island. I played with his two children for a while, they would give me an animal name in English and I would act like that animal, it was then I learnt the word for turtle (which is kame). So later we were joined by a couple of the taiko members and Yoshiaki-san put on a Maria Carey Christmas cd, which completely wierded me out, I think I started trying to tell them about Jesus and things, I may or may not have got belligerent. Apparently I also taught them Scottish slang as the next day they were calling each other Dafties. So I had a pleasant sleep in and large breakfast on Sunday and also started to learn the Izena triathlon songs on my keyboard. Later I went down and helped Kamiyama-san, Nagi and Takeru put together the flags for the triathlon. As with anything else on this island Kamiyama-san is behind it and the Shoen taiko members are his loyal foot soldiers. Afterwards we all went swimming; I did a spot of snorkelling first and saw a big old sea turtle which was very cool as if you remember I learn the word for turtle the previous night. So I could now swim back and tell them all what I had seen. We then frolicked in the sea for a while before I was a little reckless. Kamiyama-sans little boy (I can’t remember his name) wanted to dive off some rocks, so I joined him. I was very shallow, just up to my chest and the rocks were another few feet above the surface. I was being sensible and half belly flopping half diving so make sure I didn’t hit the rocks. That was the other thing the sea bed was rocks, not sand. Well it was all going fine and dandy until Kamiyama-san lifted his arms above his head, arms straight and hands clasped together. Indicating us to dive like this, I unthinkingly did so; I went straight down without bending my back at all and walloped my noggin off a rock. It was a good solid impact so I heading back to the sore, but every time I checked my head for blood my hand came back covered in hair, handfuls of hair each time. Bizarrely I didn’t cut myself, there was minimal bleeding but somehow I had ripped out the hairs from a patch about an inch in diameter. It wasn’t that sore and it’s more or less fine today although my neck does hurt. So we sat on the beach and had some beer and cake while laughing about me going bald, all good fun, but then when they all left they took everything with them except the beer cans! People here seem to have no concept of littering, they seems to think it is fine to leave litter on beaches! Their cars were parked not more than a few meters away and they picked everything else up, except the litter. The mind boggles sometimes.

I arrived at work today to find a note on my desk from Natsu sensei (the English teacher at my school) telling me she had to rush to the mainland with the students for a athletics meet because of the typhoon so I would be taking the classes today by myself! Wooohoo! I took the 2nd and 3rd years (chugako) and it was super fun. Natsu sensei had left me a bunch of work sheets for me to have the students do I guess, but that would have been waaaaaaaaay to boring. So I put together a couple of games instead. I managed to stop having fun and have the 2nd years start one worksheet ten minutes before the end of class but I didn't even have time to hand out the worksheets for the 3rd years. So I guess they had a really fun lesson although they didn't learn much. I am probably an awful teacher, basically I still think like a student, so I want to do fun stuff that they will find fun too. I am so tired right now, I just fell asleep at my desk :(. Which made me think should I be staying up so late doing stuff after school if it makes me really tired in school? I wake up fine for the actual lesson, but in-between lessons I am too tired to think of stuff for lessons or study Japanese. I suppose I will just have to find a balance. Anyways it is the weekend now, and I pray that the sea won't be too rough for me to go swimming. Silly typhoon!

Wow, so I am at the elementary school again. It�s nuts, I have been playing the Harry Potter game with the kids, it involved tons of running around so I get to use the games hall for my classes. LoL the kids go crazy! They are all dripping in sweat after the class, as am I and the teacher actually. I am not sure how into it the teachers are, maybe they would like a more controlled lesson involving more learning, but that would be boooooorrrrrrrrrrrrrring. I think it helps I am a big(ish) kid myself, after the 4th yrs class I had then chanting �again, again!� So they could play one more game, and the teacher relented! Yeah, kids 1 nil teacher 0! During our bonus game one kid kept chasing me with the most intent face, it was hilarious, I let him catch me a few times. He turned out to also be the kid who eats everything! There is always one huh? I had lunch that that same class after our game, and he ate everything other kids didn�t, it seemed like a game the kids played, trying to make this kid eat everything. He wasn�t fat either, I am sure he will grow up big and strong, or get fat. Man my magic wands take a beating each class, I am doing running repairs with black parcel tape, I think they will be more tape than coloured paper soon. The hats are also soaked in sweat after the lesson, icky! The gym was busy for the last class I had so I got to go outside with the 3rd year, they are the ones who almost killed me in the tickle right last week. The lived up to their fearsome reputation this week, whenever I was Harry Potter I got relentlessly hunted down (my sandals are rubbish to run in) but then equally as fast a crowd of kids would descend yelling �what are you doing?� and I would be free again, only to get caught again! It was tiring but fun! Oh yeah the teacher spelled Harry Potter as Holly Potter on the board, I didn�t say anything, they all know Harry Potter anyway. So yeah anyways that was my day at the elementary school, I shall follow it up with my typical evening which is go run/workout and have dinner and then go hang out with the taiko group down at the stagee. Oh maybe there will be basketball tonight too. I should be cleaning my apartment but bla, I�ll wait until the typhoon hits and I�m house bound.
 

This is just a random post, as I have some time to burn before my next class and there isn't enough interesting new to read about in the world. So after a couple of weekends spent with fellow gaijin it is time to get back into the rhythm of life on Izena, which has taken a bit of a battering due to the aforementioned gaijin and illness. I managed to get an ear and throat infection, all my fault, I went swimming and then played basket ball with a cold and then went to the mainland and drank lots, but anyway I got antibiotics last week and it's all good now. So anyway because of this I haven't been able to train with the students after school or go swimming much, even taiko practice has taken a beating. So last night I went to train with the kids for the first time in two weeks, ouch! Yeah maybe I shouldn't have chosen to practice the 100m, especially as the fast boys (and they are fast) like to race me. I definitely pulled something in my back, but it's all good. I need to get back to running etc. definitely been letting my body go to waste recently. So aside from that for the last two days we have had lovely dinners after school, the 1st for a teachers having been teaching for ten years and the other for our intern who has finished his spell here. I had to give a speech for him, caught me unawares so I just gave it in English, and even then I didn't know what to say, I think I talked about how he dressed well for a while. Regardless, it went down well. So at these dinners I have been helping to tidy up afterwards and today I helped set the places and put out the food, helped with the salad etc. The idea is to defy their gender rolls, i.e. women always serving the men. Also at school lunches I always help tidy it away (although the male teachers sometimes help with this). Anyway today I noticed I had been sat on the table with all the women, mmmm so maybe my plan is not quite working. Maybe they have just decided I am a woman. Oh well! I will still beat them all at arm wrestles, yeah I still get those. I actually have a busy day today, four classes! And then I have to go to the shogakko and discuss tomorrow's lesson plans. So I just had my english conversation class and I had the students translate english Haiku into japanese, probably as far removed from conversation as you can get but they were pretty into it. It was harder than I thought because in order for them to understand the english I had to tell them the meaning, and it was not always obvious. Anyways it went well, oh yeah and this one kid, whos very cool and all that, surprised me. He is always asleap in class and appears to know no english, asked me, with perfect enlgish, 'may I borrow your sunglasses please?'. So the little blighter does know english! ah well, one more class to go!

This weekend Izena played host to nine new gaijin! On Friday nine other ALTs came across to spend the weekend on my island. So that meant I spend Thursday night and Friday morning desperately cleaning my house, it was gross! My plans were slightly hampered by having a welcome party on Thursday. I am sure the Shogakko (elementary school) has had one for me before but they threw another one, I was all set to leave work when they said no-no stay have some drink, and all this beer and sushi appeared. I had to do a speech and all that jazz but it was fun, although I was itching to leave as I had to speak to Kamiyama-san (my awesome neighbour) and then start tidying. I think I managed to acquire Kamiyama-san's help for the barbeque and sea kayak with my limited Japanese, it turned out we had his help and then some! I managed to get my house quite clean, if not entirely tidy, in my defense I don't have much storage space, and also I'm a messy boy. Ben was the first to arrive, coming on the morning ferry and lo and behold my predecessor was also on the ferry, Nick had come through to practice taiko at Kamiyama-sans request, a nice surprise! I and Ben had a nice cycle around my island, I tried to go to the fishing equipment store but it was closed, apparently it is open from 8am to 10am only, weird. So the rest of the ALTs (8 of em') arrived on the afternoon ferry, at about half past 4 and we all went to rent bicycles. I must say it looks hilarious, ten gaijin biking around on Japanese style bikes, baskets and all! We then went to the stage to see the taiko people and meet up with Kamiyama-san so we could go and set up the barby. I had planned with kamiyama-san to get the barby set up at 5, and I though in my head perhaps we could be down at Izena beach barbequing by about 6pm. HAH! On the way to my house, I managed to loose the two New Zealand girls, my fault really; I had something of a race with Ben and David and forgot to let the others know where my house was. Anyway it was a while until we found them, in which time we broke into next door to get more sleeping space. That's right we really broke in, with Kamiyama-sans help we bust out a couple of the security bars and Ben climbed in and unlatched the door from the inside, awesome, only on Izena! Before we got to the beach a couple more people got lost and I managed to spend 2man on food, but this was to feed the taiko members as well, anyways it was looking to be something of a feast. It must have been 8pm before we got to the beach (which is only a couple of miles away). Kamiyama-san excelled himself at the barby, lots and lots of good okinawan barby food, much enjoyed by all. We then commenced drinking and fun making, it was awesome to see the taiko members and the ALTs partying together. We had a mini game of rugger, which the Izenan team won, woot! The night continued until late, involving drinking and swimming, swimming and drinking. Highlights included my kiddies inflatable boat, which had an awesome tooty horn and a failed skinny dipping. Four naked guys in the water and everyone else on the beach waiting for them to come out, with a flash light ain't quite what I had in mind, oh well! All the ALTs bar I, Ben and David got lifts back to my house, but we were hard core and decide to take our destiny into our own hand and cycle back. We could not have made a better decision, for we had an awesome adventure! On the way back we a little drive around in the sea weed plant and then we spied a small path leading to the jungle. Well! Being boys we took it and as you might expect it lead to some tombs (most paths lead to tombs here), but then we saw another path, which also lead to some tombs deeper in the jungle. We spent some time at the second tomb before we spotted a tiny over-grown path, so we left our bikes and explored it. It took us to a beach (also not unexpected on my island), but just offshore of the beach were some massive rocks. So being boys we decide to climb them, and climb them we did. The climb wasn't bad; the bad bit was the bramble. The lower half of the rock was covered in razor sharp bramble which cut us all up pretty bad. But we made it to the top and it was amazing, sitting there with the waves breaking at the base of the rock down below our feet. We stayed for sometime before coming down, which was also pretty hair raising. We later viewed the rock during the day, and it was pretty impressive, probably would not have climbed it in the light of day. On the way back we couldn't find the path up from the beach (oh we also had a sea cucumber fight) but we found another one. This did link in with the paths leading to the two sets of tombs we found, but we did stumble around the jungle lost of quite a while, it got a little spooky to say the least! But we found our bikes and cycled home at breakneck speed. Once back be found everyone to be asleep, but being the lovely lot they are they had left enough mats and pillows for us boys, awesome. The next morning I woke up early (8am) so I could go and buy stuff from the fishing shop, I got some good fins, some booties, gloves and a diving knife, I was ready to hunt shellfish or fight of any sea creature in general!