Woo Saturday already. Had a bit of a sleep in which was much needed. I guess I had lunch but I can’t remember but later on Yoshihama-san took me snorkling. Oh boy I’ll never forget that. I haven’t been snorkelling in a real coral reef before, it knocked me for six. Just the brightest colours and most bizarre creatures, I recognised a few, a scorpion fish (the one with the long feather like fins which are venomous) and a Fugu (puffer fish) , it was just awesome. My neighbour Kamiama-san joined me and we found a few shell fish, one clam like thing which took us ages to get out and which I cut my hand on. I was sort of worried that I might attract a shark or something, but Kamiama-san assured me it was fine, I guess I am a reef newbie. We had swum out quite far to I got a ride back on Kamiama-sans son’s kayak. I was stoked after that experience, I think I will be in the sea a lot! At night there was a festival which started by walking around the village and banging these metal barrels and drinking a lot, singing this song. I got given a banging thing so had immense fun, partly due to being continually forced to drink by old ladies. Then we had a sort of face off with the other half of the village, it was north vs south I think. There was a line on the road and we would advance and then retreat upto this line while banging our drums, a couple of old men had goes at each other, trying to hit each other with the metal things! Then we had a tug of war between the two side with the huge rope we had made the day before, our side won, one nil to the south (at least I think we were south). The we had another fighty thing, each side held up a wooden platform on which two guys stood and had to try and knock the other sides two guys off their platform. I helped carry our platform and I think we eventually won, it was pretty intense though, no holds barred! Then there was some dancing and more drinking, I was dragged into the middle of the dancing ring and at one point was the only one dancing, interesting. And then the finale, sumu! Anyone could enter and challenge, first the kids then women went. So I watched a couple of the mens fights and then had a go myself, I beat three dudes and then no-one would challenge me, so I guess I won. I won myself four bags of Izena rice for that. We then drank into the wee hours at some blokes house.

More pictures of the Festival!
A bit blurred but thats what you get with action shots at night

Here are some new pictures I got from Nick of the Sumu at the festival on saturday. Thats me in the white shorts and T with the red waist band.

My first day at work! Well not so much, Okuma-sensei just took me on a tour of the island and then Friday is a half day. I was again impressed by how much the island has. They produce their own rice and sugar (which is also their main export) and also produce some beef. So that combined with the sea, which is very bountiful pretty much provides their food. The Local government and board of education are also a bit overly big, both places had about 50+ staff, perhaps more, in large nice buildings, it's partly the governments way of dealing with unemployment. Japanese work etiquette it somewhat different from the UK, the most important thing is attendance following by everything else. It is not unknown for people to sleep at work, it doesn't seem to be frowned on. So the island is really pretty as the pictures show. The statue shows Shoen, Izena’s most famous son. He left Izena and became King of the Ryuku kingdom about 600 years ago. Not bad for a island boy. The picture of me playing with hay is helping to make a massive rope for the tug of war at the festival tomorrow night. We climbed one of the smaller hills on Izena to get that view of the bay on front of Izena village, there are 4 villages on the island, although I forget their names.

After a few hours drive up to Nago and an hours ferry ride I arrive at Izena island, my home for at least a year! I am exited, it looks alot bigger than I imagined, and for only having 2000 people it has alot of stuff! I go straight to the Board of Education were I introduce myself. I am then taken to my house where I can dump my bags, the house is sooo Japanese. It is an old house they have been doing up for me until Nick leaves and I move into the house he stays in. It is all wood, with sliding door/wall things and tatami mat floors, I am loving it, except there is not aircon. but Nicks house has aircon. so I will be fine once I am there. It is soooo hot in okinawa and sooo humid, even the locals sweat. I hope I get used to the heat, although I can always just jump in the sea. So back at the board of Ed. they have a welcome party for me, with some Izena specific food and Okinawan beer. They are all super nice and friendly, I think I will like it here. After we go out to a restuarant so eat more! these people eat and drink so much! There they serve me steak and chips, proudly pronouncing it 'Engirish Food', cute. Again the food just kept on coming, and I impress them by making some sushi at the table. At a stupid late time AGAIN I got to bed, mmm first day of work tommorrow.

Ok so I finally get to Okinawa! It was a 3 hour flight from Tokyo to Naha in Okinawa, we flew in a 747 which I thought was a bit much for a wee island but we got to sit up the upper deck so that was quite exiting. Oh and the plain had a camera at the front so they played live footage form the front of the plane throughout the flight, very cool. Mmmm yes so being a Municipal JET I was due to meet my supervisor as soon as I arrived. He didn't speak any English! luckily Nick my predecessor was there two and he’s become pretty good at Japanese. Because Izena is quite far from Naha we stayed the night in Naha. I went out to another Izekia with my supervisor ( Okuma-sensei) and Nick, it was very nice, Ukuma-sensei kept ordering food though, I don’t think iv ever eaten so much, I think he wanted me to try all Japanese food that night, anyway he seemed like a really nice bloke. We then met up with some of the other Jets, old and new at a gaijin bar (non Japanese persons bar) and had a blast, there sure are some crazy people on JET! But I figure I won't see them an awful lot, what with being on a small island, although I am only one hour ferry from Nago and half an hours flight by TINY aeroplane from Naha. Andrew, another new JET and awesome guy from Ohio, is going to an even smaller island (900 people) which is 3 hours from the mainland! I hope he has an amazing time. So just for the record, since Friday night (22 or 21 st or july) I had had no more than a few hours sleep a night, my eyes are burning. Oh Okuma-sensei took me to see the castle the Ryuku kings lived in (Okinawa was the Ryuku kingdom before Japan took it about 600 yrs ago). You may notice it looks similar to the forbidden palace in China. Okinawan architecture is a mix of Japanese and Chinese styles.

Well alot of workshops and such like today on teaching and life in Japan. Might have been good but I was so so tired. I did discover I could see Mount Fuji from my Hotel window which was nice. A typhoon hit tokyo at about 9pm but it wasn't that bad, I did get very wet though as I was caught outside without a brolly. Had food in a Japanese restaurant which we were bullied into by a crazy Japanese women. The ten of us Edinburgh Jets didn't spk Japanese and she didn't speak english and the Menu was all in Kanji, we didn't get anywhere for a while until she found one of the chefs who spoke a little english. The food was interesting..... I loved it except what seemed to be chicken knees on a stick, I kids you not, skin and grissle, nothing else. The food wasn't to everyones taste, generally I liked it all execpt for what I think where chickens knees on a stick, no really! I have decided I will eat everything they throw at me here except whale, at least once.

Today we had the welcome cermemony which being in Japan involved lots of speeches by JET people and people from the various involved government ministries. The one highlight was that seating was arranged by the Prefecture we were going to so I finally got to meet the other Okinawan Jets. The seemed a fine bunch of folk so that was all good. That night I went out to an Izekia with the okinwan JETs, an all you can eat/drink japanese restaurant. Had a blast there, we then headed on to a karaoke joint which was even more fun. I remember belting out 'we are the champions' and thats about it, good times. Oh wait! the Izekai place had the wierdest toilet, no really, it was a big mouth with a many armed person behind it, one hand holding a camera. And when you used it, it played music and took pictures of you with the camera, or at least the camera flashed, wierd. I hope I don't appear on some japanese website.

The Tokyo orientation was basically a lesson in sleep deprevation. We arrived after an 11 hour flight at Nara airport at 11.15am (japanese time) and were then ushered by countless recontracting JETs in bright orange t-shirts to waiting buses which devilered us to our hotel in Tokyo. The hotel was no less than the Keio Plaza (5stars and right in the centre of Tokyo) so that was quite nice. We then had the rest of the day to wonder around shinjitsu in Tokyo. To say there were alot of bright lights would be an understatement. It was sensory overload and we loved it, there was so much going on, punk bands playing on the street, street performers, countless japanese people in wierd super trendy japanese cloths, it was awsome. We got dinner at a random ramen place by pointing at the picture of the dish we wanted, the food was amazing, practiced my slurping. We did plan to go out and karaoke but by about 11 we were so tired it was all we could do to find our way back to the hotel and try and get some sleep for our welcome ceremony in the morning.