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.