Teraryo, their eyes amuse me, I think they look quite startled to have been taken out of the water.




This Saturday (the 18th) I lived the day in the life of a mozuku fisher man on Izena Island. Mozuku is a brown sea weed which is something of a delicacy in Japan, it and sugar are Izena island’s main exports. My friend Koshin and his father are mozuku fishermen and two weeks ago Koshin had offered to give me a ‘workshop’ on his work. The day started early (I woke up at 6.30am) and we were in their boat heading out so sea by 8am. It was a small 25 to 30 foot boat, Koshin and his father work together in a two man team harvesting the mozuku. At the South West side of the island (off Izena beach) a small uninhabited island (Yamaho shima) and several rocks linked by reef form a large, shallow lagoon; this is where the mozuku is grown. It is grown on nets suspended about a foot above the sea bed. Once we had reached their nets we anchored the boat and set about harvesting the mozuku. There were several other similar small boats in the lagoon also harvesting mozuku, Koshin tells me there are about 50 fishermen (uminchu) in Izena village. It was a two man job, one member would dive down with a sort of hoover and suck up the mozuku. The mozuku and sea water was pumped up to the boat and then out over netting suspended over the side of the boat, the other member of the team would then brush the mozuku into crates while removing any other seaweeds or sea grass which was mixed in with the mozuku. I offered to help with the brushing and Koshin’s father seemed only too happy to let me, I ended up doing 6 out of the 7 crates we filled that day. I was determined to prove (to myself?) that I was up to the challenge of this work and I expect Koshin’s father was delighted to have a bit of a holiday. The mozuku fisher men work seven days and week and typically spend all day out at sea, hard work! I also went down and snorkeled to observe the ‘hoovering’ process. While I was down there I saw a white moray eel swimming along, it was perhaps 3 or 4 foot long. We harvested the mozuku without break until about 1.30pm when the compressor broke and Koshin was forced to surface. So that brought an end to the mozuku harvest for the day and to be honest I was quite relieved! We brought the mozuku to the packing plant and then had a quick lunch (bento) before heading back out to sea to do some shell fish collecting. For the record 400kg of mozuku brings in 7 man (350quid) and each crate weighted about 70kg, judging by the number of empty crates on the boat I think they would be able to fill 15-20 in a day. By now the lagoon was about 1 meter deep, perfect for collecting shell fish. A type of cone shell called teraryo is in season right now so that was our chosen prey. Now you those not in Okinawa may not be aware but cone shells can be very dangerous as certain species are extremely venomous (potentially fatal) and one is recommended to avoid all cone shells. So my first lesson was how to recognize the different species. Fortunately the most common species is the edible variety and the venomous species have a distinct pattern (triangular blobs instead of stripes) and are conveniently bright orange or purple. We collected toritsu from roughly 2.30 to 4.30 and after a while I got my eye in and collected quite a few, all together we must have collected several hundred at least. I also spotted some weird and wonderful marine life along the way, I have jotted down descriptions of them and will endeavor to find out what they were. Once back on dry land we boiled the shells and shelled them, quite a task as well! We split the teraryo equally three ways so now I have quite a lot of them in my fridge! Later I and Koshin met with Teru at Nakagawakan (the restaurant/hotel near my house) for dinner and drinks. I was pretty exhausted from the day’s exertions and had to pass on karaoke, I think I was sound asleep by about 11 o’clock. So that was my day in the life as an Izena mozuku fisherman, it was hard work and to be honest rather monotonous, it makes me even more grateful for the wonderful job I have now. I am very grateful to all those factors which have conspired to give me an education and therefore such exiting prospects and opportunities in life.

So today was Valentines Day! Valentines Day in Japan is a little different to Valentines Day back home. Instead of being mostly about couples where usually the man makes the effort here in Japan on the 14th of February women give men chocolate. Not only do they have to give chocolate to their lover/partner but also to male co-workers or any man they like/are close to. Then on White day, the 14th of March, Men return the favour giving chocolate to any women who gave them chocolate, although this may not in practice happen. So anyway the female teachers banded together to give all the male teachers chocolate and I also got chocolate from some of the pupils. One came with a cute note saying ‘happy valentines Craig, thank you for teaching English for us for half years,’ pretty sweet I thought. Oh and also we had chocolate cake with our school lunch (valentines cake) and as there was some left I got an extra slice, wicked! To make things even better when I popped down to my elementary school at the end of the day to check on the topic for Thursdays lesson (review!) I got more valentines chocolate and they were opening their valentines cake so I had some more, double wicked! In other news I got recontracted today and while up at my BOE (Board of Education) the head of the BOE offered me some tea and over tea we were chatting about running and working out (he is a decathlon athlete) and he offered me the use of his weights at his house. In fact he was so kind as to drive me to his house then and there so I could look at his weights, he had a nice old traditional okinawan house. So one of these evenings soon I will drop by and lift with him. Not sure I want to get into lifting again what with my running thing right now but a little won’t hurt and it would only be polite. So all in all it was a good day, I also only had one class to teach all day.

My blog goes political! Not entirely sure why I am inspired to do this but in light of recent events I feel I would like to share this cartoon with you all. It has been stolen by me from www.b3ta.com . I expect I will delete this post after a while but for the moment here you go:

Well to continue in the vain of random posts about relatively mundane goings on in Izena Jima I will tell you what I did last night. It was actually quite a fun night. As of late I have been avoiding drinking during the week, it is definately not good for my school performance. The locals seem to be able to deal with it just fine, but not poor old me! However I got tricked into it last night. After having finished my own dinner (made myself some onigiri) I got a call from Koshii and Nagi and all that I understood was that he could be at my house in five minutes. I quicky get ready and jump in his car when he arrives. He takes me to his house where I meet his parents. I had mentioned I like sashimi on saturday and that day he had caught a tuna so tonite we were to feast on mountains of tuna sashimi liberaly washed down with sake and beer. Yoshiaki san and his family also turned up. It was a very fun night, I managed to get alot of the jokes (the impersonations of some of the teachers was pretty easy to enjoy), the food was good and the drink plentyfull. I was amused upon entering their kitchen to suddenly feel tall, mmm what's this strange sensation. Their kitchen ceiling was only a few inches clear of my head, I am assuming it is a old japanese house! Koshii's father is a fisherman and we have set a date for him to take me out to do sumogeri (not quite sure on that word), anyway it mean skin diving and hunting fish and collecting shell fish. Last time I did that it was nice and hot, not entirely sure how fun it will be in the cold, oh well! Ganbarrimasu!

I realise I haven’t blogged in a while and to be honest there hasn't been anything exiting to blog about. However for the sake of those folks at home who like to know what I am up to I will briefly detail my shenanigans. I spent last weekend on Okinawa honto, Saturday was a friend’s birthday party, which was suitably Kronk. It was nice to see a lot of fellow ALTs I hadn't seen in some time. There was a case of a missed ferry but it was due to wholly unavoidable reasons. I worked solo on Tues/Wed as my JTE had business on Okinawa honto. My exertions were noticed and I got a comment about being a hard worker on Wednesday night and went out to dinner that night with my teachers. Thursday was a very busy day at the shogakko (elementary school), 5 classes but they all went well. On Friday my Junior High had it's ekiden (relay marathon for the students) for which I sacrificed my half day off but I think it was worth it as the teachers seemed keen for me to attend. Afterwards we had our 'Otskaresama' parti (wow what a good job we did party!). I left that party after about 3 hours to celebrate an islander's birthday. A rather intoxicated night of Karaoke ensued and much fun was had by all. The weekend that followed was characterised by a severe case of lethargy from which I am just recovered from. I had dinner with some Japanese friends on Saturday, managed a run on Sunday, throw in some painting and a little Japanese study and that's all I managed. Ah yes, how could I forget, throughout this past week I have been IMENSLY enjoying watching the original star wars trilogy kindly lent to me by a fellow outer islander Brett. A ripping yarn backed up with wizz bang graphics, crickey! OH! How could I forget, I must mention so you ALL know, Scotland just beat France in the six nations rugby tournament (20-16) first time in ten years!!! I am only sad I wasn't back home and able to watch the game at Murrayfield, ah well.

In a Past Life...

You Were: A Gentle Dancer. Where You Lived: Japan. How You Died: Consumption.

Who Were You In a Past Life?

I decided it might be nice to make some sort of poster about India to stick up on a wall (or window) somewhere. But being the sort to make full use of the resources avialable to me I decided I should have my students make it. So I had them do it in my english conversation night class. It did have some educational aspect as they had to translate the english into japanese. What wonderful little mites they are! Doing work for me and of course not only being the reason for my getting paid here but also making my job most enjoyable. I do plan to add a bit of writing of my own but that japanese translation will take some work, unless I just ask my JTE to do it for me.

Sakura! The cherry blossoms are out on Izena! They are indeed quite pretty.

Well I am officially a little bored right now. I had one class this morning and that was it! I have to plan something for my English conversation class tomorrow but I have a pretty good idea of what I will do and I have alllllllll day to do it. So as a result I am going to write an entirely random entry on my Blog. Were to start... ah-hah! On Friday the teachers at my Shogakko (elementary school) had a new year’s party. I accepted their kind invitation even though it meant I could not go to Iheya with Teru, boooooooo! It turned out to be rather quite fun and I was glad I went. It was held in the yochein (kindergarten) room and we sat on their tiny, tiny chairs, barely enough space to fit half one’s derrière onto! The sight of all the teachers (the headmaster and vice in particular) perched on these dolls house sized chairs was something I will treasure for some time to come. I had the honour of being sat to the headmaster’s right which meant extensive and repetitive use of my limited Japanese vocabulary throughout the night. Being a party held by elementary school teachers we of course played a game. The game involved being blindfolded and drawing portraits of teachers each taking it in turn to draw one feature after another. For those of you who don’t know Japanese try and guess which one is me! For the rest my name is written in Katakana. It was a fun night anyway. The rest of the weekend was rather quiet, Izena seemed to be on shutdown. It took three attempts before I and Nagi found a place which served beer so we could study our respective languages over a cold one. Unfortunately the place then closed at 11 so it was a short study session. Well anyway, nothing much exiting happened so I won’t bore you. I think like the rest of the ALTs who went to India I have been mulling over my experience. However I think I am being drawn to a more cynical view of the whole affair. Of perhaps drawn between a cynical view and a more positive one. I don’t want to get into it too much but although I felt by going there we did something special for the children and I remember the joy and delight we gave to them and the joy and delight they gave us, I am somewhat troubled by the whole affair. So we definitely touched their lives in a positive way. However I am unsure of what lasting good we have done them. If teaching them English was our goal I don’t think we made a huge difference, their English was already good and due to our lack of Bengali most activities were games. Games were fun of course and having them associate English with fun is good. The importance of learning English is pretty much well established in India though and the standard is very high, it is essential for a good career there. If our aim was to promote this method of teaching as opposed to the very old fashioned methods commonly used in India, all fine and good, a noble cause but should we not have been teaching teachers then? Ok so the only tangible lasting effect I could see that we left was the things as a result of the money we donated. The new well shaft and water tank and wall for a classroom I think. And of course they will have money left over. So if they money was the main thing as I expect it was then it seems a fair point to me that our personal expenditures on the trip were vastly more than the sum we donated. I can’t help wondering if we might not have better served these children and the whole cause of better education for underprivileged children in India better by simply sending them more money and less people having actually gone to teach. What did we gain by having so many people go there in person over less people and more money? Nothing that I can see apart from our own personal experiences of the trip. So was then this whole thing as much about us getting to experience India as helping the children? I now imagine having sent more money and not having gone to India personally and even if I had detailed accounts of the trip and how the money was spent I would have personally got less out of the experience. I would have felt less good about what I had done. But now I realise my error, I was viewing the whole trip as entirely to do with helping the children. When it was also about being an opportunity to allow us to experience India and see the children first hand and in as such it was an undoubted success. With this realisation my above rant is unnecessary but I think I will post it anyway, also now I feel especially guilty that in effect Elvira, Corry and John did so much to organise what was partially a holiday in India, well I can offer them nothing now except my gratitude, you did a splendid job! I hope no-one is offended by my cynical take on things; it’s not entirely how I feel about the India trip. It was amazing, the kids were amazing and my fellow ALTs were amazing, I have a considerable amount of admiration for you all. Bear in mind I tend to feel uncomfortable with going along with the groups opinion on things (or whatever I perceive it to be) and am somewhat reactionary as a result. Well this turned into something I didn’t expect, so much for a little random post in my blog to pass the time of day. Actually in hindsight I think my frustration (and a little confusion) lay because on the one hand I felt very good about the amazing thing we did and how the kids and people reacted to us and on the other hand frustrated at the huge disparity between what we achieved and the scale of the problem(s) we saw there. I suppose India's problems and indeed one small schools problems are too big to solve by one 9 day visit by 23 people.

I am back in Okinawa now and still coming to terms with what I experienced in India. Perhaps that is a little melodramatic but it was definitely a memorable trip which gave much food for thought. The first thing I noticed almost immediately after walking out of the aeroplane in India was that the air seemed smoky. It turns out, unsurprisingly, that Delhi is very, very polluted. The inside of our nostrils were permanently black due to all the particles we were inhaling, goodness knows what it was doing to our lungs. I shudder to think! So the first shock was how polluted the air was, the second was how Indian India really was. I had various preconceived images of India (what I thought were stereotypes) in my head which suddenly became reality moments after leaving my hotel, in the streets around our hotel, people slept, cooked, ate and washed, right there in the street! The street its self was basically mud with the odd bit of paving showing through. There were several holy cows just a hundred metres from out hotel and feral dogs wondering around unchecked. Without anytime to take it all in we were accosted by rickshaw drivers, people trying to sell goodness knows what and of course beggars. It was almost too much to handle but as the days passed I became used to the hustle and bustle of the streets and it no longer phased me. I soon got stuck into haggling while shopping or for rickshaw rides while touring the sights of New Delhi. Just to give you an idea of what sort of place Delhi is, Delhi has an international airport, soaring glass office blocks and Indians driving Mercedes surrounded by muddy streets crammed with people and animals living in abject poverty with no refuse collection system and a very rudimentary sewage system. At one point I saw on one side of the road a nice looking university building and some shining glass fronted technological institute while on the other side of the road people were living in makeshift dwellings of dirty cloth and branches surrounded by small hills of rubbish! While in Delhi we saw the Jama Masjid (India’s largest mosque), the Gordwara bangle sahib (a very peaceful Sikh temple), Ghandi’s house and site of his assassination and the India gate. We also took a day trip up to Agra to see the Taj Mahal, which was just as beautiful as one would expect, which is very. On the 19th (I think) we took an overnight train (19 hours) to Calcutta and then another local train to Panskura where we would be teaching English for the next 9 days. Panskura was very much a rural backwater, as we left the train and walked to out ‘hotel’ literally everyone there stopped what they were doing and stood silently watching us. For our time in Panskura we were to remain celebrities, constantly being asked to sign books and even clothing. Never for one moment were we not the centre of attention! This did get somewhat tiresome but all was made well by the enthusiasm and general wonderfulness of the children we were teaching. It was really heart-warming to meet such great kids in such a place and also heart breaking thinking they will have to grow up and live in such a place. Apart from the poverty northern India (especially the rural areas) suffers from many social problems. The group of 20 or so orphans that lived at the school permanently in particular won our hearts. This is not to say the teaching was easy, it was as draining as it was chaotic but we pulled through as a group due to many sterling efforts despite misbehaving bowels! I think everyone on the group bar one lucky girl suffered from the dreaded Delhi Belly to varying degrees. By the time the camp had drawn to a close we were more than ready for a rest, hot showers and clean beds! It was not to be so! Instead we went on a boat trip down the Sunder bans (a delta of the Ganges River). We perhaps had the possibility of seeing the infamous Bengal tiger and relaxation on the river but this is India and we had 20 young children with us on a rather small boat. We also missed a day on the river due to some typical Indian planning but let’s not go into that, things never EVER run smoothly and on time in India. One just has to accept these things with as much grace as one can muster. Which I admit at the time was not much grace at all. The boat trip was survived, just, and we retired that night to a rather nice hotel in Calcutta. Although the hot water wasn’t quite all there the bed was large and clean. Western food for breakfast (toast and eggs) was about the best thing I could think of at the time. I didn’t go into the food we ate in Panskura but suffice it to say it was terrible! I tried at the time to be positive about it, positive right up to when it started to cause regular and violent visits to the squat toilet. That was when I refused school food and ate only pre-packaged white carbohydrates. The food was plain (rice and boiled vegetables) and carried the very real risk of diarrhoea. Back to Calcutta, we spend the following day enjoying Calcutta which seemed very civilized compared to Delhi. I am almost afraid to say but I am sure some of this is due to the much greater British presence in Calcutta. Visiting the Victoria memorial in Calcutta was one of the highlights of the trip for me, as was St Johns church and St Andrews Kirk. Actually seeing the writers building where much of the East India Company’s administration was done was also quite amazing. Rather than endure the train again we took a flight back to Delhi, although this was a flight at 6am new years eve (well I suppose really it was January the first, 6 hours into the new year) so it took some enduring as well. As a result we were back in Delhi where due to weariness and low funds we relaxed for the remaining 3 days of our trip. During this time much shopping was done by people and much western fast food was eaten. We also saw some more amazing historical sites; the Jantar Mantar, a huge set of astronomical instruments and Qutb Minar an ancient mosque/palace which boasted a 73 metre high tower (perhaps minaret). To end it all of course there was drama during our exit from India. We had booked taxis to the airport in good time but as we began trickling back from last minute shopping (getting rid of those last rupees) we were informed that we had to leave immediately because of a large traffic jam, not only that but we had to take a detour to avoid it and so had to pay extra. After some pretty insane traffic (I don’t think there is such a thing as the highway code in India) we made it to the airport in time and boy were we glad our adventure was over and we were on our way to lovely clean Japan! My adventure was not quite over as my ferry was cancelled for three days in a row after I arrived so I was trapped on the main Okinawa island a little longer. Not a great hardship though, in fact I am pretty darned please it worked out like that.

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.