Japan update!
It's now been two weeks since I arrived in Japan. I finished my first full week at school today and I think it's going well -- I'm getting to know the teachers and students, had my first classes, survived a random visit from a Board of Education representative, partook of club activities and even started playing the clarinet again.
What I don't have is net access -- I've been set up with a modem, I know how to configure my system (or I'm pretty sure I do -- thanks, Jake!) and ADSL has been switched on -- just no one bothered to tell the ISP about me. Thursday someone put 2 and 2 together, and I got a fax away to Asahi net the same day. Fingers crossed, it should be Wednesday next week. Please cross your fingers and think of my sanity.
Speaking of, I have to spend tomorrow morning home while I wait for the NTT guy to show up to address the issue of my phone line. Someone calls me, I hear the phone ringing, I pick it up, I get a weird sound like a computer trying to dial the internet, all mechanical and screechy, then nothing. The line disconnects a few seconds later. The person on the other end gets a message saying that the number doesn't exist or that its unavailable. However, if I let the phone ring 6+ times before I answer, it works fine. The phone and cable have been replaced, still weirdness. So yeah. Hopefully tomorrow will prove enlightening, and not delay the arrival of my internet even further.
If all goes well, I plan to catch the ferry over to Matsuyama and visit Dogo onsen, maybe spending the night in the accomodation they've got their for pilgrims. However, as I just realised I left the brochure with that information at school along with directions on how to get to Matsuyama's only capsule hotel, maybe I'll tough it out and go in on Sunday instead. I think that I am going to really feel it if I try to go without another internet cafe session -- I really miss you guys. I want to be caught up on all the news and just chat and talk about silly stuff. I also want to read the stuff you guys send me. Lasafara, the info you sent is still sitting unopened in my inbox, sorry -- I just didn't feel I could justify using the school mail to take a look at it. The staffroom is really open, and well. Small school, small staff, everyone takes a huge interest in what I do = no privacy for Louise = no goofing off at school, camp-wise or anything else. Writing essays in WordPad is about all I feel comfortable doing at school, and even then, if I'm doing it for more than twenty minutes, I feel like I should be doing something else.
Cooking is going okay, although I am eating school lunch which is not something I really wanted to be doing. Still, the school nutritionist said that my problem with dasshi shouldn't be a problem with Nakajima Chu's food because it's all made on the island and they don't need to add chemicals, and so far I don't seem to be having any stomach issues (except possibly today) and the school was over the top happy that I can eat school lunch with them, so. The sacrifices we must make. I made the typical mistake of going overboard and buying too many veges last week, and now I've got a mission just trying to eat them all. My priorities at the moment are eating healthily and sticking to my budget -- neither of which I am quite as close to as I wanted to be, but hey, first week, valuable lessons. I think I also had some quite unrealistic ideas of what I could pull off -- this week, I've put down three recipes, veges to accompany, and thats it. My shopping list consists of maybe ten items, which is pretty good I feel. Of course, I have one less meal to prepare this week, as Friday (the 13th), the staff are taking me to Nakajima's single eating establishment, for a joint 'we survived the sport's day/ welcome Louise' party. I'm kind of nervous, as I have used up my good Japanese already. Oh well. I still know 'kampai' so all good /o/.
ETA:
Ferry ride in this morning to said net cafe gave me another perspective on the Nakajima island group thing. First off, welcome swallows everywhere. When I was 5 or 6 and we lived out at Upper Moutere, Nelson, there were a pair of welcome swallows that built their nest under the roof of our house. I haven't seen any since, and Nakajima has a ton of them -- they're everywhere. They give me such a happy feeling whenever I see them. And one house I saw has not one, not two, but three nests on the side of it. It's just spectacular.
When I reached Oura port, there was this huge fishing boat being led into the port by tugboat. Not the biggest boat I've ever seen, but huge compared to the ferry and other little boats. I had to run to catch the ferry, so I didn't really get the chance to work out what it was about, but we passed about thirty or so of the small fishing boats all out an anchored in the same general space, so I think there was something going on in the way of fishing. As we got nearer to Matsuyama, I noticed a whole bunch of gulls swooping down. They were after little silvery fish that were jumping out of the water, possibly being herded by something. I didn't get the chance to see what, but it added some excitement to the journey!
Oh, also its Sunday, and the NTT guy never showed, so I ended up spending all day yesterday at home waiting for no good reason. I was running out of Titans eps, so instead I played the Sims -- Bat update for you guys on the way. And I think that's about it. Thank you so much to Buffy, Tim, Masami, Vimes and everyone else who has e-mailed or lj-commented at me during the week. You're keeping me sane. <3333333