Wow, Just wrote all this and came back to the top to warn you to go get a cup of tea and a biscuit for sustenance while you read this.... it's long ha ha!
Sorry it's been so long since I last posted (2 weeks). Stuff seems less novel as I get more and more used to it so it's hard to tell what you guys will find interesting. Here's a general update it's getting a little colder - the last two days have been rainy, one day I even wore a hoody! It still makes you sweat if you exert yourself even slightly - today however was sunny again. I'm sitting typing this on my sofa in my apartment and I just turned on the fan as I was getting hot and a bit sweaty, oh and I've got both my balcony doors open and it' 10pm and dark outside. It's weird. I was speaking with my predecessor Adam (he worked at Maruyama before me) and he was saying that in winter it gets really cold and because the classrooms don't have heaters the staff rooms don't either. He advised me to buy heat pads for my shoulders and pockets and to wear thermals and a ski jacked in the staff room and a fleece when teaching! I can't imagine this place being like that at all. But I trust his assessment of the weather as he went to Uni in Glasgow and knows what I'm used to in Scotland.
I'm just back from 5 days in Okinawa. The place is really amazing. It's the islands that trail off into the pacific at the bottom of Japan. The last island is only 100km from Taiwan. It's famous for two main reasons, firstly the people there live to a ripe old age as it's such nice weather (the only sub-tropical part of Japan) and the diet is so fresh and healthy and full of seafood and secondly they had a decisive and horrific battle there towards the end of WWII.
If you have time see if you can read about it on Wikipedia or something. Basically Japan had a big empire, parts of Russia, China and pacific Islands were theirs around 1940 and America launched an all out offensive on them and shelled the shit out of all their military outposts, their area of control shrunk and shrunk until it was just Japan and the Okinawa Islands. [N.B. Historically these Islands were independent and called Ryukyu Islands - they had their own Emperors and everything.] Anyway Japan had control of them by now and told them to fight till the last man and never surrender as the American "brutes" would rape and kill them anyway if they did. Japan wanted to prolong the U.S. invasion of the main Island (Honshu) for as long as possible regardless of the cost to the people of Okinawa. So they fought alongside Japanese troops and eventually when it got bad (i.e. the place was being seriously devastated by bombs and rockets and shells) they got the civilian youth involved. The boys fought and the girls nursed and fetched food and ammunition. I read some horrific testimonials from people who were lucky enough to survive, about the caves in Okinawa. The place is full of them and they eventually hid in there, whole families along with the military. The main commander committed Seppuku (ritual suicide) and told the rest to fight to their death. The Americans broke geneva convention by going through the devastated island throwing grenades into caves full of families and babies. Then they scoured the rubble landscapes with flame-throwers burning anyone they found. It was grim. A lot of people killed themselves including a school of 213 schoolgirls and their teachers who were surrounded. After years of indoctrination about how bad the U.S. was they believed that it would be better to blow themselves up rather than be captured and god knows what. I visited the cave where they all died and saw pictures of every single one of them and their 30 odd teachers. The strange thing for me was that they looked just like the pupils in my school. Black times!
Anyway on a lighter note I flew from Kobe to Naha the capital of the main Okinawa Island with a friend who lives in the same block as me called Rethabile Maqilika (She's South African and yes her surname has a tongue "click" in it! - it's pronounced [Rita-belay Ma-click-lica] diversity huh!!) My friend from Trinidad, Bryan and his Japanese girlfriend were on the flight and over there we met up with a couple from the states called Matt and Mo and another friend of Bryan and mine from football Enda and his two brothers who were visiting from Ireland. So we had a posse.
I realise I'm going on a bit so in short. We visited a Shuri Castle in the city then went for a traditional Okinawan meal (not so good - pigs ear bits and fermented tofu!?! but some bit's were delicious) followed by traditional song and dances.
The next day we went to the south coast to see the mass monument of peace to all the dead. A thought provoking sight in a beautiful location right on the end of Japan looking out to the Pacific Sea. In the afternoon we drove all the way to the top of the island (1h40) past a pineapple farm to one of the worlds biggest Aquariums. (See video).
Nest day Rita was up for shopping and Shrines so I went with the boys on a ferry to a smaller group of islands called the Karema Islands, they are breathtakingly beautiful - it was honestly like paradise. We jumped in a maxi taxi when we got there and for 500 yen (return) we got taken to one of the best beaches I've ever been to where we snorkeled, went on a inflatable thing that got dragged behind a Jet ski and I wake boarded and was well happy that I could get up and actually do it! The place was almost deserted too. After snorkeling for a bit and being amazed that I saw loads of proper tropical fish that were in the Aquarium the day before, I decided to go in with a bit of Japanese Omelette and tried to feed them. It worked and by the end I had them eating out of the palm of my hand (ha ha). On the way home we got a fast ferry which was FAST and awesome and that evening we went for a meal on Kokusai Dori (Main Road - I think!?) we had steak and Lobster cooked for us by not one, but two Chefs! Cooked on two hot plates in the center of the table. The whole meal (salad, curry soup, lobster, steak, huge beer) was only 4500 Y (go on, work it out!)! NOICE!
On the last day the others split but Rita and Bobb "sunburnt back" Turner went shopping in this cool mall with Louis Vuitton, Christian Dior, etc etc and a well cool food place where we sat and drank after our lunch till 9pm. Then we went to buy *Omiyagi and back to the bar where we hung out with the bar staff and met 3 really cool GI's, we all ended up going out to a bar together until 12 coz Rita was plastered and the GI's all have a 12pm curfew coz they used to rape Japanese girls.... historically (these guys were cool - and I found out only 19! Unbelievable - they were military police!)
* Omiyagi is a big thing in Japan. If you go on holiday you bring back, usually sweets for everyone you work with. It's a big industry here with shops dedicated to Omiyagi - they come in boxes about the size of an A4 paper ream. They're pre-wrapped and usually have about ten big chocolates or sweets or usually some sort of biscuit or cake individually wrapped inside. Boxes are about 1000 Y each and you HAVE to get enough for everybody or it's really bad manners. When Japanese do business they usually give Omiyagi too, you see it in Lost in Translation when Mr "Hallis" gets loads of gifts. Each place has it's speciallity, Kobe is a cake place, Okinawa is little pastry cups with a purple sweet potato piped in, it sounds gross but it's nice.
Phew,
Here's some pics, well done if you read all that!
Bobb x
The Beach
The Aquarium (Whale Shark)
The cave where all those girls looked after sick soldiers in a makeshift hospital down there before they all blew themselves up or got shot.
The end of Okinawa at the Peace Museum
