run, RUN, RUN!!!

Music: Be Back Soon-Woodhands

I’m going to start this one off my swearing. 

Holy EF!!!!!!  (alright, not a real swear… I am a Lady )

HOLY EFFF!!!!

(you get the idea)

I’m leaving Japan.  I’m going slightly insane at the moment… I’m typing fast to say it all before I have to start my endless (or so seemingly) journey.

I’ve got to go to Tokyo tonight from Ashleighs house in Maebashi.

Once in Tokyo I have to catch a night bus to Kobe.  I arrive in Kobe around 9 am.  Then I have to go catch a boat (you read right) to Tianjin, China.  The boat is two days.  Very cheap, but very long.  We’ll see how I do. 

Poor poor Natalie.  She will be my partner in crime, as I’m sure many of you have heard.  We are different enough that we will bring good things to the table, but similar enough that we can spend the next two days on a boat together (oh yah… and the next three months travelling Asia).

I’m a little worried and feeling underprepared.  I’ve minimized my baggage as much as possible… I think i did a good job.  I’m wondering about the things I forgot to do and the people i forgot to call or write too.  My apologies. 

I’m worried about not knowing the language or the way around.  I’m worried in an excited way though.  Everything will be new and crazy.  I survived Japan, I’m sure I can survive China.  Although, from what I hear from the Japanese, i’ll hate it and it’s dangerous.  I’m really going to miss the Japanese’s slight racism…

I am also going to really miss my students, who I can’t help but think about every minute of every day.  This is seriously worse than a break up.  I wonder when i’ll get the next email from them, if they’ll write, if they are having fun with the new Teacher (definitely not more fun), if they’ll visit.. if they think about me… It is really all very pathetic.

Saying goodbye made it a very difficult and emotionally tiring last week in Toyama.  I cried after every class I taught, and if i wasn’t teaching it, I was sitting in the corner bawling my eyes out, “observing” Beth Anne.  Man, they can’t even say her name.  I got a little stressed when she wasn’t as excited to bounce around and sing and play with the kiddies as much as I am.  She’ll get into it though…

I cried in the middle of one class and could hardly get through it, but ended up teaching her an extra 15 minutes and spending an extra 1/2 hour with her family afterward.  I really fell in love with Nagi.  She is my bilingual student, that I am pretty sure, if you go to some of my first posts, I definitely state that from the first class with her, I could tell that she was going to be my favourite.  She did become so and still is.  We’ve already emailed one another a few times in the last week (the first was that night right after her last class).  In fact, her class with her new teacher starts in 5 minutes and it’s slowly killing me.

I guess I ought to look more to the bright side of things… the memories, the friendships, the future emails and letters.  It’s still hard though.  Luckily I have great friends to talk to and spend time with.  Thanks for the last week of listening to me go on and on and on and on about all my students and how bummed I am and not being too embarrased by me when I broke down and cried in Saizeria (Japans version of Denny’s).

!!shout out!! to Leah (for hugging me after every class), Natalie (for what you’re about to get yourself into), Japanese Senseis, Ashleigh (for being born), Gordon (for our day in Tokyo), Marlow (for the long phone call all about me, one day you’ll get your chance to talk), mom and dad for wanting to know my every move, and those that came to the goodbye party and goodbye party at the bus stop.  The bus that I missed.  So thanks to Takahiro for driving me at high speeds to catch the bus at the first service station somewhere in Niigata.  Arigato!

Ok!  It’s eight oclock. (Nagi!!!! AAA!!!  I miss her!!!) 

Train in 30 minutes.

CHINA HERE I COME!!!!!

(^-^)v

Beeru Onegaishimasu! Moi Ipai Kudasai!

(translation: Beer Please! I want one more glass please!)

Music: Mad Man Max- Green Go

When we arrived to Sapporo we didn’t waste any time. Everyone knows whats good up in this hood. BEER! At that time they had a beer festival. In the center of Sapporo is a long park, about… ten blocks? Sorry, my memory is failing me and I can’t really remember how long it was, but its long. Along this park is a different beer garden for every block. From Kirin to Sapporo to Asahi, they’ve got it all.

We get some drinks to start off our day. Sapporo was a great town. Small, but still big for us Canadians. Tonnes of happy friendly people who speak even less English than the rest of Japan. The trip ended up being a good practice for us and our Japanese skills…

We spent the day hitting up beautiful parks and the famous Sapporo Beer Museum, where we definitely had our fair share of delicious cheap beer.

For the evening we returned to the beer gardens. When we were there earlier in the day we were amazed at how many chairs and tables they had: “They’ll never be able to fill these up.”

At our return we were proved wrong… Every table was full of girls and boys of all ages; business men, young adults, families, couples, college kids, and all of them were delighted to see foreigners. It was funny being famous again.

Ashleigh: “Are you going to be sad when you go home and you aren’t a celebrity anymor–”

“YES.” Lindzy.

Unfortunately this was our last night in Hokkaido and we had to catch a bus to our ship.

Once we had arrived to the ship a few bad things happened. Actually its safe to say that many bad things happened. First they informed us, once we were at the point of no return, that there was no food on the boat, only some vending machines. Whaaaat. (>-<)

Next: (you all know the drill)

Ashleigh: “Guys, wheres my cell phone?”

On the bus that we took to the port, probably more than halfway back to Sapporo.

Next:

We got a cabin, but we happened to be sharing with one man who snores louder than anyone i have ever encountered. I thought he was choking on his tongue and enough flem to drown eight children. I have never felt so angry in my life and spent most of the morning (four am to 8 am) on the deck watching the water and the sunrise.

It was a tiring, long and ‘Onaka Peko Peko desu’ (the cute way of saying i’m hungry) ride back.

Everything ended well though, as everything does. Ashleigh got her phone back, and we made every train last minute to take us to our next hot spot: the beach. We got a real campsite this time and spent the night dreaming of the waves we were going to catch on our surfboards the next day.

We awoke early to brilliant sunshine. We quickly found out about a man with a surfshop. A kind man who rented the three of us boards and took us to a breath taking and beautiful spot for a day of surfing.

Let me just say, straight up, there is nothing like surfing. There is also nothing like the stomach and leg rash that take over your body the next week after rubbing up against a board for seven hours. There is also nothing like catching a wave for the first time and riding it, even if its just for a bit. There was probably also nothing like it for Kyle, who was teaching me to surf. I was definitely wearing the wrong kind of bikini. His payment for taking the time to show me the ropes was a few flashes of my ‘coppertone ad.’ bum and a pushed up bikini top from the fall into the waves. Gomen ne!

We met awesome, and hot! (KonniiiichiiiwaaAAaaaa) surfers and wicked kids who were starting at a young age. We (mostly me) got sun burnt, beaten and bruised by the waves, but had a total blast being in the water for hours on the coast of Japan. Our friend Seiji from Tokyo showed up to surf for a bit, then was kind enough to take us back to his pad near Shinjuku for a hot shower to wash away the salt and the sand and a comfy futon to sleep on.

Man I love holidays. I am soon to head on my biggest one yet…

Chalk Outlines and Shooting Targets

Music: Don’t Go-Forest City Lovers

Alright, so I know I haven’t been here in a while… I haven’t even finished talking about my Hokkaido trip!  Times have been super super busy, as I’m sure most of you understand.

Like I was saying, Ash, Kyle and I packed up to move on to a new place.  Gotta make the best of our time eh?

We went to this place called Noborebetsu.  It is famous for… ONSENS!  No kidding eh?  You should have seen the Onsen we went to.  For real it was crazy!  It was three floors with, if my memory serves me right, over 20 different baths, massage waterfalls, cold pools, cool pools, pools outside, hot pools, really hot pools, pools so hot I couldn’t even put one foot in.  Unfortunately the one downfall was that all the signs were in Japanese (duh), so we couldn’t be informed about what different types of waters and minerals were in each of the baths.  We spent the whole day there getting super relaxed and just lazing about, hopping from pool to pool.  Also, doing a little naked person judging.  Nothing wrong with that i think…

Noboreibetsu didn’t exactly have the campgrounds we were hoping for to give us a good sleep for a cheap price.  We talked to the fellas at the hotel and got some sketchy information regarding a camp ground not to far away.

We decided to chill out in the town, get some drinks and omiyage (souvenirs) untill we were ready to find this campsite.

We got a cab driver who gave us a deal : “1700 yen to where you are going.” Done.

We get in the cab.  Its a dark night, not a cloud in the sky, the moon is bright.  He takes us onto a street, a dark street that is surrounded by deep darks woods on either side.  We take this dark winding road for about 20 minutes.  The man keeps his promise and turns off the meter once it reaches the agreed upon price.

He pulls over to a spot on the side of the road.  We can’t see anything around us, except for a big old wood shack and a shady building that looks like a toilet.

He informs us that there are places to camp “over there” waving his hands into the dark distance….

We get out and take our stuff, pay the man before he quickly takes off.  We look around us and start walking around.  The big wooden shack looks like a closed up cafe/burger joint/house.  We investigate, possibly snooping around too much… We look up, there are two windows with lights on.  One has a paper figure, often used for target practice.  The other has a man looking on a computer facing the window.  When he spots us he quickly closes the blinds.

We head over to the toilet to see what kind of facilities we had.  There was no running water, no toilet paper, but plenty of bugs and spiderwebs and even a chalk outline of a body on the floor.

Well, here we are, stuck with no place to go.  We head down to the beach and set up camp.  We stay up for a bit, but doze off to sleep to the sound of rain splattering the tent.

We wake up in the morning, nervous and worried about the man in the window and the target practice sheet and the fact that we are on his property; which now, in the morning light appears to be a boat rental area.  We pack up and bravely head towards the house.  We call out a few times, and finally the man comes down to let us in.  The room is indeed a restaurant… covered with stuffed animals.  There are deers and moose and other beautiful creatures, dead and frozen in time.  Awesome.

He doesn’t seem happy about our sleepover, but calls us a taxi, pulls out chairs and makes us fresh coffee anyway.  We chat a bit while we wait…

“So you hunt eh?”

yah… awkward.

The cab came quickly enough and took us to the train station where we hopped on the first one out to Sapporo, the biggest city in Hokkaido.