The week after Yosakoi Toyama I was pretty much out of energy for anything but still went to school trying to get some more urushi stuff done but, as expected, not much came out of it. Tuesday night was the big yosakoi 'It's Over!' party from our team which I spent observing the mysterious Japanese as they went absolutely crazy. It's pretty funny actually. I can't believe they really are so weak against alcohol that they would start making such a rucus after one only lightly alcoholic cocktail. I rather think after being under so many rules most of the time in their life, at the slightest chance of letting go a bit, they do just that, as effectively as I've hardly seen anybody let go before. The noise level was amazing!
Still, it was a lot of fun. Around 10 I think we went out of the small bar where we had the top floor to ourselves and went to Club Muse, which is by no means a club but a karaoke place. Japanese style karaoke of course. Meaning many, many small rooms all equipped with their own karaoke machine. I stayed there until about 2 o'clock, mixing some English songs in their Japanese selection and then was tired enough to go home. The best day of that week though was probably Friday. With a senpai of mine we had planned to make a day trip to the beach since quite some time ago, but now, the first day of 5 that the school would be completely closed, we finally got to it. Yamada Kanako, first name being Kanako, but being called Yama-chan by somewhat closer friends, is that senpai. She is in the master course together with two more Japanese girls and the Korean exchange student that are all in the same room as I. She and I get along pretty well, at the start mostly because somehow it was easier to talk Japanese with her than with most other people. I'm not sure why, but somehow she understands my way of talking (probably still very wrong) Japanese and at the same time also tries to speak a bit English once in a while.
So, with all the damn heat we wanted to go to the sea. In between it had been to a river and Shintani, another senpai, had been supposed to come with us, too, but in the end it were Yama-chan and me who met at 9 on Friday morning at Senshinen. We went to buy some stuff for the 'bento', luchboxes, we prepared for ourselves and ended up buying so much that we still ate from it two days later. Then we went to the beach and without noticing spent five hours there. Just talking, swimming a bit or just lying in the water, sleeping on the beach. Holiday as it's supposed to be.
Later in the afternoon, to get the sand and saltwater off we still drove to a onsen, a hot spring bath she wanted to show me. It was great. Because it was being renovated, the bath, build from natural stones, was an outside bath and not inside as normally. Sheltered from the direkt sunlight by a tarpaulin we stayed for a while in the slightly salty water. It was very hot though, probably around 42 degrees so we didn't stay for very long. Still, there's nothing like onsen (or Finnish sauna) to make one feel thoroughly clean and relaxed.
I think I was home again around 6 in the evening, happy and looking forward to four more days of doing nothing resembling work at all. Well, that's how I would have liked it, but then I still had to write an overdue essay for a course in Lahti that basically should have been turned in in March already. Fortunately in the school in Lahti, one has 6 months time after the official end of a course to finish yet undone works for it until the course gets void and one has to do it all over again. I took my time writing it though, so the four days were still relaxing enough.
Since the Wednesday before last the school was open again. A thing I find fantastic, being able to visit school and do one's work even in summer holidays. I turned in my essay and the used the days to finish planning the official holiday of this summer: holiday with my mum!
Tomorrow at 8:50 in the morning she will arrive at Nagoya and we will be travelling around for three weeks. First Kyoto for a week, then Takaoka and surroundings for five days, then up to Hokkaido for the remaining time.
The first time I travelled with my mum I think I was around five years old. She took me to the US with her, to visit friends she had and still has there. I don't remember much of course about that, but I think the fact that she took me on such a long journey at that age (though I don't think I really understood the distance) has had its influence in making me so curious about the world 'out there'.
Now I can take her on a journey myself, showing her a country she has wanted to see for so long, showing her 'my' Japan.
It's just a few more hours to go now, then I'll take a bus to Nagoya and spend a night in an internet café close to the station where I'll also be able to put this entry up. And then, soon, I will have the pleasure of seeing my mother's reaction at all the strange things, and wonders and ambiguities of Japan. And I will see it a new light again too, as we share it.
~ ~ ~ ~
Alright, well, I did find an internet café for the night and it was even cheaper than expected – 1400Yen for 8 hours for a booth with a seat that could be adjusted to be completely flat– but the place itself seemed pretty old. Or at least the computer and TV and Playstation 2 they had there as well as the wireless connection they did not have there which I found pretty strange. It didn't really matter that much though, since I was tired enough to just lie down and go to sleep. It's a bit weird though. It was the first time for me to stay over night in a manga/internet café and the atmosphere is really strange. The booth reminded me the most of a small changing cibucle one usually finds in public swimming pools. It was really just a cubicle, not a closed room, meaning you could hear pretty much everything that was going on around. But hey, it was cheap and in some weird way worth the experience. A very good example of the Japanese and their extreme use of space. Let's just say the average McDonald's customer would not have been able to move anywhere except just up to the reception. Seriously, I almost had trouble getting through the narrow aisles between the cubicles or shelves lined with mangas and DVDs.
Oh, and the bus drive before went well, too. I had to reserve the place beforehand over the phone and in Japanese so I was a little bit worried I had gotten everything right, but no problem there. And as we went off from Takaoka the sun was sinking, creating a fantastic spectacle of light over the nountains to the west. There were rough, ripped clouds over and around them, and with the sun already behind the peaks it looked as if they were on wild fire. The sky over us was streaked in bright orange and red in brilliant contrast to the patches of blue sky between them.
A suitable send off for this journey, I thought.
No comments:
Post a Comment