The Cave

Ishigaki steps

Scary lion thing

Ishigaki roads

We must have really wanted to come here…
We actually got up at 4am to get the train to the airport in order to catch the flight to Ishigaki Island in Okinawa.

I hear our parents gasp.

Yes. 4am.

But, we’re here now, and checked into our tent.

I hear our parents gasp again.

Yes. A tent. Which we will hopefully be staying in for the next four nights, but we’ll have to wait and see how things go! We’ve stocked up on mosquito coils, anyway.

The weather here is absolutely beautiful…! We’ve spent the day shopping (don’t worry, I managed to tear Tom away from the Hawaiian shirts. Just.), and sitting in the sunshine down by the fishing port. It was great just to sit back - beer in hand - and admire the gorgeous turquoise sea expanding across to the horizon, and watch the fishermen working on their boats.

I finally feel like we’re beginning to unwind.

Now…where’s my beer….

Well… here we are in the second biggest metropolis in Japan - Osaka.

Tom at Atsuta-jingu

Delly at Ise-jingu

Delly at Futami Meoto-iwa

Since our last update, we have been on a mini pilgrimage to some of the most revered Shinto sites in Japan. In case you are wondering, Shinto is the native religion of Japan, consisting of thousands of shrines dedicated to hundreds of kami (gods). Almost all Japanese people engage in Shinto rituals at various times each year. Most also follow another religion however, so Shinto feels like it is more about being Japanese than worshiping a god.

Anyway… We visited Atsuta-jingu in Nagoya on Saturday, followed by Ise-jingu on Sunday. Both were similar in many aspects: each holds one of the sacred imperial regalia, each forbids anyone but the Emperor and a few select shinto priests from seeing the imperial regalia, each is set in a forest of beautiful old cedar trees and each was very peaceful (except for the odd bunch of crazy schoolkids).

Ise-jingu was definitely the most impressive and beautiful shrine I’ve seen in Japan (a fact they will be glad to know as it is the most important one in the whole country). After crossing a concrete-less river (virtually unheard of in this part of the world!) you are free to potter along the quiet paths of the forest to the various shrine buildings (all of which are rebuilt every 20 years at a staggering cost).

After a brief stop at the “wedded rocks” (two rocks in the sea joined by a sacred rope) we trundled on the slow train to Osaka - to find our hotel in the middle of an area engulfed by festival fever. There are festival food stores everywhere and omikoshi portable shrines are being washoi-ed around the place like there is no tomorrow.

Ah yes… and there should be a good firework display later tonight - Boom!

Hurrah for summer in Japan!

So…we are no longer teachers, we no longer reside in Fukui…or anywhere, for that matter…but! some things have not changed. Hurray for “ume shu”!

We said our last goodbyes yesterday, after a completely crazy marathon 38 hours of packing, cleaning and tidying (with just 6 hours sleep total). It was very sad to be leaving Fukui, but we have a sneaky suspicion we’ll be back.

It would have been much, much harder without all the help we received from various people, especially Keisuke (we absolutely couldn’t have done it without you!).

The car was abandoned late yesterday evening at Haruko, and we took the local train down to Nagoya - 4 hours of complete weirdness… it just goes to show that 2 years in Japan, and we still haven’t seen it all. This journey presented us with the following challenges: The Language Leech; The Weird, Hyper, Chatty Woman; and The Crazy Drugged Up Person who tried to pick a fight with us. Which was scary. And with 6 hours sleep in two nights, well…our Japanese wasn’t up to much beyond “DAME!!!”.

Here we are then…with our backpacks (mine weighing in at around 11kg…god knows why as I’ve got no spare shoes and virtually no clothes, but there you have it), maps and tickets. We’re on our way home, and in just over 2 months we’ll be back in Britain…smelling a bit, with loads of photos and no money. But hey, we’ll be having a nice break before setting off again!

Ok, so we’re not quite on to Phase 2: The Long Route Home yet, but we’re getting the blog warmed up and ready to go…

As Mary and Flick can testify, the apartment is in a complete state of disarray, as we maniacally pack up the last few boxes - and our backpacks - ready to leave Fukui on the 22nd.

Be sure to check out the most recent photos from Fukui… (note that the old diary will be updated until Wednesday night, then this blog will take over)
http://www.cavemantom.co.uk/cavegirl/photos_July05.htm

I’m now into my final two days at EEC, and have said my goodbyes to many people I may never see again.

Some of the students have seen me every week for a year and a half, yet in most cases neither my Japanese nor their English is good enough to communicate without being in the same room (so much for being a good teacher then!)

I live in hope though… Who knows if one day a business card with “tomu sensei’s” scrawl on it will fall from a notebook when the head of a textiles company looks nostalgically back on his elementary English attempts.

Others, like the pre-school kids, I would never be able to start to contact after leaving - but the funky pictures they drew of “scary gaijin who comes and warbles at us each week” will keep some link between me and Japan long after I have departed.

Anyway - this is turning out far deeper than crap I usually have time to ramble about, so I’ll stop and go do the washing up… Hurrah for mundane tasks!

Mary and Tom

Originally uploaded by Cavegirl Delly.

Mary has a subtle way of making her point known.

The sayonara party was a success insofar as most of the people who attended managed to erase a section of the evenings events from their memory. I’ve met very few survivors who have a perfect recollection of what actually went on, or indeed how they were magically transported back to their (or someone else’s) bed!

This post was made as a test from Flikr to investigate ways of posting pics on the move.

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5th and 11th on train all day
6th -> 10th Irkutsk
12th -> 16th Ekaterinberg
17th -> 23rd Moscow
24th -> 27th St Petersburg