Bandai-Atami

This week Suzie and Ian came to visit. They were delayed on their flight, but it never occurred to me to check, and we had arranged to meet them at a station here in the city after their train ride. Unfortunately they missed that train, so we walked around the platform for a while and eventually concluded they weren't there. We called Mary to check the times for us and figured out what must have happened, so made use of the hour til the next train by going for a nice lunch set above the station (I'm not being sarcastic, it was in the station and it was still very nice!) When they got in, we made our way back before going for ramen and a drink at the stand-up bar in Hiroo. The next day we were at work, but Suzie has travelled a lot and they just went off and explored - they have seen quite a few things we haven't got round to yet!

It was a 3 day week for us as we had the long weekend for mid-term. This meant we were free to have a bigger than usual Wednesday night out at Doma Doma - all 15 of us - and still not worry about being tired. This said, we got up at 5.30 the next day to visit Tsukiji fish market. It's the biggest fish market in the world and it was incredible, just huge! We caught the end of the tuna auctions (very loud, lots of over-exaggerated movements, just like a normal auction only even harder to follow in Japanese) and had a good look around, before going for a sushi breakfast at a restaurant recommended by fish boy (his name is Alastair but no-one ever calls him that, he has a PhD in tuna and works at the market) which was fantastic. We all had reservations about eating raw fish at 8am but we soon got past that and really enjoyed it. It could have had something to do with the fact that we had already been up for ages by then and it felt like lunch time!

Later that day Suzie and Ian left for Takayama and Kyoto, and we started to ring around for places that we could go away for a few days (nothing like leaving it to the last minute). We wanted to go somewhere new, and find a Ryokan (traditional style Japanese inn) but with an Onsen in the room because Will is shy. We found one we liked the look of that still had space in a small hot spring resort called Bandai Atami. It is in the hills near the shores of one of the most beautiful lakes in Japan, in Fukushima prefecture north of Tokyo, so we hired a car and set off on Friday morning. The rain was horrible all day, and by the time we got there (after getting lost a few times on the way) it was 2.30pm. We had been planning to go up to the lake, but we decided to save that for Saturday and just went to the room.

It was amazing. We had our own little garden with an onsen on a deck just under cover, so I had a hot bath outside while it rained and was all quiet. It was so relaxing and peaceful. I must have had 6 baths in 2 days! We had our evening meal served to us in the room, and the women kept getting on their knees to bow to us fully with heads touching the ground. We felt quite embarrassed really, standing there in our scratty jeans after a 5 hour drive! They got us to choose yukata from a table, and just went out of their way to make us feel special for the whole time we were there. It was the first time we had stayed at a real ryokan, and I would highly recommend it!

The next day we set off to drive around the lake, but the rain was still torrential. The views were still good but we didn't see much through the mist. We drove down through some pretty areas just to see more of Japan outside of Tokyo, and we came across a small sign with the name of a village I happened to have been reading about before, a very old preserved traditional Japanese village called Ouchijuku. It is a really popular place to go, but you would never guess it from the single tiny signpost, we were lucky to spot it. We queued for almost an hour just to park, and I have never seen so many people in one place. Or so many umbrellas for that matter! The rain just poured and poured, and we were soaked through long before we reached the first shop selling umbrellas. The village was lovely, all thatched roofs and old tatami mat rooms which had been kept just as they would have been, and trench streams in the streets with washing places and water wheels. On a sunny day it would have been perfect. For lunch we went to an open tatami room with a pit in the floor where they cooked fish over an open fire. We had a tempura set, with soup and rice and it was nice, but tempura is usually really light and not greasy. This was the opposite, and really sickly. We were still wet when we left, so we headed back to the car.

The drive home was very long, because some roads were closed due to the weather. The rain kept getting heavier and the wind got up, so on the expressway we could barely see the lane lines. We found out later when we got back that it was a typhoon which had changed course unexpectedly and hit the east coast of Japan. We thought it was bad enough to drive home in it, but we found out that our friends Kate and Adam had decided to go away on their scooter, with her perched on the back. They had a five hour drive home on a scooter in a typhoon. They said other people were laughing at them because they looked so ridiculous and were obviously mad foreigners, but they couldn't join in because their faces were numb.

The day after a typhoon here is always so calm and sunny, perfect days after the worst you get. Sunday was like that, and everyone just relaxed and unwound ready for school again on Monday.

Tozanso

Recently we got a new TV. In Japan, you have to pay to get rid of some electrical appliances, so parents often donate things if they are moving away (which happens a lot as their businesses move them around). One family is going to Hong Kong, which has a PAL system as they were under UK control. Japan uses NTSC so they were giving away their huge, lovely TV. We managed to get that, and we went to collect it and lots of other bits and pieces of furniture and appliances that other people were taking. I never fail to be amazed when I see the places some of the international business families live. They are just beautiful, and huge. So much for everything in Japan being small!

Another family wanted to get rid of a large, top of the range telescope that they had. They offered it directly to the school to see if it could be of any use. The we knew about it was an email that went out to the science department and the head of values, offering the telescope. Nobody could understand why the values department had been included, not least Adam, the HOD. It came out later that when the message came in there was a teacher called Larry in the room, who is very dry and very witty. The Japanese office staff often have no idea when he is being serious. They asked him who he thought they should offer the telescope to. He said the Science department. They said great, anyone else? He said maybe the values department, who teach RE, because they might want to look to the heavens and try to find God.

This week has been excursion week for the Middle and High schools. Each grade goes to a different location in Japan for 3 days, from Fuji to Hiroshima and all over the place. This year I went to Tozanso, in the foothills of Mt Fuji. It is only about an hour and a half from Tokyo, which is good as most of my grade group are only 10 years old. We went to Showa-Kinen park, a really gorgeous, huge park with loads of physical stuff for the kids to tire themselves out on. This grade last year were a bit of a nightmare, but this lot were fantastic, so well-behaved and interested in everything, really nice kids. The next place we went was a cave, where they were asking me lots of geology questions and getting spooked out in the dark. There was a tiny little Shinto shrine in the depths of the cave, because Shinto worships nature.

We stayed at a YMCA, and had a campfire with lots of singing and smores (marshmallows toasted on the fire then squished between two chocolate digestives - the sickliest thing I have ever eaten), and then went for offuro - traditional Japanese bath. I love offuro and Onsen (the natural hot spring version). You wash and shower to get clean, and then soak in this huge hot bath, relax and chat. It is a really soothing experience, and great for getting warm on cold days or after skiing etc. When we told the kids lights out, they did it. We didn't have to knock on doors or police them at all, very different from last year - so relaxing!

The next morning the sun was out and the weather was clear first thing, and we had the most fantastic view of Fuji from the site. It clouded over a little before I got my camera, but I think it is still a great sight. Last year I was even closer in Yamanakoko, and didn't see a thing. We went for a hike with the girls to a Buddhist temple about 2 miles away. There were different parts to the temple complex.

The first was a small garden halfway up the hill, which had an entrance way with huge statues of the gos of wind and thunder, complete with massive models of traditional Japanese sandals for them to wear when they make storms. That part was a temple dedicated to healthy feet, and people go there to pray for friends and relatives with feet or leg problems, or take their children's shoes to be blessed. Next we walked up the rest of the way to the main temple at the top, which is very important to Buddhists, as it contains relics of Buddha. It has been dedicated for World Peace. We weren't feeling very peaceful though, because all the way up the hill were Chinese and Korean tourists, who were photographing and videoing our group. They seemed really excited to see western children, and they weren't even trying to be sneaky about it, just walking up and pointing cameras at us all as we walked, or as we stood in a group; all the time. The kids were starting to get a bit freaked out, particularly by one man with a video camera. Eventually one of the other teachers had to go up and tell him to stop, because he just wasn't taking the hint. I felt sorry for his wife - she looked very embarrassed, but she didn't seem to be trying to stop him.

We took a different path down the mountain, down some very steep concrete steps through a garden walk. When I say we, I actually mean the rest of the group. I stepped on a half step edge (taking a photo so not looking where I was going, but still hadn't noticed the big concrete lumps before when I was looking!), lost my footing and went down most of the first flight in mid-air. I could feel myself slipping, and could see there was nothing to hang on to, so I just relaxed and let myself go. I know from experience it hurts a lot less if you are not tense. Still, I did not expect to actually flip over and fall so far. As I fell my legs came over the top of me and slammed into a step below. I landed flat on my back, fortunately with my bag under my head, or it could have been a lot nastier. I took a lot of skin off both wrists, elbows, one knee and had a big dent just above an ankle which immediately went purple. My main concern as I fell was that I would take some of the kids out who were below me, but I stopped just at the legs of the first one (good job I had stopped to take a photo and fallen a bit behind). I can't say for sure whether I was more concerned that they would be hurt, or that it would hurt me even more if they landed on top of me. Probably both. The others said later I was funny when I landed, because the first thing I did was pull down my top to cover my stomach up, then I asked the girl next to me if she was alright, then I flopped again and said "I'll just stay here for a few minutes". I realised when I tried to get up that I could put very little weight on my ankle, and not bend it up towards me at all. I was fine on steps and flat, but slopes were a problem, which was unfortunate as we were on a mountain, and a good 40 minutes walk from the cabins. I hobbled back, and some of the kids were still going slower than me! This is the photo I took the instant before I fell.

We had lunch, but I had gone pale and felt sick, and my foot was swelling, so I was sent back to my cabin with ice and pillows and told to elevate it and rest. I was supposed to be leading an afternoon activity, but there was no way I could run around with the kids. They did a scavenger hunt in my time slot instead. The best part was just as we got back for lunch from the hike, I had a text from Will saying that Sister Egawa had asked if we were ok, and he had said we were all great, no emergencies, no dramas. He tempted fate, so I blame Will.

In the end I went to the hospital with Priya, nothing was broken but it was nasty - I was on crutches for a day or two and I am still seeing the physio and have painful lumps in odd places. I am supposed to rest it but there is so much to do!

The rest of the trip passed pretty much without incident. I couldn't walk around very well and the activity for the last day was a visit to a park of preserved Japanese houses of all different kinds - a bit like the Black Country Museum but Japanese. I sat on a bench by the entrance for three hours. I got a lot of knitting done, many sudoku puzzles and made a good start on a new book, so it wasn't a total loss! This was the only house I could see from where I sat. After that we drove home, and I had to hobble past all the kids from the other grades all asking me what I had done. They were all very sweet, helping with my bags and things. I couldn't help wondering how many of the kids at my last school would have done that and how many would have just pointed and laughed!