One of the few structures near the epicenter of the blast to remain standing, The Atomic Dome is now a national landmark and one of the most visible reminders of the devestation caused by the atomic blast.
Yesterday marked my one year anniversary since I came to Japan. My supervisor for my whole first year was a great guy named Utani-san. He got a new job last week with another division of the Government office in Izumo City, so he packed up his desk on Wednesday and that night we had a farewell party for him.
It's not like I'll never see him again - Izumo City now technically is in charge of Taisha too, since the two cities merged last April, but I will miss having him as my supervisor. He only spoke a little English, but he tried really hard and was an immense help this time last year when I was fresh off the plane from Tokyo.
And he's a cool guy - young and energetic and always trying to be helpful. He got married at IzumoTaisha shrine last October, but he still likes to go out and have a drink and sing karaoke.
He now works in an office I'll go to occasionally when I'm over in Izumo, so I'll see him from time to time. He wanted me to make tacos for him and his wife, so hopefully I'll still get a chance to do that.
My new supervisor is a very nice woman named Hirosawa-san, but she speaks even less English than Utani-san, so I'm guessing most of our conversations will be in Japanese.
The farewell party was a small gathering of about 8 people from just the Taisha office all crammed into a very small, 10x5 room where we sat on the floor and drank and ate for about 3 hours. My biggest problem with these small spaces parties is that almost everyone at the party smoked, so by the end of the night the cigarette smoke was really getting to me.
For the nijikai - 2nd party or after party - we all trundled off to a local bar that has karaoke. After having spent 3 hours barely speaking (since no one at the party really speaks English) I wasn't too enthusiastic about spending even more time with the same group as they continued to drink. But karaoke has a strange way of breaking down barriers and it wasn't long before I was singing Simon & Garfunkel duets in English with my BoE boss and changing the words of Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Goode" to "Utani be good" and serenading the bar owner with my throaty rendition of Sinatra's "New York, New York."
So we said our goodbyes to Utani san, but no one was too sad as we all know we'll still see him.
As for being here a year already - it's a cliche, but the time has gone by really fast. Not ALL of the time, but most of it. I am looking forward to another year, cuz this time I'll know what to expect 70% of the time when they tell me this event or that event is coming up.
Worked out with the kendo team today for the first time in about a month - so I know I'm gonna be sore tomorrow. But I have to get up early tomorrow even tho it's Saturday to attend a practice kendo match between my JH and two other Izumo JHs. After that we're gonna have a BBQ lunch - so that should be fun as long as it doesn't rain, which it has been doing all day today. Makes it a little less hot, but also makes it really humid. Lukcily my BoE, where I'm typing this, has Air Con, so I'll be relatively comfortable at work for the month of August before I return to my schools in September.
-Jason
"I want to wake up in a city that never sleeps..."
Last Sunday, the 24th, four of us from Izumo set out by train to the town of Taki, which has a really nice beach. Taki is easy to spot as you drive along the Shimane coast because of the distinctive windmills that dominate the local skyline.
Here is Satoko, Rusty, and Mark fresh from a swim. We arrived around 2pm, but had to leave at 4pm so we could get home in time to see the final bouts in the Nagoya sumo tournament (Our Boy, Asashoryu, won again!).
It was a fun day, and the beach is really nice. It's only about 20 minutes away by train, which costs about $6 for a roundtrip ticket.
This was the first Sunday after the start of summer vacation for school kids across Japan, so it was crowded with families and young people, but not near as crowded as the beaches can get back home in San Diego, California.
I got a little sun and relaxed a bit, so it was a good day and I'm sure we'll all go again soon.
Here is Rusty floating in the calm and very warm waters of the Japan Sea, off the coast of Shimane ken.
There are no waves to speak of at this beach, so most of the Japanese bathers had inflatable rafts or inner tubes to lazily float around on.
While I enjoy the waves at the beaches in San Diego, the water here was so warm you could go right in without hesitation. And there was a nice breeze blowing all afternoon that kept it from getting too hot.
Here is our friend, and fellow Izumo ALT, Mark "The Don" DeFusco in a particularly Zen moment. Mark managed to make it all the way out to the concrete pylons in the background with Rusty, despite not being the world's best swimmer. It didn't hurt that he could touch bottom almost the whole way out there.
Finally, here is one of me and a group of young Japanese guys that kind of adopted our little group and hung out with us that afternoon. I think they were initially attracted by the music I was playing on the portable CD player I brought along.
(Digression: I don't think Japanese people play their own music out loud in public places too much, as I was the only person on the beach with music playing that I saw. And I have to stop calling my portable CD player a "Boom Box" or "Jam Box" - i get snickers of derision from the younglings I hang out with every time I do)
We chatted a little, and at one point they decided to bury their friend in the sand and provide him with anatomically correct sand genetalia - slightly amusing in a frat boy sort of way. I was taking pics of the ocean, when the guy with the orange hair asked me to take a picture, so I snapped one of his group - but he meant for us to take one together - so they got behind me and I extended my arm and snapped this pic. Don't think they'll ever see it, but maybe he sensed that I would show it to other people and therefore spread this image of his visage far and wide.
I did give him my business card with my email and told him he could email me and I would send him the pic - to which he replied "Fuck You." He meant to say "Thank You", but got confused - he was peppering his little bit of English all afternoon with Fuck and Shit, I guess trying to impress me with his command of American slang.
I'm wearing my back-up sunglasses here and my Spider-Man movie hat, which fell in the water and got soaked. And my Superman t-shirt - i was a walking advertisement for American comics. :)
My digital camera has one annoying feature - it takes about a second after you hit the button for the camera to actually take the picture. I always seem to miss the precise moment I want to capture. But here is one example of getting it just right... This young boy at Taisha Elementary turned to look and his glasses were perfect - a future CPA perhaps??
I'll post a few random pics of my kids here just for fun - I'll miss seeing them everyday now that it is summer vacation.
L to R: Sayako, Masako, Yuki, Marina, Chikako
My Band Girls ROCK!
