Wow! It’s already been over a week since I last wrote! That’s
crazy! This last week has just been school. It was actually the first full week
of school since it started for the fall. That’s kind of weird to think about. Japan
has a TON of holidays and schools have to close on those days. I’ve been a
little surprised about school here in Japan. It’s so erratic when it occurs.
There are many four day weeks and then you’ll have school on a random Saturday
for only half a day. My high school seems very big on half days. It seems that
a half day is sufficient enough for them to call it a full day. The day before
testing is a half day so the students can have more time to study. It’s very
different from the US where we do a lot of our studying in the classroom.
During the week before testing and the week of, clubs are not allowed to meet,
so very few students hang around after school. That’s another difference
between Nagano High School and Northfield High School. When there is testing at
Northfield, clubs happen as scheduled, but it means you have to find time to
study later in the day.
Anyway, this weekend was pretty awesome. Friday was Annika
(My girlfriend) and my fourth year anniversary, so I got to Skype her in
Ireland. She is there WWOOFing (World Wide Organization of Organic Farmers) on
a small farm near the western coast. It was super fun to talk with her!
On Saturday, Mama Akane and I went to the Kawachinagano
English Festival held at the library. It was really cool! The festival is a
competition between elementary schools, junior high schools, and high schools
to see who can come up with the best presentation on something of their choice
in English.
We were only able to stay for about an hour, so we heard the
elementary school students performing. It was very impressive! Here’s one of
the skits done by them. It was about how to be more environmentally conscious.
In the clip, the two kids on the left want their “mom” to drive them to the
store so they can buy a new video game.
There were also singing performances by middle school
groups. Here is “It’s a Small World”. You can tell that the students like the
repeating section more than the other parts by their volume.
They also sang John Denver’s “Country Roads”. It was very impressive
that they had memorized all of it!
Later in the day, two of my classmates were giving a
presentation on social networking. I had recorded myself saying they’re parts
so they could hear a native English speaker saying it. I’m not sure if they won
or not, but I hope it went well!
After seeing the English festival, Mama Akane and I walked
to a concert hall called Novalty Hall to hear the Osaka Symphony Orchestra have
an open rehearsal. It was splendid! There were only string players there and
they played part of a Mozart piece that included Ein Klein Nautmusik (Maybe I
spelled that right?) They were later joined by a bassoon soloist who was absolutely
incredible! She played so smoothly it sounded like a slide whistle except five
octaves lower. My favorite part was when she was playing a melody in a high
register, but in between notes she would bounce down and play a couple low
notes. It was a very impressive show!
On Sunday, my host grandpa and I did a huge hike. We left
the house at six in the morning two do part of what is called the ダイヤモンドトレル or Diamond Trail.
It is a very long trail that
starts near Takihata (the small town I am living in) and follows the border of
Osaka Prefecture to the east and north. We started on the trail around 6:30 and
climbed to the top of Mount Iwawaki, the tallest mountain in the Nagano area
(897 m/2,943 ft) (Nagano is a southern area of Osaka Prefecture). The Susuki
grass on top is now brown and beautiful. The view was incredible and the
mountains were absolutely gorgeous!
We didn’t stay long because we had a long
way to go. Much of the day was spent going up and down along the ridge that
marks the edge of Osaka. We had amazing views of both Wakayama Prefecture to
the south and Nara Prefecture to the east.
We had bento lunch a little before
half way as well as a bunch of onigiri. Yum! We saw many people on the trail.
Some were doing smaller hikes and some were out running the trail. Almost
everyone that we ran into stopped and talked to us. They were all so friendly!
At one point, we rain into a man who had been to Minnesota before and new about
all the lakes! He even knew that the Mississippi started there! That was really
cool.
The day was really hot and we eventually ran out of water an
tea. That wasn’t the greatest, but we only had about an hour and a half left,
so we survived. Our end point was Mount Kongō, the tallest mountain in Osaka
Prefecture (1,125 m/3,691 ft). It took us nine hours to get there, but it was
so worth it! It was very rewarding to site at the top and eat soft-serve ice
cream. There is a road that goes all the way to the top of the mountain, so
there are a bunch of buildings at the top. We actually had to walk another
kilometer to get to the top of the mountain because it has some flat(ish) area
on top of it. We went to what we though was the top and then turned back.
It
was actually the second highest peak. The highest was down the road another
half a kilometer. There is also a shrine there. That would have been cool to
see, so I think I will have to make a second trip there! The view from the
observation deck was incredible! We could see Mount Iwawaki, but it was hard
because of the afternoon haze. We walked down to the gondola that goes down the
mountain and went down. That was rather humbling to go down that fast without
any effort after spending nine hours fighting to gain just a couple meters. We
also went a total of about 25 km/16 Miles of ups and downs and more stairs than
there are in the Empire State Building.
We caught the bus back the Kawachinagano Station and then
walked to a sumi restaurant. Sumi is Japanese barbecue over an open fire with
shish kebabs. We met Obaasan, Mama Akane, Mitsuki, Nanako, and Yoshino there.
It was delicious! We had fish, beef, pork, onion, and cheese kebabs. I also had
a rice and chicken dish that was super amazing. The head chef was really friendly
and he and Gigi talked the whole time. It turned out that he had down a
homestay in Las Vegas when he was a teenager. He had very good English! This meal
was one of the happiest moments I have had so far. Eating at an amazing
restaurant with family after an amazing day and having great conversations with
strangers was so much fun.
It turned out that Sunday night was the practice for the
Kawachinagano Danjiri Matsuri festival next weekend, so as we walked back to
the family store, we passed several carts being hauled down the street with
much enthusiasm. It was really awesome to see them at night. They were all lit
up and pulled but people of all ages! I’m very excited to watch it next
Saturday and Sunday!
This week, I only have school on Monday because of testing,
so I will most likely have another update before the week is done.
Today I’m going to be getting a library card so I check out
whatever I want. Yay! It’s amazing what a small liberty can mean. I will have a
whole new world opened up to me!
Oh yeah, I noticed that comments were only allowed if you
had a Google account. I changed some settings around, so feel free to comment without
the hassle of making an account now!
またね！
Wes
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