so, unless you have been living under a rock for the last week you know that the world is kind of falling in and on and apart in japan right now. north eastern japan to be specific. there was the huge earthquake followed by the huge tsunami. in the days that follwed there were hundreds of smaller earthquakes that shook the already unsteady ground up north and further destroyed things that were already unstable. avalanches, roads crumbling, houses/businesses/huge buildings falling prey to the earth shaking and enormous walls of water pounding against them, not to mention the nuclear reactors which are inducing fear here and abroad right now. i have seen more death and destruction here in the last few days than ever in my whole life. luckily, i have not had to witness one moment of it for real and have gotten all of my images via internet and tv news.
for those of you who check this still, if there are any, know that i am safe and seriously out of harms way as i sit here writing this. we have felt no earth shaking or had any destruction visit us here in nagasaki ken. i feel both lucky and overwhelmingly grateful to be where i am. i could have easily gotten another placement in this country and been up north where people who have my same position are still missing and unaccounted for.
i have a new found respect for life and this earth we tread so heavily on since the events of last friday here. life can change in an instant and when you come so close this sort of complete destruction happening all around you it makes one really step back and look at life again. how precious and even fleeting it can be. it gives one great inspiration to really live in the now and make sure you are loving, giving and sharing as one should. it has me doing a lot of celebrating life this week and i want to make sure that all of you who do keep up with me here know how much i do love you. you all are what has held me together here in moments that are strained here, you all are the people who make being alive today so wonderful for me.
please keep the people of japan in your thoughts and prayers. they will need your continued love and support to make it through this trying time. rebuilding efforts after devestation this extensive will go on for years to come and support through love and prayer will be needed throughout.
to those who are worried about me here, let me reassure you again that i am safe. if you need to check, look at a map of japan and look for hokaido, that is where the action was, then look for nagasaki, and then look to the left a bit off the coast and find the small chain of islands there and that is where i am, the goto islands. pretty much the safest place one could have possibly been when this happened. know also that should something change in the situation here that my job is not worth risking my life for and if i am in danger i will get somewhere safe before i am in an emergency situation.
okay, that is all for me for now. i have some beautiful weather outside to attend to and some living and loving to do.
sending huge, warm hugs to all of you today. love love love you each.
xoxoxo
beth
Friday, March 18, 2011
Thursday, March 10, 2011
more omiyagi
the details that go into these little cakes are just unreal. sorry these photos are not so wonderful as they were taken with my cell phone. but they measure about 1 inch square. sugoii!omiyagi
the beautiful box of tea candies i was given by the lunch lady at the elementary/jr high today. they are apparently really special tea cakes from kyoto and the very expensive kind. how lucky am i? it was a really random gift as i simply helped set up for a special lunch for the graduating jr high students today and the lunch lady's daughter happens to be one of those graduating students. im really not exactaly sure why she gifted me this ultra nice gift, but i do know that i am so grateful and happy to have gotten it anyhow. what a beautiful thing. ;)Tuesday, March 1, 2011
graduation!
high school graduation, a day most students spend their entire primary school time looking forward to, that is, unless you are a japanese high school student. the harsh realization that fun time is over has come and it is time to hunker down and get real with life. today was the end of that childhood for my kids and there were smiles and tears, though i saw more tears from students than smiles. mostly the teachers are smiling that they have successfully run another class of students through the wringer and gotten them out safely on the other side. hooray!
(i dont know why the pictures are doing this now. they were right side up when i uploaded them...darn it. sorry) anyway, this is tamaru kocho and she is one fantastic lady. one of two female kocho senseis in all of nagasaki ken. she will be leaving naru in a few weeks for another school (none of us know where yet, of course) and i will be so very sad to see her go. she can out do anyone around here and drink any man on this island under the table, ive seen it done. her kindness has really been a great blessing to me while i have been here. thank you tamaru kocho!and next we have mr. iriguchi. he is technically my supervisor, a.k.a. the person i am supposed to go to for whatever i need around here. but he is also in charge of the senior students and spends around 12-14 hours a day at school helping them. so whatever i need usually takes a back seat, though he has really helped me out on some funny occasions too. he is a good guy and has been a breeze to work with, mostly because he lets me do whatever i want when we teach high school classes together. i like that. :) cheers to iriguchi sensei in his finery today!
fancy stuff, eh?! what a wonderful woman to do that for me and to lend me her beautiful kimono for awhile. she took me around the school showing off how nice she made me look all the while telling everyone how easy it was to get me in it and how it fits me perfectly and how my figure is so "porportioned" and i should be a kimono model and on and on. this made me more than a little uncomfortable, but i smiled away anyhow and knew she had good intentions. these pictures were taken in the staffroom and what you can see here are the other six or ten teachers standing opposite us taking our pictures. i cant remember the last time i felt like i was in front of the papparazzi. oh only in japan.well thats it. ive changed back to my regular, boring suit clothes and now we are all getting ready to go celebrate the success of the day and the year. time to enkai! (that is japanese for eat and drink til you cant anymore, or something like that.) ;)
be well take care out there in this big world.
namaste
Saturday, February 26, 2011
oh my goodness...
well i have certainly not been a very loyal blogger have i? i am ashamed to say that i havent gotten much done on here in the last four months now...yikes. sorry to anyone (if there is anyone out there still!) who is checking this or hoping for some action. i didnt forget about this, but once some time had passed it seemed too much had happened to try and blog about it all, so i kept putting it off and putting it off...until today!
okay, where to start?! my last blog was in november last year, so happy new year and valentines day and presidents day and coming of age day and foundation day ect! i spent the loveliest of holidays finishing up 2010 in the incredible country of india. i went to volunteer in building some homes in a dailit village just north/east of chennai and then toured a bit of the country with my good friend Brittany, who lives on the next island over. we had an amazing, life changing time meeting new friends and learning so much about the world around us as we went. i know that india stole a bit of my heart and as overwhelming as it was in the start, after two weeks i had begun to stitch some of the indian ways and customs into my own and i know now i have to get back and explore some more. im so grateful to those of you out there that helped in funding our project to build homes. please know that those people expressed their gratitude and appreciation for your help every time they interacted with us. i will never forget the beautiful smiles of the chevuru people. (by the way this is a SUPER editied version of this trip. if any of you would like more details email me or buy me a beer when i get back. i could talk about this for days.)
so after ushering in the new year on a rooftop in gudivada with crazy indian fireworks, johnny walker and cake i came back to my island reality, naru.
winter in goto is not the hardest thing to do, not gunna lie. i suppose that after 25 nebraska winters though nothing short of the tundra is hard to deal with. this was the nicest winter of my life, even though they say that it was colder than last year. i didnt agree for some reason and found this winter to be really enjoyable. i say that it was enjoyable because technically japanese people believe that we are in spring already. they use the chinese lunar calender when it comes to seasons. spring a month early?, im fine with that!
temps dropped into the 40s around here and it actually did snow a few times, though it never stuck. perhaps the hardest thing about winter here is the fact that NONE of the buildings, including my apartment, have any insulation in them, so often they feel colder inside that it is outside. no one has central heat or air anywhere here either so the classrooms are really cold and the poor students just freeze to death during those cold months. poor things, they cant wear anything extra really that isnt their uniforms so the girls still have to wear their skirts and short socks and just sit in class saying "samui, samui, samui" over and over. (cold, cold, cold). it seriously prevents much from actually getting accomplished during those times and i think it would be in the japanese govts best interest to look into heating students classes during winter. but that is just me and what do i know...
okay, so february has been a big month of making new plans. i had to decide at the beginning of the month whether i would be staying again or not. i was pretty certain of my decesion before i left for india, but knew after i came back that i would for sure be leaving japan this year. i do love this place, but living on a little island with little or not refuge or real communication with people on a daily basis is kind of taking its toll on me and i think that leaving after two years is my best choice. i feel good about my choice, though every time i think about leaving this place just six short months from now i feel a bit sad about it. well, i knew i wouldnt be here forever, and change is inevitable, so change i must. i am doing my very best to enjoy my daily walks to school, the crazy beautiful sunsets, the hawks constantly overhead and my newly discovered like for running along the coast lines here. this little island is really magicl and i feel so lucky to have had the chance to discover it for the last year or so. i will do my best to keep discovering for awhile longer now!
so now february is nearly over here and i am gearing up for a change of staff and students (well, a few at least) in naru. the school year here ends in march and the high school kids will graduate on the 1st with the others finishing around the 23rd. they will then take a few weeks off and resume in april at some date yet to be decided. in those two weeks off a bunch of teachers here will be shuffled around. when you are a teacher in japan you work for the govt and they get to choose where you will work every year. usually they let a teacher stay in one place for 3-5 years and then give you a new assignment. you get little or no say in where this new place will be and when your order comes to move you go, no questions asked. if you dont go you can kiss your job or any chance of teaching in japan again goodbye, forever. so needless to say, during the month of march teachers around here are all pretty jumpy and anxious to hear if they need to start packing boxes or if they will stay on again. its hard to say whether people love their assignments in naru or hate them. if they are young and want to marry the pool to choose from gets teeny tiny here, well really almost non existant and so they have to figure some thing else out for a few years. if they have families many of the families will stay on the mainland to go to better schools and spouses can work. there is little or no work on this island if you arent a govt worker or a fisherperson. so, this time is quickly approaching and i am kind of looking forward to who may be here in the next month but kinda getting ready to miss some people that will almost surely be leaving this year too. its strange for me, but they are all used to this for sure. they all gasp when i tell them about teaching in america and how you can easily stay at the same teaching post for your entire career and teachers often do. just proves even further that they are all really always concerned about the great wa here. making sure they all suffer the same is keeping things fair i guess.
okay, so graduation is coming up and im going to try and snap some shots to share (gasp!) on here. i got a new camera from santa because he decided that my old one deserved to go to someone staying at one of the hotels where i stayed in india. i understand santa, you just wanted me to have a better one, right?! great.
oh and sakura matsuri is right around the corner too. that is the cherry blossom festivals around here and i am armed and ready this year!
hope any of you out there still getting this are all well and happy and enjoying the last of the frosty time in 2011. spring is on the way!
namaste
so after ushering in the new year on a rooftop in gudivada with crazy indian fireworks, johnny walker and cake i came back to my island reality, naru.
winter in goto is not the hardest thing to do, not gunna lie. i suppose that after 25 nebraska winters though nothing short of the tundra is hard to deal with. this was the nicest winter of my life, even though they say that it was colder than last year. i didnt agree for some reason and found this winter to be really enjoyable. i say that it was enjoyable because technically japanese people believe that we are in spring already. they use the chinese lunar calender when it comes to seasons. spring a month early?, im fine with that!
temps dropped into the 40s around here and it actually did snow a few times, though it never stuck. perhaps the hardest thing about winter here is the fact that NONE of the buildings, including my apartment, have any insulation in them, so often they feel colder inside that it is outside. no one has central heat or air anywhere here either so the classrooms are really cold and the poor students just freeze to death during those cold months. poor things, they cant wear anything extra really that isnt their uniforms so the girls still have to wear their skirts and short socks and just sit in class saying "samui, samui, samui" over and over. (cold, cold, cold). it seriously prevents much from actually getting accomplished during those times and i think it would be in the japanese govts best interest to look into heating students classes during winter. but that is just me and what do i know...
okay, so february has been a big month of making new plans. i had to decide at the beginning of the month whether i would be staying again or not. i was pretty certain of my decesion before i left for india, but knew after i came back that i would for sure be leaving japan this year. i do love this place, but living on a little island with little or not refuge or real communication with people on a daily basis is kind of taking its toll on me and i think that leaving after two years is my best choice. i feel good about my choice, though every time i think about leaving this place just six short months from now i feel a bit sad about it. well, i knew i wouldnt be here forever, and change is inevitable, so change i must. i am doing my very best to enjoy my daily walks to school, the crazy beautiful sunsets, the hawks constantly overhead and my newly discovered like for running along the coast lines here. this little island is really magicl and i feel so lucky to have had the chance to discover it for the last year or so. i will do my best to keep discovering for awhile longer now!
so now february is nearly over here and i am gearing up for a change of staff and students (well, a few at least) in naru. the school year here ends in march and the high school kids will graduate on the 1st with the others finishing around the 23rd. they will then take a few weeks off and resume in april at some date yet to be decided. in those two weeks off a bunch of teachers here will be shuffled around. when you are a teacher in japan you work for the govt and they get to choose where you will work every year. usually they let a teacher stay in one place for 3-5 years and then give you a new assignment. you get little or no say in where this new place will be and when your order comes to move you go, no questions asked. if you dont go you can kiss your job or any chance of teaching in japan again goodbye, forever. so needless to say, during the month of march teachers around here are all pretty jumpy and anxious to hear if they need to start packing boxes or if they will stay on again. its hard to say whether people love their assignments in naru or hate them. if they are young and want to marry the pool to choose from gets teeny tiny here, well really almost non existant and so they have to figure some thing else out for a few years. if they have families many of the families will stay on the mainland to go to better schools and spouses can work. there is little or no work on this island if you arent a govt worker or a fisherperson. so, this time is quickly approaching and i am kind of looking forward to who may be here in the next month but kinda getting ready to miss some people that will almost surely be leaving this year too. its strange for me, but they are all used to this for sure. they all gasp when i tell them about teaching in america and how you can easily stay at the same teaching post for your entire career and teachers often do. just proves even further that they are all really always concerned about the great wa here. making sure they all suffer the same is keeping things fair i guess.
okay, so graduation is coming up and im going to try and snap some shots to share (gasp!) on here. i got a new camera from santa because he decided that my old one deserved to go to someone staying at one of the hotels where i stayed in india. i understand santa, you just wanted me to have a better one, right?! great.
oh and sakura matsuri is right around the corner too. that is the cherry blossom festivals around here and i am armed and ready this year!
hope any of you out there still getting this are all well and happy and enjoying the last of the frosty time in 2011. spring is on the way!
namaste
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Part 2: Okinawa, Iriomote Island
so to catch you and I both up, i am finishing off the photos here from when i visited okinawa awhile back with my friends from Goto (the islands where I live.) we left off in the beautiful garden in Naha, on the main island.
Naha is quite a touristy place and so there is a the gammet of people bouncing around the city and quite an array of things to see and do as well. none of the folks i traveled with or i really call that kind of city our cup of tea when it comes to traveling, but we had to spend a day there in order to move onto the next island so we made the most of it!
a glorious little shop selling every kind of okinawan souvineir you could want. this is japanese pink explosion.
just your average liquor store in okinawa...
unless you count the fact that they are selling barrels of snake shou chou. thats right folks, a real snake inside the most obnoxious liquor that you have ever tried. this is a big seller here and the popular thing to drink if you are in okinawa and looking for a real traditional experience. i am happy to say that i avoided it entirely. it is really expensive (about 100 or so US dollars for a jug of this) and it has a dead snake in it. oh, and my dad always told me to stay away from snake oil. thanks dad.
main tourist street in Naha. touristy, eh?
another wall of snake spirits in another liquor store.
and here is a double rainbow welcoming us to iromote island. this was the beginning of a lot of beautiful things to come.
iriomote island main harbor. was really fantastic, but really made me think of how lucky i am to live in goto, where life is strangely similar to this.
the manegrove forest in iriomote that visitors frequent. you can ride a ways back into it and then hike up to this gorgeous waterfall. most people were not prepared for the hike and it was hilarious to see them hiking out in high heels and such.
this is the water past the falls...on our way there.
the falls look tiny in this picture, but when we finally got to them they were fantastical!
there are gaijin swimming in that water there!!!! lets get in and freak out all of the japanese people!
Naha is quite a touristy place and so there is a the gammet of people bouncing around the city and quite an array of things to see and do as well. none of the folks i traveled with or i really call that kind of city our cup of tea when it comes to traveling, but we had to spend a day there in order to move onto the next island so we made the most of it!
a glorious little shop selling every kind of okinawan souvineir you could want. this is japanese pink explosion. 
just your average liquor store in okinawa...
main tourist street in Naha. touristy, eh?
another wall of snake spirits in another liquor store.here we have one excellent example of japanese weirdness. this is my friend brittany beside an ad for chocolate in the ishigaki airport. right?!?
and here is a double rainbow welcoming us to iromote island. this was the beginning of a lot of beautiful things to come.
iriomote island main harbor. was really fantastic, but really made me think of how lucky i am to live in goto, where life is strangely similar to this.
the manegrove forest in iriomote that visitors frequent. you can ride a ways back into it and then hike up to this gorgeous waterfall. most people were not prepared for the hike and it was hilarious to see them hiking out in high heels and such. 
this is the water past the falls...on our way there.one of the small falls on the way to the main event!
the falls look tiny in this picture, but when we finally got to them they were fantastical! some kanjis past visitors have carved into the stones you must climb over in order to get to the falls.
this is me and robin chan.
there are gaijin swimming in that water there!!!! lets get in and freak out all of the japanese people!okay...more in the next post!
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