Catchup - Japan 20 April 2023

 I've been at school four days now and it seems like much longer as we have been kept pretty busy. I travelled up north on the shinkansen bullet train on Sunday without any issues. I put all the heavy fabric purchases into my little rolling suitcase, and piled two folding bags of clothes and stuff on top, and managed to negotiate it through the subway system to Tokyo station to catch the shinkansen. Thank goodness for elevators. 

We were met at the station and taken to the shared house where I am living with five other women and two junior teachers. It's a pretty roomy house, a bit basic. It reminds me of living in a youth hostel or maybe a dated college dorm. I paid for my own room and requested a western style bed. Several of the other rooms have  tatami floors and people are sleeping on futon. I've tried that before and it kills my back. Plus you can't have any liquids in the tatami rooms as they are easily damaged.

 It was bitterly cold when we got here, almost down to freezing. There is no central heating so the house was basically the same temperature as outside.  There are kerosene heaters in the dining room and kitchen, and in each bedroom.  You aren't supposed to run them for very long, no more than an hour, and they are very smelly.  The Japanese method is to only heat a room that people are in, and bedrooms only when you go to bed and get up in the morning.  So the first few nights were a bit like caravanning: I was sleeping in a sweatshirt and hat to stay warm. Thankfully it has now warmed up and was 22 degrees today, but down to 13 again tomorrow, it's incredibly variable here amongst the mountains.

We have classes in the morning for three hours with breaks every hour. I'm in the intermediate class but I would say the level is more advanced beginner as there are a variety of abilities in the class. It's a good reminder of basics that I learned five years ago and have since forgotten, plus lots of new vocab and a bit of grammar. My class is taught almost entirely in Japanese, sometimes I don't understand and I have to ask a classmate, but most of it is ok. We have bento for lunch, then usually in the afternoon there is an activity.  On Tuesday we went to Hirosaki castle to see the cherry blossom festival which was lovely.  Still lots of blossom here in the north although it is starting to go over, and the Hirosaki festival is quite large so there were quite a few street food stalls and market stalls. I took about 100 pictures of cherry blossom, here are a few:

Today's activity was to wear kimono for a few hours. About 8 of us did it, mostly the younger girls, who looked like colourful flowers as they wandered through the nearby park where there was still some fading cherry blossom. Lots of Japanese people were stopping to take their picture even. We wore our own shoes, which wasn't as stylish as tabi socks and sandals but a lot easier to walk in.  This is me perusing the shops at the 7-11 convenience store on the way back to the shop. This was my second time in kimono this trip - I also wore it last Saturday in Tokyo. I met up with a Japanese lady I have chatted to on the internet, and she wanted to book a kimono experience. She said that it would be a treat for her also as she doesn't normally get to wear it since it is so complicated to put on by yourself. Unfortunately that day it was raining heavily all day and fairly cold at around 13 degrees, so I found it very cold in just a kimono. I wore it for a few hours while we went to lunch and then humbly requested to put my warm ugly clothes back on. She didn't mind, and she wore hers the whole afternoon - made of sterner stuff obviously.

After kimono, we visited a giant superstore, a bit like a Walmart, which sold absolutely everything including a bit of fabric (yes I bought a little more) and cute stationery like post it notes that look like cat paws (got some) and even a bit of plastic dollshouse stuff.

I'm here for four weeks, and my first week is almost over.  It's not really an immersion experience since all the students are speaking English to each other and it's difficult to meet the locals who of course are just going about their normal lives.  But on Saturday we are having a picnic with some locals so hopefully might get to try out my Japanese then.