新古 (Old and New)

While waiting impatiently for my colleagues to stop procrastinating and send me some photos that I wanted to post, I realized that I couldn't call them on it if I was using them to procrastinate myself. So, here's a post.

I'm finally plateauing. With the 2 month mark being today, my consciousness has come to the realization that I'm going to be here "for a while". I can't just suck it up, I have to change - and that's something I've been waiting for this whole time. That's the idea: force change, and reap the benefits. If you're confused at my way of handling "homesickness" as some call it, bear in mind that I am an exceedingly tolerant person and thus actually changing me, my core, is a difficult task; I have to force the crowbar in and do it manually.

This sort of thinking is usually triggered by an event - you're right! In fact, I will be switching host families on the 1st of December, which is in 3 days. It's a shame that I have to leave my current family behind, as they've been more than accommodating and incredibly helpful up to this point, but I should just be happy that I was able to spend 2 months with them. This movement - involving me repacking everything, taking inventory, and reestablishing myself - put me in the mindset of changing environments. I keep feeling like I should say goodbye to everyone at school and start wrapping things up, but really nothing is changing other than my home life. It feels like the end of a chapter, but it's really only another paragraph.

December will be a somewhat wild month for me. We are planning on travelling on every weekend at this point including to Nagano, about which I'm very interested; I will encounter at least two friends from Vancouver, Alecks N. and Julian D.; we will be riding the Shinkansen for the first time (on the school's bill) as we make a 3-day trip to various places including Hiroshima (where I will meet up with another Japanese friend from Vancouver) and Miyajima; and we will be spending over a week in Tokyo over New Years eating, seeing, spending, playing, and doing as much as we can.

So yes, while part of me misses Vancouver and the lifestyle I had there, it's the weak part of me - the part of me that would love to spend my life not sleeping and playing video games. The other part of me, which I suppose should be dubbed the strong part, is who was present inside me as I spent the morning today striking the helmet of my opponent with a bamboo sword and shouting "MENNNNNNnnnn..."


Places I've been to recently:
- Korankei Gorge, Toyota

As autumn hits, all the trees in this mountainous area change colours into dramatic reds, oranges, and yellows. There are many lamps set up to amplify the effect at night. When we went, it was raining, but absolutely gorgeous.

 

  

 

- Iga, Mie prefecture

Iga is known for (and certainly proud of) having a particularly skilled faction of ninja arise back in the samurai era. The streets of the city are covered in ninja-related images and characters, and even the trains had (were?!) ninjas. I learned more than I ever wanted to know about them, saw a weapons show, and saw a real kunoichi slip into a hidden wall (see the last photo - girl in pink).

 

 - Ise-shi, Ise Grand Shrine

One of the most famous Shinto shrines in Japan, dedicated to Amaterasu, the sun goddess. We went just for the sake of visiting the shrines, but were greeted with amazing scenery with some of the most beautiful autumn leaves I've seen yet, completely exposed nature in the form of animals as well as trees, and natural yet humbling shrines flooded with people.

 

Random things that happened:
- I saw an old guy on a train with a fake hand, but then he dropped his fake hand and he actually had a normal hand under it.
- I finally went 1-on-1 with the badminton sensei for reals, and he dropped me like stone. He has such finess, it hurts. He didn't even smash a single time.
- After completely discolouring both knees due to bruises from reckless badminton/volleyball dives, I went to a restaurant where I had to kneel. ...
- We foolishly tried to finish the Unbelievable.

- I ate movie theatre food (which happened to be a churro!).
- We went bowling and I attempted to get a turkey for American Thanksgiving on the 10th round, but instead I got two strikes followed by a single pin.
- In one of the bowling rounds, I struck down nine pins with a poor shot (domino effect) and one of the pins flew into the gutter so that it couldn't be pulled away by the machine. Instead of waiting and calling over an attendant, I just threw my second ball as I was fairly certain I was going to miss (I am particularly horrendous at bowling). The ball guttered almost immediately (which actually doesn't happen often - I miss, but don't gutter), struck the pin in the gutter, leaped out of the gutter and knocked down the final pin to give me a spare. Even the staff thought it was a nice shot.

終わり