Sports Day at USTS and Exam Week

Well, this week is exam week at 2 of my schools. That means that I only have 1 class to teach at the all boy’s school on Thursday and the rest of the week I sit at my desk and do pretty much nothing. Oh! Sidenote: I was handed my re-contracting papers today. Wow, that’s pretty early. For now, I will set them aside until the February Deadline. Anyway, I was off Monday because it was one of two scheduled “no working” days that I get in October. If there are more than 20 working days in a month, then I get them off… why?... because it says so in my contract. It doesn’t occur all that often though. There are 2 this month and then I think there’s one in April and two next June. Some people get to choose when theirs are, but mine have been scheduled in. I took the day to get some important things done though. Let’s see… I went to some city hall type of building to FINALLY pick up my foreigner card. I registered for it THE DAY I arrived in Ube – before I even got to my apartment. I was supposed to pick it up at the beginning of September, but I haven’t had time to… because when the building is open, I’m at work. I thought maybe they’d say something like “why didn’t you get this a month ago when you were supposed to”… but they didn’t. The woman just handed it to me and smiled.

After that I was on my way to Shimonoseki – the largest city in Yamaguchi (about 45 minutes away by train). I went there because I needed to get a re-entry permit in my passport and my options were either Shimonoseki or Tokuyama. Shimonoseki was closer, so I went there. Ube has a place where I can get this re-entry permit, but they're only open 2 days out of the month – both of which were days I have to work. Basically, a re-entry permit is needed if I plan on leaving the country and then returning. If I didn’t have it and then left the country then my visa would become void and everything would be a mess. So I purchased the MULTIPLE re-entry permit for 6,000 yen instead of the 3,000 yen single entry permit. Which means I am now even more determined to leave the country and return more than once… gotta get my money’s worth! Right?! When I got to Shimonoseki I hopped in a cab (after a stop in KFC of course) and just handed the driver the address. I wasn’t about to find this place on my own – especially with no map. It was actually pretty far away… but the cab driver talked to me the ENTIRE way and was a rather friendly man. I had an entire conversation with him in Japanese… I impressed myself.

After the 10 minutes it took to actually fill out the form and have a woman put a sticker in my passport I decided to walk around. I made my way over to the famous bridge that connects Honshu (Japan’s main island) to Kyushu. (Shimonoseki is on the southernmost tip of Honshu). I’m always surprised how short the bridge is and how close the two islands are to one another. I took these picture standing on Honshu – no zoom. They’re really that close together. Crazy! Shimonoseki is a very important city in terms of trade. It’s got a HUGE port. It’s really pretty down there too. There was actually a naval battle there back in 1863 involving the US Navy. If you’re interested you can read more about it here.

Anyway, before my little excursion to Shimonoseki on Monday: I had a pretty good weekend in Ube – consisting of karaoke, beer, and restaurants. I also went shopping at this place called Uniqlo for warmer winter work clothes… and also bought a new bag : ) Check out this car I saw in a parking lot... only in Japan...

Saturday morning I went over to Ube Technical High School (the all boys school I go to every Thursday) to watch their sports day. It was a lot of fun and I was seriously given the best spectator seat. There was an area set up front and center for important people to sit in the shade and watch and drink tea – this is where they put me. I sat next to the principle the entire time. I didn’t realize at first that he was the principle… but around noon I realized that’s who it was. He’s really friendly and talked to me all day. Here are some pictures from the day:

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

And now, to end this incredibly long post, I have a story about what it’s like whenever I leave my apartment:

I live near 3 very large grocery stores. The closest one to me is this one called Maruki. While it's close, I ALWAYS feel so uncomfortable in there. Maybe it's just the people who go there? I don't know. In my quest to stock up on Peach Fanta, I got stared down by a little girl there yesterday. At first it was cute, but then it was just kinda creepy. Once, this old woman walked up to me, looked at me, and got all startled and screamed. I'm serious. I thought she was going to have a heart-attack. It was awkward. Whenever I walk into Maruki, there are at least 5 people who make that stupid noise Japanese people make when they're surprised. As soon as I leave my apartment, somebody is looking at me. If I pick a wedgy, somebody will see it. If I trip over nothing (which I often do), somebody will see it. I've begun to get used to this... but it's still kinda weird.

On a somewhat relevant note: everytime I leave my apartment, I run into students. Seriously. Teaching at 3 schools means I have A LOT of students and they are always out and about. I hear my name from every direction. They get really excited when they see me outside of school... ok, well actually, they get really excited when they see me AT school. It's kinda nice.