I Still Call Australia Home

I've never really bought much into patriotism, but it's been over a year since I've set foot on Aussie soil and truthfully that's just far too long.  At the beginning I was glad to be away and saw living in Japan as the adventure of a lifetime.  This transitioned into dearly missing home and idealising my Australian life.  Recently, I began to fear heading back for the first time - worried that I had changed too much over the course of this year and that I wouldn't fit in anymore or be able to connect with my own culture.  But today, finally, I am excited about going home.  It appears that some part of me, at least, identifies herself as a true blue Aussie.

And so as I make my journey home, I feel compelled to write a list of the top ten things I'm looking forward to about being back.  In no particular order they are:

1.  Being able to communicate freely and effectively - in restaurants, in cabs, with sales staff etc.

2.  Hugging my friends and family again for the first time.

3.  Eating a meat pie (or five)!

4.  Going grocery shopping and knowing exactly what everything is and where to find it.

5.  Thinking in AUD.

6.  Australian beer and decent wine!

7.  Watching (and understanding) TV.

8.  Not being stared at as I walk down the street.

9.  Playing with my nephews.

10. Spending time with people that I truly love and who care about me.

Sleepless Nights, Summer Days and a School Festival

Finding myself unable to sleep lately, I seem to have developed a late-night TV habit and recently acquired all number of random English-language television series to help me while away the hours.  Though happy as I am as a night-owl (I've always been more comfortable in the dark of night) I find it's really starting to take it's toll on the long summer (well, technically now autumn) days at school...

After a long, hot summer of relative ease (work-wise, certainly not in my personal life!) school is back in session and the days seem longer than ever.  Unlike the laid-back school schedule of summer "vacation" - getting to work at 9am, taking hour+ long lunches and finishing at 3 - these days things are a little more hectic.  Granted, currently I'm only teaching 10 or so classes a week and using the rest of my time to research holidays, play WWF or update this blog but having to get up at 7am to be at school for 8am is a bit of a shock to the system.  Most nights I'll be lucky to bed down before 1am and waking up every hour on the hour with bizarre dreams doesn't exactly make for a restful sleep.  Imaginably, staying at school long past my 4pm finish time (courtesy of a looming English speech competition and the preparatory rehearsal schedule for my two participating students) makes me cringe and cry out for another impossibly strong coffee!  Lately, in an attempt to take my mind off things, I've also been planning eventful evenings during the week.  Whether it's Tuesday night Japanese lessons or Friday night yoga, Wednesday night skype sessions or Thursday night dinners, I'm finding it both good (a welcome distraction) and bad (incredibly draining) to be so busy.

So you can imagine my sigh when I realised that the first week back at school would be for six straight days and that I'd have to work the Saturday for my school's annual Culture Festival (bunkasai)...

A school festival in Japan is like nothing I've ever seen in Australia before.  Part talent show part fete, everyone puts in weeks of preparation to make sure everything runs smoothly on the day (including running a full-length, timed rehearsal of events the afternoon beforehand).  Each class is expected to put on a performance of some kind (with most choosing to present a choreographed J-pop number) as well as run some kind of stall across lunchtime.  Some classes chose to sell karaage (deep fried chicken pieces) and soft drinks; others sold American-style hotdogs on sticks; one class was flogging gelato ice-cream and Yakult drinks; while another set up a PlayStation on dual flatscreen TVs and charged you per race to smash your friend at Gran Turismo.

Truthfully, most of the performances - which ran for around 4 hours - were a little dull for me though.  It's hard to get into a comedy act when you can't understand what's being said or appreciate the humour in a cross-dressing twisted rendition of an AKB48 song that you've never heard before.  That's not to say that my students aren't talented however - a few of them presented speeches in both Japanese and English, others played instruments on stage and the school's brass band even performed an extended set!

Rows of JHS Grade 1 students watching the Grade 2 class perform a traditional Japanese folk song.

But it was the lunchtime buzz that made getting out of bed at 6am on a Saturday worthwhile.  Wandering around the halls, toting my camera and getting the kids to pose for all number of ridiculous photographs put a smile on my face.  Watching the students get their stalls set up or packed away and eating my fill of junk food made for a good day overall.  As did running into countless number of my elementary school students (visiting Awa JHS with their parents for the day) and hearing the excited shrieks of "Naomi-sensei" whenever they spotted me.  Adorable.

Overall, I'm glad it's over and happy to be spending this replacement day off at home, in bed, watching my TV shows in my underpants.  Though I have to say that I am a little sad that this will be the last school festival that I will get to experience in Japan.  It's about as far from being a regular school day as possible and seeing the grounds come alive with smiling teachers and students really makes for a marked change to the norm.  I think I'll miss these school festival days, even if I won't miss getting up at ridiculous o'clock on a weekend to attend them!

Anabuki River Party

Desperately needing time away from reality last week, I arranged to meet up with my friend Kristin and the Kagawa crew (Kagawa is the prefecture next to Tokushima) at a river party in nearby Anabuki over the weekend.  The Anabuki River is one of those pristine water sources that you dream about swimming in - a smooth river rockbed and clear, crisp shallow waters to frolic in.  And frolic we did...

The Anabuki River is famous with locals and families for camping and swimming.  In summer it can get quite busy there during the days as people come to bathe, play, swim 'laps' or cook BBQs.  On Saturday afternoon, despite a wild weather warning in place, 20 of us met up at the Fureai Hiroba Park by the river to get our camp on.  At first the weather was so bad and the rain so heavy that as we huddled together under the small shaded area talk focussed around the possibility of having an impromptu apartment party instead.  After about an hour or so though, the dark clouds passed and the rain eventually slowed to a halt and those attendees that had been on the fence, at their homes awaiting news, were called down to play.  We unpacked cars, set up tents, collected firewood, went food shopping, went swimming and finally cracked our drinks...

Swimming in the Anabuki River - image courtesy of Kristin S.

As the sun was setting, the BBQs were set up and the campfire was lit.  The smell of charcoaling meat wafted along the riverbed as groups of people sat talking and chilling to whoever's playlist happened to be pumping through the speakers at that point.  A dozen or so gathered in a congo line around the campfire to perform the "moon dance" to a Lion King track, while the rest of us watched and poured ourselves another drink.  Soon after, a group of Japanese musos came down (one of the Tokushima JETs, Greg, had befriended them up by the tents and led them down to the beach area to entertain us) and began playing their instruments.  The crowd gathered around them and soon we lost ourselves, listening to the beat of the drums in the darkness.  Once the boys had finished jamming, fireworks were passed around and the next half hour passed in a haze of smoke and sparklers.

You can't see anything in the darkness, but the sounds of the impromptu drum concert come out fairly clear in this vid...

Despite the late hour, some brave folks decided to go swimming again and I tentatively joined them on the edge of the freezing waters.  One of the new Kagawa JETs, Saad, had other ideas and promptly crash tackled me into neck deep water until I was shivering and ruing my decision to swim.  Luckily the campfire had been taken of all night and the swimmers huddled around the fire trying to dry off and get warm.  Photos were taken, marshmallows were passed around and more laid-back beach-vibe beats were hooked up to the stereo.  As midnight approached, people slowly started making their way to higher ground, seeking out their tents and the warmth of bed.  By 1am there were only a handful of us left awake - staring into the campfire and letting the conversation meander as it pleased.  The next few hours saw us down countless drinks, sing along to some awesome music and watch the boys go collecting firewood while us girls went for a sneaky skinny-dip under the light of the full moon.  By 3.30am I was ready for bed though and it was then that I finally staggered up to the tent section to pass out on my futon.

Folks started waking up around 8am and as many of them had to get back to Kagawa in time for the annual English Speech Competition at midday, they began packing up their tents.  The weather was full-blown glorious by this stage and as I watched them folding their tents the temperature in my own began to skyrocket.  Soon, it was more than my hungover little head could bear and so I followed everyone down to the beach for some more swimming.  Throwing the  frisbee and nerf ball around in the cold water helped the hangover a little, so Colin and I decided to fire up the BBQ again and get our breakfast on.  This time we'd remembered to pack a frying pan (and therefore didn't need to cook our eggs in the torn off bottoms of Asahi beer cans ala Beach Party last weekend) and got to cooking the bacon, eggs and toast that we'd had the foresight to bring along.  I'm not sure whether the bacon and egg sandwich really helped my cause though, for shortly after I was ready for a nap and happily crawled into the "bang van" alongside Sarah for some sunshine dozing in the breeze.

Dozing in the "bang van" the day after - image courtesy of Ayumi A.

At about midday we were ready to call it a success, so Greg and I began packing the car to head home.  We said our goodbyes to the cool Kagawa crew, promising to catch up again soon and headed off in the direction of Maccas for a greasy pick-me-up before crawling into bed for the afternoon.  All in all, it was an amazing weekend spent with some really chilled out, no bullshit kinda people.  It was lovely to relax and let my guard down and just be myself and have fun for a day or two.  I'm definitely looking forward to the next catch up with Kristin, Sarah and crew!