A suitcase stuffed with groceries

There I was, lying ever so awkwardly on my ziggurat of sofa cushions, provided by the good people of Haneda airport, struck down by the grandmother of all flues, while three little Japanese kids chased each other around and around my pyramid of leather pillows. The children were playing Zombies versus the-as-of-yet-unaffected, totally unaware of the fact that they were a few feet away from someone actually turning into the un-dead. This was my last day in Tokyo and thankfully only the second day of suffering from the plague.

The rest of my family holiday was pretty damn perfect. On the 18th of December 24 little bottles of Amarula, 8 peppermint-crisps, 2 travel worn parents and one beautiful bottle of Mrs Balls chutney landed at Oita Airport. Roland and I posed for the 1st of fifty million photos and then it was off to show the folks our new hometown. It was fun impressing them with our ATM drawing, Petrol pumping and food ordering skills while they surprised us by eating everything interesting we put in front of them. My dad complained every time he had to put down R50 for a beer but not even this stopped him from ordering two at every restaurant anyway. I was informed by my mom that the one night they slept in Tokyo alone on route to Oita my dad was sent on a food foraging mission and came back with a bread roll (with nothing on it) and a milk beer which he chucked down the drain a moment after tasting it.

Our 1st out-of-town-overnight was the moving city of Hiroshima which we reached via the light fantastic. I have heard the odd I’m-so-over-it foreigner tell me how the shinkansen is really not that exciting but let me tell you as a 1st time flyer, that the Japanese bullet train is a gorgeous piece of engineering that you need to ride at least once in your life.

It sounds cliché, but I really could feel a beautiful duality to Hiroshima the entire time we were there. The city has a way of rushing you through a spectrum of emotions and yet it is so wonderfully balanced that by the end of the day you still feel calm and weirdly filled with hope. In the morning we made our way to the atomic dome and peace park and if there is ever a place that will leave you despondent at human cruelty, this is it. God, it was sad. We can debate all the sides and everyone can put forth their propaganda and argue all they want, at the end of the day so many people had their one chance at life stolen so heartlessly that it gets to you and it really should. And then slowly Hiroshima leaves all that sadness behind and starts turning on the charm. Before you know it you are sitting in a warm, atmospheric okonomiyaki restaurant or walking deserted winter streets lit by thousands of Christmas lights and realising that you are already addicted to the uneasy magic that this city has in spades.

The next pin I could prick into my map of Japan was Kyoto. Sadly my dad caught a bad case of “shrine sickness” that only shopping could cure so Roland, my thankfully more cultured mother and myself headed to 4 or 5 world heritage sites. The day started silver at ginkakugi where my OCD approved of every raked pebble and perfectly placed square of moss and turned gold that afternoon as we admired the spectacular kinkakugi, one of the most famous sites in all of Japan. While my mom had been a trooper all day, the December chill finally got the best of her and so Roland and I took the train to Fushimi Inari shrine, alone. This is the site of the thousand tori gates (those red beams you always see in postcards of Japan) and Roland and I were lucky enough to see it with almost no one else in sight. Sure we lost a bit of toe due to frostbite and the metal in my leg just blatantly refused to bend to my will but even having to manually swing my left leg onto the following step did not make this shrine any less striking. Everywhere the stone fox messengers of the gods sat protecting graves or snacking on the fried tofu left out for them and walking through those thousands of arches covered in Kanji was pretty special. I am never going to give you a good enough picture of this place so feel free to click on this video to see what I am on about. Kyoto Rising Dawn

 And now a little detour, designed entirely to shame my father, who deserves every letter of it. You see Japan’s marketing department will have believe that seeing a Geisha is as easy as strolling into a teahouse, requesting your favourite shamisen tune and getting one of these lovely ladies to flutter over with a cup of green tea. This dear sir is not the case. Still today you need an invitation (usually a pricey one from a Japanese person) or you need to be in Kyoto for the Gion festival where these creatures of culture dance and perform in the streets. The only other way to see a Geisha is if you are lucky enough to catch one shuffling gracefully to or from work. Now imagine if you will how excited the German and I were to spot not only a Geisha but a Maiko (Geisha in training) as well on their way to their 9 to 5 as it were. Now imagine if you will how sad we were to discover that we had left our camera at the hotel. But lo, what silver lining is this? My dad has his new camera and after taking a few photos at a not so annoying distance we happily headed back for a good night’s rest. But lo, what not so silver lining is this? While showing my mom the photos that night my dad deleted every photo and so our Kyoto trip ended, Geisha photo free.

Our last stop over before hitting all the bright lights of Tokyo was Nara, where gangster deer extort rice crackers from you with more than light nudging and where a huge Buddha and pagoda blow a sizable hole in your mind and I think this is a good place to stop. I will talk about Tokyo in a later blog I intend to write about Roland’s parents visit. So I will end off by saying thanks mom and dad for an amazing holiday and that I think of you every time I sip some rooibos tea, spread some chutney on my cottage pie or look at those beautiful photos we took of the Geisha……oh wait, maybe not the last one.

To click or not to click.......

This is his moment. He plants his feet squarely on the temple tiles, leans back slightly for a better angle and with a ferocity formerly reserved for sending war correspondence via telegraph he clicks that camera button until only a blur of a forefinger remains. This master of oils for the digital age in not only the one Japanese stereotype I cannot seem to refute but also the inspiration lying behind Roland running after every autumn leaf struck by light and why Ducky is slowly developing a limp due to the weight of her new monster camera.

The wonderful thing is.........I cannot begin to blame them. There are three things Roland and I never leave the house without, the first being our alien registration cards, the second, these small mint candies (although we have moved to peach flavor of late) and the third is always our camera. There is just so much to see and it is easy to be caught with your Japanese jeans down (figuratively, for all the older aunts reading this…..figuratively).

It has gotten to the point where Roland is even mocking himself, like when he expressed regretfully the other night that the lunar eclipse he was taking photos of was at such a high angle that it was impossible to capture some leaping dolphins surrounded by fireflies, framed by the glistening moon. The German`s kitsch compositions aside, there really is a great many things happening at any given time and there is something very satisfying about getting to save a slice for later.

A few months ago, we were snapping away shots of the fire festival, a few weeks ago had us documenting a long tunnel dug out of the mountain by one monk with a whole heap of time on his hands, a few days ago we took a few photos of thousands of LED lights arranged into crashing waves and Christmas trees and just yesterday we clicked away at a resting warship complete with saluting crew. The last making me smile when I noticed that while Japanese moms where pointing out the captain to their kids, the crew were all pointing us out.

Once here you realize why the Japanese cameraman is such a cliché all over the world, it is hard not to be infected by this hobby as many of the foreign folk living here can attest. I do however find myself more at the editing edge of this endeavor, making sure Roland does not upload fifty photos of the sunset hitting Beppu Bay for your viewing pleasure, dragging him and Ducky away from the snow kissed pine needles before they develop frostbite in their clicking finger and deleting all the photos Roland took of me, looking like a mountain hag.

One of my favorite pictures that Roland took.

 I do not think my partner in artistic crime and I will ever really be any good at photography but I have no doubt that at some point in the far future our kids will run away from home, rather than look at one more photo of Beppu Bay.

It`s always better with Coke.

It has been a year and I am still gloriously off balance. Japan is still dragging me down, long, cold corridors one moment and combusting tiny sparks into eruptions of fiery flowers above my head, the next. I see all the new English teachers inject themselves with this distilled variety of life, from the second they land in Japan and I find it fascinating that the same still goes for me. All I need to do, to prove my point is tell you about my week.

It started as all chaotic things do, with one part ninja, two parts narcolepsy and four parts drama. This year at the Annual Yufuin Summer Seminar I was offered the chance to participate in the Amazing Race and while `Nurse Freda` did race her frilly apron off, the addition of a narcoleptic partner cost her the million dollar prize. My opponents ranged from scheming twins to board breaking ninjas but it was the clueless American couple that dark horsed their way to victory. My days were spent teaching drama and my nights were spent in the onsen as well as trying to imagine that the beanbag they had given me was a pillow.

Well I say `it started` but now that I think about it, the evening before, Ducky and the new JET from her town already set the ball in motion when they joined us for the Kamegawa fireworks festival. Now as you know, Roland is good at a great many things, he braais a mean boerewors, he owns hard at computer games and he is particularly good at leaving the shower-button up so I get a surprising blast of cold water in my face, while expecting a slow trickle from the tap, but he is absolutely appalling when it comes to saying `NO`. Thus, it did not take a group of fishermen long to catch him in their net of free beer and interest in South African culture. I left my man with a vague description of where we were sitting while he educated the sailors about the value of substituting Coke for water when drinking brandy. Roland never found us in that stormy sea of faces but we all enjoyed the fireworks and Beppu`s fishing community started teaching all of their friends about `Brannas and Coke`.

It did not take long for my week to turn to hell, quite literally. The appropriately named hell tunnels were carved by Buddhist monks a crazy long time ago and filled with mythical creatures and spaces narrow enough to warrant sniggering speeches from Roland about how there are not enough tunnels to get lost in and that he is sure that the crocodile headed statue was not looking the other way a few seconds ago. The yang to this dark yin was to climb to heaven and be rewarded with a calming view of rice fields.

Our day was however not all underworlds and ascensions, we also parked by a small roadside shop, on top of a mountain while we waited for a too-close-for-comfort thunderstorm to stop setting off chains of white light in our general direction. Luckily the rain was short lived and we soon found our way to two beautiful waterfalls, one completely enclosed by an impressive amphitheater of rock. We stumbled upon a huge Buddha and a delicate pagoda, all thanks to some small tourist signs and the perfect diction of Riaan Cruywagen directing us via GPS.

Little foxes in the back of the buggy, on their way to go dance.

The very next day we were on a boat. The Ferry dropped us off on Himeshima Island where Ducky, Roland, a boatload of Americans and me watched the famous fox dancing. Thousands of little kids don kimono and fox costumes and dance to taiko drumming and the sound of a thousand cameras clicking. We climbed a creepy mountain trail while there and christened it `Mountain where Ducky secretly took us in order to sell our organs to locals so we mocked her about it for a good hour, trail`.

Mountain where Ducky secretly took us in order to sell our organs to locals

Sunday dawned with river gorges and yawned with suspension bridges and that night I slept like someone who can afford to leave the air-conditioning on all night.

The week’s final breaths came in booming blasts as Roland and I watched another fireworks festival, this time together. I had never been that close to big fireworks before and my heart beat unconsciously along to the loud expulsions of energy that was causing soft ash to collect in my hair. It has been a year and this country is still every bit as thrilling as when my toes touched the tarmac at Narita airport.

1,2,3,4 I declare thumb-war!

The last time I twisted my foot, it was accomplished with far more flare. It involved a daring escape from a bathroom stall, whereby I had to break open a faulty door lock with my trusty crutch. Followed by a limped scuttle along the Bloemfontein movie corridor to assure Roland that I had not been kidnapped by movie pirates and finally, while high on door breaking adrenalin, a spectacular fall down those tiny movie steps in front of a few sniggering teens, a confused Roland, Mr. Homes and Dr Watson.

This time around however, I chose to be far less fancy. After just having finished building my new Darth Vader Tie Fighter with firing missiles (I am aware of what it says about my level of maturity when I enter a shop with the purpose of purchasing a new handbag and instead end up leaving with a star wars toy), I walked over to the bedroom to display it, as one does if one has no shame, on the nightstand. I then did what all lazy people are prone to do and walked over instead of around the bed. The journey there was fraught with little danger but on the way back I tripped over my jacket waiting in ambush by the foot of the bed.

Aaaaw Tie Fighter.....I cannot stay mad at you.

 I hit the tatami, foot first and had not even come to a complete rest before overdramatically asking Roland to check if my bones were jutting out at odd angles. I was immediately reassured that there was nothing more than a big, blue turning bump on my foot and that I should live. After this I was elevated and iced up and very glad indeed that I would not be spending the evening explaining to a Japanese doctor why I fell off the bed. It turned out that I would be gladder still the next morning when my injury meant that I was standing on the sideline of an athletics track while Roland was doing warm-up exercises with a crowd of Japanese residents to the tune of `It`s a small world after all`.

Please allow me to set the scene. Recently the German and I have developed a detrimental little habit of thinking we understand what someone has just said to us in rapid fire Japanese when we really have not. A great example of this cornered me the other day on my way up the stairs to my apartment. My kindly neighbor, who sells onions and oranges from his garden and who boisterously, greets me on every occasion we meet, hurried over for a chat. Two heads really are better than one when dealing with a foreign language so together Roland and I listened, cast exasperated looks at each other and asked the older gentleman to repeat a few facts a couple of times. In the end we were satisfied that we had extracted the just of the dialogue and we went on our merry way.
From what we could ascertain, we were all meeting at the elementary school on Sunday at 9:30 for what we thought was a festival, school performance or maybe even a picnic. Come Sunday morning: time (check), place (check), event (oh how optimistic we had been). As we entered the racetrack surrounded by little tents all sporting the name of a suburb on the roof (thank you train schedule for forcing me to study these particular kanji), our dreams of a picnic were slowly fading away to be replaced by the familiar fear of an organized sporting event.

While Roland and three fashionable moms were wearing jeans the rest of the crowd were sporting matching tracksuits and trainers. At least Roland, unlike the other three, was not planning to compete in heels. A moment later we were offered yellow vests to show what side of the battle line we would be fighting for and ushered under the tent. I had, had the forethought to look up the Japanese for `I am sorry, I know it is troublesome but I have sprained my foot` but not how to respond to `oh, don`t worry, we will put you in all the granny events`.

Getting told what to do

 And so it was that I found myself, forty minutes later staring up at a long pole with a bucket perched precariously on top, with my weapon of choice, a rolled up ball of socks, held tightly in my hands. Now I don`t want to brag, well actually yes I do, so let me tell you that me and my team of all over 65-year-olds kicked some serious pensioner ass and walked away with the coveted trophy of the day, some fine wet tissues.

My poor partner however spent the day kicking rugby balls, doing obstacle courses and relay racing all to the raucous applause of a new group of friends we had made earlier that morning. The comrades in question were a group of elementary school kids who had all played a round of rock, paper and scissors to determine who should ask us the first question. They started slow with `where are you from` and `what is your favorite animal` but after hearing that we like Japanese animation they went wild. `What is your favorite character, who is stronger Luffy or Zoro, who is the best dancer in Exile, who is the cutest girl in AKB48? They were super excited to hear my nickname was Frieza but felt it inconceivable that Roland did not have one and he became Sanji san (an anime character with blond hair and blue eyes) on the spot.

Sanji: The character Roland was named after.

 While I arm wrestled the under 5 crowd and engaged in thumb-wars with the under 9`s sitting on the side, Roland won us some Japanese sunlight liquid and a hand towel, his speed being motivated by the shouts of ganbatte (good luck) Sanji san from the crowd. We in turn supported the little girls as they skipped rope and the chubby boy in our group when he ate a plate of chips and drank a coke so fast that the grownups were left in the dust. The entire day was bewildering but huge fun and every evening as we walk to the shops or past the beach we are rewarded with a loud shout from a window or a little boy on a bike of `Otsukaresama deshita (thank you for your hard work), Sanji San, Frieza San!

A Japanese Carol

It is relatively easy to forget that you are living in Japan. Having spent the evening speaking English to Roland over some Mc Donald’s and British sitcoms and the morning drinking five roses tea and getting a text message from Ducky, highlighting her opinion on the latest ridiculous development in a certain celebrity’s life, I have more often than not stumbled through my fist `Ohayo Gozaimasu*` of the day as I greeted the office lady while my mind somersaulted back into Japanese.

Oh but there are moments where Japan hands you a pair of chopsticks, sits you down on your ankles, motions to a bowl of rice in front of you and tells you to start eating. When tradition does enter stage left, it goes big or it goes home.

As if taking a page or two from a Dickens` classic, tradition enlisted the help of two Japanese ghosts to remind me this past week, that there is still more to this country than Starbucks and Mc D`s.

Don`t get me wrong, I still love `Staba` as the kids call it.

The first was dressed in red and white battle armor, skillfully bordered with gold leaf. While adorned as a warrior he seemed at absolute peace, he was beauty and balance and his name was Hachiman. On a barely born Spring Sunday, he invited Roland and I to come see his home at Usa jinju, an offer made hard to refuse by his hand resting on the hilt of his blade. Usa Shinto Shrine is one of the most important places of worship for those who follow the Shinto religion. It is dedicated to Hachiman, the god of warriors, archers and martial artists but everything about it quiets your soul and inspires you to fight about as much as a warm bubble bath does.

Even at the entrance to the temple complex, small packets of pellets, clipped onto a string, served to remind me of the severe contradiction between Japan and my home country. It is based on the honor system and you are expected to place 100 yen into the box after taking some food to feed the already enormous Koi swimming under the ornately carved wooden bridge. In South Africa the instructions may as well have read: please take some free food when you see nobody is watching.

I would love to say that the two of us serenely drifted through the colossal temple grounds but the truth is that my foot (sensing immanent exercise) decided to develop a dull ache, causing me to limp like a grumpy bear who just escaped from a trap past the soothing waterfalls and century’s old red temples.

It was surprisingly moving watching Japanese families clap their hands together three times and pray in unison at the base of each temple and unsurprisingly funny watching little Japanese children disobey explicit orders to place a few coins in the provided box, instead opting to throw it a great distance and watching it ricochet from beams, usually landing under an ornament, probably making some poor shrine maiden feel decidedly less Zen that afternoon while finding coins everywhere but the box.

I purchased my first Daruma doll at the temple, accompanied by some broken English instructions from the kind salesman. When you start a goal (in my case to learn a hundred kanji characters), you paint in one of the dolls blank eyes. He then looks at you and motivates you for however long it takes for you to complete your goal and give him back his 20/20 vision by painting in the other eye.

Daruma

As we strolled (or limped) past moss covered stone lanterns, standing near perfectly preserved red and gold, wooden structures we felt more relaxed than we had felt in a long time. As the god of war, Hachiman had failed miserably to boil our blood or inspire us to raise an army and conquer the nearest 7/11 but it will be a good long while before we tell him this to his face.

The second ghost was conflicted; she was proud and confident yet shy and filled with shame. She was a bonsai tree placed in front of a crisp white flag telling the story of the rising sun and her name is `Kimi ga yo`**. This was the scene of my school`s graduation. My principal, a usually jolly man looked like a president delivering a national address with the Japanese flag, for the first time this year hanging impressively behind him. The audience of teachers wearing suits, mothers wearing kimono and third year students facing the freedoms and responsibilities waiting just outside the school gates, all sat in silence, not once applauding for a full hour and twenty minutes. You have no idea how powerfully the Japanese anthem rings out after nothing but smoothly executed speeches broken only by absolute silence.

 

This was the first time I had heard `Kimi ga yo` being sung at my school or seen the flag raised in assembly and the reason is as complex as a bowl of rice is simple.

While my students and teachers are fiercely proud of being Japanese, the flag and anthem are linked to infamous invasions into neighboring countries, outdated imperial ideologies and a crushing defeat at the end of world war two. For every Japanese person who is reminded of Japans status as a world power despite its size and lack of many natural resources by the flag, there is another who sees only the atrocities committed in China or the first two atomic bombs decimating Nagasaki and Hiroshima.

The spell cast by all this stiff tradition was drawing me in rather nicely, until I looked over at my second year boys, sitting in the very last row, all fast asleep on each other’s shoulders. I was sad to see some of my third years walk past the line of teachers with tears in their eyes but at the same time I always knew they were never really mine. They belonged to my predecessor who had been teaching them since their first year of high school and would always be their real ALT. I was just thinking of this slightly sad reality when I heard one of my 1st years say `oh, Freda Sensei, look` while he proudly showed me the playing cards (he was not meant to have at school) with the anime character on that we both like.

I fear the year that my king Bobs and my loud karaoke girls make their way down the aisle leading to their futures. It will most definitely be a double edged samurai sword when `my` students finally say goodbye.


* Good morning
** The Japanese national anthem

The three seasons.

For a little less than three months the same question has been patiently waiting for me at my cluttered grey desk. As I sit down, the equally grey haired Math’s teacher asks me with unwarranted sincerity if South Africa ever gets as cold as this particular Japanese day, and always reacts with noticeable joy as I say `oh no, this is far colder`. The weather in Japan is an institution as sacred a game as bureaucracy and the Japanese like to win at everything they play.

As I am racing towards spring with plum blossoms in my hair, I thought I would take a look back at the three seasons I have met.

Winter

Winter time is illumination time.

The warm sting of the kerosene heater was streaming past the back of my heels as I pulled one of the three layers of warm clothing over my head and in the process bumped the low hanging light in the lounge. As light swished around the room I stared at Roland sitting at his computer desk and without warning started to cry.

I have never cried over the cold before but I knew that beyond that door lay a frozen corridor and a bathroom floor that was no better than an ice-skating rink. The three degree air would burn my skin as I waited for the water to heat up and ten seconds would feel like a Siberian year. A fusion of amusement and alarm flashed in Roland`s clear eyes as he grabbed my hand and two towels on route to the nearest hot spring.

Those tropical flowers are real thanks to the warm onsen air.

As with all other Japanese phenomena, winter likes to add a little contradiction to the cake mix and on a different day you find yourself standing in a deserted temple courtyard, covered with freshly fallen snow. Only the stark red beams of the Tori gates avoid the white onslaught as four best friends stare up at the crumbling sky, trying clumsily to catch a snowflake on their tongues. God`s paintbrush proves superior as you see crystals clutching tree branches and frozen waterfalls convincing you that time has stopped.

 

I still squint my eyes in thought when I think back to how beautiful the valley circled with mountains in Kumamoto really was. I stood in the middle of a quaint Japanese town, all the ornate roof tiles covered in a soft duvet of downy snow and all around me rose a coliseum of frozen rock and ice. When I tell you that it was breathtaking, I mean it quite literally as even now I automatically stop breathing for the slightest second when I think back to that day. We went volcano hunting and stared down the temperamental caldera of Mount Aso, a few days before the neighboring volcano in Miyazaki blew its top.

Hiding from the lava

As I drove to school today I saw two or three trees covered in pink and white plum blossoms, each gleefully hitting the last nails into the coffin of winter. Soon it will be the season of Sakura and I will experience this week of cherry blossoms in Tokyo, the heart of my new home.

Autumn

Ah, what a blissful state of equilibrium. The harsh heat of summer has finally fizzled out and winter still looks promising through naïve, snow colored glasses.

Beppu hells in Autumn

As Roland put my favorite chicory tainted coffee by my bed, my English teacher phones with a fine suggestion. Why not go for a bout of `Momiji ga` or autumn leaf hunting. We needed no better reason to hit the road and headed into the mountains. I know it is a bit odd but I always feel extra grownup while traveling a decent stretch of road on the way to a mini adventure. I am usually desperately content chatting and eating snacks until we have to stop at a dodgy mountain toilet that is more often than not of the traditional variety. I am skilled enough to use them but I don`t exactly throw a party in my head when I see them.

With grape flavored soft serves in hand, we rode the cable car up the mountain of many seasons (we have seen Mount Tsurumi exhibiting three of the four) and marveled at the bright red trees, that when hit with a ray of sun looks like it is on fire. Every leaf looks like a candle flame and some trees are colored in sunset hues moving from a red top, down to orange, yellow and finally lime green. This is a relaxed time of year where the Japanese start to eat persimmons and chestnuts are found everywhere. There are fire festivals and naked festivals and picture perfect sunsets. You cannot design better weather and I am desperately hoping that spring will deliver more of the same.

Autumn Braais are always amazing

Summer

Watching summer fireworks from a restaurant boat.

After wearing socks and sandals for months on end you start to look like a German on the beach and you start to feel decidedly claustrophobic. Nothing is more satisfying than coming home and taking off those offending socks and extra layers of clothes required for work and throwing it in the general direction of the laundry basket. This is followed by flopping down on the couch with a Hello Kitty hand fan battling to break the heat with a little breeze.

Summer days are hot but filled with freedom. It is easy to walk down the sandy beach skirting Beppu Bay and watch the fish jump over the jellyfish nets. Winter limits you to a computer and a warm blanket but now you are free to play in water parks and lay down in immaculately kept gardens while drinking fruity cocktails in full view of the local police. You pity your baseball boys and your softball girls but you dare not leave the comfort of the air-conditioned office.

Summer time is carrying the Omikoshi time.

The one thing you do not want to be is what Roland and I both were at the exact same time. I have never been as miserable as when the two of us hit our first Japanese flue during the height of summer. We could barely move as our bodies battled a Japanese bug for the first time. Roland used all of his remaining strength to walk (no car insurance yet so no driving) to the pharmacy to get us medicine, while I used mine to put cold towels all over a burning Roland when he got back. Our health insurance cards were still in the post and so we decided to muscle through it. We played it down for the parents so as not to add more worries to their already long list but we were both petrified and still flinch when we think about that hot, humid weekend of horror. By that Monday my fever had broken enough to go (mask and all) to school and make a slightly better Roland some tuna salad when I got home. Also keep in mind that throughout this tribulation we did not have internet yet and were forced to watch nothing but Japanese game / cooking shows the entire time. Nothing gives you more bizarre fever dreams than slipping in and out of consciousness while watching crazy Japanese television.

While this was an ordeal and a half we did have a fireworks filled summer and since time disguises that hellish heat with memories of braaing and camping plans, I am looking forward to that time of year again.

One can always find ways to cool down.

The Japanese usually start a letter by talking about the weather and so I thought I would leap into spring with a bit of a recap. I will be spending spring with my family, friends and cherry trees and I could not be more excited to complete my set of seasons and put to bed an incomparable year.

Only 3495 left to try.

Onsen and I have a little understanding; I am permitted to bask in its delicate, soft, warm waters as long as every time I do so, it reserves the right to reduce me to a one man band of incompetence. Onsen, for those of you not schooled in the art of getting your kit off in front of random people, is Japanese hot springs. These glorious pools, of which my neighboring town has 3500, are volcanic fissures of undiluted bliss. So as to comply with the spice of life mantra, Onsen come in many flavors, indoor, outdoor, private, public, hot enough to boil an egg, swimsuit wearing ones where everybody relaxes together and ones where you birthday-suit up and boys and girls get their own pools. It is the last of these choices that inevitably leads to Roland saying `ai, my poor bunny` as he looks on in mock sincerity while I regale him with the tales of my misadventures.

It all started with a red curtain covered in Kanji I could not read at the time. An old hand at onsening had asked me along to try this very Japanese pursuit of relaxation and I was keen to tag along. As I was about to pull the red curtain aside and enter the dressing area I heard my new friend shout `no Freda that onsen is not for you, that is for the sempai or people who have been to an onsen before, you should go into the blue curtain. It goes a long way in showing how gullible I really am, that I was nearly completely into the boys dressing room before my friend called out, through tears of laughter to get back to the girls side of things.

My encounter of the second kind went equally well. I found myself alone this time in a room that I was desperately hoping was the all female dressing room. As the saying goes `when in Rome get naked really fast and shove all your clothes in the locker provided` and as I am not one to argue that is exactly what I did (I am aware that the latter part of this statement is far from true but allow me some literary license here). I peered into the next steamy room and was relieved to see a few more naked ladies. So far, so good. I walked nonchalantly and with way more confidence than what I actually possessed, to my washing station and started to scrub up. Once clean I slid into the water buzzing with soda-stream jets and got my relaxation on. I even braved the outside pool where I could see water turning to grassy planes to stormy seas and finally to a bustling city beyond the bay but nobody could see me.

I stepped inside the changing room to find the usual, dressed ladies blow-drying their hair, bottles of body lotion, towels drying over locker doors and a man lying down with his chest and face covered with a little towel and the rest of him covered with what I was sure was men`s underwear. Oh no what do I do, do I rush back to the pool, do I make a dash for my towel in the locker, what if more men show up in this obviously shared resting room which only a slow foreigner could possibly imagine to be a ladies room. However, before I reached the very bottom of my crazy spiral, `the man` started to talk with a distinctly old lady voice to her granddaughter standing by the bathroom scale. We all got dressed and I met Roland in the lobby for a helping of `ai bunny, such an imagination`.

Since my first few waltzes with these wonderfully warm temples of letting go, I have somewhat improved and no longer step on quite so many toes. This is just as well, since a few days ago all the water pipes at my flat froze and onsen provided an attractive opposing option to washing with a bucket in the frozen wasteland that was my bathroom. Few things truly compare with gazing out over the ocean or looking down from the roof of a high-rise building over the lively city while relaxing with friends in temperate water, sometimes even watching a few flakes of snow drifting slowly down. It has even been enough to elicit the odd comment of `ai bunny can you believe that this is our lives` from my usually quiet companion.