kyoto!

What a time to be in my favorite city in Japan. The leaves were at their peak and the weather was perfect. Julia, Caitlin, and me spent the majority of our weekend in Kyoto on foot going to temples and exploring downtown.


On Saturday, we walked from our ryokan (traditional japanese guesthouse) to a temple that was a few kilometers from where we stayed. There was a zen garden and tatami (woven straw mats) rooms where you are encouraged to sit enjoy the view of the garden.


A stone path made its way around the structures in the garden. Most of the ground was covered with deep green moss, reminding me of the rocky/mossy terrain of Iceland.


This is what you'd see when you would look up. The sun made the colors look almost electric and we were in awe of the sight of it.






Julia, taking a break in the first temple.


Caitlin, all "Zened up".


Me, exploring a path outside.


After some coffee, we headed out to the Kiyomizu-dera temple. We knew that it would probably be crowded with packs of tourists but headed up the hill to see it at night. it was an impressive sight so we snapped a few photos and made our way back downtown.


The night ended at an amazing restaurant downtown where we ate dinner with some of Julia's Yamagata-ken friends. Afterwards we all went to bed, having been needing some rest because of walking all day and also due to staying up until 8:00 am the night before. In most Japanese cities, subways stop running before midnight so you either have to go home early or stay out until the trains start running again the next morning, which is usually around 5:00 am. Taking a taxi is always an option but in this case we went to Osaka on Friday night to go to club that Julia and me visited a few months ago so we were nowhere close to our ryokan.

Well, weather it was the lack of sleep or something I ate over the weekend, I ended up getting really sick once I got back to Naruto. Around 8:00 pm on Sunday I crawled into my bed and wrapped myself in blankets but could not stop shivering. I drifted off to sleep shortly after that and awoke at 7:00 am the next morning. I knew that I couldn't teach like this so I called my supervisor and told her that I was staying home. I fell back asleep and woke up at 3:00 pm only because my body needed some kind of liquid put in it. Somehow, I managed to get up and make my way to the Sunkus (a convenience store) down the road to buy something to drink. It was HOT this day as well, which made my condition a lot worse. I was running a high fever and feeling delusional as a result...my back was sore, I had a massive headache, non-stop stomach pains, etc. So what did I do? I drank a ton of Pocari Sweat.


Japan's ubiquitous "ion supply drink" actually did make me feel a lot better but I still needed to rest off my headache and I could tell that my stomach problems weren't going away anytime soon. I went to bed early again and in the morning I decided to stay home and rest so that I could shake this as soon as possible. I called my supervisor once again and she said that she'd call my school to tell them that I'd be home sick that day. Well, at 9:00 am I got a frantic text message from one of my co-teachers saying that I "have a class to teach at 9:30!! We are waiting for you!" I don't have the phone number to any of my teachers at this school or the school itself so I didn't know what to do. It turned out that my supervisor had forgot to call the school to tell them that I was at home with a fever. Knowing that it would be impossible to explain the situation though a cell phone text, there was nothing left to do but...yep...hop on my bike and go teach some classes. High fever, no sleep, no lesson plans and all- somehow I survived the day. The teachers were all very understanding at the circumstances and, actually, my supervisor forgot to call my school because she was out buying me sushi and okonomiyaki (she knows how much I like both), so there were good intentions on all ends.

This weekend I was going to run a 10k in the mountains a bit south of Naruto but I decided to skip out on it because of the whole sickness ordeal. Instead I'm spending this Saturday night catching up on some letters, doing some reading, and watching the movie The Holy Mountain. Next weekend I'll be visiting an orphanage near Tokushima City with some other JETs and we'll be spending a few hours with the kids there. I'm excited for it because I'll be buying a gift for a 13 year old girl and I'll be able to give her some company on a Saturday afternoon. In the evening I'll be having dinner with one of my favorite teachers at her house so it'll be a good day.

At the JET mid-year conference this week I was inspired to refine some of my lessons for the Naruto Tech kids. I met another technical high school teacher who was introducing a curriculum for her very low level classes that I'm excited to try. Now that I'm a hit with the students there I think I can now really get down to some meaningful lessons that may have some good effects on them over time...even if they don't realize it.

So that's about it here. Things are busy as always but being busy and sick in a foreign country is NO FUN. I'm happy to be recovered now, though. Oh, I've also been doing a bit more exploring on my bike throughout Naruto. Last night I went to a really fun yoga class and a few days a go I found an awesome retro/thrift warehouse that's right near my house. It's funny how places around here can look uninteresting or even closed down from the outside and then on the inside you'll find something really worth checking out. On the agenda for tomorrow is spending some time a coffee shop that's a stone's throw away from my apartment. Ahh, it's nice to take a weekend to relax once in a while, isn't it?