And this is the reality: hordes of tourists milling around, all trying to take the same picture...

After you've fought your way through to the railing for a photo, it's time to join the enormous queue to get the chair lift back down the mountain. The moral of the story? Don't go to one of Japan's most popular tourist destinations on the busiest day of the year... Once we'd "sumimasen'ed" our way back to the car, it was time to take a drive a bit further along the coast to find somewhere to camp.

The village of Ine. Most of the houses here have space underneath for fishing boats.

After hours spent driving around, we were still no closer to finding anywhere to camp, and the sun was setting fast. One of the locals suggested camping on a nearby beach. Unfortunately, the "beach" was a bit on the thin side, and since we really didn't fancy waking up under five feet of water we decided to camp at this deserted viewpoint instead. We're convinced that it's the local make-out point, since several cars pulled up here during the night, then turned round and headed off quick when they saw the tents...

The view from our "campsite" was absolutely stunning. Not a concrete sea wall in sight.

Once we managed to crawl out from underneath the canvas, we decided to head west along the coast. Just to see what was there, really. One of the things that was was there, was this:

The water was so calm that it was difficult to tell the ocean from the sky.

The sea looked absolutely gorgeous...

In the afternoon we met up with an American ALT called Jason, who's jammy enough to live next to this fantastic beach. There was just enough time for a spot of frisbee before me and Flick had to pile into the car for the 5 hour (!) drive back to Asahi. Next time I'm taking the train. (Left to right: Flick, Laura, Tilly and Jason.)

Ultimate, Japan-style

Last weekend I went to an ultimate tournament in Okazaki city, which is just east of Nagoya, in Aichi prefecture. For those of you who don't know, ultimate is a team game played using a frisbee (or disc, as the players call it). It's a bit like a cross between basketball and American football: when you catch the disc you have to stop moving, and the aim of the game is to score points by throwing the disc to someone in the end zone.

 

I started playing ultimate when I was at university (which was nearly seven years ago - blimey, time flies doesn't it?). One of the things that first got me into it was the emphasis it placed on fair play and keeping good spirit between the players. For instance, there's no referee in ultimate - players must call for the game to be stopped if they think a foul has been committed against them, and if the other team disagrees they have to work out the best way to continue between them (usually by replaying the last throw). It sounds crazy, but it works - genuine arguments are very rare in ultimate.

 

I stopped playing when I moved to London, mostly because I couldn't find anyone to practice with. When I came to Fukui last year I was keen to get back into it, so me and Mac (American guy and all-round ultimate-playing legend) set up some regular practices, and it's been great to introduce some new people to the game. I was never that good an ultimate player, but it's been fun to teach people the basics of throwing a disc, and I love watching people as they get better and better, week after week.

 

Anyway, we sometimes practice with the local Japanese team, Inesperto, and a few weeks ago they asked if anyone from our team would like to come along to the Aichi tournament. Hudson (Californian JET from Katsuyama) and I jumped at the chance - we were really intrigued to see what a Japanese ultimate tournament would be like.

 

I used to love going to the university tournaments in Britain - there would usually be a good mix of teams, from absolute beginners to experts, and the atmosphere was great: competitive, but friendly. Saturday night would be spent partying with the other teams, and the final matches on Sunday would be played through the haze of a raging hangover and memories of the new "friends" you'd  made the night before, and more often than not woken up with too.

 

The first thing that struck me about the tournament in Okazaki was the standard of playing - I was seriously impressed. Every single team looked incredibly professional, displaying flawless catches and throws with pinpoint accuracy - there were definitely no weak teams here. The ability level went from "strong" to "very strong" to "ultimate-playing-robots-from-the-future". It was all the more impressive when you take into account that it was only a relatively small, local tournament - most of the teams were from Aichi prefecture itself.

 

I think the sheer ability of the players is indicative of the general attitude to sport in this country - the Japanese take their sports very seriously. Joining an after-school club (sports or otherwise) is compulsory at junior high school, and compulsory in all but name at most senior high schools. In England, a school sports club would practice maybe once or twice a week, but in Japan it's more like everyday, often including weekends. The kyudo (Japanese archery) club at my school practices for an hour every morning and until seven every evening - as you'd expect, the students get pretty good at it.

 

The second thing I noticed at the tournament was the competitiveness - every team was clearly out to win. That sounds like an obvious statement, but at the tournaments I've been to in the past there were usually a few teams who just came for fun, rather than to win anything. The friendly spirit of the game was definitely there in Okazaki, but I've never seen ultimate played so seriously: every point was fought to the bitter end. Suddenly I was a bit worried that I was going to let down the team - I'd say I'm a fairly good player, but I can safely state that I was way out of my league at the weekend. In the end though, we won 2 out of 4 matches, and I scored a point in one game, so I was pretty pleased.

 

However, it came at a price - my entire body now aches. Hudson and I could barely walk after the last game, but everyone else seemed fine, effortlessly sprinting up and down the pitch like there was no tomorrow. Two conclusions can be drawn from this: either Hudson and me need to get down the gym more often and stop eating so much pizza, or everyone else at the tournament was a super-fit mecha-athlete with bionic legs. I favour the latter explanation.

 

I was a bit disappointed with Saturday night - I was expecting all the teams to get together for a bit of a knees up after the games were over, but instead everyone went their separate ways, which was a shame: it would have been nice to meet a few more people. Instead we went back to the hotel with our team, and I was a little surprised when they got out a whiteboard and started talking about strategies for tomorrow's game. This wasn't the ultimate I knew! What happened to the wild parties?

 

By the time 10 pm came around it looked like there was little chance of a party developing, so me and Hudson decided to go out and make our own party, which involved going to a karaoke bar and singing Metallica with a Filipino family. Much fun was had by all.

 

It's so great to be playing ultimate again - if you've never tried it, I highly recommend it. Many thanks to Mitsuji for driving us down there, and thanks to the team for letting me play - I hope I didn't make you lose too badly!

Ultimate players warming up on Saturday morning. The quality of the pitches left a little to be desired - they were practically dust in most places. Good quality grass is hard to find in Japan...

The view of Okazaki city from the tournament field was pretty impressive. I'm not sure if the hazy view was due to the heat or pollution.... Probably both.

I was impressed with the team's professionalism: Saturday night was spent working out team strategies in the hotel room using a whiteboard and magnets (beer was employed for lubrication of the mental faculties).

Here's team Inesperto in all it's glory. I'm second from the left, modelling my wonderful new baseball hat. Nice.

The Blue Skies Are Calling

I've had a crazy-busy day - non-stop lessons all morning, no time to
prepare my lunch before I left the house, huge piles of marking to
finish... and all the while the blue sky outside the staff room window
has been taunting me with its presence. It's possibly the
sunniest/warmest day of the year so far, and I'm stuck at my desk.
Curses.

Still, tomorrow is "Green Day" which signals the start of "Golden
Week": four national holidays which fall at roughly the same time.
Unfortunately, the way the holidays have fallen this year means that I
still have to go to work next Monday and Friday, but tomorrow is a
different story... I'm planning an epic lie-in, a traditional English
breakfast, complete with Heinz Baked Beans (thank you foreign food
shop!), followed by a lazy afternoon sinking beers at a rooftop
barbecue. Bliss. I just hope the weather holds... At least Japan isn't
like Britain, where the mere mention of the word "barbecue" is the cue
for torrential downpours.

But that's tomorrow. I have to get out of this damn office first...

Only 20 more minutes before I can leave....

Quirky Japan

You may or may not have stumbled on this website already, but Quirky
Japan is a goldmine of useful/useless information about the land we
all love. I particularly loved the "Nandakke's" section - inventing
Japanese words for foreigners, such as "Danjo Madoi" (uncertainty over
whether the kanji on the toilet means man or woman). "The Honest
Photographer" is also worth a look if you're bored of seeing photos of
sakura and temples. I have to admit that I'm guilty of this too - my
blog may be full of scenic views of Japan, but I guarantee that in 90%
of the photos there's a hideous concrete apartment building I've had
to frame out.

Click on the title above and browse at your leisure. (I've
also put a link to it in the sidebar.)

PS. Sorry for the lack of attention to my blog lately - I haven't had
time to get to the local internet cafe for a few days. However, after
being tipped off about the email settings in Blogger (thanks Phoenix
and Chris!) I can now post via email, so hopefully there won't be any
more random photos posted up without any text. Normal service will be
resumed shortly.

The Krazy (sic) Car Rally

Last weekend saw the arrival of one of the most anticipated events in the Fukui JET calendar - the Krazy Car Rally. Strictly speaking it's not a rally at all: it's more akin to a mobile fancy dress party crossed with an Anneka Rice-style treasure hunt. I'll try to explain.

At about 9am on Saturday we arrived in Tsuruga and received a disposable camera with a list of objectives, each worth varying amounts of points. We had to use the camera to take photos of our teammates in various uncompromising situations, such as acting out the kanji for mori (forest) in a mori (forest)[10points], improvising phat dance moves in front of a singing Buddha statue [10 points] and crawling between the hairy legs of a giant caveman statue [10 points]. Every photo had to contain an Anpanman doll, and a bonus 5 points were added for every uniformed schoolkid that could be persuaded (bullied?) into appearing in the picture. Another 10 bonus points were up for grabs if your team turned up in costume - hence the pirate outfits.

My team, Kaizoku-jin (pirate people), was an Anglo-American consortium consisting of myself, Sam, Caitlin and Brandon, and I'm proud to say that we finished first. Well, we got to the end first anyway, we actually came 9th overall (out of 14), but I feel we had the moral victory. Considering how tired we all were after nearly seven hours of driving around southern Fukui doing ridiculous things, I feel we at least deserved a medal. However, in the end, we were satisfied with the knowledge that in the face of adversity (ie suspicious policeman asking us what the hell we were up to taking photos of schoolchildren) we had upheld the good name of assistant English teaching pirates in this fair country.

Massive thanks goes out to all the JETs in Southern Fukui who organised the whole thing. You can count on us to be back next year with an unshakeable air of determination and even sillier costumes.

Ahoy there me hearties! These dastardly knaves go by the names of Brandon, Caitlin, Sam and Lewis, and they be Team Kaizoku-jin. Ay, that they be. And that fine vessel in the background is the good ship Jolly Wagon "Arrrrrrrr!", about to set sail on the high seas of Reinan. Avast ye sea dogs!!! Shiver me timbers!!! (etc etc....)

Nicola T, Nicola C, Mac and Tania pose in their "Kill Bill" costumes.