A Day in Morioka

Well, yesterday I paid what could well be my last visit to Morioka. I needed to collect my new spouse visa at the Immigration Office - my contract is nearly finished but I will be in Yokohama for 6 weeks from the end of March, and return a heavy bag of text books to my company's office.
It wasn't a smooth day by any means, I left with barely enough time to make my train, and then on the way to the station the bag fell apart, and books lay on the road as light snow fell and I had to pick them up and carry them in my arms to the station. Bought my ticket, ran to the platform to see the train pulling away. 30 seconds too late. Some days are like that. It was over an hour until the next train. I bought a bag to carry the books and read a good deal of 'A Dance with Dragons', which I stalled at reading last year but am determined to finish sooner or later. I am 60% of the way through. Still confident it will get finished before the next book is out though!

In Morioka there was a severe wind-chill factor and at no point, inside or out, did I even consider taking my thick jacket off. To get my visa I first needed to pay a fee, which you do on a different floor and you get a stamp that you hand to the staff at the visa office. It looked like a normal postage stamp and for all I know, it was. The photo I had given them was the same as the one on my residence card for the previous 12 months, and they wanted a new one and directed me to go to a nearby building and get more photos taken. However, I pulled out a different passport sized photo from my money belt and they accepted that. Hassle, averted!

I was lucky enough to bump into some fellow employees at the visa office who gave me a lift to the company office, my bag of books was going to be a pain to carry the 2km or so. After returning the books I wandered around to find the 'rock splitting cherry tree', something of a 'natural national treasure', located outside a government building. Not so impressive until spring hits and the cherry blossoms are in bloom, you can see by the photos it is pretty well-regarded!

Then to the building 'Aiina', where I met my good friend and long-term resident Dean Rueztler, to record a conversation. What? What's all that about I hear you say? Well, some time ago I said I was looking into getting a podcast happening. Finally, I have started. Look to mid-April for the first one to be available for free down on the net, it may or may not be the one I recorded yesterday with the man below, Dean. We waxed lyrical about living in Japan, the best and the worst, the frustrations and so forth. It promises to be a great listen!

And then there was time for dinner and political talk before I made my way back to Ichinoseki. I'm here until nearly the end of March (28th I leave, nightime bus). And I realised, well, my time is coming to a close in Iwate. I had my last day at my other school on Wednesday - stay tuned for more on that tomorrow. Oh and before I go...

Short Journeys: Laos

is now available for only 85 cents on Payhip (same price now for Short Journeys: Ethiopia and Kazakhstan too). Second edition includes a couple of useful websites, a few changes and tinkering and perhaps one or two new photos. Also, you'll find previews available for all three books on Payhip too. Short Journeys: Laos also added to Lulu for $1.99.

More information on the podcast will be coming. Keep your eyes peeled!

Cheering BE-SU-BO-RU style!

Yesterday I had a great experience with my school. We travelled by bus from Senmaya to Morioka - ok that was not so great on the winding roads, but we all travelled up to Morioka to watch our school take on the SIchinoseki Gakuien (or a school that sounds like that) in a baseball game. Now I mentioned once before that it's pretty serious, the high school baseball here, so with the news that we had won the first game, the entire school bar office staff and one of the vice principals was bussed two and a half hours away to support the team! Quite a feat. Interesting choice too as the schools are only 35 minutes apart to play all the games in Morioka. The team actually had stayed in Morioka since the knockout tournament began. Perhaps this is the power the prefecture capitals have here in Japan.

The ground was wide and open, and left me wondering why baseball is played on dirt with a grass outfield. Nicer to play on grass all the way, surely?? Anyways, we waited outside the ground for 20 minutes and were finally let in. The cheering is all very organised, and every student knows all the chants and dare I say it? - dance moves!When your school is batting it's your turn to cheer. Our school was very very good at cheering, with lots of songs, many apparently anime songs, and the strange custom of dunking three buckets of water on the three cheer leaders at the start of each batting innings. The leaders, by the way, are all boys and were in full school uniform!
Thankfully it was sunny, around 24 degrees - perfect. The rain, as mentioned, has delayed this tournament big time!

Preparing the playing area.

The game went on, and I was encouraged to dance and cheer and I joined in. I don't want to dob on the other teachers, but they weren't quite so enthusiastic. The brass band and the cheer leaders led everyone, and we had a blast. Half-way through the seventh innings, the game was called off because it wasn't close. we were losing 9-0 at the time! The opposition looked much bigger than our students I must admit, and I was told they ran 10 km a day! That's what I mean by taking it seriously. I was also told our players didn't run so far.
And we piled back into the buses and headed back, another 2.5 hours, to school. At times the cheering overshadowed the game. Actually, it did most of the time. The result didn't matter, a good time was had by all, and in a country where there is so much pressure on students to do well in tests and the like, where they are worked incredibly hard, that's a very good thing!

The Rainy Season

Last year I was warned - 'oh the rainy season is coming' around June. It never really did. There was a day here and a day there of rain, yet I thought 'rainy season' was a bit of an exaggeration. This year, however, It's the reverse, a day here and a day there of sun, but generally rain is the default setting. We've had one day without rain this week, that was Tuesday.
Today I was supposed to be joining the entire high school in going to Morioka by bus to cheer our baseball team on. It didn't happen because the weather gods were not with us. In fact the entire high school tournament - many games of which are televised here in Japan, is four days behind schedule because of the rain!
Still, although it rained all day and last night too, it's not raining right now. The temperature is down too so I should be thankful for that small mercy. As a break approaches, I hopefully will update more for you.

Today I'd like to share some photos around the Morioka castle site. Well, it's more of an old fortress and now a garden with impressive (restored) walls and a very pleasant place to spend some time. I was there three or four weeks ago and the weather was perfect for that day! And then it rained the next!

Sorry muchly for the lack of blog posts for the last month and a bit. Life can get on top of you sometimes and before you know it SNAP! You haven't blogged for ages.
I've been having some severe issues with Kindle - but I finally received a payment (of around 10 bucks!) last week. It was all a matter of matching names correctly for my bank account and my kindle account, but I kept getting bad information. It was rather frustrating.

 At least I was finally able to see something for my work - and if you're interested in my travel writings, don't forget to check out my Amazon Kindle Author page -
Andrew Boland's Kindle Author Page

It's always been a tiny trickle of money, but I use that to validate my whole existence on this Earth.
I hope to blog again soon, maybe Monday or Tuesday! Hopefully the baseball will be on tomorrow, and Sunday there should be more cricket in Morioka! Until then, take care!