Tuesday April 14, 1998: 6pm
Yeah, so here I am on the plane to Oita. It just HAD to be raining today. Wait no, pouring. So I had to walk all around Hino with my "luggage", getting everything soaking wet. Argh.
One of the check-out ladies at Alps commented on my new haircut today. From this I deduce (a)I really stand out as the only foreigner for miles, or (b) I frequent there *way* too much! It's probably both.
Oh I left from the Haneda airport, and woo, I checked in at the train station in Hamamatsu-cho!! Like, half an hour away! Cool, talk about convenient. So when I got to the airport, I just walzed right up to my gate! No lines! It's a good thing too since I -- uh -- only got to the airport half an hour before my flight, in true Alexa-style. Great. I'd better start being careful 'bout that!
10pm
So here I am at Hotel Seawave... I suppose they didn't want me to feel homesick and chose a hotel directly beside the train tracks... except here the building doesn't shake when a train goes by...
Anyway, I found the hotel OK and checked in... went for a nice long walk - this place is on the sea! Like, I'm not so good at geography - not to mention Japanese geography - so all I knew was that Beppu is in Kyuushuu, which is the island to the south. This place is tropical! Palm tree-lined streets... salty sea air... the works. Cobblestone streets, bright lights - *lots* of gambling places and clubs! And tourist shops. I don't exactly know what Beppu's specialty is, but it must be something. No actually, I know it's quite famous for its hot sprin onsens - and they are all over the place! There's one just around the corner from my hotel actually. Anyway, I gotta get up early tomorrow...
Wednesday April 15, 1998: 7:45am
Argh! I just went for my run and lost my hat! Now I'm pissed! See, I was running along the shore and stuff - which was very pleasant - but the main street in Beppu happens to be along the shore too, and a big truck flew by me, and it's after-wind (?) threw off my hat with such a force that it went over the cement barrier into the sea!! Now how am I supposed to keep this darn hair outta my face?! Argh. But other than that... I kinda like this place. I really like the smell of the sea air. It reminds me of some place that I've been to often, but I'm not too sure where. But wherever it is, I've only been tehre on holidays. Well, almost time for me to meet Endo-san downstairs in the lobby.
8:40am
Woah. Here I am at the Beppu Epson office. This palce is amazing, truly. I got the grand tour by the secretary - the building is only 4 months old, so it looks just fabulous. It's kinduv designed to look like a ship! And it sits on top of a hill, with the most stunning view of the sea & mountains - wow wow wow! They even have a deck on the second floor (there are only 2 floors) that is shaped like the hull of a ship. And biiiig wide long windowns. And nice blue carpets. And things that look like port holes. Really, it's an amazing building.
I chose to teach in the "cafeteria", which is this glass part of the building with realllly comfortable chairs, etc. I should be starting any moment now... oh no! What do I teach?!!
5:45pmWell, that was only minorly painful. Some parts of the day went really well, but others were extremely slow. At first I was determined to only speak English, because it's THEM that are here to learn English, but I did revert to Japanese every once in awhile. So I'm teaching 20 new "freshmen" - straight out of university - so they're all really young. And they'll ALL be working in this building! They only started work on Monday actually, which is good for me because none of them knew eachother, so I could spend plenty of time learning names and hobbies, and so could everyone else. I made them make nametags, heh heh. But I think I have their names down now! That's pretty good, considering they're all Japanese and all. So it's hard to teach them because NOONE talks. They've all studied English before, but never how to talk. So I have to make them talk, which is a bit difficult, if not repetitive!!
Anwyay, it was fun, but I did feel at times taht I was doing their English worse! oo, but we played charades, and 20 questions, and the counting game, and 7-up...
Thursday April 16, 1998: 5:25pm
*whew* Gee, this is tiring! I mean, a *full day* of *only English* is kinduv, well, tiring! There's no way I would've been able to stay awake if I'd been one of them!
Anyway, I'm getting into the swing of it a bit... or, I appear to know what I'm doing - maybe. Actually, we finished up my textbook early in the afternoon! Not the best of planning on my part. [it's supposed to last through tomorrow too]. But I had other things to teach, like SLANG! Personally, I think slang is very important.
Oh, they all had to fill in evaluation sheets last night, and Jobetto-san gave them to me to read over last night - it took me awhile to read (all in Japanese) but I managed - and overall, I was quite flattered. Almost every person said they'd never talked so much English... cool! And today they talked a lot more! Or at least, less self-consciously. cool. Anyway, I'm beat.
Friday April 17, 1998: 12:45pm
Well, that's pretty much it! Last night after I finished, Jobetto-san told the freshmen that they'd have a dictation today, and that they'd have to give a short speech! Ack, poor them! Anyway, I did a dictation and they were awesome!! Wow! And then the SPEECHES, well, incredible! Like, these guys can really talk! I'm so proud. Plus, lots of them were funny speeches. Ooo, and Ueda-san ('the big boss') is in town, so he listened to a couple -- stress! Ha ha ha. Anyway, since Ueda-san is in town along with Kai-san (from the Paulo Alto, CA office), I don't teach this afternoon so that they can give a presentation to the freshmen. I guess if they're finished early then I get to teach some more... actually, I'm not finished with the customs and business practices part, so I could use a bit of time... but not TO much time 'cuz I don't want to kill them! Ok ok, enough for now...
5:30pm
Well, that's it, finito. Mr Kai was finished his presentation (in which he talked about the new Banff release!! Cool) by 3, so I still had a few hours to teach. So I moved into cultural differences and business practices in Canada... then we played that funny game where everyone has a signal, and you have to hit your knees and signal eachother.. funny! And charades again, but this time in Japanese. And they each wrote a little not for me as a gift! Wow that's so nice!! They're really cool, I hope taht one day I'll get to work with some of them! Hey, if I ever work for Epson again, it is a distinct possibility, since in Japan, when you start working for a company, you stay with them for life! And *everyone* gets transfered about 50 million times, it seems. So who knows?
11pm
Well, tonight after "work", Endo-san (the other Beppu manager), Ueda-san, Mr. Kai and I went out for dinner at this *super nice* Japanese traditional restaurant, where we proceeded to stuff ourselves plump and drink ourselves silly. Heh heh. Man, Ueda-san is hilarious! I like hangin' with the prez! Especially 'cuz he has a company credit card that pays for the meal and such...
And Endo-san tells me that I've gained quite a reputation around all Epson offices for my - uh - drinking skills. Supposedly, to me, 'everything is water'. Ha ha! If they only knew the tequila story... [ed note: if only *you* knew the tequila story!]
Ok ok so I'm just a tad tired now and I have to get up at 5:45 tomorrow morning (like the last 2 days!) to go for my run, and get picked up by Endo-san at 8. Except that tomorrow is Saturday and we're going sightseeing! Cool..
Saturday April 18, 1998: 5pm
Cool, this morning I went to Hell!! No actually, I went to Hell *8 times*! And I'm back! Talk about neat! Maybe I should start at the beginning.
Yeah, so I got up and ran - along the shoreline with the view of Beppu Bay and Takasaki mountain - mist, pale blue hills, deep blue ocean.. beautiful. Checked out by 8, and was in Endo-san's car by 8:05. Then we drove to Ueda-san and Mr. Kai's hotel to pick them up. We had to drop Ueda-san off at the ferry landing (he was going to Shikoku by boat!) then Endo-san, Mr Kai and I went to Hell! Betcha didn't know Hell was in Beppu eh? Well, it is, adn it's much nicer than I've alway thought -- ha ha. Ok ok, so Hell is a tourist attraction obviously, and it has to do with Beppu's abnormal number of hotsprings. Like, when you walk down the street in Beppu, there is steam coming out of the manholes and sewers! And everything vaguely smells of sulphur - it's kinda weird. ANYway, hell is a group of 8 separate hells, each with its own special attraction. The first one we went to - Sea Hell - was a small natural pool of electric aqua blue water that was actually *boiling* it was so hot! And then there was Oven Hell, where the water was all a dark murky blood red colour from the clay, boiling as well, etc etc.. they were all natural hot springs!! Cool. Definitely like nothing I've seen before!
Anyway, that took up the whole morning, adn so we drove Mr Kai to the airport 'cuz his flight left at noon. Then Endo-san and I headed into the mountains in search of temples and shrines! Cool. The frist one we went to we didn't go in too far because it was pouring rain. So we ate lunch instead (I think my soba actually had MOSS as one of its ingredients! On purpose!), and hten drove to Usa Jinja (Usa Shrine) which really has spectacularly HUGE (the grounds were huge, I mean!) - and by then it had stopped raining and the sun was shining - really beautiful. I was quite glad to have gone. Then we drove allll the way back to the airport - but htis time we took the long route along the shoreline of the peninsula - and well, an incredible view! Kyushuu has just TONS of not-built-up places! Mountains, beaches, blue sea -- it's really nice.
Anyway, Endo-san dropped me off here (the airport) a few minutes ago, so now I'm just waiting for my flight back home to board... la di da...
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