Giant spiders

2008-08-17T05:41:00.001-07:00

Anyone who tells you that everything is smaller in Japan has obviously never encountered a Kyushu spider.

I came home today to find this little bastard in my bedroom. He was about the size of my palm and he moved like lightning. Now, I'm not a squeamish person and back in the States, my house was very old and essentially in a forest preserve, so I grew up dealing with animals and insects left and right. But this is the biggest goddamn spider I've ever seen and I'm not ashamed to admit that it scared the fucking crap out of me.

Luckily, Alaina, my predecessor, had the apartment well-stocked with bug killer. So I pulled out a can of that, cornered the bastard, and sprayed him. I thought that was it, but he kept moving. I eventually got him cornered and sprayed him for about five minutes before the fucker finally died. These things are fucking resiliant, I'll give them that.

After that was done, I scooped him up with some toilet paper and threw him over the edge of the balcony. And the damn thing made a thump noise I could hear from the second-story balcony, which is even more amazing when you take into account that I don't have the best hearing in the world and I had music blaring from my laptop speakers less than ten feet away at the time.

Here in Tarumizu

2008-08-16T19:17:00.000-07:00

I've yet to really use this blog, so here goes.

I've now settled in to my new home in Tarumizu. The photo you see to the left is Sakurajima, a famous volcano in the Kagoshima prefecture and really close to Tarumizu. When Sakurajima goes off, it usually means you'll need an umbrella to deal with the ash and if it rains after it's gone off, you have to deal with black rain. I haven't dealt with an eruption yet, but it is an active volcano, so that may change in the near future.

What's there to say about Tarumizu? It's hot, that's for damn sure. I'm from Chicago, where it gets really hot in the summer, and I spent almost every summer of my youth in Florida, near the Tampa Bay area. The difference between those places and Tarumizu is the humidity. It's almost at a hundred per cent, so the minute you step out the door, you're already beginning to get moist. Everyone here carries around a small towel to wipe the sweat from their face and neck, which I've now taken to doing. It actually does make it much easier to bear.

Fortunately, the air conditioning in my apartment is very good and the board of education, where I've been spending most of my time, has pretty good air conditioning as well. That will all change in a few weeks when I begin traveling to the schools. In those schools, the air conditioning is non-existent. I've visited each school so far and just being in there for a brief amount of time was rough. It'll be interesting to see how I last once I begin teaching. I have twelve schools I'll be traveling to, although the one I'll be at the most, Tarumizu Junior High, is the one that's almost adjacent to my apartment.

Now, the apartment. It's a really good size for one person. I have a kitchen/living room combo, a shower room, toilet room and a small corridor that connects them to the kitchen and the front door and I have a six tatami mat bedroom. I've also got a really nice size balcony, which makes me wish I had a grill out here for some barbecuing. I've visited some of my fellow JETs in Kagoshima City and their apartments are much smaller than mine and they're all essentially studio apartments. However, other JETs who are more in the country have much bigger places, some of them have been given houses.

Basically, the apartment has everything I need, with the exception of the grill and also, the exception of a hookah (although that will change as I recently ordered one online and it should arrive in about a week or two). I also have a few stray cats around the building who are very friendly. Most people on Kyushu Island (where Tarumizu is located) have had trouble with bugs, although I've been pretty lucky on that front. I'm on the second floor so that makes it easier. What makes it even easier is that the stray cats will act as pest control for me. Almost every time when I come home, I'll find the remains of insect corpses.

Most of my weekends are spent in Kagoshima City. From my apartment, it takes about five minutes by bicycle to get to the Tarumizu Ferry Port where I hop on a ferry for 360¥ and take the ferry over to Kamioke Port in Kagoshima City. From there, it's either a 180¥ or 210¥ bus ride to get to Kagoshima Chuo station where there's a massive shopping plaza or to get to Tenmonkan, where most of the city's nightlife is located. Unfortunately, the last ferry leaves Kamioke Port at 10:30 pm, or 8:30 pm on Sundays. So most nights have to be early unless I'm able to crash on someone's floor in the City. Barring that, Kagoshima has a lot of hotels and if you stay out late enough, extra time can be killed in an Internet cafe (which are open 24/7) and the first ferry of the day leaves at 5:20 in the morning. But last night it was an early night and I tried to catch a bus from Tenmonkan back to Kamioke but couldn't find one. There was also a street car that would take me back to Kagoshima Chuo, where I knew I could catch a bus, but the streetcar was taking its sweet time. With it edging towards 9:50, I instead grabbed a cab and had him take me to Kamioke Port. It was a fast ride, much more so than the bus would have been, but you get what you pay for--a 1600¥ fare for a ride that lasted all of ten minutes. If you're ever in Japan, only use the cabs as a last resort.

Pretty much all to report from Tarumizu for now.

In Shinjuku

2008-07-27T15:55:00.000-07:00

I landed yesterday afternoon at Narita Airport. The flight wasn't as bad as other flights I've been on to and from Japan. All the JETs were lumped together, so I was with people I already knew. I was also in the first row in the middle aisle, so plenty of legroom and I had a DC outlet for my laptop, enabling me to watch movies on it throughout the flight.

Once we got out of the airport, it was an hour and a half to two hour coach bus ride to Keio Plaza in Shinjuku. Got settled in and met up with some people and got something to eat. We wandered around Shinjuku for a while before making our way back to the hotel.

Orientation begins today. Goes from nine in the morning until eight tonight, then we do it all again tomorrow.

Live From Tarumizu

Giant spiders

Here in Tarumizu

In Shinjuku