The last 45 hours, I’ve slept for about 4-5. First off I didn’t sleep on the plane. Maybe a half to a full hour, top. I may have dozed off on one of the trains too, but again pretty modestly. Lastly, I barely slept last night.
Wait, should I just start from the beginning? Ok, here goes!
So, I got on the plane and flew lots; first to Tokyo and then to Fukuoka. I didn’t go outside in Tokyo, but I could feel it was preeeetty hot! When I arrived at Fukuoka, where it was 34 degrees celcius(!!!), I had to take the train to Ooita Station. That would first be by subway to Hakata station, where I should swtich to the shinkansen, and then on to Ooita. From Hakata to Ooita is a pretty long way, so it wasn’t shown on the short fare, and most of the citiy names were shown in kanji (Chinese signs), I was pretty screwed. I looked around for ages to see if the ticket machine could give me a ticket to Ooita, but I ended up buying it at the ticket counter. NOTE to everyone wanting to go to Japan: When you’re in doubt about where to go, GO TO THE TICKET COUNTER, even if they don’t speak English. The ticket machines are Hell if you don’t read kanji (and especially when you’ve flown for 12 hours and haven’t slept for 20 hours).
Oh well, I still asked people around me to be sure the train I was about to ride really did go to Ooita. People were quite friendly, even though I may have both used primitive and perhaps a little impolite Japanese, but I was scared to talk to Japanese people… and very, very worn.
I got on the train, and it was a pretty nice one. Ooita was the last destination. I think it took 2-3 hours to get to Ooita, and when I was finally there, I had to catch another train to Miemachi station. At this train station however, ALL cities were shown in kanji, so I didn’t really have a chance to know where to go. So once again: ticket counter.
Finally at Miemachi train station. Here I was SUPPOSED to take a bus to Tanaka bus stop, but the fares had already ended. What to do, what to do?! I tried calling my host family’s home, but no answer… I tried again; no answer. I was getting pretty nervous, as it was about 7pm japanese time (= 1pm danish). Finally I tried their cell phone number, and I got through! I was so nervous I went blank in my mind, and only after a while I managed to say who I was, and that I couldn’t get from the station. The host told me to wait, and they’d come pick me up in 20 minutes, and so I waited.
They (the father and youngest daughter) came to pick me up, and I apologised for making such a fuss. They were really nice and told me not to think about it. On the way to their house, we passed a water fall, but unfortunately it was too dark to really see anything. We also passed by the school where their second daughter had a volleyball class. What disturbed be at the train station was, that there were a LOT of young people in school uniforms – at freaking 7 in the evening! When I told them that I went to school until 3pm, the girl sounded really surprised. I see why…
So after picking her up from volleyball, we went home. Here, I was met by their grandmother sitting in a massage chair, and the mother and oldest daughter in the kitchen. I didn’t even introduce myself properly which I’m pretty embarrassed about now… Anyways, we were having tsukemen for dinner. I actually don’t know if it was zaru soba, but it could be. Being this hot, you really feel like eating something cool, and this was noodles in ice water, which you all grab some of from a big bowl, dip it in a dipping sauce, and slurp up. I also got a small grilled fish and rice. Also, there was some pickled cucumber (home grown), and a few other things. I don’t really remember…
So after watching a bit of TV, we went to bed. I spent the first 30 minutes to an hour trying to sleep, and finally managed to actually fall asleep. It was very light though, and I woke up hoping it was at least in the middle of the night. It was 11.30pm. WHAT THE H*LL IS UP WITH THAT?! How can you have been awake for more than 30 hours, and STILL not be able to sleep?! It took me HOURS to finally go back to sleep. The last time I checked, it was about 3am, and as we got up at 6.30, you do the math…
When the girls had gone to school and their mother had gone for work, I went with the father and did some in their growing house. They have sweet peas (primarily – they also have a bunch of other things), and that may make you giggle, but I talked with him, and he said this: One pod (ærtebælg) is 200yen. That is 13 DKKR for 1 pea pod! He also showed me an article in the news (on his phone) about him – I don’t know what it said though.
Right now, I’m sitting in my room (which is all their family heritage room – old pictures, a home miniature shrine) with the family cat Miyu. We’re taking a break for a few hours because of the heat, and instead of trying to get some sleep, I decided to write a little for my blog, hoping to eventually get on the internet…
It’s incredibly beautiful around here, but I’ll be posting pictures later on.
I’m doing good, but still need to adjust a little. I often feel stupid or rude when trying to speak Japanese or there’s something I don’t understand (both cased which appear quite often, sadly), and I have a feeling that I out of all the foreigners they’ve had staying, is the worst at Japanese. I don’t know, but have been thinking about asking – my only problem is that I don’t really know HOW to ask. “WOOFER no naka de, watashiha nihongowo hanasukoto ga ichiban warui desuka?” I think it’d come across, but then again, I’m kinda scared to hear the answer :b
I’ll be back some time later… I’ll try to get some sleep or at least, rest.
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