Adventures in Odai

Bleh, so many days behind. It’s been ages since I’ve been able to get an interwebs connection.

Thursday 16th September

So Nagoya having been completely unseen, me and Neena headed off to Odai next, once again taking a Shinkansen (which is the best way to travel anywhere as far as I’m concerned).

We arrived about half-three, maybe four, I think, and were met at the trainstation by a lady named Michiko. A few words about this very, very awesome lady. She’s sort of like an unofficial mother for JETs in the Odai region, especially in the early days of their stay. She’s just a local person, but she’s very well travelled – she’s even been to Dublin and Kinsale – and has fluent English. She picked us up because Sinead was still in school and wouldn’t be able to meet us until about 5. Also, so we wouldn’t have to get the bus to Sinead’s place.

She was the only person in the train-station and even if we didn’t find her, I can guarantee she’d have found us. Odai is not the kind of place where two white people regularly just get off the train.

She brought us to a local shrine first, this time one dedicated just to Shinto, rather than a shared temple. The really fascinating thing about this place is that it is rebuilt every twenty years, and has been since the 7th century, in exactly the same way. So while the temple is only 19 years old at the moment, it is effectively the same as it was 1300 years ago. I have no pictures (obviously – since I can’t actually even articulate how rude it would be to just snap pictures of this place) but I’ll try to describe it.

Put away pictures of fantastic Japanese style buildings – this place is almost totally outdoors, bar the actual shrine itself. Most of the area is a sacred woodland. We started by walking down to a shallow river, the water nearly totally clear despite the rains the day before. Here we washed our hands, in a symbolic act of purification, a lot like where we got blessing with holy water I suppose. Then we walked up a small path, wet with the rain and moss, around some small wooden buildings, probably the homes of the caretakers or priests. We never saw anybody around them and Michiko never offered an explanation – and I never thought to wonder until now . . . sorry . . .
We walked down a pathway through the trees, lined with wooden lanterns, not lit but you could see it would have been quite beautiful at night. The shrine itself was only a short distance away. There’s a kind off a fenced off area and then the wooden structure of the shrine itself. You don’t actually go in, but walk up to the front, where you make your offering and then your prayer. In the modern day this offering is generally money, about a 100yen, which is a little less than a euro, but traditionally it might have been anything from part of a farmers crop, an animal or something more extravagant.
I asked Michiko if it was okay for us to pray, not thinking that it would be a problem but out of respect. She was actually a little surprised, apparently most of the people she brings aren’t actually that pushed about it.

I suppose, since this blog is about me, I should probably talk about why I wanted to. I will not pretend that I am not dismissive of organised religion, or priests and cults, but it also must be mentioned that on my more optimistic days I really do believe in an essential power beyond that experienced in the everyday. I could probably give you half a dozen stories off the top of my head that, for my at least, suggest that there is more to this whole show than the shuffle of some bag of bones from birth until death. Many of you reading this have told me your stories about why you believe, not necessarily in the Catholic faith, but in something, some greater truth. Those, however, are your stories, and I would have no right to repeat them here, even if I wanted to prove my point. Trust me when I say, I couldn’t care less whether you believe in this God, that God, or those Gods or what you think of my beliefs, so long as you keep your opinions to yourself.

I merely choose to believe that there is some essential power in the universe, be it God or Gods, anthropomorphic personifications of ideas or the forces of life and death. You are welcome to your own beliefs. As such, I have no particular interest in the ramblings of old men from opulent altars who have lost touch not merely with the world of today, the people of the now, but also with the tradition that they supposedly upheld. The question is simple, would Jesus approve of Rome? In his fucking hole he would.

Therefore I choose to find significance in a grove of trees instead of some stone building. I believe that the prayers said in either place or of equal value, if the person is honest and unselfish, but I choose to say them in one and not the other.

All that aside, let us return to Odai and this particular shrine. I cast in my hundred yen and said prayers for you, those I am not in a position to look after right now, especially my family.

Michiko then took us to a Japanese teahouse, where we had some coffee (irony or comedy, take your pick) and little curry cookie things! Which were very nice, to our collective surprise!

Then we headed up to this local waterfall, which was breathtakingly beautiful, in the middle of a secluded woodland, about fifteen minutes drive down dirt roads. I felt really awful for Michiko’s car! [some pics]
Afterwards, Sinead got in touch to say she’d be a little late, so Michiko took us to see her friend Cole and his dog Ben, at work restoring an old school building. It made me miss Lola. Also saw this really cool lectern made from a tree trunk!

Eventually we got to Sinead’s place – yay!

We weren’t here for long though, quick change or clothes and back into the car and out for dinner. This was our first real experience of Japanese food. Me and Neena let Sinead and Michiko do the ordering, being perfectly happy to eat whatever came out . . .

And eat we did! There was so much stuff I can’t even begin to tell you. That we managed to eat almost everything still stuns me. For a good ten minutes, the waitress just kept coming back with more and more food. I thought I might die! It was really great food though, and we were happy to eat it.

Unfortunately, then Michiko paid for the whole damn thing! Ruining our chance to pay for her, in thanks for looking after us all day.

Back in Sinead’s we didn’t do much, though I did begin to teach her how to download things on bit-torrent sites. No idea what I’m talking about? [People who do, skip down a little].

Well, here’s a brief crash course in how to download TV shows, films or music from the internet.

First, click here. [download.com] If that doesn’t work click here and type Bitcomet into the search.
It will download a file, don’t worry, this is what is supposed to happen. Install said file, perfectly safe though if possible have someone around who knows what they are doing. I will not be held responsible for downloaded viruses or malware. I recommend BitComet and nothing else. It’s always free so don’t pay for anything. After you have this all installed, go to http://www.isohunt.com/.

Type the name of the TV show, film or other file you want into the search bar and there you go. There will often be green numbers after the name, the more of these the better. If you see red numbers absolutely do not download this file. It’s a fake or a virus.

Remember, you do this at your own risk. Not my fault if you kill your computer. Also, if you’re with Eircom, they may actually cut you off after three warnings. Downloading music is illegal, etc bullshit blah blah . . .

So really that was it for that day! We were in bed by eleven because Sinead had to be up for school the next day. The girls slept in Sinead’s bedroom while I slept in the main room (which is clearly fine). I should point out that bedroom is actually a misnomer since there’s no bed. She sleeps on a futon mattress thing on the floor and we all did the same. It was our first time but more or less all Japanese people do this.

Friday 17th September – Shane and Neena go to school!

After a breakfast of rashers, hotdogs and toast, Michiko delivered myself and Neena to her school, where we were to assist in teaching her English class. We had some time to kill so we actually just said around for the first hour doing nothing but laughing and trying to get used to our guest slippers. We weren’t allowed to wear our own shoes inside the school. Sinead has a pair of sandals for the work day that have never been worn outside the school!

We met her supervisor, with whom she co-teaches the class, but his name escapes me. If I think to, I’ll ask her later. She’s asleep right now.

When the class started arriving, a very startled 14 year old girl reacted with utter shock to our presence, probably never seen three white people in the same room before in her life! Sinead really does live out in the sticks. She said something like “Gaikokujin? Why are there Gaikokujin?” Gaikokujin is a polite form of gaijin, which means “foreigner” and is a rather stereotypical thing for Japanese people to call Westerners. I found the whole thing totally hilarious by the way. Poor girl was practically in shock!

Things really did go up hill from there. We introduced ourselves, very simply, and slowly in English. Name, hometown, hobby (clearly they covered hobbies recently). “My name is Shane. I am from Dublin. I like writing stories.”

Eventually it came up that we had been in Harajuku in Tokyo and the kids literally fell over themselves to see Neena’s pictures of it. They found the rockabilly guys as funny as we did! All in all, I reckon we were a complete distraction, but we did do an exercise where we and Neena had to read a dialogue and they had to fill in blanks on their worksheets. I think the speed at which we spoke really threw them – thank God Sarah wasn’t around, she talks so fast people don’t think she speaks English!

On the way out, Gaikokujin-girl (again, will ask Sinead her name) asked me to talk some more in English (because I sound nice), to which I responded with the retarded, “Eh, what do you want me to say?” Her, having no idea what I’d just said, was completely happy with this and went off giggling! Job well done.
We repeated the whole thing with a second class, but these guys were way more boring, except for one guy who I thought was funny, but Sinead thinks is an idiot. We’ll agree to disagree. I think she just doesn’t understand him. Which clearly, I am in no position to judge at all. Having met him once, and spent about 4 seconds trying to converse with him. Shrug. I could still be right.

Afterwards, we headed back to Sinead’s for a bit and then got the bus to the next town to get dinner. On the way we met some kids, who said “hi” and “bye” to us, probably the extent of their English, but they seemed happy. We got some big stares on the bus, three white people getting on the local bus probably doesn’t happen too often – if it has ever happened before.

We ate in this ramen noodle place, which was grand, though I’m sure most of you reading this would realise that noodles are not my favourite food, but hey, when you’re hungry you’ll fucking eat. Trust me.
Back in Sinead’s later we firstly stared at the utterly clear sky. Once we’d been outside for a few minutes and gotten used to the dark you could see thousands of stars so bright and so clear. It was pretty cool.

Neena was awed, more than me, but only cause I’d already noticed it the night before while checking on my washing. (mother you’d be so proud, though I didn’t iron my jeans, which I know always pisses you off!).
Then the girls watched the first episode of the new season of America’s Next Top Model, or ANTM if you’re in the know. I wrote some blog and listened to the idiocy of America with a certain amount of glee. Tyra Banks must have gone to Horatio’s School of One-liners.

We were supposed to go to bed early, because we had to be up early, but Sinead decided they should watch the second episode instead. This worked out badly the following morning.

Eventually we did get to sleep, but not early, and not with enough hours left before we had to be up for our big day in Kyoto . . .

To find out what happens next, tune in next time on the Amazing Super Adventure of Mr Shane’s Crazy Ramblings! Same Bat-time, same Bat-channel.