Fall has arrived in Shirakawa, and with it come both typhoons (there's one scheduled to hit Fukushima this weekend) and plummeting temperatures. So what could be better than waking up after a long, cold night to find that there's no hot water coming out of your shower?
Things like this are an annoyance in one's home country. In a foreign country, they're terrifying. Not only did I have no clue what was happening-- was my bill somehow not drawn out from the bank? Was there something wrong with the apartment building itself?-- I had no real way of even directly finding out what was wrong; it's not like I could pick up the phone, call the utility, and have any hope of either getting my message across or understanding them in return. I had no choice but to send an email to my supervisor, who (as I would learn later) just happened to be on holiday. Wee.
I spent all morning in a state of near panic waiting for a reply from my supervisor, but none came. I was so messed up today that not only was I late for one of my classes (which. . . bad), but I actually cut off one of my JTE's while I was driving to work! Fortunately, it was two of my JTE's who ended up helping me out of this mess. They talked to the board of education, and they in turn managed to get my gas reconnected. It was the weirdest thing; the gas company, no doubt after seeing the continuous consumption of hot water from room 201 of Castle Eight, reached the obvious conclusion that there's no-one currently occupying room 201 of Castle Eight, and shut off the gas.
In any event, I've got hot water again. But now I'm worried that other utilities have made the same mistake as the gas company, and that I'm going to wake up on Monday morning with the power cut off.
Japan. It's a gas.
Showing posts with label Shirakawa. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Shirakawa. Show all posts
Friday, September 28, 2012
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
Ooh! Earthquake!
You know what? I'm really starting to like earthquakes!
I've experienced three so far in Japan (one in Aizuwakamatsu, two in Shirakawa-- one just a couple of seconds ago) all at night, and all (obviously) of minor intensity. Of course I'll be singing a different tune when a magnitude 6 quake hits, but for now, I'm enjoying the little quakes I've felt so far. It starts off with what sounds like a gust of wind, or like someone slammed a door. Then the apartment starts to gently rock, almost like a cradle. Since I'm typically in bed when the quake happens, this is quite welcome.
On a completely unrelated note, after 2-3 weeks of working with a trio of kids from my junior high school on English speech practice, we finally went to the district speech contest. All the students won prizes, and one got first prize in her category. Another student was doing brilliantly until a cognitive slip-up resulted in him basically repeating a whole paragraph. I was actually really pissed off-- not at him, but at the fact that all his hard work was basically fucked up by an accident followed by a moment of panic. Anyway, he still managed to get sixth place (out of 21 in his category) which shows just how well he did.
Congratulations to all three!
I've experienced three so far in Japan (one in Aizuwakamatsu, two in Shirakawa-- one just a couple of seconds ago) all at night, and all (obviously) of minor intensity. Of course I'll be singing a different tune when a magnitude 6 quake hits, but for now, I'm enjoying the little quakes I've felt so far. It starts off with what sounds like a gust of wind, or like someone slammed a door. Then the apartment starts to gently rock, almost like a cradle. Since I'm typically in bed when the quake happens, this is quite welcome.
On a completely unrelated note, after 2-3 weeks of working with a trio of kids from my junior high school on English speech practice, we finally went to the district speech contest. All the students won prizes, and one got first prize in her category. Another student was doing brilliantly until a cognitive slip-up resulted in him basically repeating a whole paragraph. I was actually really pissed off-- not at him, but at the fact that all his hard work was basically fucked up by an accident followed by a moment of panic. Anyway, he still managed to get sixth place (out of 21 in his category) which shows just how well he did.
Congratulations to all three!
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
I'm Back! But I Gotta Go!
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| The mountains to the west of Shirakawa. |
After two weeks in Shirakawa, I finally have access to the internet. Granted, it's a bit limited; I can only access the internet through my Windows OS until I get a wireless router. In any event, before I head off to Aizuwakamatsu for what I think my seventy-fourth orientation, I just wanted to let you know that I haven't given up on you! I haven't abandoned you!
Wednesday, June 6, 2012
The Narrow, Cracked Road to the North
As you may know (or should, if you read this blog's inaugural post) I've been placed in the "City of Shirakawa" in Fukushima prefecture to work as a JET ALT. Naturally, I've been poking around the Googles to learn a bit more about my future hometown.
There's actually not a sizable of info on Shirakawa.1 This isn't too surprising, given that Shirakawa has a population of roughly sixty-six thousand (Prince George, by comparison, has a population of around seventy-seven thousand). So far, I've found a page on Wikipedia, another page on Wikitravel, a Youtube channel belonging to a Shirakawa local, a couple of videos highlighting earthquake damage (see below), and a few scattered images of Komine castle, which I'll get to later.2
What's weirder is that info on Fukushima prefecture as a whole also appears to be pretty sparse-- besides the glowing green elephant in the room, I mean. The Wikipedia page has a few fairly brief sections on history, geography, culture, and tourism in Fukushima, along with the obligatory sections dedicated to the Tohoku Earthquake and its aftermath, but otherwise it's mostly just padded out with boring old lists of cities, rail-lines, and universities. Almost makes me wonder what Wikipedia's page on Kiev Province looks like. . .
But again, the information available in Japanese probably vastly outweighs that which is available in English, so just I'll just chalk it up to laziness on my part.
Anyway, here's what I've found out about Shirakawa so far:
The "City" of Shirakawa
"County" or "District" would probably be a better word. From what I can tell from Google Earth and a couple of other sources, the region known as Shirakawa is a collection of small-to-medium sized towns, with large patches of countryside. It looks to be quite pretty in the summertime, from what I've seen so far.
Komine Castle
Shirakawa's only landmark, if Google Images is to be trusted. Meaning "small peak castle," it was originally built in 1340, was destroyed in 1868, and rebuilt between 1991 and 1994.
Ramen
Shirakawa is famous for it's Ramen noodles. I am so there.
Basho
The famous Japanese poet Basho wrote about his travels through Shirakawa as part of his classic poem The Narrow Road to the North.
Daruma
Dolls. That's all I know. They're dolls. I guess I'll learn more once I'm there.
Radiation
Based on information provided by my Japanese teacher, the highest radiation levels in Shirakawa are just a little higher than that found on a high-altitude flight, so I'm not too worried.
So, yeah. That's what I know of Shirakawa thus far. Not much. Buy hey, suspense!
Until next time.
1 In English, anyway. What, you expect me to read Japanese? Pssh.↩
2 I also found a blog called Stephanie's Adventures in Japan which, disturbingly, was last updated in February of 2011. . .↩
There's actually not a sizable of info on Shirakawa.1 This isn't too surprising, given that Shirakawa has a population of roughly sixty-six thousand (Prince George, by comparison, has a population of around seventy-seven thousand). So far, I've found a page on Wikipedia, another page on Wikitravel, a Youtube channel belonging to a Shirakawa local, a couple of videos highlighting earthquake damage (see below), and a few scattered images of Komine castle, which I'll get to later.2
What's weirder is that info on Fukushima prefecture as a whole also appears to be pretty sparse-- besides the glowing green elephant in the room, I mean. The Wikipedia page has a few fairly brief sections on history, geography, culture, and tourism in Fukushima, along with the obligatory sections dedicated to the Tohoku Earthquake and its aftermath, but otherwise it's mostly just padded out with boring old lists of cities, rail-lines, and universities. Almost makes me wonder what Wikipedia's page on Kiev Province looks like. . .
But again, the information available in Japanese probably vastly outweighs that which is available in English, so just I'll just chalk it up to laziness on my part.
Anyway, here's what I've found out about Shirakawa so far:
The "City" of Shirakawa
"County" or "District" would probably be a better word. From what I can tell from Google Earth and a couple of other sources, the region known as Shirakawa is a collection of small-to-medium sized towns, with large patches of countryside. It looks to be quite pretty in the summertime, from what I've seen so far.
Komine Castle
Shirakawa's only landmark, if Google Images is to be trusted. Meaning "small peak castle," it was originally built in 1340, was destroyed in 1868, and rebuilt between 1991 and 1994.
Ramen
Shirakawa is famous for it's Ramen noodles. I am so there.
Basho
The famous Japanese poet Basho wrote about his travels through Shirakawa as part of his classic poem The Narrow Road to the North.
Daruma
Dolls. That's all I know. They're dolls. I guess I'll learn more once I'm there.
Radiation
Based on information provided by my Japanese teacher, the highest radiation levels in Shirakawa are just a little higher than that found on a high-altitude flight, so I'm not too worried.
So, yeah. That's what I know of Shirakawa thus far. Not much. Buy hey, suspense!
Until next time.
1 In English, anyway. What, you expect me to read Japanese? Pssh.↩
2 I also found a blog called Stephanie's Adventures in Japan which, disturbingly, was last updated in February of 2011. . .↩
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