One Month Anniversary

As of today, I have been in Toyohashi for one month. The time has flown by and it feels like only yesterday that I was saying goodbye to my parents at Birmingham International Airport. Since then, I have met so many new people, seen and done and eaten so many new things and the adventure has still only just begun. There's an entire country waiting to be explored.

I feel really lucky to be living in Toyohashi. When I was offered the teaching position four months or so ago, I had never even heard of this city, but I took a leap of faith and I don't regret it for an instant. The community here is great and really welcoming and the city itself... well, the best word I can come up with to describe it is 'comfortable'. It is neither too big nor too small. It is, as Goldilocks might put it, just right.

I'm looking forward to many more months of living here.

A Skulk of Foxes

Yesterday, I got the chance to visit Toyokawa-Inari, which is one of the main shrines to the goddess Inari in Japan (the others being Fushimi-Inari in Kyoto, which I've visited, and Yutoku-Inari in Saga, which I haven't).

Inari is the Shinto goddess of foxes, so there were a few fox statues (kitsune) dotted around.

Actually, there were quite a lot.

In addition to foxes, Inari is also goddess of fertility, rice, tea, sake, agriculture and industry and, because of her association with industry, there are an abundance of banners around the shrine, each displaying the name of a business hoping for Inari's blessing. (If you visit Fushimi-Inari, you'll see something similar, with the names of businesses written on the many, many torii gates.) 

Inari is also linked with Daikokuten, the cheerful guy pictured below. He is one of Japan's "Seven Lucky Gods", about whom I will no doubt write more in a later post.

A Day at the Aquarium and Other Stories

Sorry it's been so long since my last post. Since arriving in Japan, life has been a bit hectic and I haven't had much time to just sit down and write. So, without further ado, let's correct that.

Last weekend, I was back in Nagoya, catching up with my fellow trainees who, like me, are trainees no longer. They, like me, have all started work at their respective schools and all had interesting stories to tell, none of which I will be sharing here.

The location of our reunion was the Port of Nagoya Public Aquarium.

I'm a bit of a fan of aquariums and Nagoya is one of the better ones with a good selection of things to look at.

The highlight for me was the dolphin show. I didn't know dolphins were even capable of half of the tricks they performed.

After leaving the aquarium, we decided to explore the port area a bit more and ended up wandering through something called "Woods of the World", which includes trees from all the ports around the world that ships from Nagoya travel to. We were not alone in our explorations, however, since the woods had been overrun by dozens of cats (I may be exaggerating slightly).

The following day, I was back in Toyohashi doing grocery shopping and other chores, but I did find time to visit Mukaiyama Ume Garden to see the plum blossoms. According to my city guide, it's the largest plum garden in the eastern Mikawa region.

That's all for now. In my next blog post, we'll talk about foxes...

Welcome to Toyohashi

Sorry for not updating this blog for a couple of weeks. Things have been incredibly busy here in Japan.

Firstly, I'd like to thank everyone for their birthday wishes. They really brightened my day. My birthday coincided with my first full day of teaching at my new school and I have to thank the staff and the students for making the day so enjoyable and for welcoming me so warmly into their community.

Today was my day off and I spent it exploring my new home.

It's only a short walk north from my apartment to Toyohashi Park and Yoshida Castle.

Mukaiyama Park and Oh Pond are a little ways to the south...

The Yagyu-gawa River...

And finally, a couple of photos of the area around Toyohashi station.

I'm still getting my bearings, but I think I'm going to like it here.

Nagoya

Well, I've arrived.

I wish I could tell you lots about Nagoya, which is where I'm currently staying, but the truth is that I haven't seen very much of it. I feel a bit guilty not using my free day for sightseeing, but I arrived late on Saturday night, training started early this morning and looks set to be intense so it seemed that the best thing to do on Sunday was not a lot at all.

I'm sharing an apartment with three of the other trainees in my group, one of whom didn't arrive until late last night because his plane was delayed due to bad weather, so I spent Sunday relaxing in the company of the other two, both of whom are great. We did a little bit of exploring in the afternoon, around Nagoya castle (see photos) and the Sakae district, but mostly we alternated our time between sitting in cafes and sitting in the apartment. Not exactly the exciting news I promised you, but it's all I have for the moment.

The Final Countdown

As I type this, there are just under four hours to go before the first of three flights that will take me from Birmingham to Nagoya. Still time to change my mind. (I'm kidding. Probably.)

Before I go, I just want to thank everyone for helping me get this far. I keep getting people telling me how impressed they are with what I'm doing, but the truth is that I couldn't have done it without an awful lot of help. There were the tutors on my TEFL course who helped me get my qualification. The recruiters who a) offered me this new job and b) led me by the hand on the journey from accepting the offer to now. The staff at my new school (and I'm already thinking of it as my school) who have already been so welcoming. Everyone at my old job who put up with me while I was stressing about everything and in particular my manager who was extremely flexible when it came to taking time off to get things done.

And, as I mentioned in my previous post, friends and family have been supportive above and beyond the call of duty. Even if you don't think you've done much, I can promise you that you've helped a lot. Every word of encouragement is a little push that's got me that much further along the road and, when I cross the finish line, it's going to be because you've carried me there.

Don't know when I'm next going to have access to the internet so there may not be any blog updates for a while, but once I'm settled in to my new life, I'll update you all as to how I'm getting on.

Breaking Up Is Hard To Do

There's a lot to do in preparation for moving to another country. Visas to be applied for. Flights to be booked. A new language to learn. Old possessions to be disposed of or put into storage and new things to be purchased. One thousand and one little (and not so little) tasks that need to be completed prior to departure and only so much time in which to complete them. By far the hardest task, however, is saying goodbye.

For the past few weeks, I've been doing exactly that and every time I see a friend, colleague or family member knowing that it will be the last time I do so before I fly, it hurts. Some of these people I have known for years and years and years, others for only a matter of months, but everyone, without exception, has been incredibly supportive of me and of my ambition. It's really humbling.

Everyone sees this as a great big adventure for me (which it is) and I don't want to let anybody down or disappoint so I'm doing my best to be outwardly positive and enthusiastic, burying the nerves and the fears and that (small) part of me that doesn't want to go. Plus, I'm both male and British so a certain stiff-upper-lippedness is expected. But then there's a softly-spoken 'I'm going to miss you', that almost tips me over the edge...

And I know that in the age of the internet, with e-mail and skype and assorted social media, there's no reason why I won't be able to keep in touch with everyone, but it's not the same as seeing them in person. Not even close. That's just something I'm going to have to learn to live with.

So I'd like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for helping me get this far, to tell everyone that I am really going to miss them and to ask you all to please, please, please keep in touch. I am incredibly lucky to have the friends I have and life wouldn't be the same without you.

Anyway, I've got to go. I've got something in my eye...