Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Amongst Mountains and...Grass Skiing?

So here I am in the tatami room of my apartment.  It is my favorite room in the house (at least try to look shocked), except when it is too hot.  Then my favorite room is the kitchen where the air conditioner is. 

I missed the tatami mats so much.  It was one of those little things I didn't even consider.  I used to wake up (reluctantly) and many times I had been sleeping on my stomach with my hands stretched out on the tatami mats. 

I missed feeling them under my feet while getting ready in the morning and falling asleep with them at night.  

For the first few days I lived in the kitchen.  It was really hot, and my supervisor and the two others who met me at the JET center in Kumamoto took my futon from the bedroom and put it on the floor of the sitting room connected to the kitchen.  There was a lot of discussion as they had in impromptu inspection of the place and commented on all of things that needed to be fixed.

On the second day of life in Nankan-machi (machi = town) I was given a driving tour of the area.  I was pretty impressed.  For such a small town, it has a lot of cool, diverse things you wouldn't expect.  From the small race track, the local potters (whose house/studio looks just as you imagine a Japanese artist's place in the mountains would look), and of course, the onsen.

But there was one surprise.  There was a ski lift.  It was a weird case of culture and reverse culture shock all at the same time.  It was just so familiar and so wrong.  I asked my supervisor, Nakashima-san, "I thought you didn't get snow here." and pointed to the lift.  He said, "No, we don't get snow here.  That is for grass skiing."  I double checked to make sure I heard right.  

I had.  I am in the land of grass skiing.

3 comments:

Danielle said...

Grass skiing???

kati kyushu said...

I'm not lying! Another JET said he went grass sledding, and that it was really dangerous.

Anonymous said...

I like your shirt! It's purple :)