I was alone in the office yet again this morning, but at lunchtime, Carson (my predecessor) visited the school to take me to lunch at a lovely café called Bossanova. The décor was a mixture between French, American, and Japanese, and it had a quaint atmosphere that made me feel like I was in an old European home and not on a rural, tropical Japanese island. I had the house special: the “Siciliano,” a salad-like dish with lettuce, tomatoes, ground beef, egg, corn, and butter rice, all topped with mayo.
After work, Nat drove Carson and me up to Naze for the Amami matsuri (summer festival). I met the other Amami ALTs: Megan, Dina, Ching, and Jacob. Becca, Jacob’s predecessor, was also there, so it was a rare occurrence for so many ALTs to be in the same place at once. Check out Becca’s JET blog at beccamayhem.wordpress.com. Nat went to find parking (difficult with everyone coming into the city from all over the island) while Carson and I went to Dina’s to help them get dressed in yukata (summer kimono). Dina has some mad yukata-fitting skills, so she dressed herself, Carson, and Becca. We made our way to the waterfront, where the fireworks were scheduled to begin at 8 pm. The sky was dark, but the streets were lit by lanterns and the light of festival vendors selling food, shaved ice, and toys. Carson and I each got some yakitori and fried squid. In addition, she got an ear of corn while I got yakisoba.
The fireworks began while we were still in line, but unluckily for everyone, it began to rain! It began as a small drizzle, but I now know that when it drizzles on Amami, it will either stop or POUR. Well, it poured. Hard. Usually, fireworks will continue if the rain isn’t too bad, and I guess the firework-setters were optimistic that the weather would change, since the show continued for a while despite the downpour. Carson and I got separated and wound up with each other’s food, and I found three other ALTs with whom I huddled under shared umbrellas on the bridge, enjoying the fireworks (which we could see through one of our clear umbrellas) as best we could while simultaneously shivering as we got more and more drenched.
After maybe five minutes of this, we decided to make for shelter, since it didn’t look like the rain was letting up at all, and other people on the bridge were already in the middle of a mass exodus towards the city center. The firework-setters apparently were of the same mind, because the show was cancelled soon after we decided to leave. Eventually the four of us entered a Family Mart convenience store for a few minutes of shelter before walking back to Dina’s place in the unrelenting rain. At this point everyone was drenched from head to toe and no taxis would take us, so we walked for a while.
After getting changed and waiting for the rain to lighten up from a heavy downpour to a light shower, we met up with the others at a restaurant called Tsubohachi for some food, since Carson and I were in the minority of our group who decided to buy food before the show. Eager to make the most of the night we sang karaoke for two hours. I didn’t drink, and neither did Nat (he was to drive back to Koniya tonight and join us again tomorrow) but the others had a handful (or two) of beers each. Becca was by far the best of all of us – she could sing every song at the top of her lungs and not lose her voice! Sugoi (amazing)!! Jacob and Megan sang a few songs in Japanese, and everyone partook in Adele and Disney favorites. To commemorate Becca and Carson’s last karaoke in Japan, we ended with “Hello, Goodbye” by the Beatles and “The Scientist” by Coldplay, and tried with varying degrees of success to blink back our tears.
It was 2 am by the time we finished singing, so Ching, Carson, and I stayed at Megan’s place for the night to prepare for another day of festive activities tomorrow. Carson was exhausted and passed out on the couch, while I, with nothing but hard wood floors back in my Koniya apartment, had my first proper Japanese sleep on a futon and tatami since arriving.
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