Momotaro

Peach-boy Peach-boy

Joycie said that this story is something I should post to my blog, so here I am doing exactly that.

First off, an apology. For all those people living in Japan whose schools or Board of Educations don't treat them right. I'm sorry.

This past week, the first week back from summer vacation, there have been no classes. For the past week, I have done little more than check email, read, play baseball with students and clean up the river with students. Down time like this is nice because it gives me a good chance to speand time with my kids and get to know them. The 3rd years are all around the same age as high school freshman in the US, so they get a kick out of having a teacher that is not too much older, plus they really like hearing about America and the different countries I've been to. I in turn like chatting with students that aren't quite kids.

Aside from the students, the faculty here really takes care of me. Take, for example, what happened to me last Tuesday.

Now you should know that it's hot here. It is really hot and we naturally don't have air conditioning in school. I have a tiny fan in front of my desk that keeps my skin from meltng off, but otherwise every shirt that I wear to work has to go in the hamper the second I get home. On a typical summer's day, I take no less than 4 or 5 freezing cold showers.

So, sitting in this heat, getting a little bored, I say "厚い！スイカ　たべたい!" Meaning, "It's hot!! I want to eat some watermelon."

I didn't really want a watermelon, not that I would have minded one, but the thing is along with wanting to practice my Japanese in school, if I speak Japanese every now and then, the few newer teachers who are afraid of me start to warm up a little bit.

At that moment, Kojima-sensai, who I teach with, jumps up and says "do you want a peach?" The peaches here, by the way, are really quite delicious, so of course I responded "sure."

We go into the teacher's lunch room and out of her lunchbag, she pulls out a peach that I can only assume was part of her lunch. She hands it to me.

"I can't take your peach. Really it's ok."

"Take the peach!"

"No, I was just saying I wanted watermelon because I wanted to say something in Japanese. That is your peach, you don't need to give it to me!"

(She extends her hand with the peach further) Please! "Take the peach! I would be happy to give you my peach!!"

So I take the peach, and she smiles. I go towards the sink to cut it.

"NO!"

"Huh? I thought you said I could have the preach..."

"Yes, but cut it in the front office. They have a knife there that is good for cutting peaches."

So, I take my peach and go to the front office. In the front office is Okubo-sensai at her desk, and Suizu-sensai, who is the groundskeeper Willy of the school. Okubo-sensai looks at my peach and smiles.

"You want to cut the peach?"

"Uh, yea"

Suizu-sensai jumps up.

"I'll cut it for you!"

Now, at this point, my brain is going "Wh... huh? whats??" and I stand there frozen while she grabs the peach, and proceeds to cut it with surgical precision. Really, I have never seen a peach so masterfully cut in my life. She hands me a plate with the glimmering orange fruit perfectly cut and placed on its surface. I just stand there and hold the plate.

"Um, thank you.... would, uh, would you like a piece?"

"No no no.... I will just eat this" and she holds up the peach pit, some chunks of fruit still stuck to it. She pops the pit into hr mouth.

"You know, I have a whole peach, and you cut it for me. You can have a real slice."

"The pit is good. Enjoy the peach!"

So now I am holding this ill-gotten peach, the culmination of absolutely NO effort on my part. At this point, I would feel like a good to just shovel the slices into my mouth, so I do the Japanese thing, put toothpicks in each slice, and walk around the teacher's room serving peach to everyone. At the end, I got to eat the last piece.

Moral of the story: a ninja can kill anyone without even blinking an eye... and thats a FACT.

Oh, and for all of you who enjoyed the New Zealand post and are waiting to be caught up, your time will come. I am planning on continuing with weekly, if not bi weekly posts from now on. I will, for the most part, pick up with more current stuff, but every so often when not much is going on I will write on some past event.

As ever,
-R

The Big New Zealand Wrapup
...so we can all get on with our lives.

Ok, for the sake of the ability to write about new things, I am going to wrap up the rest of the New Zealand trip in one megapost.

After the absailing and trekking through Abel Tasman, my partner in crime and I decided that we were due some relaxation time. Naturally, while most people choose to relax on a beach, we chose a deeper, less oxygenated locale.

Just off Tutukaka Beach is Poor Knight's Island, one of the most reputed dive spot in the world. Jacques Cousteau rated it as among the top ten in the world - and it didn't take long to figure out why.

Poor Knight's Island inhabits rare wildlife, among which are the weatas: giant armor-plated insects, huge land snails, poisonous centipedes over one foot long, hungry land crabs that invade the forest and drag young seabirds from the safety of their burrows. Oh, and of course the tuatara, a miniature dinosaur that has survived on these remote islands unchanged for millions of years. The Poor Knights, the world as it was before man walked the earth. (paraphrased from www.offthefence.com.)





This is where we chose to relax. Of course, the delicate ecosystem of the terrestrial parts of the islands are maintained by not letting people onto it, but the waters surrounding the islands are no less impressive. New Zealand does a lot to protect its spectacular nature, and in the case of Poor Knight's Island, they did the most good by declaring it a national park and protecting it as such. Boat traffic is limited to a certain amount of dive boats and research vessels. Fishing is prohibited without exception. Even something as seemingly innocuous as taking a seashell from the ocean floor is not allowed. What that leaves you with is a perfectly preserved marine environment to explore.

The first dive site we visited is known as 'the gentle forest' because of the kelp that covers the ocean floor. It is not an especially deep dive site (at deepest, it may have reached 15m) but thanks to the shelter the kelp provides, there is much marine life to be seen. Lord Howe coral fish, scorpion fish, nudibranchs, sea urchin, black angelfish, sandagers wrasse, and demoiselle are among the most abundant.














Prior to Jane's poor ears filling up with water and the subsequent infection that ensued, she too seemed to enjoy the gentle forest.

Between dives, we ate lunch in the shade of one of the caves in the area. The cave was an interesting phenomena in itself. The high curved ceiling allowed for perfect acoustics. In addition, the light color of the rocks reflected the sunlight that bounced off the water and at certain points of the day, the entire cave is illuminated in brilliant white light.














The second dive site was known as 'nursery cove.' Another shallow dive (17.5m) but as the name suggests, the site is teeming with juvenile wildlife. The site is at the base of a cliff of one of the islands, which provides shelter for many species including the ones at Gentle Forest along with gray spotted morey eels, pigfish, rays, and various species of parrotfish. At one end of the site is a series of caves and archways known as 'the labyrinth.'
































After our dives, we drove around for a while, exploring the beaches around Tutukaka. We ended up at the Pickled Parrot in Paihhia, a decent hostel (with free breakfast!) that was close to where we needed to be.

The next day, we decided to immerse ourselves in Maori culture. We went to Waitangi, the site where the English and the Maori signed the "treaty" to share the land of New Zealand. Of course, I am compelled to put the word treaty in quotes because I don't see "sign this paper or we'll kill you" to be much of an accord, but new Zealanders swear that it was a friendly agreement.

At the treaty grounds, we had the chance to see a traditional Haka, the ritual dance of the Maori. The Haka was used for a variety of reasons in Maori tribes, the most noteworthy being the War Haka which is meant to intimidate the hell out of anyone standing on the opposite side of a bunch of Maori warriors. Through a series of gestures including stomping, slapping various parts of the body, showing the whites of the eyes, the teeth, and brandishing the tongue, the war haka gets the basic principle of "we are going to kill you" in no uncertain terms. (This is of course unless the opposition vastly outnumbers the Maori with a gun carrying imperial army.)

After seeing the haka, we walked around the treaty grounds, and saw a reproduction of a ceremonial Maori canoe and the official tribal meeting house of the Maori where each Maori clan was represented by their own tiki god-looking carving.




























On the following day, our last full day in New Zealand, Jane and I decided to really take it easy (by conventional standards.) Given both of our interests in sailing (mine for the leisure of it, Jane more for the plundering and pirating aspect) we boarded the R. Tucker Thompson, a tall ship that is a perfect reproduction of a 19th century Halibut Schooner.


"The Tucker is built to sail. She is a gaff rigged, square tops'l schooner. Gaff rigged means that her mainsail has four sides; square tops'l refers to the two square topsails. Schooner, in this case, means that of her two masts, the forward mast is shorter than the aft. She was designed according to the traditions of a North American Halibut schooner by a transplanted Californian, R. Tucker Thompson." (www.tucker.co.nz).

Most notable were the ship's voyages in races, particularly around the world. With few amenities that were not available in the 19th century, the ship is indeed a proper sailboat.

Don't take that to mean we were roughing it. On the Thompson, we basked in the final sunny day in New Zealand and saw the Bay of Islands once more, this time in style. On the ship, the cook, Ms. Battersby prepared a veritable feast (although despite the somewhat pricy cost of sailing, I still had to dish out a few bucks to have a coke with my meal). Rounding out the crew was Captain Garth Bishop.
The Captain was an...interesting...fellow. At first his "Ahoy Matey, batten the hatches, stand fast and secure the ringers!" vernacular, along with his salty man of the sea appearance seemed like schtick to appeal to the patrons of the R. Tucker Thompson. Later, my opinion changed when he started firing his miniature cannon at passing ships. Only after surviving his "hardy har har, arrrrrgh" laugh after the ear piercing cannon blow did I realize that Captain Garth was either hitting the rum a bit hard, or he was a few ships short of a fleet.










We stopped at the island where Captain Jamess Cook first landed in the Bay of Islands. From the topmost point of the island, there was a truly impressive view of the cove.
















We explored a few of the lagoons before heading for the ship to enjoy that wonderful lunch I mentioned before. Of course, blatantly ignoring 24 years of my mother's admonition that I have to wait 30 minutes after eating to go into the water, Jane and I took a few plunges off the ship.






















Of course, nothing we did on this trip scared me more than when Jane decided to take the wheel for a while.



...And while the intention of the voyage was to enjoy a relaxing, non perilous time - we could not resist the chance to climb up the rigging and hang out on the bowsprit.





One final ferry ride from the docks to the mainland (complete with a rainbow and the final sunset we would enjoy in New Zealand, and we were back in our rental car on the way to Auckland.



















There, after meeting a thoroughly cool guy who stayed in the same "extreeeeeeeeeeeme hostel" (everything in NZ is "to the extreeeeeeeeeme" and our hostel during the final night in Auckland, with its neon lights and flashing strobes guiding you to your "intennnnnseee bunk bed" was no exception) - we grabbed a few beers. Shakespeare Tavern and Brewery in Auckland features such brews as "Falstaff's Real Ale," and "Willpower Stout" (pun intended) appealed to the English major in me, and the beers were damn tasty. Is there nothing that The Bard can't do?











As you could undoubtedly anticipate by now, after beer, we craved one final adventure, and found that in the reverse bungy jump right in middle of town. After a crane hoisted up the two bungy cords that our seats were attached to, we were released and shot way up over Auckland for the most exhilarating panoramic view of the city before plummeting back down and back up and down again a few times. Afterwards, with hearts pounding and adrenaline rushing, we made our way back to the hostel.














The trip back was a helluva lot more comfortable than the one out. While we had an overnight lay over in Hong Kong, the cushioned seats were a nice place to rest our weary heads. From start to finish, I truly enjoyed New Zealand, and despite my frequent jabs at her that may suggest otherwise, it would never have been nearly as much fun if not for the scurvy rat of a pirate that was at my side.













Good luck on the Peace Boat Jane... See you on the next adventure.