A few weekend adventures

With a slight delay, as it took me a little while to get my strength back after the trip we took over Thursday and Friday, but I’ll shortly describe what was most interesting there. All of us Nikken students went to the city of Suzu, 珠洲, in the Noto area, 能登. It’s worth noting that Suzu is a city only from the administrative point of view – both in views and in the atmosphere it was full on countryside or inaka, 田舎, as they call it in Japanese. Unfortunately, for most of the time my camera was in my bag, which in turn was in the coach, so I’ve not been able to take the pictures of the most gorgeous views, though I do have something.

Twilight by the shore where we were fishing.

Sea by the former primary school.

Just behind the forest.

A field just by the forest.

There weren’t many adventures on the trip itself, its main purpose was to teach us about the state of local environment, especially seaside and mountains, and of the countryside communities (which, probably just like in most places, gets older and older and there’s few people left to take care of the local vegetables or the countryside in general). Against all odds, the most interesting part was the fishing which we did at the very beginning. I did not expect to have fun while doing it, but I did. With a friend we even managed to catch a good few of the tiny fishes.

fot. by Evelyn Tan

But all the other parts of the trip were purely educational and not so interesting, at least not in the long run – how often can you hear that X (an animal or a plant) is endangered/extinct, so we’re trying to prevent its extinction/improve the environment for all living things, before you get bored? Nevertheless I am happy for being able to see Japanese countryside (I hope to go back again coz I’d really love to take some more pictures to better tell you all that I have observed about it and explain the contrasts) and for having such a good time. A good deal of that was thanks to, yes, you got it, a nomikat at the hotel which lastet until one of the neighbours came to quiet us.

And in order to nicely round off the trip part, I shall finish it with some Engrish found on the packs of ice.

So tempted to make a cute gif with a techno ice cube!

Allow me to remain relatively quiet about Sunday, its memory is still too fresh and traumatic to my mind. Suffice to say that someone, whom I suspect of having way too much spare time, had a brilliant idea that all the Nikken students get up early in the morning and… clean the street leading to the campus. Not all students, not even all exchange students – just the nineteen of us, who have a busy schedule as it is already. I’ve no clue if that was supposed to be some weird way of experiencing the Japanese culture or what, personally I hoped until the very last minute that the whole thing will get cancelled due to bad weather, but no, so we cleaned the Japanese streets in rain. And let’s not forget to add that said streets are clean anyway – seven cigarette stubs and an absolutely random and surprising pair of wellies somewhere in the bushes do not make the street dirty nor full of rubbish.

To sweeten this horrible experience a little bit I drank the rest of my green apple Fanta that I bought the day before.

To make it more interesting, though in English it says green apple, in Japanese they’re… blue. The Japanese equivalent of green is midori, 緑, but it rewers more to greenery and plants than to colour – hence green apples are blue, that is aoi, 青い, as well as the green traffic light. Elementary!

And what did it taste like? Hmm, I’m still not sure whether I liked it or not. It smelled a lot like an apple scented shampoo or shower gel, in that kind of obviously artificial apple smell… and didn’t taste that much different. Or actually, no, it tasted more as if this artificial apple flavour was mixed with a lot of sugar and then had fizz added to it. As I said, I’m unsure how I feel about it, I thought about it right until I finished the bottle. Though I probably won’t buy another one.