Week Report!

Last weekend I spend with Monorichi, and her family. Her home is in the middle of the Beppu Mountains, with an in-house onsen. We went to a shrine called Futagoji. This is a Buddhist shrine in the middle of the forest and mountains.

So I think that is a day off well spent, however it is not over, that day it was Respect Elders Day, basically it is the Japanese people visiting their grandparents and parents. It was a good time, eating some Sushi and Udon. But feeling kind of like an intruder, even though everybody was as nice as I could expect anyone to be, I was hindered by the fact that they love baseball and I have no feeling towards that sport whatsoever. I still had a good day though.

This Saturday I set out to grape picking with people from work. I thought that was what were going to do that day, get in some overalls and pick grapes. But we also visited a farm called Ooga Farm, I am not sure whether that was just the name or a Japanese way of saying Organic farm. But never mind that it was a beautiful garden with access to a beautiful natural beach. It also had a lovely greenhouse, filled roses and herbs, the smell reminded me of my granddad, not that he smelled of greenhouse (well sometimes he did…), but he had one in his garden too.

The lunch we had this place was just out of this world, I had the chicken, which was delicious, it came with a minestrone soup, a nice salad and bread! It had been a long time since I ate some fresh brown bread. And the bread combined with delicious olive oil was just drool ~

After this feast we set of to find a grape picking farm, because the one we wanted to go apparently was closed today. We were lucky enough to find another one in the area, the owner of the farm told us the story how he went from being a salary man to being a grape farmer. It was quite an impressive story about him moving out of the city driving around the mountains to find a suitable place for his farm, building everything from scrap with his bare hands. For a second I thought, hey this might be something for me, but then I realized I liked comfort and a conbini within a half hours drive.

 I did not really have a clue what it was going to be about. But it came down to cutting down a pre bagged, bag of grapes hehe. It was still a good time though. I got to know my co workers a little bit better. After the grape pickings we went to a nice onsen in Beppu, called Shibaseki Onsen. That water is hot damn, but it feels so good. The water in the onsen was a lot whiter than I had seen before, afterwards my skin felt like a babies behind.

From the onsen on went to eat some Curry also in Beppu. I had the Thai Curry which was just delicious and spicy, kind off reminded me of the curries Eelco made in Rotterdam. The vibe of the shop was a good one, the interior really hit it home for me. I like these family restaurants, the woman working the front of the store whilst the man is cooking in the kitchen.

Today was another fun day! I went to the zoo! And this zoo was cooler than all the ones I have been to before in my life! You ride around in a bus, with a some food on a tray and you are actually allowed to feed the animals! It is called African Safari in Beppu it is really a good place to visit if you are in the Beppu area. It is amazing how close the animals get you. This is the closest I have ever been to a Lion, I doubt I will ever get much closer than this. To be quite fair, I do not want get much closer than this. Other than that I was made to play with some tiny dogs, they were cute, but I was wearing my Sunday clothes and these hairs man, they are just messy haha. Still since I was this oasis of peace amongst loud kids, the dogs liked me and all wanted to sit on my lap…

Oh and I also did some work, starting next week I will be doing presentations on the Netherlands in Japanese. I must say I am quite excited and hesitant, because I feel my Japanese is getting worse after school, but I will ganbarimasu it!

I also got to do something different from translating, reading a marketing report in Japanese. This basically meant putting everything in Google Translate (My new best friend) and reading the English that comes out of that. Still an interesting assignment and I hope my findings help the people involved.

Mood: Tired, but kinda relaxed

Music: Tim Roscoe DJ Set 21-07-2010

PS. Kangaroos are really big from up close!

Work

I started my internship this week! I must say I enjoy it more than my last internship, even though it has only been one week. I learn so much here, about Japanese language and culture. The company, with the longest name for a company ever (Chiikikagaku Kenkyuujo), basically helps local governments reactivates their community with the help of new software and training for the staff of these governments, but they also do promotion for these areas, creating a big archive for all the tourist and interesting spots in the local areas, that you usually would not visit so easily because there is no info available. This is where I come in at the moment; I translate the Japanese into English and do research in Japanese about cities and their areas, which I then also translate into English.

The people at the work are all really passionate about their work; they have that typical Japanese mentality of coming to work early and going home late. They make me feel bad for going home at the time I was assigned to come home at hehe…. I should not feel bad I know but I still feel for the people working late, it is real contagious though, everybody is working hard, so I work hard too, or at least try my hardest.

Yesterday we went drinking with everybody from the office, to say goodbye to one of the employees and say hi to the new intern! It was really nice seeing everybody in a different environment than the workplace. And one stereotype about Japanese people is just true; they can not drink at all! Had a good time, just adjusting to the work rhythm and speaking Japanese all day, makes me tire so easily.

As for the home situation at the moment, I feel quite happy staying here for another couple more weeks, but after that I really want to have my own place. The host family is really nice. I just want a place for myself, closer to the city and to my company. Because the commute takes about 40 minutes by bus now, which is just a pain.

I also did some fun stuff! Climbed a few mountains, by car that is! Mountains are amazing, seriously. View is amazing.

Wall of text incoming

It’s been a long time since I wrote a proper post, but here goes. Click on more!

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