It was a long two days and my exhausted mind and body was looking forward to a hot shower and a warm bed.I had left my bike parked in a bike lot near Iwaki Station, where we caught our bus the previous morning. In this lot, there are probably about two thousand bikes parked at any given time, but I was pretty sure I knew within a reasonable area where my bike was parked. Of course, upon arriving at the lot last evening, I could not for the life of me, find my bike. It was dark out and the lighting in the lot is not particularly good so I spent a good amount of time checking and re-checking the area where I had left my bike. Then I thought that the bikes looked much more organized than when I had originally parked my bike and figured that maybe someone had arranged the bikes – or maybe I had put my bike in the wrong area, or maybe it got ticketed and placed somewhere else. I progressed to checking all of the bikes in the lot with no luck. So I checked again – still no luck.
The lot is beside a taxi depot and so I asked one of the taxi drivers if it was okay to park my bike overnight. They said it was and that was all the communication that we could manage in Japanese. He suggested I go to the police station down the block.
My first experience with the Iwaki police was an excellent one. Although our communication was very broken and lengthy, I eventually managed to communicate that I was an ALT at Iwaki High School and that I had lost my bike in the Iwaki Station parking lot and that it was very dark and that I might have missed it and that I came from Vancouver and that the
Winter Olympics would be held there in the coming monthes and that I thought that my bike was a mix between purple and brown.Our solution was that I would walk to the lot with three police officers with flashlights and take one more look before pursuing our next option. Within 3 minutes I found my bike and discovered that its colour was actually black.
I dropped off some British Columbia pins and some candies for them today as thanks for finding my bike – and also as a bit of an apology for being a dumbass. I also lost my bike outside of the supermarket the other day. It turned out I was looking on the wrong side of the building.
Another story of note involves my initial journey to the bus station two days ago. It was a rainy morning, but usually when it rains in Vancouver, one needs only carry an umbrella to keep themselves mostly dry. I walked about 3 blocks with my umbrella and I was soaked up to my chest.
I only had one change of clothes and I knew that I would not be able to survive a 2 hour bus ride, a day of seminars, a night out, another day of seminars, and a day back. I ran home, quickly grabbed another change of clothes and put on shorts and a T-shirt and rode my bike to the station.
Most people that I was meeting at the station were smart and took a taxi, but I didn’t know where or how to call one – or how long it would take. Needless to say, they were a bit shocked to see me arrive soaked worse than – well… anything. After wringing out my clothes in the toilet and drying myself off with toilet paper (Japanese washrooms seem to be devoid of any paper towels whatsoever), the only articles still soaked were my shoes. I spent most of my bus ride raising my core temperature and catching a bit of sleep after the whole earthquake debacle of the night before.Overall, the orientation was pretty good. Lots of good info on Japan and teaching. The night out was a lot of fun – we went to “the Big Apple” for another all-you-can-drink night. This made the next day pretty rough though. Most of us spent the morning seminars trying to stay conscious. I think many of us are eager to start the school year so that we can stop drinking.
Didn’t take my camera to Fukushima on account of the rain. Instead, these are two photos of my apartment as lit by the lightning from the other night. The other is of a skull, which is a representation of how I was feeling last night as a result of fatigue and shame.
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