Lake Biwa
(My First Day of Work)
07.09.2009
August 6th, my first day of real work in Japan; time to get out the suit and tie, practice my bowing and set 3 alarm clocks so I’m not late – right?
Well maybe, if today wasn’t the day the second year students practice kayaking across the lake in preparation for the main kayak trip in September – so day one and I’m getting a chance to get acquainted with Lake Biwa already
I’m sure that throughout this blog I’ll be posting a lot of pictures of the lake as it does dominate the prefecture somewhat - but it is very beautiful. I can’t think of a better way to start my life in Japan. It was such a nice way to meet some of my students and fellow teachers in a really relaxed way. Here are a few people I now work with.
Far left - …..Sensei; the school principle (So much for the formal introduction we’d been told to expect!)
Next – Aiba Sensei; another English teacher and my direct supervisor, a very nice and helpful lady.
Top right - …. San; the school nurse.
Bottom right – Nakagawa Sensei; sits opposite me in the teacher’s room, not sure what she teaches and she speaks very little English (but understands a lot I think!) - But she’s very lively and has a great sense of humour as you can see in her glove footed monkey impression here.
We started off at about 6am from the beach at Makino and headed West across the lake (about 20km) to Nagahama – with a lunch break on the north shore. To do this we had two support boats that circled around with about 8 teachers and students onboard who sometimes switched places with tired kayakers, so everybody got a turn. I started off in one of the support boats (a fishing boat by trade) and got to do three stretches of open water in the kayaks. That was a nice mix as I got to enjoy kayaking without getting too tired and had plenty of time on the support boat to enjoy the sights and take pictures – which you can enjoy here.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2018044&id=1122485897&l=698510893d
My only complaint about this trip was I only got to do half of it; whilst the students and teachers stayed overnight in Nagahama and kayaked back again the next day I had to be driven back to Imazu that night so I could attend another JET job training in Otsu the next day. Still this was just the practice run and I’ll get to do the full 2 days trip in September.
