Planes, Trains and Autozam

Went with Helen to Narita on Friday afternoon ready for her flight back to England. We grabbed some ramen from my favourite place on 117 before leaving. We were staying at the Holiday Inn Tobu Narita to make the journey to the terminal on Saturday as easy as possible. So we drove to Echigo Yazawa for the Shinkansen to Tokyo, then mainline train to Narita Airport and finally hotel bus to the hotel. We spent a cosy night in the hotel room watching 'The Fifth Element' while eating takeaway food and drinking beer from the local combini.

Saturday went as planned; packed and checked out the hotel by 11am, take shuttle bus to terminal 1, Helen checks in for plane early, spend time in the departure mall. We had breakfast at a French bakery place and then wandered round the shops. Found a camera shop that had a charger for my camera and bought it immediately. Helen bought another book for the plane having already the one she brought and half the one she'd taken from my flat (if only I could read so quickly). Managed to say goodbye properly this time before she went through to her gate. I wandered up to the observation deck and saw her plane take off.

Then it was the journey back to Tokamachi. Took the cheaper, slower train back to Tokyo where I changed onto the Shink to Echigo-Yazawa. I sent emails ahead to find out what everyone was doing on Saturday night. They were at Aimee's for a barbeque so I drove straight there.

I rang for directions at Kawanishi and when I turned the corner for Aimee's apartment I found Kieona waving me into a parking spot with a torch. Kawaii desu ne. The BBQ had finished but they'd saved me a plate with some pasta salad. I caught up with the news (more aftershocks in the last couple of days) and we wandered to seven-eleven for more drinks supplies, though since most of us were driving we could only stock up on Natchan. We did stop off at a park on the way back and relived our childhood by riding the see-saw. Back at Aimee's we chilled at started to make origami before it was time to go home.

Sunday I got up late. Debs popped round to pick up her camera and I headed up to Uchino, in my wee Autozam, to play footy with Joe and the lads. The drive took my past Ojiya and I could see first hand how lucky Tokamachi was. Like in Tokamachi, the houses still stood and most of the damage was to the roads. The main road from Tokamachi to the north of the prefecture, Route 117, was pockmarked with patches of gravel. These were places where the damaged tarmac had lifted away and replaced with a temporary surface. New tarmac had been laid in places but mainly as ramps onto bridges which had been raised up several inches from the road. The most disturbing sight though was the effect of the landslides. In two places, the ground under route 117 had subsided into the valley and had taken the tarmac with it. The temporary measure here was to cut back the shrubs and lay a single lane of gravel parallel to the broken road. It was a little scary to drive on this and look down at the fallen road. At Ojiya, police where blocking traffic from accessing central Ojiya to prevent voyeurs hinder the repair efforts. Still, there was more damage to be seen on teh bypass. The most astonishing sight was the manhole covers. The concrete tunnels under these covers had been shaken two feet above the surface of the paths and roads (or, perhaps, the paths and roads had been shaken two feet below the manhole covers).

I couldnt see any buildings that had collapsed or had been demolished, but Jusco car park was full of large tents housing people who feared their homes would fall if another quake struck.

Once I had got through Ojiya and was on my way to Nagaoka, the road improved and their were fewer signs of eartquake damage.

I got to Uchino a little after 3pm. The mini-tourney had started so I was put on one of the teams that werent playing at the time. The matches were on a Futsal court. It's on an artificial grass surface that actually looks like grass and doesn't give the burns astroturf gives you. It was quite a fun little kick around which was just what I needed after my earthquake-imposed football celibacy. After the match we discussed fund-raising ideas for the tour to Saitama in January and plans of when and how to get there (by coach on the Friday being the general concensus).

I gave Rowan and Luke a lift back to Nagaoka which made teh journey back more interesting. I could have done with some support as I went back through Ojiya and route 117; it was a bit scary driving in teh dark knowing that there were gravel patches in the road but not quite being able to see them until you were on them. But I got back in one piece. Internet still not connected. Helen rang to tell me she got back okay and so had her luggage. Then I finished the night watching TV as prep for Meguro-sensei's lesson today.

Today I only had one lesson, period 6 with Meguro-sensei. We did Lesson 7 from teh textbook, "What Did You Watch?", which was all about television. Meguro-sensei used the textbook as the source material for the lesson, going through the sections, explaining to the students and using me as a tape recorder. I don't really mind this too much because the students actually seem to be listening to Meguro-sensei. She adds little jokes (at least I think she does) to her explainations and this manages to engage the students without having to distract them with activities. We did do one activity were I told the students about six programs I watched last night and they try to identify the program from a TV schedule. So essentially the activity was a listening exercise.

There was no English Club today so I went home early. This turned out to be a good thing because when I got back I found that my broadband was back! All I need to do now is read through all the mails that have been sent and reply to them.

This evening I went out with Nate and Eric to meet Alex and his girlfriend. I'd bumped into Alex when I went out for lunch and he told me that he was planning to go to Sabbath for dinner and if teh other ALT's fancied going too. Sabbath was closed so we went to Gormet House instead. The food at Gormet House was great as usual. Alex introduced us to his favourite, tongue, which was delicious. Alex's girlfriend, Yuki, was quite shy but really nice. She works at Lupin so we promised to go there on Friday to say hi.