Ultimate in the Taj and talking of Hen’s

Work this week had been mega stressful. I had to give my first year presentation about my research. This normally isn’t such an issue for me, I love to chat and I think giving presentations is one of my strengths. I was nervous this time though. I was giving the presentation via skype meaning I wouldn’t be able to see my audience or gesticulate any of the things I was talking about.

After a bit of practice and some reassuring words from my supervisors in the UK I felt a bit more ready. At the end of the day it was only 20 minutes and everything is learning experience. Overall I think it went well, I could answer the questions and I got a few emails from my supervisors afterwards saying they thought I’d done well. Result, time for bed. At least that was the plan but I was so excited about my upcoming Frisbee tournament I couldn’t sleep.

So 5am the next day and with very little sleep I got my stuff together and began my epic journey to Tajima. I’d arranged to meet one of my teammates, Makoto-san, at Nazota station, which was just past Himeji. The connection times were pretty fine but I had just enough time to grab so Onigiris for luncheon. I had a few nerve-racking minutes wait as I didn’t actually know whom I was waiting for but Makoto soon showed up in one of the standard black, block shaped cars, ubiquitous in Japan.

Makoto was a nice guy and his English was fantastic. He runs an English café and school over in Osaka. He said its good fun and he meets lots of interesting people though times are tough right now. Following the earthquake money had gotten tight and he’d had to lay off some staff, meaning his workload had increased. I’m sure you can relate to that mum.

His choice of music was excellent, lots of 70’s rock and 80’s hair metal, and the 2 hour journey flew by. This may have been more due to the fact I fell asleep though. About 30 minutes outside of Tajima we stopped of at a Sake-shop to grab some booze for Saturday night’s bbq. I grabbed some soft drinks and then popped next store to the Godai drugstore. I’d been suffering with a nasty “natsu kaze” (summer cold) and I needed some “kusuri” (medecine). Unbelievably neither one of the (two) shops in my local vicinity stocked paracetamol. Rubbish.

A little while later we were in Tajima. Makoto pointed out a large white structure, the Tajima dome, which was close to our final destination.  We passed some very lush playing fields that sadly were already booked. We move onto some dirt pitches instead. Not ideal but the sight of many people together playing ultimate was exciting none the less.

Tajima is apparently one of the biggest ‘Gaijin-dominated’ tournaments in Japan so there were people from all over the place. What that apparently meant is that it was a little more laid-back, it seems that the Japanese teams take it very seriously and it is played with the same level of professionalism as any other sport. I’ve actually got no problem with that whatsoever but to each there own I guess.

On arriving we couldn’t see any of our team members but the guys from the other Osaka team, Disc-O, where about so we set up shop with them. I got chatting to Gatson and a few of the other guys and he asked if I’d like to play with them before my team arrived. Silly question really I’m always up for some frizzers.

The first game went ok, but a few of the guys on the team were a little intense. By that I don’t mean really good or playing with a high level of seriousness, they were just loud and very fast to point out others faults, though keeping their gobs shut if they made a mistake. I’m not a fan of that, no matter what level I’m playing at.

After that game the team I’d be playing for the rest of the day, Cheez whizz (awful name I know) finally showed up. In fact they still hadn’t all arrived in time for our first game so we had to borrow some players from a team hailing from Nara. I can’t remember much about the first game, we were just finding our legs really but it was all good fun.

First game out of the way and we headed straight back to the tents. The weather was gorgeous but really friggin hot. Must have been at least 33⁰c at it’s hottest. It seemed like shortly after the first game the beers were cracked out by some of the members of my team. Seemed like a crazy idea to me in this weather but I guess this is just how some people relax.

I won’t bore you with the details of the games since I can’t really remember much apart from sweating a ridiculous volume. Also it was some pretty rubbish Frisbee to be quite honest. Most of the people there could barely throw a backhand. I really can’t stand losing to people who can’t throw but I knew what it would be like before I got here. In the end I got in the swing of it and just had fun. Cheez whizz and Disco-O actually ended up semi merging as neither team really had enough players leading to a 14 game rather than a 7 game weekend. Whoops. At least they were only 30 minutes long.

I’d say I spent most of the day chatting with one the guys on our team called Trip (no idea what his real name is). He had a huge afro, ridiculous socks, and was the epitome of ‘hippy Frisbee player’. He was also very interesting. He’d spent some time in his youth touring the East coast of America as part of a pop punk band, they’d played warped tour a few times, mega cool.

He was now in the business of wedding video and photography but his passion was music. He was into everything naturally but in particular it was music production and sound technology that he was most passionate about. I struck up a conversation about electronic music and the scene blossoming out of the UK and he was well clued up. He’d even heard of ‘Donk’, possibly the chaviest music ever that was emerging in Bolton. What impressed me most was that he’d actually made a few bass-lines for Caspa. Not a bad claim to fame.

With the day winding down, but the temperature not following suit, we wrapped it up for the day and headed to ‘Utopia lodge’ were we’d stay for the night. I headed back with Kazu-san. He was a bit older than the other guys and spoke next to no English. I think we just managed to figure out what we were both yammering on about though.

Tajima is way up the mountains and is actually quite a famous ski resort in the winter I believe. Slopes surrounded us and I can imagine the place looks awesome when covered in snow. It was still very pretty in the heat of summer as well.   Denis Go and Trip had headed out to the lodge ahead of us  to make sure we got decent rooms. I hit the showers with Kazu, the lodge also had it’s own Onsen which was very nice on tired muscles.

Back up to the room and I crashed out on my bed for an hour or to, I was so shattered. I think the heat of the day had done me in and I was soon dozing. I think some of the guys headed to a nearby conbini to grab some more drinks, but I just couldn’t be bothered to move.

By about 7 I was aroused by the sounds of lots of people and the smell of cooking meat.  Guess it was time for the bbq. It hadn’t really hit me just how many people there were at this tournament until I was in the salad queue, bowl in hand waiting to get some veg and rice.

What was nice is that nearly everyone was American, Canadian or Australian so sparking up a random conversation was pretty easy. That being said, as always, 99% of people were English teachers on the JET program, or former JET’s. This meant everyone sort of already new each other and cliques began to form. Never mind a good chance to hang out with my team and get to know them a bit better.

Every team had been given a stack of meat and half a barrel with a metal grill on which to bbq said meat. I’d already mentioned about my aversion to beef and everyone had been cool with it and made sure it was all cooked in the same spot, to prevent cross contamination and potential bellyache.

Trip Denis and Go were already all pretty hammered by the time I had sat down and were off meeting old friends “hisashiburi!” (Meaning long time no see). I sat down with some of the ladies on our team. They told me off the bat that they didn’t speak much English but I said it was cool I needed to learn Japanese anyway. Sadly I couldn’t catch most of what they were saying. Seemed to be a lot of talk about hens?

Ok I’ll elaborate. So the Japanese I’ve been learning at the moment is ‘standard Japanese’. Obviously Japan has accents but it also has dialects to. The words and some of the grammar are actually quite different. “Sono Josei wa Osaka-ben o hanashimashita” (they were speaking in the Osaka dialect). The area I live in has it’s own dialect ”Kansai-ben” and Osaka has it’s own particular flavor. Being as everyone on the team is from Osaka it’s what they speak.

The hen joke is a bit lame but it’s because the casual negative form of verbs (usually ending in –nai) in Osaka-ben end in hen. For example I don’t understand, wakaranai, would become wakarahen. Interesting stuff. Anyway they rather nicely slowed their speech a little and I could actually talk a bit in their language. I’m still severely lacking in adjectives and nouns though, being able to say what you can/will/have/ want to do is great but I can’t describe anything. I’m sure I’ll get there.

It does mean I don't feel so lost in a sea of people anymore. Whilst I can’t quite express myself as I’d like I can catch bits of conversations now and actively participate. It’s only going to help my learning really it’s just such a shame I can’t practice whilst I’m in work. Of course since I was at a sporting event I was mostly learning ‘dirty’ Japanese. By that I mean just quick stunted phrases shouted whilst on pitch, the same in any language really but it means the phrases I’ve heard most are “ganbaru” (go for it), “yukkuri” (slowly but with the nuance of take your time) “gomen” (soz) and “mecha sugoi/kakkoii” (absolutely amazing/ cool).

The next day there were more games to play. I was not as full as enthusiasm as the previous day. I forgot how worn out you get on the Sunday and playing 8 games, even if they were short, was a bit much. Breakfast at the lodge wasn’t great really, a very small roll, 1/4 of a slice of ham and a spoonful of scrambled eggs. Pretty meager, still onwards to the field.

We had 6 more games to play since we’d joined forces and by 9am it was already brutally hot. Although we’d lost a couple of players, one had his daughters piano recital to attend and another had to be rushed to hospital. I’m not sure why, I got some cagey replies when I asked so I figured it best not to press the matter. Thankfully we’d also gained a couple, Bede from Australia, Sean from Canada and also Yuko.

Again the details of the games are a bit of a blur, though we won 5 of the 6. I think it’s unlikely I’ll get any serious ultimate out here unless I learn better Japanese and try and join in with some of the university’s practices, but I’m just too far away really.

One game that sticks to memory was our game against the Hiroshima team. That is only because the heavens decided to open at this point. At first I was rather happy for the rain, it was nice and cool, but it quickly became torrential and everything was soaked through. Not so fun and as soon as our game finished so did the rain. Back to the 35 degrees heat and 80% humidity.

Tournament over and fun had by all we had to back the gazebo’s down and say goodbye to Tajima. It was fun. I dunno if I’ll try and go again next year but I guess that is a way off yet. So “Ima kaeru no?” (are we going now?). Actually no it seemed that Makoto and Yuko, who was also coming with us, really wanted to go to an Onsen. I was apprehensive thanks to the timing of my last bus but I couldn’t really say no.

We went to the same Onsen as the last time I was in Wadayama. It felt pretty good but I can’t lie I was a bit too worried about the time to really enjoy it. We left at about 6pm and I knew we were cutting it pretty fine but next everyone wanted to stop for food.  I was assured it’d be quick but I knew in my heart we’d be late if we stopped to eat. Nowhere nearby had space thank-god so we hit the freeway and headed towards Himeji.

About 20km from Himeji we pulled over to a service station to get some food. I was too stressed out worrying about time to be hungry. Plus I really didn’t want to have to wolf down a dinner. Either way it still took a good half hour and we were getting very close to the time of my train. What I hadn’t realized was that I was in fact being taken to a station just before Himeji, but because we stopped for food there was no way we would make it in time.

A quick change of direction and we were on the road to Himeji JR station. Sadly the traffic lights weren’t in our favor, are they ever when you are in a rush somewhere? I got to the station with about 2 minutes to go. Bah looked like that was another 5000yen gone, but the weekend was fun so I didn’t mind.

I phoned Yuko to let her know I’d missed the train and she told me to come back to the car. When I asked why she said Makoto had offered to drive me home. He felt responsible I’d missed the train because they’d stopped at the Onsen and for food. I tried to insist that it was fine and that I lived miles away but he’d have none of it. He also refused, and seemed genuinely offended, when I offered him money for petrol. “Either give me ichi-man yen (10,000) or nothing”. He was far too nice.

So in the end I got home in good time and with a heavy wallet. I’m so lucky to have found such nice people and I look forward to meeting them again soon. I woke up today pretty sore and worn out but Kohmura-san whom I’ve been helping with some editing gave me a rather lovely gift of some mochi and it's helping to ease the pain. Also I think I’ve infected everyone in the office sad times.

Mata ne minna.