Friday, December 9, 2016

What did tomorrow bring?

OK,  I forgot or it seemed more I just stopped giving a shit about blogs and updating everyday about future king traveling life and shit. It's hard to write and travel.  Like the list of constant paying attention and attending to and then having to sit down and blog,  dude, let me sleep. HAHA.
OK, let's talk a out my time on Shikoku island,  from start to finish. Where I worked a little job, fell in love and got in trouble. Here we go.
It's late at night, around 9pm and my 6 hour bus ride from Osaka has just arrived in thus remote town,  Awa akida. Google it. I can see silhouettes of mountains in the back ground but can't make out the beauty, or horror yet. Waiting time. I wait for my pick up as a lost tourist in a country town  does strolling up and down the bus 'station' (side of the road) I make regular visits into the shops, use the disabled toilet as a bathroom, enjoy the mechanical butt washer they have built inside the toilet accessibly. 
Then another shadows appears from beneath the mountains coming out of the shopping centre. One quite not so as large as a mountain and actually smaller the  a adult human. It's a German girl,  her name is Sophie same as my sister's. Greetings and apologies aside I load the car with what I call luggage to then meet 2 other ladies arriving with a trolley full of shopping. Another German lady and a Japanese girl,  Erina.
By now I'm walking up mountains,  finding crabs and exploring forests yeah yeah yeah. All familiar?
No let's skip that part.
I was in a place of beauty,  I'd found my new home for the next 7 months of my life.  Yeah you heard,  7 months.
And you wanna know something else, I slept with all three of those girls... Terrible ain't I.
One of them became my girlfriend if it makes you feel better.. It doesn't for me.
So I started help exchanging at this cute little guest house and had a ball.  Done little hours, explored, socialized meet people and learnt new crazy ways to make wooden things... Really.
The guest house was all me because it was hospitality all in one. Service, cleaning, cooking. Was a dream. However most were the women's job and not the man's.. He did outside work. Sexist, no. Gender equality, no. Just culture really. But it was the way and boy did I argue the point many times.
So spring was leaving and summer approaching. The days of wood working for the outside extension on the guest house was slowly being completed. The hunt for drift wood dieing in there numbers because of our hands and the rapids becoming peaceful after the spring melt of and the rise of tourists for the summer get away.
Ah yes,  rapids. My most memorable experience.
So I got another job in my time on Shikoku, rafting assistant! Pretty much cart all the stuff,  setup, take pictures and cook food and if your lucky you may, May get to go on the raft! ( I did many times btw)
Let's mentioned  the team I worded with. Awesome bunch. The leaders were Babi and Nishan then Mashi the most experienced rafter with muscles like Rambo, baikin the new guy, akira the other bitch boy and there was another rafting guide... Who I forgot ( sorry guy) he was cool. They were all cool dudes and working with them was such a thrill.
My job. Every morning I would make taco and rice which was cook rice, make mince meat and cut salad as well as brew tea and pack camera equipment, raft equipment and setup our customer area. We would then have a good meeting about number of guests, water levels and weather conditions. This was very important and really brought the team together. Then we head off I  the mini truck and pump up the rafts. Dude was this a muscle work out.  I was like dead after the first one and times we had to do 5! With that done we setup lunch station which was half way and head back to greet the customers.
Brief customers, drop them off. Get a sneaky coffee from the 7/11 head to first photo shoot, back in the van, next shoot and lunch time, pack up lunch and hall it up a mountain,  next shoot. Oh yeah did I mention ever spot I had to climb up and down mountain gorge.. Its a work out
Get a ice cream, txt, organized photos, take last shots. Welcome customers back,  pack up and drive them back. Get tea and photos ready and pack down, finishing meeting. Quite a general consistent thing the Japanese have going for work.
So everyday I worked,  unless the course changed then it was further we traveled.
But the rapids,  man there deadly and did I take some great shots and also see some awesome stacks.
Did I mention having guest house is way profitable when you do rafting as well.
During my time at Momonga guest house i met some really awesome people, many i forget their names however Fion was the closet. He was a young English kid that i got along really. He was a awesome artist. then, well I got close to this lady. We stayed the longest there and it was normal I guess. But what's it like dating a local when your a foreigner?
It's a challenge every way you look at it yet it's no different to a normal relationship back home. Besides the culture difference, language barrier, gender inequality, old people yeah it's crazy.
So I got close to this girl and we had a thing and I'll say right now we did not get to do it all the time and it's due to cultural ways and we'll,  think I'm getting old and falling out of love.
Let's go back, I left Australia because of a failed relationship that broke my soul leaving me with that unloved feeling g and no hope goal, that's until I paid my debt, packed my things and bailed.
However it still has a grip on me to this day. It's was not going to work with her.
I don't feel I can love another yet and loving myself has been a struggle in itself. How was i to do this.
Let's get back.
She was lovely,  beautiful and wonderful in every way. I really enjoyed my time and the passion was there for a moment however it turned sort of south into a friendship or everyday acquaintance. We spent everyday together it was all too much even if we did have our own rooms we saw each other every day for over a year.
This is what fucked it. I needed freedom,  breathing space and even though she never choked it I still wanted it. Plus I felt single and wanted to mingle with all these new beautiful people.
But the real reason I think was the sex. It wasn't real. I just wanted sex and I couldn't have it my way. I was selfish also. I didn't want feelings. She wanted this as I wanted to stay away from it. I felt like I used her...  And I did I guess.
But I never intended too. We just held on even though we couldn't and never would give each other what we truly wanted....

Any ways i had some family come visit me, Lewis, my older cousin. was really great to see each other and hang in another country. We ate and drunk so much. he was totally jealous i where and what i was doing also. I also must mention that my Japanese was terrible still at this point that instead of getting over the hurdle of the confusion i just gave up. which was sad as that really wasted time of what and how i could be learning. i did learn manners and i guess you could call, general lingo. like i can act like a Japanese but speak fuck all. useless. i just suck at learning and remembering. Getting a girlfriend didn't help by the way...i ended up teaching more English then learning.
Oh, and i started playing guitar a bit too.
 anime pic of me by a crazy guy
 the massive un-safe job we done
 Fionn
 Cherry blossoms
 art work on my knife case
 swimming in the river, cold
 Bbq party with the crew
 Sea of clouds pano
 seas of clouds
 tried to fix the fish tank
 a temple
 hard at work
 Crew
 Me on the shamisen
 sea of clouds again
 my first room
 View from the balcony
 Mochi, my favorite
 sneaky jungle waterfall

 Crazy crew
 Killer wasps
 bamboo forest


 re fixed fish tank
 waterfall
 cherry blossoms
 Babi and the tent
 yoshino river bridge
 massive log we collected
 Erichan

 4 litre of whisky ...dangerous

 Kochi beach
 Day in Kochi
 crazy bus


 the room before
 the room after i fixed it. my room

 birthday cake

 how to break into a safe

 my first onsen
 pikachu


 Lewis my cousin came and visited...all the sushi we ate


 raft overboard
 in the paper again
 how to measure a snowboard
 Haruchan

cool gameboy design by Fionn

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