My First JLOD

Or rather, less of a JLOD, then a good verbal scolding about my mothering skills in Japanese.

Good news, lady...I don't understand a word you're saying!  What a blessing. 

The background story.  Today, we went here:

Kannonzaki...beach, I guess.

 

Keep in mind that the last time I was off base was the Great Wrong Lane in the Gate day.  That was two weeks ago.  Various things have conspired to keep me on base, one of which was my fear that I'd do something stupid and American like driving on the "wrong" side of the road again.  Or killing some Japanese person in the crosswalk.  Or swiping some random, lane-sharing motorcycle or scooter.  Dodging cyclists and illegally parked cars on narrow roads.  Stuff like that.  I can't read half the road signs.  We Americans get around here by a screwy system based on landmarks.  Seriously, it's like this:

 

Me:  "How do I get to IKEA?"

 

Person who has been here for a couple weeks longer than me:  "Well, you go up to the Family Mart on Route 16, the one across from the big fish market and then you take a left and go up until you see a statue of blah-blah-blah and then take the second right just by the dog-grooming parlor (or the travel agency or the hair salon with the big neon-pink sign)."

 

It's very wonky and I'm extremely spoiled by GPS, which our 12 year-old van doesn't have.  I am learning how to use the GPS on my iPhone.  I've used that feature exactly once in the four years I've owned iPhones.  Add to GPS Addiction the fact that the Japanese just don't really have an address system...I couldn't describe it to you if I tried.  You can't just enter in "6153 Rolfe Avenue, Yokosuka, Japan" and boom, get there.  Their address system is totally weird and random.

 

I suppose it's all very logical to them.

 

Back to the story.  Two long weeks had passed and I had good excuses for not going out:  we were unpacking, then I bought the new car and had to go through the registration process for that (which took a week).  I have three children who don't always cooperate.

 

But...it was time to get out.  My lovely Australian neighbor told me about this park, Kannonzaki Park that was nearby and fantastic: lots of trails, a lighthouse, beaches, a huge playground.  A huge playground with a giant roller slide. 

 

Driving turned out to be good...we found Kannonzaki, but we couldn't figure out where to park.  It's a very big area.  Finally found a carpark and got out on the trail:

 

Instead of a fantastic roller slide, we found this:

 

For Y200 (around $2.00), all four of us climbed to the top and admired the view:

 

 

It was nice.  And so far, no one had really complained all that much.  It wasn't overly hot, in fact, most of the half-mile up there was shaded.  We sat down in the shadow of the lighthouse and had a little snack and then the kids asked me if they could climb up again, and, feeling magnanimous, I said yes.

 

 

Here are my children, at the top of the lighthouse.

 

Cue the JLOD, or rather, the Japanese scolding by the lady running the admission booth at the lighthouse.  She was clearly worried about the fact that I let my kids go up there on their own.  I can see her point.  It didn't deter her in the least that I couldn't understand a single word she said, she let me know that I am less than stellar.

 

Somehow, I just didn't care.  She wasn't mean about it.  Germans would be stern and mean.  She was just concerned and dang...not understanding gave me the power to imagine she was saying:

 

"You are SUCH an INCREDIBLE mother to be so lenient and ALLOW your AMAZING children to CLIMB to the TOP of the lighthouse by THEMSELVES!!!"

 

That's totally what she said.  I'm convinced.

 

Obvs, we smiled and nodded and hightailed it out of there as quickly as we could, smiling and arigato-ing all the way.

 

My first scolding! 

 

Anyway, I was damned if we were going to go there and only see a lighthouse, though it was a nice lighthouse staffed by charming old Japanese ladies.  I was going to find that magical, mystical unicorn of a slide and lo, my children would ride down it and their delight would spread warmth into my jaded mother's heart.

 

No.  Not so easy.  I finally got a map, texted some folks who know where the park is and drove to yet another carpark.  This area was staffed by a nice, older Japanese man who did speak a little English.  Between me pointing desperately at the picture of the slide on the map and gesturing at my children and looking around dumbly and his broken English, I managed to intuit that somewhere on the other side of the mountain lay the mystical slide.

 

My precioussssss...

 

Anyhow.  We climbed 1,425 stairs at a grade of roughly 90% to the top of the mountain.  We had to stop 98 times for water and 32 times for people to cry.  My "sensible" shoes that I've had for years were somehow giving me blisters, so I was one of the people crying.  A little.  There may have been a little cursing and possibly a couple of thoughts of throwing myself down the stairs.

 

We got to the top.  No slide.  We took the trail that looked best.  We stopped for water and people to cry.  I reaffirmed my determination to find the damn slide.  We forged onward and at last, just as we were about to literally collapse from heat, we heard, far away on the breeze, the mythical sound of the rollers and children's laughter.

 

At first, I thought it might be a delusion brought on by dehydration or my ears ringing from the cries of whiny children, but no.  NO.  It WAS the slide!  The magical playground appeared before us like a desert oasis.

 

Unfortunately, the kids were pretty much too worn out from walking to fully enjoy the park.  And what's worse, the super-long whamodyne slide slid down the other side of the hill.  As in, it would deposit us approximately 123 miles from our car on the backside of the hill.  I pictured having to sell myself or one of the kids to get a taxi to take us back to the car and decided we would just play on this instead:

 

 

 

No one was allowed near the slide, which meant, of course, that I looked up and Annika was about to go down it.  I resigned myself to never seeing my daughter again.



 

We kind of had fun...for a few minutes.  But mostly, it was like the Bataan Death March, only if the Bataan Death March didn't actually have casualties and ended up at a playground that had an ice cream vending machine.

 

Made it home in one piece and are recovering.  Blisters are tremendous, but dammit, we found the slide!!  I think the frosting on top of the cake was looking down from the height of the playground and seeing, just below us, the first carpark where we had originally parked.

 

(shakes head and sighs)

 

Arigato!