Mukade

So, here I am. I think that the board of education staff in my town gets some sadistic pleasure out of sitting here in the office with the blinds up staring at the storm. I have to admit it is quite impressive, but I do prefer watching it from home. Actually, I would like to strike that last sentence. Last night, I walked into my toilet room, and right on the toilet room slippers (you have to have these in every Japanese house out of courtesy and good etiquette) was huge (a little bit longer than the length of my hand) mukade. If you are wondering what a mukade is, I'll tell you. It is about the only thing I fear more than a giant spider inside my house. It is a poisonous centipede. Let me tell you that they are some fierce looking creatures. The mukade as I already mentioned is pretty big and a bit thicker than a pencil. At its head, it has a pair of claws that are used to bite defenseless humans while they sleep. In Tokyo orientation, they told us to never bash these things. However, when I tried to spray it with the bug "killer" as they instructed, it did not work. The mukade floated (it really does look like its floating) right out of my toilet room, through my hall, into my genkan where I was about to bash it with a shoe but just quickly rammed it out as I opened the door. All of this in the midst of a typhoon. This morning when I woke up, the dead mukade was right next to my front door. I will try to take a picture of it if it is still there by the time I get back. What freaks me out even more is that the Tokyo orientation people and the office staff here have warned me that they travel in pairs. I have not see the other half of this mukade and am fearful that it is roaming in my house. To make matters even a bit more interesting. Cristina sent an email to my phone at 2 AM telling me that she had happened to find one also underneath her desk lamp. She also did not find the pair. My office jokes that perhaps they are eachother's pair and decided to go to different towns to attack us. Yeah, I know, I didn't find it funny either. I am surprised that they have not made a movie out of these.

To change the topic of conversation, I will tell you about this weekend. Laura's town, Osaki, has a rotary club that has this big halloween weekend every year and invites about 20 ALTs. We go to some cabins by the beach in her town and eat and drink. It is all expenses paid. They even take us to an onsen. An onsen is a hot springs. It can be either a natural outdoor spring, or it could be an indoor spa that uses natural hot spring water pumped from the Earth. These are very popular here and just about every town has one. They are extremely hot and seem to be the one true way of getting warm during winter. When you get to the onsen, people separate by gender. Then, you go into this shower room where you are supposed to scrub your guts out since you are about to go into a public bath. Thus, you would not like it to be filled of other people's germs. Then, you go into the bath with your modesty towel that you keep on top of your head as to not pollute the water. It's supposed to be a very cool experience and I am excited to go for the first time. Apparently it is all very ritualistic and I am scared of doing the wrong thing.

Halloween weekend, we are going to participate in dragon boat races in Nejime ( the town where we climbed the mountain). It seems pretty neat and traditional and an experience which we are sure we will not forget any time soon. I am still not too sure of the details, so I will write more about it as I am informed.

Well, I have to get back to doing nothing. Speak to you soon. Watch our for mukade!