Ooshu Sendo, the old road

I went out before breakfast this morning and walked 10 kilometers. Ian was busy at his university and could not come. I took a new route, starting out along a road that I have walked on before. Just a few hundred meters past a large shopping center, I found a sign indicating that a narrow road, almost a path, going up a steep hill was part of the Ooshu Sendo - the road that I mentioned the other day, the one that Basho used. I started up the hill and soon the pavement disappeared and I was on a dirt path that is probably still the way it was 200 years ago. The surface has been worn down well below the level of the surroundings but there are no other improvements. It is quite steep and definitely made for walking only. I suspect that next year in Shikoku we will travel on many stretches like this.
When I reached the top of the hill, I found that the Ooshu Sendo disappeared again. It stopped at the edge of a large kindergarten, one that is very popular because they have an English program for the kids. I went through the yard and discovered that I had to go almost all the way back down the hill, but this time on a paved driveway, to get back onto the street that I was planning to continue on.

Twenty minutes later I was almost back to the place where I had found the engraved stones the other day, but I felt nature calling and turned off the road onto a path into the woods. As I walked along, I found a beautiful river that, except for the dam, is probably still pretty much the same way it was when Basho walking along here, although the wall on the left bank is new.
One of the things that impressed me this morning was that I was never more than about two miles, as the bird flies, from my apartment, which is in the middle of a built up area with mostly multi-story apartments and quite a few stores. Yet, I found some truly natural settings where civilization hardly intruded.

Two more Fibs

In class today, the 12th with this group of students, I had plenty of free time during which the students did not need me at all. The reason relates to the difference between ESL (English as a Second Language) and EFL (English as a Foreign Language). ESL is what is taught to immigrants in the US. These students need work on accuracy but fluency can easily be developed outside the classroom. In Japan, however, the students have little chance to use English away from the school, so fluency activities are important. In my conversation classes, the students get about 30 minutes of listening and focus on structures and meaning, and then they get 60 minutes of small group conversations in which they express their own ideas about whatever subject interests the group. This is quite different from other classes in which the students talk about a subject specified by the teacher or the textbook, often in language which is also specified.

Because my students do not need me, other than to wander around occasionally reminding them that they are speaking English, not Japanese, I have nothing to keep my mind occupied. Today while the students were talking I wrote the following fibs.

The first is about the rainy season.

Clouds
Rain
Dark days
Frogs croaking
Moods match the weather
But change comes, nothing's permanent

Thinking about frogs led me to the famous haiku by Basho. Here is one translation of it.

Listen! a frog
Jumping into the stillness
Of an ancient pond
(translated by Dorothy Britton; from Narrow Road to a Far Province)

My fib on the subject:

Splash
Frog
Jumping
In the well
Haiku are pithy
Fibs too are terse - truth isn't the words