Heading to the Slopes

Hello again!  I'm sitting here in my apartment preparing to head Hakuba 47 and Goryu mountain.  I have once again been subject to some fantastic generosity at the hands of my friends here. I came to Japan in July, and when I packed I had no idea that I would eventually be going snowboarding here.  That might have something to do with the fact that in July, it seemed like December was so far away that packing for it would have felt like time traveling. However, December actually showed up and now it is almost over.  Time is flying.  All of you who said it would can now have a good long, 'I told you so!' session at my expense.  


Anyway, back to my friends' generosity.  Like I said, when I came to Japan it was hot.  Needless to say I didn't pack any winter gear.  So when the opportunity to head to Nagano to hit the slopes with my friends came up, I wanted to jump on the chance.  I hesitated to say yes though, due mostly to the aforementioned lack of winter clothing.  That is where the generosity part comes in.  As soon as I mentioned the problem to my friends, I found myself knee deep in gear.  Sitting here in my room, I have two snowboards, three pair of snow pants, goggles, jackets, hats and gloves.  My friends are awesome!  My wonderful friend Etsuko is probably sitting on top of the generosity pack these days.  She is the one who set up this whole shindig.  When our friend who was supplying the car backed out, she figured out how to get to Nagano without a car and booked us tickets on the night bus.  So, now I am waiting 'til 9:00 pm rolls around so I can head to the train station and catch my bus!  We will get into Hakuba sometime tomorrow morning.  


In other exciting news, I have been thoroughly enjoying my spare time on holiday here.  John and Sarah are off adventuring, and I thought I was going to be sitting here all alone.  That has not been the case though.  I have so far successfully managed to wedge myself into almost all of my friends' holiday plans :).  On the 27th, my friend Jon threw a Christmas dinner party at his house.  I got to help cook!  Jon made a delicious stuffed ham, freshly baked bread, and soup, and Machiko again supplied the pie.  Did I mention we also all supplied the wine?  Something like 5 bottles for the 6 of us.  I love wine!


I have also latched onto a few after Christmas plans of my friends'.  I saw a few movies, most notably the newest Mission Impossible movie.  Ghost Protocol?  Terrible name.  Highly entertaining movie though!  Despite all of this, I think the best part (besides Jon's dinner) of this whole holiday has been the fact that excluding today, I haven't woken up before noon.  I love vacations!  Who needs to travel when I can sleep for 12 hours a day?  


Anyway, wish me luck on the slopes!  I'm going to need it after two years lack of practice.  

Happy Christmas!

Ho ho ho!!  Merry Christmas!  It is the tail end of Christmas Day, and I have had a fantastic couple of days here.  This is mostly due to the fact that I have some of the most amazing friends and family that a guy could ask for.  Also, when I say mostly, I mean entirely.  Seriously; a sincere thank you to all the wonderful people who made my Christmas Eve and Day fantastic.  Etsuko, Machiko, Chinatsu, Hayato, Yukiko and Machiko's kids made Christmas Eve a blast.  Sydney's family in Nagoya made Christmas Day equal wonderful, so thank you Shannon, Katsumi, Donavan, Naoe, Julia, Conner, Liam, and Shannon's friend Bridget!  Ok, now with the thank you's take care of, let me tell you how I spent my holiday.


First, you should all know in advance that I am listening to 'A Vince Guaraldi Christmas,' so I am in a very good mood!  

Bartender Andrew!

So my holiday officially started at 9:00 pm on Thursday the 22nd, when I finished my last class.  The next morning, Sarah left for Las Vegas where she would be spending Christmas with her family.  Later that afternoon, John left for Thailand where he would be spending the holidays with his friend from SJU.  I was officially home alone!  Thankfully, I didn't spend much time by myself though.  Friday night, I headed to our local watering hole (The Melting pOt) where I have sort of picked up a part time job bartending and washing dishes and basically doing whatever they need.  Its a pretty cool gig, because I mostly get paid a bit to hang out, talk to people, listen to music and drink.  I have definitely had worse jobs in the past.  Friday night at the Pot featured a local band.  The place wasn't terribly busy, but the people that did come came for the band, so the crowd was generally into the music.  It was a pretty good night.  I stayed there until about 3:00 or so, then headed home.  


Christmas Eve day was a day of difficult decision making.  The crux of the issue was what to do with my newfound free time.  My choices were:  stay at home and do nothing, thereby taking full advantage of my newly started holiday, or actually go out and accomplish something.  Part of my decision was made for me when I slept until 1:00 pm, but I still had to figure out what to do with the rest of my day.  I ended up compromising and going to UniQlo to buy some winter clothes, because it is getting chilly, and I want to be warm when  I hit the slopes later this week.  I also attempted to make Eggnog from scratch, but failed miserably.  This was mostly due to my inability to read Kanji and Price Cut's inability to stock the necessary ingredients.  I could not for the life of me find heavy cream OR whole milk.  It was a travesty.  Oh well.


Christmas Eve itself was fantastic.  I got picked up around 6:00 pm by my friend Etsuko, who took me to my friend Machiko's house for a wonderful Christmas party.  We were joined there by Chinatsu, Hayato, and Machiko's kids.  It was wonderful.  Machiko cooked us a delicious dinner.  It was a bit different than the massive Norwegian feast I have become accustomed to over the years with the Gudmundson family, but it was amazing nonetheless.  She cooked two roast chickens, shepherd's pie and my personal favorite, a fresh apple pie!!  She earned herself a Christmas hug with that pie.  I was so happy to see apple pie.  Words can't express.  Thank you!!!  We had champagne, a few beers and capped it all off with cookies.  Machiko's boyfriend also added to the night, even though he is currently living in the States.  He sent Machiko's kids 'Wii Just Dance!' for their Christmas present.  That game is crazy!  We danced for a solid two hours, until no one but the kids had enough energy to move.  It was spectacular.  I learned that MC Hammer's 'Can't Touch This' is not as easy as it looks!  

My presents from Hayato and Chinatsu, from left to right.

Also, I apparently really do look like Anpanman.  Machiko's youngest daughter doesn't know my name and doesn't care to learn it, because she will call me nothing but Anpanman.  "Anpanman, play Wii!" "blah blah blah Anpanman, blah blah blah!"  Seriously.  It also didn't help matters any that Chinatsu and Hayato both bought me Anpan-presents.  Hayato bought me a candy bowl shaped like Anpanman, and Chinatsu bought me a cute little Anpanman charm.  I still don't see the resemblance, but there must be something to it.


Let me preface Christmas Morning by saying that Sydney Rajchel has one cool family.  On Christmas morning, I woke up bright and early and headed up to Nagoya to joined Sydney's Aunts Shannon and and Naoe, and Uncles Katsumi and Donovan.  On the way, I got to use my awesome present from my even more awesome mom!  She bought me a pair of Bose headphones because she knows I spend a ton of time on the train and she wanted me to spend it in peace!  Thanks mom!  You are super!!  But I digress.  Back to Christmas with Shannon's family.  I met Shannon and Co. at the Kanayama train station in Nagoya, and we went to a buffet restaurant for brunch/lunch.  The food was pretty good, and very wide ranging.  I had steak bits, lasagna, snow crab legs, seafood salad, oysters, some fried chicken type things stuffed with something or other that seemed vaguely cheesy, fruit, ice cream and cake.  Needless to say, I was stuffed to the gills.  All-you-can-eat buffets are timed in Japan, so we basically stuffed out faces for a solid 90 minutes. 

From left to right:  Shannon, me,
Julia and Katsumi.

 After the buffet, we returned to Shannon's apartment, and skyped with Sydney's family.  After a lovely skype session, we headed over to Shannon's friends house for more food, drinks and games.  Bridget, Shannon's friend, made fondue so event though we were full when we arrived, we pretty much continuously ate for the next 5 hours.  Shannon's brother and his wife have two sons, Liam and Conner, who are 8 and 3 respectively.  They are adorable, and in my vain attempt to avoid the food, I played Wii games with the two of them and Bridget's son for a while.  Fun times were had by all!

At Shannon's friend's house

I capped off a great day with a short chat with Sydney and a nice long chat with my Mom, Karroll, Neil and Brayton!  For Christmas, I sent Brayton some Japanese money, which pretty much made his day.  I also discovered that Karroll is doing his level best to kill himself before I get home.  For those of you who don't know, Karroll is my step-dad.  Apparently, he was slicing an onion to put on a cheeseburger and decided that his finger would make a better topping than said onion.  So Mom got to make a wonderful Christmas Eve emergency room run.  Karroll:  please don't die before I come home!!!


Sorry this post is so long and rather devoid of pictures.  As soon as I get pictures from the weekend, I will update the post!  Merry Christmas everybody!!

Its Beginning to Still Look Nothing Like Chistmas

This seems so long ago!

Well, it is December 15th, and the reason I know its anywhere near close to Christmas is because I just received a package full of presents from my mom.  The weather outside is indeed frightful, but only compared to the semi-tropical hell that the Japanese call July and August.  It is also made a bit more frightful by the lack of central heating, but I'll get to that later.  The average temperature for the last week has been around 50 degrees or so.  The lack of snow is starting to damage my Minnesota sensibilities.  However, the one thing we aren't short of here is christmas music!  Pretty much every shop has been pumping in a steady stream of instrumental christmas music for the past two weeks.  Actually, the Pricecut Supermarket where I do most of my grocery shopping started playing Christmas tunes as soon as they took down the thanksgiving decorations!  Pricecut has yet to play a song with words though.  I didn't know there were so many instrumental versions of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" in the world.  Tsu has also started putting up its city-wide Christmas decorations.  Route 23 (the main drag here in town) has been decked out in lights for two weeks now, and that at least mitigates the total lack of snow a little.  


Japan is great in many ways.  The people so far have been spectacular, with the notable exception of natto, the food is great, and it is a beautiful place with the ocean and the mountains.  However, there is one thing I don't understand.  Where in the world are the furnaces and the central heating systems??  It seems crazy that in a place that doesn't exactly have the year round beautiful weather of a place like hawaii they don't have central heating.  Or insulation.  Its crazy.  The only way John and I can heat our house is by using kerosene heaters.  I don't know if you have ever burnt kerosene in your house (I know everyone reading this in Japan has) but it doesn't exactly have the most pleasant smell.  It never really gets that cold here, but when your house is the same temperature as the outside, 55 degrees gets awfully chilly.  


One thing I do really like about winter here so far is that fact that it doesn't freeze at night.  This apparently leads people to plant all sorts of flowers!  So all the planter boxes in Tsu are filled with pansies and petunias!  It is really nice!  There are some gorgeous gardens in bloom along the road I run on.  It almost makes up for the cold apartment.  Also, a lot of fruit is coming in season.  Especially oranges.  I ran past a beautiful orange tree yesterday.  I was very very tempted to stop by and steal an orange, but my conscience eventually won out.  Unfortunately for my stomach.  


I have also been experiencing some pangs of homesickness, which isn't totally unexpected given that I will soon be spending Christmas away from home for the first time.  Don't worry too much about me though.  I have great friends here and we have lots of plans for the holidays.  Snowboarding in Nagano and Christmas parties galore.  So no worries family!  We'll be just fine over here!  Also, I am keeping my eye on the prize.  The prize of course being Sydney's visit on January 4th!  So, If I don't post again until after Christmas,  Happy Christmas and have a great New Year!!  

Weddings!!!

Aki and Asuka with their cake

It has been a very exciting weekend for me here in Tsu!  Congratulations to my friends Aki and Asuka who just got married on Saturday!  They actually got married for either the second or third time on Saturday, but this was the first time I had seen their wedding.  I don't entirely understand what the actual situation was, but I believe Aki was so happy to be getting married that he simply planned four different ceremonies and couldn't decide which he liked best, then decided, "what the hell, I'll just do all four!"  I think they legally got married a while ago, and have now been indulging their friends with ceremonies.  Anyway, The ceremony I saw was no less fantastic for being the third.  As far as the ceremony goes, it was all in Japanese so I can only report on what I saw and what my friends were able to translate for me.  The ceremony was held at a little place in Yokkaichi.  By little, I mean that it had a sort of sanctuary where the actual service was held, a cocktail lounge for drinks before the wedding, and a really beautiful banquet hall where we were entertained and very, very well fed.

Asuka and Aki holding their freshly
signed wedding document

Asuka's dress was beautiful!

The actual service was surprisingly short, and I didn't really have the best view of the proceedings because Sarah and I watched from the balcony to give the family members and much closer friends of the couple a chance to actually sit down to enjoy the event, but it was very nice.  Aki and Asuka hired a really nice string duo or trio (I can't remember exactly how many people) and they played quite a few pieces I recognized, and topped it off with the traditional Bridal procession song.  The action of the wedding was mostly limited to the signing of the wedding papers by the bride, groom and two witnesses.  In a brief side-note, Aki had actually asked Sarah and I to serve as his witnesses in case his two friends from the states couldn't make it.  I was happy for Aki that his friends were able to come, but I was really disappointed when they did.  

The 'Gaijin' Table!  Everything about
this place was beautiful from the
knives to the napkins.

The highlight of the ceremony for Sarah was the discovery that there were two babies in attendance.  We found one of them on the stairs to the balcony and spent a very enjoyable 15 minutes entertaining him with some spontaneous peek-a-boo.  It was glorious.  Japanese babies are adorable.  I almost had to physically restrain Sarah so that she didn't try to steal him!  


After the sanctuary's service, about half of the audience was called away, leaving the rest of us to mill about, wondering what we were waiting for and why the bride and groom apparently liked the other half of the guests better.  (Actually it wasn't that bad.  This was the time when Sarah and I found the baby!)  After about 10 minutes or so, we found out that we were waiting to get our turn taking a group picture with the wedding couple.  This was the first part of the weeding that seemed different from an American wedding.  Has anyone ever seen a wedding where  the bride and groom took group pictures with everyone who attended their wedding?  I haven't.  However, it was pretty cool and I hope that the tradition moves to the other side of the Pacific.  Hopefully, we will get a copy of the photo, because in the name of saving time, the only cameras used were those of the professional photographers.  After the photo op, we moved into the reception hall.  

I never feel bigger than when I stand
next to Japanese people.  Also, Sarah
must have missed the memo
about the colors for the night.

Thankfully, there were a few native English speakers at this wedding, and Aki was kind enough to group us all together for dinner.  One of the guests was former OBC teacher Stuart Gregory, who taught at OBC about 5 years ago.  It was really fun to get his perspective on the school and to gossip about our older students and their bad habits or funny stories.  The other foreigners in attendance were some of Aki's friends.  One of them was a teacher at Tulane University about 22 years ago when a young man by the name of Brett Favre was taking night classes in communication while playing QB at Southern Miss.  It really is a small world.

The band for the evening

The reception was fantastic.  Diner was at least 4 courses:  Sashimi, soup, some delicious beef, and cake, with as much wine, beer and other drinks as you could order in Japanese.  The presentation of all the food was amazing.  I shudder to think what the couple spent on food for the wedding, but it must have been ridiculous.  There was also some pretty interesting entertainment.  The surprise of the night was a puppet show to the tune of the 'Sound of Music' soundtrack.  Aki and Asuka also serenaded us with 'Edelweiss' that started out in English but switched to Japanese after the first verse.  There were also a few performers, including one man who played at least three different instruments over the course of the evening.  He started on something like a shamisen that only had two strings and was played with a bow, then moved to the actual shamisen, then he pulled out a beautiful accordion and played some Japanese polka-inspired tunes.  

The happy couple!

After the reception came another tradition that I sincerely hope makes the jump across the Pacific.  The after after party!  We took a bus to a bar in Yokkaichi called the Bar Mar Italiano, where Asuka tossed bouquet and we were treated to some more delicious food and drink. There were a few speeches, with Aki's father's standing out particularly in my memory.  Aki's dad is hilarious, with a tendency to forget that people might eventually want to do something besides listen to him talk.  I couldn't understand very much of what he said, but since the crowd kept on laughing, I will assume that it was a pretty funny speech.  Aki seemed happy anyway.  We ate, drank and played BINGO to our stomachs', livers', and hearts' content.  All in all, it was a pretty fantastic evening.  Congrats to Aki and Asuka as they prepare for their fourth and final wedding ceremony in Hawaii!

Giving Thanks in Japan

I'd like to start this post off by wishing Sydney Rajchel good luck.  She is taking the LSAT as I write this, and as anybody who has ever studied for that monster of a test can tell you, she could use the positive thoughts!  So, good luck Sydney, you'll do great and we love you!


Speaking of Sydney, I get to see her soon!  She won't let me start counting down the days on Facebook, so I'm going to do it here instead.  I get to see her in almost exactly one month!  Words cannot express how excited I am to see her.  I had dinner tonight with some great friends, one of whom had just returned from the States where she spent the better part of a week with her boyfriend.  Most of the time I do pretty well; not getting lonely, or sad, or depressed, but tonight it was especially hard to stay upbeat when I could Machiko's face light up every time the conversation turned to her trip or her boyfriend.  January 4th can't come soon enough, and January 15th can't stay away far enough away.  


Alright, lets move on before I get all emotional.  Back to dinner.  I am incredibly lucky.  5 months ago, I moved to a totally foreign country.  Not only that, but I was moving to a city I had never heard of before, and the only person I knew who lived even remotely close to me was my girlfriend's aunt.  I didn't really speak the language, I was starting a brand new profession, and my only prior contact with the people I would be living with for the next year was an hour long lunch and some emails.  Given all that, to say that I was nervous would have been an understatement.  So why do I think I am lucky? Within 5 months, I have met what has to be the coolest collection of people in Tsu.  Sitting in Minnesota, I never could have hoped that I would meet even a few decent friends, so I can't be thankful enough for the people that I know here.  Considering Thanksgiving was only a few short days ago, It only feels right to take a moment and say how happy I am here, and how lucky I was to come into such a great situation.  So thank you to all of my friends here that have made these five months of living 6,500 miles away from Sydney not only bearable, but wonderful. 


I know a lot of people back in Minnesota were curious about thanksgiving here.  Since the pilgrims stopped Mayflower about 10,000 miles short of Japan, the holiday isn't terribly big over here.  Most of my students' experience with the holiday came from past lessons with OBC teachers, and most of them had never even eaten turkey before!  However, there are plenty of Americans in Tsu, and we kept the holiday spirit strong.  Sarah and I joined our friend Jessica and her husband Hide for Thanksgiving dinner on Sunday night.  Since Thanksgiving is not actually a holiday here, we all had to work on Thursday.  Dinner was a nice mixture of traditional and unique.  They found a turkey somewhere, so we did get our yearly dose of tryptophan, as well as some chicken.  We mixed in some Japanese fare with some delicious fish, and the sweet potatoes were definitely not your mom's yams with marshmallows on top.  They were still quite tasty though!  Hide is also something a pizza connoisseur, so we added pizza to the menu as well.  Most Japanese kitchens don't come with ovens so Hide had to improvise.  Fortunately, his kitchen did come stocked with a blowtorch, and with the stove's burners and the torch, he made one hell of a delicious pizza.  We rounded out the menu with some pasta salad, cornbread stuffing, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, and bread.  Dessert was superb, with brownies and pecan pie, made by our neighborhood friendly Canadian.  


Well, its now 2:14 am, so I think I am going to head to bed.  Hopefully I'll be back to writing regularly again!  Good night!

Its Still November, and I am Still in Japan, so What do I Call this Post?

Me at Nanzenji!

I have to take back everything I said about the weather here in my last post.  Real fall weather just touched down like a ton of bricks.  My apartment is so chilly right now that I don't know if I will be able to finish this post without finding a pair of gloves.  I truly don't understand how the people of Tsu City build all of these places without proper insulation and central heat.  Its all fine and dandy in the summer, but this isn't exactly the tropics here!  Sorry about the weather rant, but I was definitely not prepared for this kind of assault on my internal temperature gauge.  


Apart from the weather, its been a great ten days or so since my last post.  My classes are great, except for my last class of the day on Fridays.  The man in that class is about 30 years old, and he was signed up for classes by his mother.  He wants to learn English to start helping his company (owned by his mom) do international business, but he seriously spends half our class buried in his dictionary.  We have a long way to go.  The one plus side to the class is that the guy makes me laugh, both intentionally and not.  The first time I saw him, he definitely looked familiar, but I could remember where or why.  Then, about halfway through that first class, it struck me.  He looked just like Po, the Kung Fu Panda!  If you take Po, and imagine him as a real person instead of a panda, my student is exactly what you would get.  I mean this in the nicest way possible, but it is hilarious.

Aqueduct.  And here I thought these
were only in Rome!

But I digress, yet again.  Sorry.  Today (November 23) was a national holiday here, so I had the day off.  Last night, I went over to my friend Marshall's place, and we started talking about his weekend trip to Kyoto.  I was jealous for a moment, but no less then 20 minutes later, John Stanton walked in and asked if I wanted to go to Kyoto with him and our friend Etsuko tomorrow.  Perfect timing.  Fitting with my status as a 'yes'-man here in Japan, I of course agreed.  We woke up bright and early and hoped in Etsuko's car and drove to Kyoto.  Also fitting with tradition, something went wrong with John the night before we had early morning plans.  Unlike certain other weekends, which shall remain unmentioned, this one was out of his control.  The poor guy spent the night praying to the porcelain goddess, wracked with some sort of food poisoning.   


The drive to Kyoto was relatively uneventful, except I eventually realized that Etsuko's car didn't really go over 120 kph.  That is only about 7o miles per hour or so.  Maybe 75.  Even at that speed, it only took an hour to get to the edge of Kyoto.  Parking is hard to come by, and very expensive in the city itself, so we parked a ways away from anything interesting and took the subway to Nanzenji Temple.  Our walk to the subway was great.  We followed these adorable little soccer boys who kept looking up at me and John, waving and saying "Hello!" in the most timid little voices.  It was great!  After an uneventful subway ride, we made it to the temple.  Nanzenji is a Zen Buddhist Temple, and it is apparently a very, very popular tourist destination.  The place was packed.  Packed, but extremely beautiful.  Nanzenji is comprised of several gardens, the main temple, and several smaller support buildings.  There is also an aqueduct that was built in the late Edo Period to carry water from Biwa Lake to Kyoto.  My favorite parts of Nanzenji were the two main gardens.  One was a traditional garden and was a rock garden.  Both were exceptionally beautiful with their fall colors.  This blog really isn't big enough to post enough pictures to do this place justice, so I highly recommend jumping over to Facebook to check out my album titled "Fall Colors in Kyoto."


After Nanzenji, we took a wonderful walk through Kyoto to Kyomizu Temple.  The walk took us down one of the most densely packed streets I've ever been on.  The street had everything.  Shops selling pretty much anything you could want, both souvenir shops and restaurants, more people per square foot than should be allowed, and to top it all of, it meandered up and down some pretty steep hills.  John's favorite part was the rickshaw drivers.  A bunch of Japanese boys pulling people along in some pretty elaborate carts.  John wants to start moonlighting as a rickshaw driver in his spare time.  The temple was worth the hour long walk through an unending sea of people.  It is situated on a hill over looking the entire city of Kyoto.  The only word I can use to describe it is epic.  Again, I don't have room enough here for all the pictures I want to show you!  So here is a link to the proper album:  Fall Colors in Kyoto.  (the link should open in a new window)  Long story short, everyone should go to Kyoto at some point in their life.  I don't want this post to get too long, so I will end this post with a question.  I bought a ton of post cards.  Who wants one?  If you want one, leave a comment with your address, or email me at ajforkesgud@gmail.com.  Thanks!!

November in Japan

I seem to ask this a lot, but please excuse me while I ramble on a bit.  I need to go Minnesotan for a while and talk about the weather.  This is the warmest I have ever been in November ever.  It is crazy.  I took out my garbage at 9:30 p.m. on November 13th barefoot.  Barefoot, in shorts and  t-shirt.  This is crazy!  Maybe its a good thing that I'll be staying in Japan for Christmas, I might not survive the winter in Minnesota!  At this rate, next year is going to be rough!  

I went Hiking today with a bunch of folks, and we climbed the glorious and beautiful Mt. Gozaisho.  To keep with the weather topic for a moment, I started the day wearing a long sleeve t-shirt and a zip-up sweatshirt over that, and after about 10 steps up the mountain, I was really, really wishing I had brought a pair of shorts.  I've never had that thought half way through November before!  


The start of my day today was interesting to say the least.  Our day was supposed to start around 7:00 a.m., which is about 3 hours earlier than I would ideally like to wake up on a sunday, but our train schedule was tight, to say the least.  I woke up to an odd smell in my apartment though.  And for those of you who might be questioning my hygiene at this point, I take offense to that!  The smell was coming from my kitchen.  Apparently, my roommate John had started cooking some udon last night when he came home from the bar, but forgot about halfway through and accidently left the burner on with the udon broth to boil over night!  When I finally figured out what was going on, the broth had turned into a lovely little charcoal briquette in the bottom of out pot!  That was the high point for the day until we actually got to Yokkaichi.  After that, we had about 7 minutes to get all of out things prepared for the day and head out the door.  I live about 9 minutes from Tsushimmachi train station, and the train we needed to catch to make it to our connection left at 7:50.  We left our apartment at 7:46 and missed the train by a minute!  Talk about disappointment.  Here we went through all of this effort, and we weren't even going to make it to the mountain!  Fortunately, we have very smart and well prepared friends with internet phones.  We managed to catch up to the express train by taking the limited express from the next station and we eventually found our friends and started our trip to the mountain.  


As far as the mountain itself goes, it was pretty excellent.  It might have been the perfect hiking experience.  I went with wonderful people, the weather was as close to ideal as you could hope, the climb was great, and the descent was made infinitely more enjoyable by the fact that we rode a gondola down instead of climbing.  The hike was great.  There was the perfect combination of wooded trails, steps and bouldering.  Most of the bouldering was done in what I think was an old river bed that wound its way down the mountain.  All that was left of the river was a small, spring-fed stream that tumbled its way through the rocks.  It might have been small, but the stream was beautiful and refreshing!  Sorry to keeping hammering on the weather thing, but it was warm enough today for a quick dip in a mountain stream to be refreshing rather than freezing, and it seemed to carry only a slight risk of pneumonia.  Don't worry Mom, I feel fine!  


Mt. Gozaisho is a pretty popular mountain, and the summit is accessible by a gondola as well as the many hiking paths.  The gondola's wheelhouse also housed a cafe and a souvenir shop.  There are few things more welcome after a great hike then hot food and cold beer, both of which were served in plenty at the cafe!  We decided that since we had worked so hard to get to the top, we would take our well earned break in style.  There were plenty of things to do at the top besides drink and eat.  There were ample opportunities for silly pictures, and we did our best to make use of them all!  Check Facebook for the other good ones, these are just two that I am in!  


Usually, my least favorite part of a hike is the trip down the mountain, but Gozaisho even had an answer for that.  For about 1.000 Yen, we were able to take a gondola back down the mountain to survey the trail we had taken,  The view was spectacular.  I love Colorado, and no doubt the Rockies are a more spectacular mountain range then the one I was hiking in today, but there is one thing they can't offer.  That is a view of the ocean from their summit.  I don't know if I will ever become accustomed to my proximity to the sea, and honestly I hope I don't, because the view from the gondola on the way down the mountain was unbelievable today.  Mountains and the sea. That is pretty much Japan in a nutshell.

Sorry for the extended post tonight, but I have one more thing I need to talk about.  Old Japanese people are crazy!  They put the vast majority of elderly Americans to shame.  I can't tell you how many people that could have been my grandparents passed our group on the trails today.  It was crazy!  In Japanese old man is ojiichan, and old lady is obaachan.  "Don't let the Ojiichans beat you up the mountain!" was pretty much our battle cry for the day.  And last but not least, I thought I would include one hilarious picture.  This was another common sight on the trails.  One poor father carrying his completely passed out child on his back up a mountain.  Talk about dedicated parenting!  

Post-Halloween Thoughts

So, Halloween has been over for 10 days now, and the horrific flashbacks have finally started to fade.  My dreams are no longer haunted by the sound of paper crinkling and scotch tape being peeled off the roll.  Life has settled nicely into the post halloween, downward slope into the Christmas holidays.  Speaking of downward slopes, I finally have some plans for my holiday!  I recently decided to stay in Japan, instead of coming home (sorry Mom, but I can't pass up the chance to travel around Japan) but I didn't have any definite ideas about how to occupy my time.  My fellow OBC teachers are both leaving the country, so I will be the only one here, and that had me feeling a bit nervous.  However, thanks to my wonderful friends here, I have a tentative plan to hit the slopes and do a little snowboarding in Nagano Prefecture.  I have to say, the idea of tearing up the same slopes as the '98 Winter Olympians is pretty exciting.  So, no need to worry Madre, I will not be spending Christmas all alone!

My Room, complete with the
Rocky Mountains and the Grand
Canyon

But, I digress.  Back to Halloween.  My responsibility for OBC's Halloween party was to create a game involving English and some aspect of American culture, that 5 or 6 six kids could do at one time and took roughly five minutes to complete.  The party would have about 50 students in attendance, only half of which would be actual OBC students, the other half would be friends and family members.  With the help of the wonderful Sydney Rajchel and my loving mother, I decided to turn my classroom into a road map of 'America.'  I chose 4 destinations:  Disney World, Target Field, the Statue of Liberty, and the Grand Canyon, and my students had to navigate a road map and overcome a few obstacles to find their destination.  When they arrived, they got a postcard that I had made and some candy.  Turning a classroom into something interesting enough to hold the attention of a bunch of 4 to 14 year old students was just as difficult as it sounds.  I spent more time taping sheets of paper together than I would I ever like to repeat.  Thus the aforementioned flashbacks and sound induced nightmares.  I also made a road out of paper for the kids to follow, and in order to prevent it from being destroyed by the sugar-crazed stompings of little children's feet, I taped it to the floor with industrial strength scotch tape.  This seemed like a good idea at the time, but after two hours of scrubbing the floor with paint thinner to remove the tape residue, I can tell you that it definitely wasn't.  To make up for the unpleasantness, I think our guests actually enjoyed themselves, so I suppose in the end, it really was worth it.  


Enough of Halloween, I don't want to stir up those memories any more than necessary.  As I said earlier, I'm on the downhill side.  Life is looking good from where I stand.  I feel confident when I walk into the classroom, I think most of my students like me, or at least think I am somewhat interesting, and best of all, I get to see Sydney in less than two months.  I'm doing alright.  

Please forgive me while I briefly rant...

OBC has made me dread halloween.  I would have never thought it possible that I could grow to loath my once favorite holiday, but OBC found a way.  Every year, OBC has a short, less then two hour Halloween party for the elementary and junior high students.  The format is pretty simple, each of the three teachers plan a short 5 minute game that can be played by up to 6 people at a time and that involves simple to moderately complex English depending on the skill level of the students participating.  Each teacher is responsible for planning the game, drawing up a plan for the room and then doing the actual decorating.  We are also assigned an assistant for the party itself, and that assistant is supposed to help us with the decorating and brainstorming phase.  This would all be well and good, but OBC has had us planning this party for 3 full months already.  I have only been in this country for 3.5 months!  And remember, the whole party is less then two hours!  A two hour party does not warrant a weeks worth of stressed out sleepless nights and three months of planning.  The general stress level, and the increased workload has finally succeeded in destroying my love for the holiday once reserved only for drunken debauchery and silly antics.   

Thank you for indulging me in a few minutes of work related whining.

On Shinto and Japanese Shrines

On Saturday, I had one of the coolest experiences of my time in Japan so far.  A friend of mine took me to the Shinto shrine in Ise city.  This shrine is one of the most famous in all of Japan, and it is where the Emperor himself comes for special occasions.  Unfortunately, I forgot my camera, so I will have to post pictures that I have stolen from the internet.  I hope the internet doesn't mind too much!!


First, a little background as explained to me by my friend and local expert, Chinatsu.  The basic idea of Shinto, as I understand it is that every single thing has a spirit within it.  It is for that reason that people who believe in Shinto are very caring towards the world in general, from bugs and weeds to rocks and trees.  Chinatsu told me that around her house when she was little, there were lots of frogs and spiders.  Her mom told her to be kind to the spiders and the frogs, because the frogs were her grandma, and the spiders were her grandpa.  (It might have been the other way around, she said she forgot which was which, apparently the lesson didn't stick that hard!)  I thought that was pretty cool.  


When I say Ise Shrine, what I really mean is a sort of gathering of shrines centered on one main shrine called Naiku, which is dedicated to a Shinto goddess.  The whole gathering of shrines is set deep in the woods, and it is some of the most beautiful scenery I have ever scene.  The the entrance to the Shrine gathering is a bridge over a river, and the moment you cross the bridge, you step into a beautiful forrest.  The walk to Naiku is maybe fifteen minutes at a pretty slow pace, and you really wouldn't want to walk any faster.  I found myself stopping every few minutes to look around and see the massive trees or a smaller shrine off on a smaller path.  


Every shrine in Japan, as far as Chinatsu knew, is built in the traditional style using historical tools and methods.  Next to each shrine there is an open area of the same size as the Shrine itself.  This is there because every twenty years, every shrine is rebuilt out of new materials.  They do this in order to pass down the knowledge and craftsmanship from one generation of shrine builder to the next.  


Apparently, when Sydney comes to visit in January, I shouldn't bring her into the Shrine proper, because the goddess to whom the shrine is dedicated is apparently a very jealous woman.  She will make life very difficult for couples who visit the shrine together.  Also, within the shrine gathering area, there are a whole bunch of chickens!  My expert couldn't explain the origins of the chickens, by she did tell me that I shouldn't try and chase them or bother them at all.  I asked what would happen if I did, and she said that the main priest would be very unhappy with me.  I decided that I did not want to be responsible for the next big typhoon or earthquake that hit Mie Prefecture, so I left the chickens alone!  


All around the shrine area, there are wonderful little shops and things.  After we saw the shrine, we walked around the shop district and did the tourist thing for a while.  It was great!  The highlight of the shop district was a little place that sold locally brewed beers, and I was lucky enough to find a micro-brewed porter!  It was fantastic!  Also, we ate some clams, some Ise udon, and some green tea ice cream.  All in all, a fantastic day. 

Tsu Festival

I think that these weekend would be among the top qualifiers if I held a competition for most "Japanese" weekend.  I'll follow that sentence with a brief, situational definition of "Japanese."  In this case, I mean that I got to experience a whole lot of Japanese culture, and see what the people who live in Tsu city get up to when they throw a party.  


This was the weekend of Tsu's annual city festival.  It was cool to see how the city has slowly been preparing itself for the festival; watching the city's many industrious workers prune trees, clean sidewalks, hang banners, signs and flags, and generally scour the city for any unwanted dirt.  One thing is certain, Japanese festivals definitely win the cleanliness award!  The actual festival was amazing as well.  It was a two day shindig centered on the city hall and Phoenix street, which is one of the main thoroughfares in the city, and it featured Japanese dancers from all over Japan, and a wonderful variety of Japanese festival food.  As far as the former goes, Japanese dance is awesome.  The dancers themselves were crazy animated, and they all looked like they were having the time of their lives.  It was also really cool to see the wide range of ages in the dances.  Some of the dance groups were all university students, some were obaachans (old ladies, literally grandmas) some ojiichans (grandpas) and every once in a while, a couple a little kids!  The little kids were the best.  They were usually lost, hidden behind the legs of their elder compatriots, but whenever they made an appearance in the front row, they were most definitely the most entertaining people in the whole festival.  They also had really cool flags that they used in their dance routines! 


I also ate a ton of Japanese food!  The first day I kept it pretty basic, I ate various fried things, some chicken, and a pork chop sort of thing.  I also at some yakitori, which I believe is chicken.  The most interesting food experience was when I bought a kebab sandwich from a stand on the street.  The guy had the most excellent mustache, and he spoke fluent english, so we were chatting about the festival, and how we came to Japan.  As it turns out, the guy was from northern Iraq, and made several jokes (at least I hope they were jokes, other I owe the friend I shared the sandwich with an apology for getting her killed!) about poisoning my sandwich.  It made for an interesting lunch, let me tell you!


It has also been determined that I look like a Japanese cartoon character.  His name is Anpanman, and he is pretty awesome.  He is made out of bread, and he feeds hungry and needy people by breaking off bits of his own head and giving it to people.  Pretty cool, right??  Unfortunately, when he gives away too much of his head, he starts to get weak, and he can eventually die, I think.  Have no fear, though!  Anpanman is friends with a first-class baker who makes new Anpanman heads and replaces the diminished on when Anpanman starts to get too weak.  Anpanman's favorite means of disposing of his enemies is by "An-punch"-ing them.  I was skeptical at first, but I have grown fairly fond of the little guy.  He is also delicious.

The second day of my festival food adventure was a bit more... well.. adventurous.  I ate takoyaki for the first time, and it was... intimidating.  Tako means octopus, and takoyaki is a fried octopus ball.  As you can see in the picture to the right, they make no qualms about the contents of the little guys.  Honestly, they were pretty decent.  A bit chewy, but the taste was not so bad!  Karroll, if you're reading this, we are going to Osaka when you visit, and we are going to eat Takoyaki!  Osaka is the birthplace of takoyaki, as far as I have been informed.


Thats all for now folks, its off to bed!
Good night!!!

Japanese Lessons!

Exciting news!  I just observed a friend's private Japanese lessons, and if all goes well, I should be starting lessons of my own as soon as next week!  The lesson was quite interesting to watch, and it was a major confidence booster, because I actually understood a fair bit of what was going on, despite the fact that it was picking up about 2 lessons after where I stopped studying at SJU.  I have to call Ishikawa-sensei and have a longer conversation about what I want to get out of my Japanese lessons, and where I would like to start in the textbook, and that should happen relatively soon.  After that, we will decide when I can start, choose a day and time, and then I will officially be studying Japanese in Japan!  I'm very lucky, because Ishikawa-sensei lives fairly close to my apartment, and I can get to her house by bicycle relatively easy.  I could also take a train (and when it gets colder I probably will) because her home is quite near the next station down the line.  It will only cost about 150 yen to get there from OBC, and that is less than 2 dollars.  Life is good.


Apart from that, life in Japan has settled down quite nicely.  Work is going really well, and I am starting to get more and more comfortable living in this country.  At the beginning of October, our teaching schedules got solidified for the next six months or so, and I really enjoy almost all of my classes.  As soon as I finish writing this, I will be going back to OBC for the second part of my teaching day, and my first class will be two junior high kids, one boy and one girl.  This class might be my most difficult class, but not for the reasons you would expect.  The kids are both very smart, and their English comprehension is quite good.  The problem is one of motivation.  The girl is very busy with her school sports clubs (a common problem with Japanese school age kids) and she usually shows up to OBC about 15 minutes late.  The boy is self-described as timid, shy, and quiet.  It was actually kind of funny, I asked him to describe himself, and he got out the Japanese-English dictionary and specifically looked up the word timid.  Timid and self-aware seems like an uncommon characteristic for a 12 year old boy.  Both of the kids will do everything I ask them to do in class, and they usually do the work correctly, but as soon as I ask them to be loud, creative, or anything besides just sitting there, I hit a wall.  We're working on it though, and I am trying to make them do more creative activities and get comfortable being silly.


My last two classes today are both low level adult.  The first adult class is one man who just recently got married, and a woman of about 50 years or so.  They make a pretty decent class, and they seem to get along with each other as well as can be expected given the age gap.  Both of them are learning English as a hobby, so they both enjoy coming to their lessons, which is always nice.  My last class of the day is interesting.  It is two women a little older then me, maybe 25 years old or so.  They are easily my least punctual class, and sometimes they show up as much as a half hour late, or they don't come at all.  When they do come though, they are my noisiest adult class by far.  They are both super excited to come to OBC, and they love to talk, both in English and Japanese.  Sydney, skip this next sentence please!  It doesn't hurt that they are both pretty cute!  Sorry Sydney, I love you!!  That class always makes for an interesting end of the work day.


Outside of OBC, I've been doing as many things as I can.  I have sort of adopted a new habit of saying yes to everything I can.  So far, it has worked out pretty well.  In the last couple of weeks, I have gone to Osaka and Nagoya, I have gone surfing, I went to a theme park, and too many other small adventures to count.  In some ways, it feels like I'm not really doing anything worth writing home about (which is why I haven't posted anything in so long) but when I stop to think about it, I have been all over Mie and I have done a lot of really wonderful things lately.  Life in general is pretty wonderful over here, and it is finally starting to feel like I live here.  That on its own seems like a pretty grand accomplishment!

Japan in a Story

I feel like my life in Japan can be fairly adequately summed up by the first half of my day today.  It started out just like any other day in Japan.  I was heading to work on a Saturday morning during a typhoon, and I realized that Japan is a crazy place.  Case in point, I was biking to working during a freakin' typhoon!  That all went pretty successfully, given that as I was biking I was simultaneously talking a cell phone, contributing to the several near death experiences that I encountered on my commute.  I made it to work in one piece, a little sodden, but none worse for wear.  Since it was a Saturday morning, I only have one class, a mid-level adult class with four students.  Now, I new one of the students was going to absent ahead of time, but I was still planning on teaching three people this morning.  I got to work about 40 minutes before class was scheduled to start, because I didn't know exactly how much the typhoon would delay me, and I got my lesson planned nice and early, giving me plenty of time to relax and dry off before I had to go teach.  Turns out that i needn't have bothered planning the lesson, because none of the other three students that were supposed to show came to OBC.  There is nothing like waking up after a night at the bar, leaving your house during a typhoon, and getting stood up by your students on a Saturday morning.

The next part of my day was substantially better.  John and I biked out to the Uni Qlo which is essentially Old Navy and bought some new T-shirts and I bought a hat.  The first two typhoons of the season brought lovely weather after they passed, but this one clearly missed the memo, because it was ungodly hot and humid this afternoon.  After the clothes shopping, John and I stopped off at the supermarket to pick up some stuff to make guacamole for Sarah's upcoming birthday party, and to stock up on "party supplies" also known as booze.  We bought all the stuff for guac, and realized that there was not a single tortilla chip to be found in the entire supermarket.  We called around, and found out that tortilla chips are only sold in the YaMaYa stores (foreign food stores), and the nearest one of those was two stops down the train line.  At this point, we were committed to the whole guac idea, so we had to go in search of the chips.  Actually, John had to teach at 5:00, so I went in search for the chips.  All I had to go on for directions were, "its in Hisai, and its about a ten minute walk from the station, but I can't remember if you turn right THEN walk ten minutes, or if you walk ten minutes THEN turn right."

So, I rode my bike to Tsusimmachi station near my house, rode the train to Hisai Station, and started walking.  After stopping to ask for directions at a Circle K, I eventually found the YaMaYa and bought 6 bags of tortilla chips, because I did not want to run out half way through the party!  The plus side to this excursion was that I found out that the foreign foods store also sells Guinness, so I bough a bottle and drank it on my way back to the station.  (open bottle is legit in Japan as long as you aren't driving!)

I guess the moral of this story is that some things that expect to be really difficult in Japan, like asking for directions actually turn out to be a lot less difficult that going to the grocery store to buy tortilla chips.  Its a crazy country.

Peace and whatnot,
Andrew!

I have no idea what to title this blog, mostly because I meant to post this two weeks ago right after my last post, but I keep getting so caught up in this whole being in Japan thing that writing sort of takes a back seat.  So let me start by apologizing to those who I don't get to talk to very regularly and rely on this blog to keep you up to date on my time here in Japan.  I really am sorry!  As always, the best way to keep up is to stalk the ol' Facebook, but I will try to keep this going more regularly as well.

The one thing that the last couple of weeks have taught me is that I am very lucky that I don't work until 5:00 p.m. on Mondays.  Last weekend can serve as a perfect example.  I went to a friend's sayonara party in Nagoya on saturday night, which entailed getting about 3 hours of sleep, and then Sunday I went with some other friends to a river near Tsu where we went swimming and cliff jumping for 5 hours, then we went to another party for a different friend who was celebrating his 15th anniversary of being in Japan!  I am very very fortunate that my Mondays start so wonderfully late.  I know it is super lame to be complaining about going to so many parties, but as a wise woman once said, "the life of a socialite is hard!"  *Sarah Haugen, I hope you're reading this someday.

I am also at a loss for words to describe the rest of the stuff we have been doing here.  I don't think that I have ever typed that sentence before!  I have met more people than I ever thought possible, and most of them have been pretty great.  I have been to some truly beautiful places, and I have gotten to see a lot of Mie-ken thanks to the great friends that I have made here, and I'm really very lucky in all of this.

I'm going to keep this short, and simply say the weekend ended on a fantastic note.  My mom sent me a box full of American candy and cereal!  It also had some wonderful Dove soap.  My mom is the best.  Hands down.

Good night and good luck!

Andrew

One Hell of a Weekend, and Some Other Stuff

Two weeks have passed since my last post, and I haven't waited so long before writing because I had nothing to write about!  These last two weeks have literally been insane.  On the work related end of things, the old OBC teachers have left, and John and I have been teaching classes on our own for good while now.  Little shout-out to the Angela and Peter, for doing such a great job prepping for this, I only feel like going crazy planning all of these lessons once in a while now, instead of all the time.  So, thanks!!

Apart from getting used to teaching, it has been truly excellent to get to know my students a lot better in and out of class.  Especially outside of class.  My Wednesday night class took me out to dinner after class last week, and it was really cool to get to talk about things other than our textbook and news items.  We went to a kaiten-sushi place near my house, and my three students (all of whom are adults, married and whatnot) had a great time explaining all the little sushi dishes and what was what and good or bad.  They also thought it was hilarious to watch me eat all this stuff that I had never had before!  I think they got the strangest stuff just to watch me try and eat it.  I had a sushi roll filled with what they told me was crab brains.  I was skeptical at first, but as soon as it arrived, it definitely smelled exactly like I would imagine crab brains would smell like.  It also tasted exactly like what you would imagine crab brains would taste like.  Not so good.  Everything else was pretty good.  It was a evening all around.  Especially because I had been struggling to figure out what sort of topics that class liked and I finally found a couple of things they enjoyed discussing.  All around good evening.

On the not-exactly-work-related side of things, we have definitely been keeping busy!  This Monday, August 15th, is a special day in Buddhism.  It is the day of Obon in Japan, I don't know if they only have this day here, or if it is practiced in other Buddhist countries, but it is something of a big deal here.  It is a day not entirely unlike the Dia de los Muertos in Mexico, as far as I have been able to understand.  Similar in idea, but different in practice.  The Dia de los Muertos is a festival, a celebration when ancestors' spirits return to their homes.  Obon is the same idea, where families gather in cemeteries and at the their homes and temples to rejoin their ancestors' spirits.  However, from what I have gathered, it is much less festive than its Mexican counterpart.  It is an interesting practice.  Anyway, OBC is closed for the Obon holiday, and we got Thursday through Sunday off of work.  So, John, Sarah and I took a holiday!

Omiya town.  Real exciting place!

It was truly great to get a vacation, even though we have really only been teaching for less than a month.  We decided to make our trip small and cheap, since John and I still don't have any money, and we didn't want to travel too far.  We settled on the destination of おみやーちょ、or Omiya-town, which is south of Tsu City, but still in Mie.  It is a very small town that is well known as a cycling destination.  Actually, it was a lot like Lanesboro, MN if Lanesboro were in Japan.  Very small tourist town for bicyclers.  I was going to try and find a picture of the town, but it doesn't even show up on google maps!  This picture is the best one I have.   Omiya itself might not have been the most exciting city in the world, but us OBCers know how to make everything interesting, even what should have been a simple single switch train ride to the city!  We were supposed to take a JR line train from the town of Taki to Takihara station which is in Omiya.  Well, all we really had to go on was a small map and Sarah's iPhone.  We made it Taki, and switched trains, and we were all sorts of excited to get to Omiya.  Well, we were listening to the train conductor as he announced the stops, and we got off when we heard our destination called.  We walked according to out map in the direction of our hotel, but we couldn't find it anywhere in this town!  We stopped into a convenience store to get some water and ask for directions, and we were told after much hand gestures and confused looks that we were about 30 minutes from our hotel by car.  We got off at the wrong station!  Our conductor had said TaCHihara, not TaKihara.  So, we had to go back to the train station, and wait for the next train.  TaCHihara is tiny, and the trains don't run very often, so we ended up sitting at an empty train station in Tachihara for close to two hours!

Our view dow the line
as we waited for a train.

The torturous river.

We eventually got a train and made it to Omiya, and found our hotel, and were so worn out by the day that we didn't even want to leave our hotel room!  It was close to 100 degrees outside, and our room was the only air conditioned part of the hotel.  In an unexpected development, the hotel only had a traditional bath, which meant communal shower and bathtub.  It was interesting to say the least.  The bath was pretty nice though.  Hadn't taken a bath in a long time!  The next day, we rented bikes and decided to go for a ride, which might not have been the best idea, given that it was about a thousand degrees again, but we did it anyway.  We struck out downhill, which I thought might have been a bad idea as well, but it was what it was.  We cruised along for about 15 miles along this gorgeous river that was further down the mountain than we could get to from our road.  If I had to choose a situation to define what I think Hell would be like, I think that would be close to it.  We were so hot and sweaty and this beautiful blue river wound its way just out of our reach.  It was beautiful and horrible at the same time.  But it wasn't all bad.  As we started to turn back towards out hotel, we found a place were we could climb down into a smaller creek/stream, and cool off for a while.  It was so astoundingly wonderful, that words can't come close to doing it justice.

Sarah and I at what we thought was
the summit.  We were wrong...

The bike ride ended up being pretty cool, except for the last mile or so, which was essentially reclaiming all the elevation we had been losing during the first 15 miles.  So that was difficult, but we made it, and didn't even die or anything!

So we survived our vacation!

Check back in later for Obon vacation part 2!

All the best!