Its Already the End of May?!?

The view out my front door.

I just counted it up in class today with some students.  I have exactly 61 days left in Japan.  The new teachers will be here in a month, we have to start cleaning the spare rooms in our apartment so they have someplace to live, my parents will be here in a week (a visit I have been looking forward to as soon as my mom said she might be able to make it out here after the school year was over) and I will be starting law school in about 75 days.  All of these things felt like they would never happen.  When I first got here, I couldn't even wrap my brain around the fact the eventually I would have to train in my replacement in the same way the Peter and Angela had to do for us.

STANDING ON A WAVE!!!

Apart from the existential crisis, I have been living the dream here the few weeks since I last wrote.  As I think I wrote before, I applied to six different law schools across the country, hoping that Sydney and I would both get into at least one of them.  Things were looking bad for a couple of weeks when the only school that accepted me was Gonzaga, in Spokane, WA and Sydney had decided to pursue a different educational course.  I decided not to go to Gonzaga, citing location and a lack of desire to live in Washington, seemingly dooming myself to another year out of school, trying to improve my LSAT score and earn some money.  I had been either wait-listed or rejected from all of my other schools, so I didn't have much hope of hearing good news from the corner.  Then about 2 weeks ago, I got an email from Case Western Reserve Law in Cleveland saying that a place had opened up for me there, and that I had until June 15th to accept it.  Case is a pretty good school, and though the location was not so good, I was pretty excited to have gotten in.  It also gave me hope for the rest of my wait-list schools, Wyoming and Denver University.  Last monday, I received more good news.  I got a notification from Wyoming that a spot had opened for me there!  As it stands now, I am planning on going to the University of Wyoming as a law student in August, unless I hear back from Denver before June 15th.

The timing of all of this is going to make for an interesting month of August.  I will start the month in Japan (I should fly out of here on August 1st), then move back to Lanesboro, MN for 2 weeks with my family (if you want to see me in MN, you should start emailing me now, because those two weeks will be crazy for me), then moving to Laramie, WY for grad school orientation which starts on August 15th.  So yeah, that should be fun.

Even without the good news on the school front, my last few weeks have been pretty good.  My coworker and roommate John has been dating a girl for a while now here.  Normally, I wouldn't be all that thrilled to have a happy relationship hanging out in front of me, unintentionally rubbing my own long-distance relationship in my face, but no this time!  Rita might be the best cook I have ever encountered, and the best part is, she shares!  I can't think of another time in my life where I have eaten so well on such a regular basis.  For lunch today:  Thai yellow curry and pasta.  For lunch two days ago:  three courses of thai pasta and soup.  Other highlights have to include this sort of seafood/cheese/soupy-sort-of-thing that was absolutely heavenly, grilled salmon with avocado, more different curries than I knew existed, and many other things that I can't quite pinpoint at the moment.  The food coma has become my natural state of existence almost every evening.  Ahhhh, life is good!

You can see my brace here.  Thats all I got
from the doctor.  Not even crutches. :(

I have also been surfing more, even standing up on a few waves!  I've been hanging out at the beach in Tsu, reading a lot, and even catching some of the playoffs that I thought I was doomed to miss this year.  Unfortunately, I ended last week on a sour note.  I was at a party on Saturday night, when, through no fault of my own, I tripped and hurt my ankle.  Fortunately, I was surrounded by friends and one of them (the HUman Alarm Clock, Jon Richards from the last post) was able to drive me home.  The Japanese hospital system is a bit different than the states from what I have gathered in my time here, and after much phone consultation from Sarah's boyfriend Kenichi, we decided not to go to the emergency room that night.  On Sunday, the hospital didn't have the proper ankle specialist on staff, so I ended up waiting until Monday morning until I could see a doctor.  Kenichi drove Sarah and I to a clinic near out house where I got some X-Rays and was told that my ankle was NOT broken and that I would be ok with rest and ice.  Good news!  Unfortunately, walking is still a little painful and I have to teach an elementary class this afternoon which will include a lot of running around chasing little kids.  Not to worry though, the doctor assured me that I would be fine by the time my folks get here next week.  I'm looking forward to posting about their visit, so be sure to stay tuned!

Holidays and Difficult Dinners

The beautiful Chikubu Island

Ok!!  I survived my trip to Shiga Prefecture!  I know that survival is usually a given when you go on a simple vacation, but this time I wasn't so sure.  So here's what happened.  I woke up extra early on Friday because in theory my ride was supposed to show up at around 6:30.  I don't know if you noticed, but I posted that last blog at 3:40 am Japan.  When I get excited I have a hard time sleeping, but I think I finally nodded off around 4:15 or so.  My alarm started ringing at 5:45.  I stumbled into the shower and, as I got out, I saw that I had missed a text from my driver's copilot Etsuko saying that they would be a little late.  They eventually got here at 7:10-ish and we began our journey north.  I was riding with Etsuko and Yukiko with Flo driving, and our other car had Jon, Chinatsu, Machiko and Matt bringing our group up to 8.  It was about a 2 hour drive from my apartment in Tsu to our first stop in Nagahama city. 

Buddha!

Ok, this is a Daruma Doll, and it is a
good luck charm.  You write a wish
on a piece of paper and put it inside
the doll then leave it in the temple.

The weather wasn't the best that day, so we decided to do our sightseeing instead of our cycling, because nobody likes to ride a bike in the rain.  Our first sightseeing stop was at the Chikubu Island ferry port.  We got our tickets for the ferry and started the 30 minute ride across the lake.  It was really a beautiful ride.  The rain had turned into more of a mist, and it really lent the whole scene a sort ethereal feeling.  Lake Biwa is surrounded by mountains, so watch the mountains grow out of the mist over the lake was really quite beautiful.  We  floated into the dock on the island to discover that the place is basically covered in shrines and temples.  The coolest part about that is that most them are devoted to giving good luck!  The bad news about the island was that it was basically just a big rock in the middle of a lake, so the whole thing was a sort of steep-sided hill.  That meant a lot of stairs!  But apart from that, the 80 minutes we spent there were about as enjoyable eighty minutes as a person can have on a rock in the middle of a lake.  

These discs are also good luck charms.  We write our name
and a wish on them and try to break them as we throw
them towards the Gate outside the temple.  Mine
went in the lake :(

After Chikubu Island, we took a ferry back to Nagahama City, which as it turns out is famous for glass making.  The girls wanted to look at all the pretty glass art, and Jon, Flo, Matt and I were more than happy to oblige.  At least, we were more than happy to oblige until we realized that obliging would entail a lot of walking through very crowded aisles surrounded by very expensive and very fragile art.  Me being the something of a klutz that I am, I decided to just wait outside after the first museum.  As fragile as the art was, I somehow managed not to break anything.  After seeing as much glass as the city had to offer, we found a nice pub offering a very reasonable happy hour, and much of the rest of the night is a bit fuzzy to say the least.  After the first pub we hopped over to a local brewery/restaurant combo and sampled (here I use the word 'sampled' very loosely) the various house brews.  Again, the evening and night are a bit fuzzy; I can report however that we all made it back to our hotel safe and sound!

Pitcher 1-3 of 8, all local brews.

The whole crew with our bikes.

The next day, we woke up at the ungodly hour of 6:00 am thanks in no small part to Mr. Jon Richards:  Alarm Clock Extraordinaire.  As ungodly of an hour as it was, it did give us plenty of time to start the days activities.  Our first order of business was breakfast, which we had at Micky D's!  I hadn't had McDonalds breakfast in so long I had almost forgotten how amazing it was.  After breakfast, we moved onto the bike shop, where we rented the battery-powered bicycles that we would take from Nagahama to Hikone City, follow the road around Biwako.  I don't remember exactly how long the trip took, because we stopped a lot along the way, and the whole trip was so beautiful I lost track of time anyway.  Hikone is home to the oldest original castle in Japan.  It was one of the only castles not to have been destroyed at any point in its existence, which began in 1622.  It was a really beautiful castle, situated on a hilltop overlooking the lake.  Its original purpose was to be a outpost protecting the waterway into Kyoto from the lake.  After a brief tour around the castle and the surrounding gardens, we got lunch at a local sushi place and hopped on our bikes for the ride back to out cars in Nagahama.  The trip was fanatastic, beautiful and very tiring.  Many sights were seen, much food was eaten, many steps were climbed, and many drinks were drunk.  I deem it a success.


When I got home, I felt like I could have used another week of vacation to recover from the previous, but that wasn't meant to be.  It was back to work for the OBC crew.  However, the next weekend proved to have some challenges of its own.  


That saturday, I decided to go to Toba, a city south of Tsu, in Mie prefecture, with Sarah.  We needed to buy some gifts for our mothers and Toba happens to be the pearl capitol of Japan, so we decided a trip was in order.  We go to Toba shortly after two in the afternoon and in desperate need of lunch.  Toba, being on the coast and home to many a talented fisher-person, is quite famous for its seafood.  So, Sarah and I set off in search of a restaurant that could meet my need for delicious sashimi and Sarah's need to be a crazy vegetarian.   (Sarah is one of those vegetarians who cheats by eating shrimp because, "they have really tiny brains and can't think.")  

The shrimp of death.

Well, we found a place, and walked in, finding it devoid of customers.  We sat down and got our menus, which were typically full of kanji.  Fortunately, there were pictures so we weren't totally screwed.  Sarah ordered some fried Ise Shrimp and I ordered a sashimi donbori which is basically raw fish on sushi rice.  Sarah's food came out first, and there we were met with our first surprise, a giant, raw, lobster head in the middle of her plate.  The waitress looked at us expectantly, and started talking in really fast Japanese.  We realized she was asking if we wanted to take a picture of the plate.  Sarah said "oh god no," and they took it away, we thought for good.  Then came my plate with the biggest surprise.  I had indeed ordered a sashimi donbori, but instead of the harmless fish that I had seen in the picture, the focus of my meal was on the still wiggling shrimp in the middle of my bowl!  The chef had simply grabbed a shrimp out of the fish tank and stuck it on my plate.  No knife, no boiling water, no grill, nothing!  The poor shrimp's legs were going a million miles per hour, and his little eyes were staring me down,  quite clearly and accurately accusing me off torturing it for my own enjoyment.  Well, needless to say, that did a number on my appetite, and forced me to leave a large portion of my delicious and expensive lunch untouched on my plate.  Then, right as I was beginning to get my stomach back under control, the waitress returned with Sarah's lobster head, now neatly boiled, but still whole, in miso soup.  I think the worst part of the whole ordeal was the fact that the four members of the waitstaff were basically just standing around waiting for us to get our food so they could watch our reactions.  I think they knew that we had no idea what we had ordered and were waiting until we left so they could laugh at us.  Anyway, we survived to hit the shops of Toba in search of the perfect gift for our mothers.

Marathons, Birthdays and Life in General

Well, the cherry blossoms have fallen and we are now in the full swing of springtime.  The weather is unpredictable as always, swinging dramatically between downpours, thunderstorms, near-typhoons, chilly overcast, pleasantly warm showers and gorgeous spring sunshine.  Its difficult to know what to bring when you step out your door!  The morning that starts cold and blustery has equal chances of ending in a typhoon or a glorious sunny day.  Ok, I will try to move away from the weather now, but as Sydney can tell you, it is one of my favorite topics.

One of the few non-blurry pictures

When I last wrote I had just returned from a glorious weekend of cherry blossoms and picnics.  I am still in awe of the beauty that is Japan in spring.  It was amazing.  Riding your bike to work could quickly become the most beautiful part of your day.  Going to the supermarket made you lament leaving your camera at home.  For two weeks, running became more than a necessary bit of exercise; it became an artistic adventure.  I am now the proud owner of a whole iPhoto album full of blurry pictures of cherry trees taken on the run.

2k in and still smiling!

Running through rice fields, soon
to head up the second mountain.

Now that is all over, and I am forced to find new motivations for running.  Fortunately (or unfortunately depending on how you feel about running) I was signed up for the Shima Marathon by some of my friends here.  Don't get too excited, Japanese people call any sort of running race a marathon regardless of distance, I only ran the 10k race.  Shima is a city about an hour and a half south of my current home town, in Mie Prefecture.  It is near the somewhat famous city of Ise which is the home of the Ise Shrines and lots of delicious seafood.  Shima is right on the coast, and is a great destination for scenic sightseers.  The whole area is particularly mountainous and the course was designed to take advantage of both elements.  That unfortunately involved a lot of very literal ups and downs for me while running.  The mountains of Shima are not particularly tall, reaching a very humble 700 meters at their highest, but when you find yourself running up one, it seems to channel its inner Pike's Peak.  The 10k course brought us to the top of two different mountains and let us run for about a kilometer along the ocean as well.  It was really the most beautiful run I've ever done.  Boulder, Co is beautiful, but that course didn't really take advantage of its scenic-ness to the extent the Shima course did.

Many, many people beat me
across the finish line!

Triumphant Machiko!

The race was on April 22nd, and that day with stay with me for quite a long time.  Sorry to get back on the weather track, but it really did shape that day.  I woke up that morning at about 5:30 am, and for those of you who know me well, that was quite a challenge by itself.  I looked out my window and was treated to a blast of cold, wet wind.   It appeared to be the start of an early spring tropical storm or something of that like.  I seriously considered calling up my co-runners and canceling, but decided against it.  I got picked up by my friend Machiko and we drove to the third member of our running party's house to wait for the fourth member.  At Jon's Chinatsu met us and informed us that she would not be running in this weather.  After much ridicule and name calling, we left Jon's house and started our 1.5 hour drive to Shima.  We got there around 9:30, registered, and got ready for the race.  Running costumes are already pretty ridiculous on there own (dudes in tiny shorts and tank tops, bright colors, and sports bras) but the weather had inspired some truly hilarious outfits.  People in plastic bags, parkas, ponchos, and raincoats were in great supply.  Somehow Jon, Machiko and myself managed to be late for the start of the race, so we had to go on our own.  Since the weather was so miserable, Jon and I decided to entertain ourselves for the first couple of kilometers by singing silly songs to each other.  The hits of the day included "Oh When the Saints Go Marching In," "The Man of La Mancha," and of course, "Singing in the Rain."  Needless to say our fellow runners thought we were ridiculous.  It was a pretty enjoyable race given the conditions and the challenging nature of the course.  I can honestly say that I enjoyed that race.

The view from my beach reading
session.  Its ok to be jealous.

I appear to be telling my story a little out of order, so let me apologize and skip back about a week before the race.  I've said it before and I will say it again:  I have fantastic friends.  My birthday is April 18th, and I was lucky enough to celebrate my birthday with fellow April babies Katsuya and Rika.  We  started the party with a barbeque at Jon's place, where we drank some beers and cooked some über delicious blue cheese burgers courtesy of our lovable Austrian friend Flo.  Post-picnic, we moved on to a karaoke house called Japan Rent-a-Car, which incidentally is the most random combination of businesses ever:  a car rental shop, mechanic shop, and a karaoke club.  We sang for a couple hours and then carried the party over to the Melting pOt bar.  It was quite the birthday experience!

Crazy, scary waves in the
 background

Wet-suit up!

Now to bring my story's erratic timeline up to the present, I am currently on vacation!  In Japan, we are currently celebrating Golden Week, which is some sort of collection of holidays that all happen around the same time.  I don't really understand the whole thing, but basically it means that I have 8 days off of work!  I started off on a sour note, substitute teaching for Sarah's weekend class because her brother is in Japan for the next 10 days.  Apparently, she thought that she could spend her limited time with her brother more productively than in the classroom.  Go figure.  I did manage to turn the day around pretty well.  After work, I rode my bike down to the beach and camped out under some pine trees to read my book relax in the shade.  It was a marvelous way to spend an afternoon.  I'm currently reading "Youth in Revolt" and enjoying it immensely.  The weather the next couple of days was not quite so forgiving, but Sarah, her brother Casey and I have still managed to have a good time.  Sarah and Casey went to Kyoto and I made my triumphant return to the surfing lifestyle!  My first time was on a gloriously sunny and warm day.  This most recent attempt took place in some of the biggest surf my friend Jo has ever experienced.  We were out in the ocean on the front edge of an incoming storm swell.  I don't know the proper surfing term for the waves, but they were ranging from 9 to 12 feet, and scared me pretty thoroughly.  I stayed close to shore and watched as Jon and his friend Masashi got their butts kicked by the surf.  I didn't manage to successfully stand up on a wave, but I had a blast anyway.  When we had had enough, we got lunch at a great little sushi place and headed home.  Now, I am sitting in my apartment waiting for tomorrow when I will be heading up to Shiga Prefecture for two days of exploring Japan's largest lake by bicycle.  Wish me luck!

Mmmm, sushi and tempura!