I Just Wanna Feel Like I'm Part of... Something.

Luckily, there is Something World, the Video/DVD/CD/Video Game rental shop! All the Somethings a guy could ask for. Phew! Now I can "relax & have fun."

Another Holiday, Another Three-Day Weekend

On top of last Monday's Respect for the Aged Day, last Friday was also the Equinox (which is a National Holiday here) so Colleen had a three-day workweek capped by two three-day weekends. Not too shabby. And somehow this one seemed even more jam-packed and bizarre than last. Friday we went to nearby Himeji and hung out with fellow ALT Marlene and fellow stay-at-home husband Aaron. We shopped, visited the Himeji Castle (only Japanese castle with its 'original' structure in tact), and ate the Mr. Donuts not to be found in our rural towns. After Marlene and Aaron hopped on the train home, Colleen & I hit Club Fab for a night of dub & reggae music Japanese-style. Club Fab turned out to be 20' square basement and so instead of the jam-packed dance club I was expecting we got to spend a the night in a small room with a dozen or so really dedicated dudes & dudettes, most of whom seemed to be either DJs or the girlfriends of. But the music was rad nonetheless and we headed home a few hours later completely exhausted.

Saturday was a low-key day, but we did stumble across a rad waterfall:





And what perfectly compliments Jamaican music & waterfalls? That's right, the ancient practice of Ju-Kendo and a little soccer practice. Ju-Kendo is like Kendo which is like sword-fighting, except JU-Kendo uses a wooden gun-shaped staff instead of the sword-shaped one Kendo uses. Or at least that's my understanding of it. Anyway, Kawamura-sensei (see "Kampai" post) was coaching the Hyogo team at a giant exhibition just minutes from our house so we had to go see what it was all about. We weren't let down either. It's very intense in a fatal chess match kind of way; great to watch both the physical action & the strategy involved. The Hyogo team clobbered Osaka in the first match, but lost a later one on a draw, so when we cut out at noon, their overall position was still up in the air. It looked like they had a good chance of at least third place, but it was just an exhibition so not a big deal even if not. Unfortunately, we had to cut out at lunch in order to make it to our soccer practice that afternoon. And regardless of the fact that we are clearly two of the weakest players on the team, Colleen came up big, scoring the winning goal in our scrimmage. I just wish I could remember who the unlucky goalie she scored it on was... Oh yeah, me. Guess that's what I get for taunting her after my earlier stop.

Hello Habatan!

Yes! It is official. Habatan is way more rad than Hello Kitty. He is the mascot of a pretty major sports-oriented festival taking place here next year. At first I thought it was just sports, but as you can see Habatan also likes to get down with the band and has also been seen doing some conducting and other things academic when no one's looking. He's everywhere! And rightfully so, HE RULES. A few weeks ago we even saw him at the mall, apparently practicing his 'make little girls scream' skills:



There's some hefty Habatan merchandising going on too, so those of you who send us care packs might be lucky enough to get your own cute little bird/man/thing in return. And be sure to check out Habatan's official site, now with the other links in the right-hand column. Even though you probably can't read any of it, there is certainly no shortage of cute & crazy pics.

The Long, Bipolar Holiday Weekend

The weekend started off with as rural as you can get with a Saturday morning trip to a 500-year-old harvest festival at a shrine in a town even further up in the mountains and more rural than ours. I don't think I ever heard the name of the village, but I did hear that it's size is currently "40 households." I actually didn't realize this was to be a daytime excursion, so I really had to kick it into gear after a slow rise that morning. The festival was really amazing with kids in tradional garb, including shoe/sandals made from the stalks of the rice plants. They played & danced in the village for about half an hour while one of them - the unhatted, foremost above - "conducted" by chanting & running back and forth and a group of older men sang. It was awesome. When it was all done they marched from the town center up a "hillside" (mountain if you ask me) and repeated it in front of the shrine. If you click on the picture above, you can watch a little 10 second video shot on the camera.



The only way I can think to properly follow such a festival is to hop a train into Osaka & catch some American music, so that's what we did. Blind Beast (a trio of Thurston Moore, Jim O'Rourke, and Yoshimi) and The Evens (Ian Mackaye's new band) were playing at Club Quattro in the Shinaibashi district so we busted out of here Monday morning. It was a holiday - Respect for the Aged Day - so we had the whole day to kill and hit the city early. We lucked into a Mexican Restaurant (YES!!!), stopped by the venue and then spent the afternoon record shopping before catching the show. Both the headlining acts were stellar - Blind Beast actually being much more melodic/hypnotic than I thought they would be - and the opening set by Eye of the Boredoms was also amazing, maybe the best. Even though shows start and get out early to accommodate the train schedule, we still had a long ride & drive back afterwards, finally hitting the sack around 1:30am. Sleep cycle still a little off, but totally worth it. Rad day.

"Kampai!" (cheers!)

This was a welcome dinner for Mike. Held at Kawamura-sensei's house. It was a perfectly relaxed night. Next to Kawamura is Saito, one of the women who works in my school office. Not pictured is Nishida, one of the English teachers, taking the picture.

The meal= "Chirinabe". A traditional Japanese dinner dish, normally eaten in the winter. We were kinda sweating throughout dinner, cause it's cooked right there at the table. There is a huge pot of yummy clear soup simmering in the middle of the table, and you drop in whatever you want to eat and let it stew. We had vegetables and fish. There was also meat, but of course Mike and I stayed away from that.

After eating, Mike unknowingly got himself into a drinking challenge with Kawamura-sensei! It was quite funny, as Mike ended up pretty drunk. How did this all start? Kawamura asked him how he liked his Japanese sake. Mike replied "it's like a mild whiskey", so Kawamura took it upon himself to find the strongest sake he had, and made sure to keep Mike's glass full for the rest of the night.

We had the best time, with a mixure of broken Japanese and English. When food & sake is involved, you can get along with out much fluency. Kawamura-sensei is one of the funniest people I have met here in Japan. But he is a totally different person at school; very distinguished, serious, and well-respected. He teaches the martial art Kendo, which comes from Samari. We should have picures of that later... Colleen

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"Will is My Friend"

So that's Will. He is our pet, or the closest thing we have to one. He lives on our washing machine out back and has been here longer than me. Maybe longer than Colleen. He just lives there. Sometimes he goes away, but he's always back shortly after. I'd say 9 times out of 10 he's out there. And we make a lot of trips back there. Since the machine is small & we only have a drying rack, we can only do one load a day, and need to do one probably every other day or so.

But back to Will, he is a small tree frog - about the size of the tip of my thumb, that pic is extremely close - and he doesn't seem to mind us doing our laundry or making a racket back there. We barely ever actually see him move (though Colleen is always quick to note, we did see him taking a lil' poo one day) so he's a pretty chill guy. I've almost got up the nerve to try to pick him up, but not yet. I've gotten my finger right up to his nose, and he doesn't seem too freaked, so maybe soon I'll try to go for it. Also contemplating possibly bringing him inside for the winter. As he lives in about a 1" square area right now, i don't think he'd mind a little confined space for the harsh months. We'll see though. Maybe he'll bolt before I get up the nerve to grab him.

Home Sweet Home

Well, we told you it was rural... Just kidding. That's a shot of the Ishigado Ancient Village that we visited last weekend.

Here are some real shots of the house:

Those were taken right after I arrived, so it's slightly cleaner & more decorated than those would have you believe, just slightly though. The first three are the downstairs: kitchen, tatami room one (dining/study), bathroom. The other two are the upstairs tatami rooms: both multipurpose, the one with the dresser usually just for changing clothes. The other is both bedroom & living room, not to mention my main hangout/office. The pix are mostly vertical because if i held the camera horizontally you wouldn't see anything. With the exception of the main room, i'd say every room in the house is about 8' wide, most pretty square-ish.

More Soon... Mike