Bizzy (Edit: Sligthly Less So)

Sorry for the lack of posts. Total chaos around here. Hopefully our night dancing will hold you over for a while, because the wave of insanity is only gonna get worse. In a few hours I'll go and pick my friends John Hegre & Lasse Marhaug up from the airport & they'll be visiting for a few days and as soon as they leave, Ms. Leen and I are taking off for a trip up to Tokyo. (First time. Long overdue.) We'll be returning just as the March rolls in and I'm sure we'll have plenty to write about then. And now I'm off to clean up before these guests arrive.

Mike

UPDATE: Got a call from Lasse that things are more hectic for them than they thought & they aren't going to be able to make the trip out to the inaka. Well, tomorrow will be less fun, but at least I'll get some work done. The house being clean while we're gone is a nice bonus as well.

Indian Dance Party

("My Mango Lasses Bring All The Boys To The Yard" just didn't seem like an appropriate title.)

Friday night we and several of the other local JETs headed down to Himeji to our friend (practically family) Sarita's Indian restaurant, Indus Ray, for a buffet dinner & dance party. It's safe to say a great time was had by all, but too much food and too much dancing can be a painful combination after a few hours. Whenever we go dancing I think of the night Colleen & I first met but this time especially so. I don't know why. I guess if you mix the words "dancing" and "India," my mind automatically pulls up reference cards for the year 2001.

Some pics of the evening, courtesy Ms. Grace Williams:

This is no indication of how good I actually look dancing. If you're reading this, you probably already know that.


Colleen gets a little lesson.


Colleen and one of the Indus Ray chefs. This girl never wanted to get off the floor.


Debating Requests with Chris: R. Kelly? Ludacris? Xiu Xiu? Naw, the Hindi stuff was just fine.

Snowbunnie

Our friend Tetsuya has been talking on and off about going snowboarding. Our snowboarder friend Kumi finally helped us secure a date with him. Sadly though, this unseasonably warm winter hasn't brought enough snow, and Tetsuya won't board unless there's been a series of snow days. Kumi and I decided to stick it out and go anyway, even though it was actually *raining* in Ichinomiya the morning of the trip! We had a bowl of granola, said bye to Mike (who doubted the snow as much as Tets), and off we went; 40 minutes North on highway 29. We followed the signs and found a FULL parking lot ;)

After forking over about $30 for a lift ticket, we jumped on the 1st ski lift that took us 1/2 way up into the mountains, where we found the rental shop and the 2nd lift to get up to the very top o' the mountain. In the rental shop, I tried on old musty ski outfits til I found the only one that would fit. A humid, dark room and wet ski gear is a disgusting combination. yuck! And the red bibs weren't the cutest. But life is too short to care about being cute & smelling good. So on to the fun!



For the first hour, Kumi ever-so-patiently tried to teach me how to balance and move.
Of course I spent more time falling than I did balancing and moving.



Here's my "in action!" shot! and by that I mean, "wow I managed not to fall on my ass for a second here..."

No but really, after lunch and a couple hours of falling and getting up, I started to get it, and it's sooo fun!

Funniest thing of the day: Even after getting the hang of staying vertical on the slope, every time I got off the lift, I fell,
Causing a dangerous situation for me and the many people coming up quickly behind me. It must have been my 5th time up, when the guy running the lift saw me... we made eye contact, then he walked over to a machine, pushed a button, and slowed that sucker waaaay down for me! Ha! I STILL fell! But at least I had more time to get out of the way :)




Look at the view! It makes all the sore, aching muscles and bruises worth it!
Can't wait to go again. Probably won't in Japan though, seeing as how we've got Spring weather, and we gotta save our yen for new adventures, right?

From the Photo Archives

Most of these were things I inteded to do entire blog posts about but never got around to. Others are just snazzy shots we took on various whims.


Sumo socks. A great gift.


Salmon jerky. The jury is still out on this one.


Giant straw boar. From new year's festivities of course.


Vehicular Engrish. As if Toyota doesn't know better...


Speaking of vehicles... Decked out! Little Mermaid and all.


An Iwa student doing something for some reason. I think.


I bet you ten dollars (1213 yen) it still works.

Super Bowl in Japan

Got up at 8am yesterday to watch the game. By opting to eat breakfast, I arrived at the bar just a few minutes late and missed the Bears' best play. Watching a major event like this outside the country was very strange, even if you take away the fact that it was 8:30 in the morning. The major difference was that there were no commercials, just live video feed the entire time. That time was mostly filled with a lot of extended sideline and crowd shots. In line with that, the half time show isn't nearly as spectacular when you watch them set the whole thing up and test it out beforehand. Prince was pretty awesome though. Even though there were odd issues with the audio & video being out of sync. Guess that comes along with bouncing off who knows how many satellites. Anyway, it was decent game - pretty much how I figured it'd turn out - and a pretty great way to kick the week off. Better than your Monday morning?

Festival Gate

Festival Gate is my favorite place in Osaka, my home away from home. As you can see it's main selling point is that it has a roller coaster running through it, but it has so much more too offer! It's in one of the worst neighborhoods in the country - pretty much the only thing I've seen that would qualify as a slum - and was built in an effort to bring some life back into the area. It failed. BUT... some artists had the gall to approach the city with an offer to keep the place open as long as they could have it for dirt cheap. In addition to several music and art facilities, Festival Gate also has a convenient store, a burger joint, and a cinema which seem to bring in the money and it hosts the Osaka Pro Wrestling Federation, so you can see masked muscle men (95% still wear masks) and underweight art wimps gathering under the coaster tracks together. I have a feeling it's only so long before the city shuts this place down for good, but I'm glad to be around while it's still kicking. It's a truly amazing place.


The coaster looking ominous at night


One of the cafés where I've performed