Mogura Monday



Perhaps the happiest news of the past week can be broken down into two chunks. First, my sister and brother-in-law have purchased their tickets, and will be coming to Japan for the first time in August! Hurrah! Now is just a matter of organizing where they want to go over their 2 week visit. My thoughts are Hiroshima, Osaka, Kyoto, Nara, Toyama, Sado, Tokyo. A lot of city, a little inaka, a little island, and sending them off with a bang.

The other happy news is also concerning inaka and airline tickets. The Yakushima trip has finally been booked! Next month, we will be flying to Kagoshima and ferrying across to climb Miyanouradake. Just need to put our heads together and come up with a plan of action. I look forward to visiting these fine fellows.



On my list of things to pack... salt to kill the leeches I will most likely encounter. Yum.

Other fun random fact I learned this week. Mogura (Japanese moles) have started a northward assault on Nihon farms, as the weather gets warmer each year. Grrr... global warming. My sensei's friend has recently had a plague of mogura descend upon her hatake. But they're so cute and tiny!

Gratuitous monkey and some other creatures



I had to rifle through my 1000s of photos to hunt down some endearing shots of my students to accompany an article I wrote last month for the prefectural education magazine (it's probably more like a newsletter, so it's not likely to be as cool as it sounds). During my search I came across these photos from my visit to Thailand back in August. Please enjoy.

I bring you the monkey with the softest hands ever. He did pull my hair a bit, though.



These animals were all living on a crocodile farm outside of Bangkok. It was... interesting to say the least.






Scary Panda says "Sweet Dreams!"

Every morning, whilst eating toast...



we were privy to 2 openly homoerotic monkeys displaying their love. The above character is "small monkey" as we liked to call him. He grabbed my finger and sent my heart a flutter. The other monkey was older and a bit of an opportunist, but enough of that.

We stayed in Aonang for about 4 days, while Joshie and Rachel got their open water certs, and I worked on my advanced and acquiring a fantastic case of food poisoning. Gwar (the monster who lives in my stomach) is a bit of an asshole, and this happens fairly regularly, so I was not exactly surprised. Back on track... on our 2nd day out, I got to borrow this fellow's sweet underwater camera setup, and took the following pictures. Keep in mind, for my ego's sake, I am only posting the nice ones. I will save you the trauma of watching me chase a yellow fish around and never getting a decent shot (J was not so lucky, and promptly fell asleep). Without further adieu, and to make Bunny happy:

This is the dive on the first day. Nice and murky, about 18-25m

scorpionfish

orange seafan and blackfeatherthingie that I don't know the name of

sea anemone

green-spotted moray

some contrasting anemone and white seaplant

the infamous south asian black urchin of pain

some shrimpies

anemone fish at home

a sea cucumber flanked by black urchins

I think that is as much as I can legitimize posting today, because I have more Japanese work calling me. Hope you enjoy the photos!

The weekend in brief

The bravest knight of Slimpsonium is leaving our fair city to experience all the Germanic wonders Deutschland has to offer. To celebrate his moving onto darker beers and stronger currency was celebrated on Saturday evening with the moving of his couch. Its new home was about as far away from Simpon's house as possible, so we saddled up with some tall boys and had ourselves a singing transport session.

Afterwards was hiroshimanomiyaki at Yacchin's.

Fair thee well Ittyan and Kaoru, you will be missed!

Sunday consisted of Charity Show practice, which went quite well, after a bumpy start. Then, I joined Kazuto for a party at his dad/my sensei's house. Hurrah for homemade pizza and tacos! I failed to bring my camera, so you will just have to trust me when I say it was a lot of fun. A few things I learned from a full evening of Japanese.

• Kazuto's name sounds a lot like when I pronounce pirate wrong in Japanese *kaizoku (I say kazuko sometimes). He kept insisting that he is not a pirate.
• O-naka ga ippai - I am full!
• One can pan for sapphires in Gifu
• His sister is nicknamed Chibi *little, and he is Saru *monkey... we had a battle over who gets to keep "saru" and decided we have to share.
• I have a new no hassle eikaiwa starting in August, 5 minutes away from my apt!

Himi



We went to Himi on Saturday for a sushi and beach adventure. I was blessed with a fudgesicle (thank you Dave!) and delicious sushi. Some of the best I have had in Japan yet. There were also fish with hats that talked, a kissing tako, and a bridge show reminiscent of "its a small world" (shiver).



I nearly forgot, Dave and I had a fountain photo shoot as well!



Classy...

The beach was an something else. I have only been to the Shimao beach once last year, and it seemed a lot cleaner. This beach looked as if red tide had struck, but instead of rotting fishy carcasses, there was GOMI. Enough to make a tree-hugger wretch. It made me very sad, and I think that I will have to organize a beach cleanup. The most confusing part, though, was that there appears to have already been a beach cleanup! There were piles of trash formed upshore every 200 yards or so. It looked as if they were waiting to be burnt. Gomi still covered the beach, it didn't make any logical sense. We wondered if disgruntled pirates were throwing their gomi overboard, or perhaps a landfill accidentally leaked into the river system and shot out into the Sea of Japan. There has to be some reasonable explanation. And NO it wasn't Korean trash, as another great myth of Toyama leads us to believe.

The waves were fun, as always. I miss waves. Yeah, you heard me... I miss Florida. Not enough to come home for at least another 6 months, but I miss it. Warm weather, tropical plants, the beach within 3 blocks of my apartment, papayas, sigh... Enough of that though.

The saddest part of the day wasn't the trash. It was the monkeys. If you are not too quick on the draw, or perhaps have only read this blog once or twice, you may not be aware of the fact that I am obsessed with monkeys. Monkeys are downright adorable. They are most adorable when living in their happy, open, free, entirely liberated, natural monkey habitat. So, when you see monkeys trapped in a cage, behind fencing, standing on urine-stained concrete, and looking forlornly at you from within their dreary empty hell... you cry. I love Japan, but this shit is too much. I have seen some horrible things in my time, but there was NOTHING for these poor animals. The cage was empty. No toys, no fake foliage, no ropes, no nothing. They had each other, and their miserable little faces. The Takaoka zoo is along the same lines, and I am currently boycotting it. They at least have something to entertain their trapped animals, though.