Changes



It's the middle of winter now, in sort of melty/snowy Takaoka. I realize that I haven't updated in a very long time. The usual list of excuses are known "I was busy" "I had to study" "I couldn't be bothered to upload new photos and therefore had nothing interesting to share in this format." "I was sucked into the election news" etc

The truth is, life took priority over the virtual. That, I feel, is the most valid of excuses, so I am sticking with it.

Quick re-cap of what has happened during and since August:

• Had an art adventure on Naoshima.
  

Kusama Yayoi's red and black "pumpkin" on Naoshima

• My sister and brother-in-law came to visit Japan. It was a 2-week whirlwind. Kyoto, Nara, Toyama, takayama, Hiroshima, Miyajima, Osaka, Tokyo, Nikko, and they managed to squeeze in a quick swing by Himeji.

Beth and Brenndan in Nikko

• Climbed Hakusan finally. It really is a beautiful mountain, especially in the early fall. Please note my ever-stylish soccer socks.
  

stripey!

• Had a crazy camping trip to Noto. There were marshmallows, native art, and more Thai-jin than we ever expected. J also discovered a scary trilobite critter, if anyone knows what it is, please enlighten us!
  

This cultural park had a great rolly-slide. Too bad it was covered in rotten cherries.

The mysterious trilobite creature...

I am a chicken on slippery rocks when drunk on wine in the dark.

• Went to Hida and Takayama in search of a wooden Godzilla sculpture I once saw.

aforementioned Godzilla

Hida warehouse and fall leaves

just some koi

J and his new friend tanuki-chan

• Studied my ass off for JLPT's 2kyu test only to be turned away from the testing site because I didn't open my envelope beforehand to realize I had been bumped to Kanazawa. Complete failure on my part.

• Cracked my laptops LCD screen, so now I have a thrillingly annoying "black bubble" effect going on. I am too cheap to just buy a new computer.

• Took the Shin Nihonkai Ferry to Hokkaido, was great fun (we think we saw a seal off the coast, too)! Spent Christmas in Sapporo and New Year's in Niseko on the slopes.

outside of the Sapporo beer garden

inside

J drawing kanji in the sand along the shore east of Otaru

• Had a PA seminar in Tokyo, so brought J along for the weekend and visited old friends and a professor who was very giving of his time.

• Spent the night in a tiny little minshuku in Toga. Had an amazing ungroomed first day of powder, followed by a mediocre yet fun 2nd day of groomed slopes.

• Practiced my cooking A LOT in the past 6 months. Homemade muffins, cupcakes, breads, pita, tortillas, pies, various lasagnas, mousakkas, hummus, soups, and curries. It's been a fattening time!

• Watched all the snow melt in 20C weather last week, and am now crossing my fingers that the temp will continue to drop.

I am going to fiddle with posting some recipes on here, and see if that lures me to the computer more often.

Till next time...

GRE and geometric shapes that I have made peace with

I have decided that he GRE as a computer-based test is the devil. The tiny boxes you are expected to word process within, caused me to neglect to erase my "notes" before the time was up. I realize this is probably my fault and not the computers, but usually when you are typing out a paper, you can see everything on the screen. This is, of course, ruling out 2-3 page essays and the like. This was a 5 paragraph essay about judging a culture by the appearance and actions of its people.

This is what the test-site looks like (please note the massive orange headphones of pain on the left of the brunette)



We were promised "earplugs" but that was a lie. Much like the bathroom break before the test really began lie. LIES! Having freshly moved up to 12mm lobes the previous day, I was none too thrilled with the earwear. (ear shots later)

It made me cranky, and I hope the readers of my analytical section realize that I am just a doofus, and don't grade me too harshly for the obvious "word ... (four spaces)... word ... (two spaces)." Kinda made me want to cry, but what can you do? You can go out till 4am in Osaka at some club called Triangle (oh the irony) and get drunk on numerous alcohols. I needed the relaxation, and I paid for it on Monday. Ouchie.

Anywho, I will probably take the GRE again next year with J, after reviewing a lot more about the geometry and vocabulary of circles. Fuck circles. Hard. I memorized formulas for circumference, area, etc. I know about tangents and line segments, semi-circles and arc lengths. What do they do? The first question is something about 2 concentric circles and the tangent of the smaller circle bisecting the other circle at two points.... All I could do was look at concentric and think, "that was NOWHERE in the review!" This blew my mind into a million pieces.

The unfortunate thing is, MA programs are gonna view the scores side by side, not alone. If I do better, then cool, if I do worse... It's good to know that studying for months won't make you feel any better about the test. It was as if none of it mattered.

The system gives you a question, and if you get it correct, it gives you a harder one, and so on and so forth. If you screw up, you start getting cake questions. When I saw "modicum" I knew things were starting to go downhill :(

Also, it's fairly evil to include "there is not enough information provided to figure out the answer" problems in any test. It's like pulling the safety net out from under a teettering tight-rope walker!

To top off the fun, Japan is, for some reason, under the impression that J is my middle name now. When I applied for my passport nearly 8 long years ago, I was asked for my middle initial. That would be J. When I filled out the online form to take the GRE, they asked for my middle name, so I wrote Jane. The mistress of GRE called me into her lair on Sunday, sat me down, and started asking why I filled the form out incorrectly. ??? She asks to see my passport and points at the J trying to tell me that is my name. I explained as best I could the difference, and try to legitimize the ridiculousness of J vs. Jane, when it's obviously me, they have photo evidence as well as every number I have been given by either govt. since birth. Want my soc # I have my card in my wallet! Want my gaikokujin card? In my wallet! Want my thumbprint? HERE! No. I had to wait nearly 20 minutes while she called the head office and had a debate about whether or not I should be allowed to sit for the test. Talk about unnecessary tension directly before taking a test that is going to affect the rest of my life~!

That is enough whinging for now. If any of you folks are preparing for the GRE, take the online tests, as many as you can, be careful of the word processing software (you cannot use mouse right/left clicking for cutting and pasting), and circles! Circles are EVIL.

Bangkok is for monkeys


I have become the prefectural advisor for our ken, and in doing so, have swamped myself. Smooth move on my part. All in all, I enjoy the added spice to my normal work routine, and I get to take a weekly business trip to Toyama. However, with all the wacky regional meetings and orientations this time of year, things were a bit hectic. And who doesn't enjoy a good whinge?

On top of that fun, Bunny and I are taking the GRE next weekend in Osaka, and have been studying our brains out. What's more (I just wanted to say that, because it is a popular phrase around my school right now, appearing in essays and peppered in my JTE's speech) I am taking sankyuu again in December, and I have no doubt about passing, but am trying to study for that as well as start preparing for nikyuu next year, which is evil (so I hear).

It's nice to be busy, and I am getting into the flow of it now. I have been finding time to cook more (samosas and banana bread recently) and go to the gym somewhat regularly, in an effort to prevent old lady wings from forming under my arms. Eeew, you know what I am talking about, and I don't want them! Also, I need to train for the team marathon in 3 weeks, and for diving in December.


Which leads me to Thailand. I had a fantastic yet all too short two weeks near Bangkok. During the days, I explored the city thoroughly, parks, shopping districts, random streets, rivers, etc.


I took and amazing yoga class at . I swear, I think I saw god. J and I ate too much food, and I gorged myself on fresh fruit from the market near his apt. Mmmm... dragonfruit!


We partied with Holzer and FDan at night, and I managed to see numerous projectiles being shot from interesting locations. This includes a banana aimed at the two of us. Thank god it didn't have a lot of umph behind it!


J had to work during the day, but we had a 3 days weekend escape to Hua Hin. I got my beaching in, we hung out with large narded beach dogs, and we found a delicious and authentic Italian place our last night there. I think the best time was probably sitting on the pier and relaxing with a beer. (bonus, that rhymed!)

Oh and there was a baby elephant wandering around downtown Bangkok, being exploited for money that almost made me cry :( The upside was, I got to meet Thai Elvis!



the end

Hello August, goodbye Japan

Tomorrow afternoon, I am off to Thailand! The typhoon that is rolling through Toyama ain't got nothing on me. It appears to be determined to ruin my supervisor's vacation to Aomori, rather than my excursion tomorrow night towards Osaka.

I get to spend another glorious evening eating kakigori, wandering around Namba, and sleeping at my favorite little capsule hotel. It's like a mini-vacation before my real one.

I am gonna come back brown and hopefully more buff from my attendance at a yoga studio I hope to go to in Bangkok, while J is teaching the kiddies at his school during the week. Mmmm... vacation.

Enjoy Obon, and all that jazz. I will return with photos!

Deviancy Tour 2006



The Bunny and I graced the town of Osaka with our presence last weekend. I was in need of a retrospective weekend, and she was in need of a distraction. We descended upon the Amerikamura area after a 6 hour local train adventure. I finally used up those damned tickets.

My first tattoo, which the piercer did a fabulous impression of. The original.

Me and Magoshi.






Bunny also got a lovely haiku upon her left arm. It is quite striking, and was the talk of the train on the way back to Toyama. Alas, I have not a picture.

Delicious Thai food was consumed, then the capsule hotel! HERRO!



Goodbye.


How many dog kennels come with their own TV!?!


So, after all that madness... we went to get pierced! I wasn't planning on it, but I couldn't resist the temptation. As a bonus, I got to practice my Nihongo with the really cool appointment dude at the studio, Masami. He was telling me how he implanted a ring underneath the epidermus on the top of his hand, all by himself. Dude. That is pretty badass. COMPLETELY disturbing, but the idea that he did it all himself is impressive as hell. Oh yeah, so I got another piercing of my conch (that's my ear, perverts), above the previous one. All went smoothly, and we actually got the man to accept our tips, which is a huge accomplishment in Japan!

I am tired, so will stop there. It was a great weekend. Hope to get back to Osaka soon, its great to get out of inaka for a while sometimes.

the taco hats cometh


Having lived in Toyama-ken for a year now, I figured it was time to see the famous Owara matsuri. It takes place for 3 days in Yatsuo-shi, about 20 minutes outside of the prefectural capital by train (in case you wanted to know). The Owara festival is based around the Owara dance, or dance of the harvest.

Bunni and I braved the throngs of Nihonjin tourists and vicious obaachans to witness the taco-hatted splendor. There were lines upon lines to get a ticket to get in a line to take the train to Yatsuo, then follow a massive crowd down a tunnel-like street to several spots where you would witness the dancing. Along the way, we were entertained by adorable children in yukata, and a man with a teddy bear riding on his head.


There was also a plethora of festival food. The takoyaki vendors were out in droves. They also had kakigori (with optional condensed milk on top), which I partook of. It was not as good as the one J and I had in Osaka, though. I guess I will just have to go back to Osaka for true icy goodness.

We sat outside of a temple for 40mins or so, waiting for a dance performance, and surrounded by a crowd with the average age of 60. It was worth the wait.

fish heads, fish heads, rolly polly fish heads...

This weekend was utterly fabulous. Robyn, my Canadian friend who I met when we lived in Lancaster, was visiting from Seoul, where she teaches English as well. Her aunt and uncle live just outside of Kobe in a little town called Obayashi. They had a great little place, and live on the campus of a private Catholic girls school. They were great and made me feel like family.

Saturday afternoon, Robs and I headed for Osaka. We needed to expose her to Japan, and I think we were pretty thorough. First, there was general wandering. We located a few restaurants we we intrigued by, and of course, a British pub! I taught Robs about the true heart of no public drinking regulations, and we drank our conbini Asahi whilst walking the streets. We went to a great little temple that had beautiful lanterns, and a very unique stamp for my shuin book.

After that, we trotted back to the English pub and threw back a couple happy hour cocktails. Then it was off to the rotating sushi bar. This place had the best wasabi I have had so far in Japan. The texture of it was soft, and it was STRONG. There was no maguro, but we still managed to gorge ourselves. Next, introduction to pocky and chu-hi.

We sat and people-watched. Very relaxing. We fumbled around in a purikura booth and managed to get some good shots. I wanted to hit up Pachinko, but wasn’t sure about etiquette etc, in there, so I figured I better not embarrass both of us. After a lot more wandering and photos near the river, we headed back to Obayashi.

Sunday morning, we headed to Himeji.


Himeji is known primarily for its castle, Dai-tenshu. It was built in the early 17th century, and represents the highest achievement in Japanese castle architecture. The white heron castle (named so because it is covered in white plaster, and its eaves resemble a white heron in flight) is the most famous in all of Japan. It was enormous, and the interior was all wood and gorgeous. It was simple, with some glass cases with armor, scrolls, sculptures, etc on display. There was a small indoor shrine located at the very top of the castle, and a wacky old dude screaming out the window to his friends on the bottom level. Very serene, dude.




Here is a shot of the pathway made up partly of old tiles from the castle roof.



We got a joint ticket to the Himeji Castle Nishioyashikiato Garden Koken. It was built on the site where the Himeji Lord and his men's samurai houses existed in the Edo Period. There are 9 gardens, but we didn’t have enough time to walk through more than 3. We were appreciating beautiful nature as quickly as possible (sadly ironic, I know!).

There was time to stop in the Soju-an (teahouse) so Robyn could have some macha and sweets. The ladies inside were ridiculously attentive and adorable. The head mistress tried to explain something about kocha (which apparently means black tea, and therefore makes NO sense in the following context) to me for about 10 minutes. I offer you this poorl translated version, (iow) what I got out of it...

"You eat the sweet first, then drink the tea. do you speak much Japanese? Where are you from? Missouri? Misery? giggle. Oh, a teacher in Toyama-ken. Kocha... Oh, you do not understand kocha... oh you can read hiragana! please wait a moment. (at this point she goes to get a paper for me to read, which is half kanji, half hiragana.) oh, you cannot read kanji (she goes away again and gets her reading glasses, she proceeds to read me the entire paper, as I sit in confusion). Kocha, kocha...Japan has 4 seasons that you can appreciate in this garden. Green, green... nani nani... how did you hurt your arm? Oh, that is unfortunate. Anyways, (counts seasons on her fingers) spring, summer, autumn, winter. Different plants and flowers bloom in different seasons. green... beautiful... castle...."

That's about it. But damned if she wasn't convinced I could understand her. Then she went into the backroom and I heard a little girl asking how to say, “does it hurt?” in English, so she could ask about my arm (awww!). She brought out her two little apprentices. They were about 6 or 7 years old, and were so cute! They asked if we would like more tea, and brought it out, bowed, the whole 9 yards. We took this photo with them.


I also give you my second drained macha cup. I will keep track of these on here, for my own amusement.



After a great weekend of drinking, catching up, and tanuki hunting, Robs and I parted ways in Sannonomiya, and I managed to return to Takaoka in one piece. I will end this by settling a dispute between J and myself...

this is trout!