More later, now sleep.

Just writing to let you know what I learned today:

1. Snowboarding is fun.
2. Snowboarding WEARS YOU OUT.
3. It's better if you don't fall.
4. It's even better if, when you do fall, you don't literally punch yourself in the face (with your own fist).
5. It's also better if when you get a lot of speed going, you don't freak out and make a stupid move and something happens where you spin in the air once or twice and land face down in the snow.
6. Newbies: Forget turning. Turning is like, months away from your abilities.
7. I look really cool on a snowboard.

Merry Christmas to all!

I don't know about the rest of you, but my Christmas turned out pretty sweer. Work was pretty fun (since people kept saying it was "free time" and talking to me), then I had a relaxing while to do a bunch of errands, then I went to the hotel where our end of year office party was, tried my first onsen experience and enjoyed that, and had a blast all night with the people from my office!

Also I got to get to know my 23-year-old coworker on a personal level, we talked about how we get lonely sometimes and we've decided to have a takoyaki party at her apartment together. :)

All in all, a great Christmas, if a bit untraditional.

Bump in the night

Had an earthquake about 30 minutes ago.

THIS earthquake!!

My screen doors shook quite a bit. I'm excited to be able to match up my verrrry minor shaking to a REAL LIVE WORLD EVENT.

The days shall now commence their lengthening.

Having reached the darkest and dimmest day of the year intact, I say with some conviction that I am looking forward to the new dawn of warmth and happiness and longer days.

I celebrated the winter solstice by getting myself my Christmas present (BTW, I got myself snowboarding clothes. AWESOME jacket, pants, gloves, and thermals. Keiko and Emerson and who knows who else are going to turn me into a SWEET AWESOME COOL snowboarding superhero, just you watch.)

Today was really great. I reinstalled Starcraft which will be ok as long as I remember to leave room in my life for doing other things. Thanks to a little help from my friend, I now have a clean house. (We even took care of the mold that was on the top of the fridge since I moved in...oy.) I was so happy tonight I kept dancing around my room...because there was room for it! Clean houses make the long dark winter seem less desperate.

Also despite the temperature not breaking 55 F (13 C) today, I haven't had the heater on since over 30 hours ago. And I haven't really gotten cold at all. I feel as though I'm running an experiment on myself to see if I can hack winter.

I'm about 7 months behind the curve but...

I love this song by Japanese boy band "Greeeen" and I can't get it out of my head.

Inoshishi 猪

I eat all kinds of strange things in Japan. Japanese mustard spinach, Komatsuna, a high in calcium green vegetable. Daikon, the famous gigantic radish of Japan. Hassaku, the citrus with the bite of a grapefruit and the pucker of a lemon. And one of my favorites, persimmon, the little orange fruit with a tough skin and a sweet, sometimes mushy interior. (better when not overripened)

So I was all game to try some inoshishi. Inoshishi stands for wild boar. My friend Keiko invited me to go with her to the dinner at her good friend's house. I went there and met her friend, his momma, his wife, and their cute little baby Kotaro.

Inoshishi was good! We had homestyle Yakiniku (grilled meat) on a skillet sort of thing. There was also pork, chicken, and beef provided, but I ended up enjoying the pork and inoshishi the best. Another thing Japan has changed about me is reversed my aversion to the fat on meats and the skin on chicken. I am not sure that's a good thing but it's the truth! Fatty meat is yummy meat...

I spoke mostly Japanese all night. Even to baby Kota.

Weather forecast for the next 3 months of my life

Me: blahblah something Tokyo. Maybe I'll go to Tokyo for New Years.
Home-ec teacher: blahblah something Tokyo! I love going to the museums there!
Me: Me too! blahblah National Museum.
Home-ec teacher: Going to Tokyo in wintertime is so strange. It's not like here. They have cold weather, and snow, but they also have sunshine! Here it stays so cloudy.
Me: ...ah..haha...so Tokyo has clear skies in the winter, but here it's always cloudy.
Home-ec teacher: That's right!
Me: That's Tottori for ya, huh?
Home-ec teacher: (with a big SMILE) yup!

Tokyo - Day 4 - November 3rd

Note: this post has few pictures. I think the pain of my feet was affecting my brain function.
Monday! Culture day. Everywhere we went on this day was sure to be as packed and crazy as the last few days. Coupled with the national holiday, the weather continued to be beautiful. A perfect time for sightseeing, if only we could ditch some of these crowds.

Our agenda for the day started with Ueno Park, and within it, the Tokyo National Museum. For 2 hours or so, we walked through the exhibits、upsetting serious Japanese tourists with our oblivious photo-taking in spite of the posted signage. I also spent a good deal of time trying to work out the meanings of the Japanese descriptions when the English description amounted to 'Maki-e Laquer Box' and the Japanese description trailed on for a paragraph. There were beautiful objects preserved since even the oldest periods of Japanese history, such as the Jomon (pre-400 BC), Yayoi (400 BC to 250 AD) and Kofun (250-583 AD) periods, to the most recent, Showa (1926-1989). We only managed to see the Honkan (main exhibit hall) before we needed to move on to our next destination, Akihabara.

Akihabara is known as a center for all things electronic, and also all things geeky. We met my unapologetically geeky friend Lenku there to explore the locale and hunt for imported American games. Of course, Lenku being a resident of Yokosuka naval base...he could get any of this stuff shipped to him and the healthily subsidized postage rates and bypass any and all of this...but still we hunted. We wandered by maid cafes and shops selling any manner of electronics. Eventually, we stopped in at an action-figure shop where they were trying to sell vintage (HIDEOUS) monster figures (think Godzilla done in cheap hideous pink plastic) for thousands of dollars.

I know you think I am the type of person who would in fact kid you, but I promise in this case, I kid you not.

We ended up picking out a few lower-end plastic figures that were much more attractive and making our leave without investing in a piece of Japanese monster movie history. Lenku proceeded to search for a RPG shop (think, table and dice, not electronic) and buy some mad amount of dice so he can set up his own game on base.


It was starting to get dark, as happens so frequently, so we said our goodbyes and traded our hugs and set out on our separate ways. Chris and I returned to our hostel for a regroup, then feasted that evening on Wagyuu (Kobe-style) beef yakiniku (Korean barbecue) and Korean food, and following that, delicious Baskin Robbins ice cream.

Oh, our feet also were hurting.

See also: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3

Tokyo - Day 3 - November 2nd

Ah, Sunday. We were starting to wish that we had scooters, like those people who went to The Scooter Store and had medicare cover the cost of their personal mobilization device.

But, we were in TOKYO. We were not there to sit around in a sparse hostel room and snooze the day away. So, mustering our strength, we set out for another day in the big city.

Our first stop of the day: Shibuya. Shibuya is one of the busiest places in Tokyo, famous for the crossing in front of Shibuya station. The crossing is called the 'busiest in the world' and every few minutes a hoard of pedestrians and bicycles take over, dodging this way and that and making it to the side of the road of their choosing. Even at 9:30 am there was a crowd, although nothing like the last time I was here on a Monday evening. The smell of the sewer is about the same though.

We start to wander, with no particular destination except to end up somehow in Harajuku by the time all is said and done, and see a few sights along the way. First, the dog stature 'Hachiko', built for a loyal dog who waited at Shibuya station for his master every day, even when one day, his master stopped coming home. Hachiko's statue also serves as a meeting place for people meeting at the sprawling Shibuya station.

Next, we walked through Yoyogi park and saw the structures built for the 1968 Tokyo Olympics. They were...olympian. Futuristic, in that 60s conceptualization of the future. Totally retro and wholly out of place, but still pretty interesting.

From there, we procured a meal, I believe our first of the day, from an Ometesando Hills Subway (the restaurant, not the mode of transportatin') and I walked around feeling outclassed by all the trendsters despite my awesome plaid shorts and leggings get-up. No longer dying of hunger, we wandered into Meiji Shrine.

The difference from my last visit was starkly evident the moment we reached the stone bridge that leads to Meiji Shrine. Instead of a scattered few strolling towards the Shrine, the bridge was littered with hipsters dressed in ostentacious fashions and masses of people heading for the shrine. Rather than the peaceful paradise of 3 months ago, it was one of the busiest weekends of the year. There was a festival as well as the celebration of Shichi-go-san. Shichi-go-san is when children who are aged 3, 5, or 7 go to a shrine dressed in their cutest baby kimono with their parents to pray and receive blessings for their lifetime.

That said, the shrine was still incredibly beautiful, and we found our ways to make the most of it. We saw a few places I had never been to, such as Empress Shoken's inner garden, and the treasure museum. After hoofing all over the world that morning, we still had much to conquer, being due in Shinjuku at 3 or something. We made it to the garden a wee bit late, but with plenty of time to walk around with my friend Rebecca and her friend Ayaka and mentally block foot pain from our minds.

After that, one of my favorite parts of the Tokyo trip...Mexican food. We went to a restaurant in Shinjuku called El Torito. I dined famously on chicken and beef fajitas, an apple margarita, and a banana creme chimichanga for desert. This food made me so very, very happy. I think of it fondly sometimes, remembering how I didn't even mind spending $20 on a meal I could have scored in the South for less than $10.After that, our minds and bodys rejuvenated, we sought to entertain ourselves further that evening. We walked over to the Mos Eisley of Tokyo, Kabukicho ("I just want to see it for a second!" Rebecca helped us justify.) and while not quite a hive of villainy at 7 on a Sunday, we could definitely see that it deserved its reputation. Following that, we met with more of Rebecca's friends of the English teaching variety and went to karaoke.

The night dragged on, and we didn't make it back to the hostel until after midnight. I think we took probably one of the last trains back. Upon arrival, I fell asleep quickly. Despite the blisters on our feet, we continued to look forward to the coming day.

See also: Day 1, Day 2, Day 4