In my free time, I like to...

If you ever wondered what I'm doing when you can't find me...

The Beach

I'm sunburnt and worn out and I miss home. I miss Florida sunshine, my mom, laughing out loud with my friends. I just had a wonderful weekend in Tottori at the San-in Beach Party. 2 nights and 2 days of playing in the ocean and dancing all night long in the sand. It was a miracle - no rain. It's the rainy season in Japan - the forcast said 60% chance all weekend, but not one single drop. I was getting sick when we arrived and I felt better and better all weekend. There was camping and silly games of monkey-in-the-middle amongst the waves, photo shoots on the rocks and Angie's bagpipe performance.

But despite the sheer summer-ness of the weekend (something I've been waiting for here for quite a while, through a winter of occasional snow and a spring of light sweaters and closed shoes, no flip flops, never), I hopped in Chizu's car wishing it would end up back in Florida. This is the most homesick I have ever felt and it's getting worse by the day. I don't know what to do.

Dreams

I just awoke from the strangest dream.

I was a teacher at a high school in Japan (how do I think of this stuff?!?!), and there was a scandal involving a girl on the dance team wearing a low-cut tank top. It wasn't even that bad, but I think her bra-strap was showing during a dance number, and eyebrows were raised. In the dream, I had nothing to do with the dance team at all, but the girl came to me for help after being accosted by parents, teachers, and the Japanese media. She was looking for solace from a foreigner I suppose, someone who would understand that a little bra-strap sighting wasn't the end of the world. Well, the parents and teachers found out she came to me, and the blame was turned. It turned into this crazy Japan vs. America thing, complete with a visit to my school office from two Japanese military officials in full uniform. One of them ate my lunch (it was a seemingly delicious mushroom pasta, warm, ready to be eaten on my desk).

I was informed that some wanted me dead. Clearly, I had polluted the young mind of a dancer and subsequently a nation... that kind of thing just doesn't fly. My fate would be decided in a few days... by a DODGEBALL game. No kidding. The weird thing (as if there was only one weird thing) was that it wasn't quite dodgeball. First, the giant ball was pitched like a baseball to the hitter, who then caught it and whacked it as far as he could. Come to think of it, it was more like kickball. Anyway, a whole crew of Americans and other random foreigners rallied for my cause and came to play on my team. There was one especially enthusiastic Brunette who insisted on playing with his shirt off, and tried to lead the foreign crowd in chants like, "Don't buy Japanese cars! Don't buy Japanese cars!" None of them very catchy or successful.

The other strange thing about the whole feeling of the dream was my apathy. Here I was, being potentially sentenced to death by the results of a dodgeball (kickball?) game for corrupting Japan, and I wasn't even fighting back. For some reason, I sympathized slightly with the Japanese government, and I could see that they were attacking me not out of hate or justice, but out of panic for a country that was sliding into a moral-less pit of sex and drugs and a splintering family structure. I was remarkably calm throughout the game, and I couldn't tell you who won.

At some point Julie and I hopped in her car and headed out on the road. We ended up in Nara, in the village where Rob lives, and I realized we were just a few single-lane inaka roads away from his house. We should go. She sort of thought I was kidding but kept driving anyway. The roads were flooding, but we continued through, nearly falling off a cliff and one point but eventually pulling into his house (which looked nothing like his actual house). At that moment, I remembered that his entire family was visiting from America - grandparents, aunts, uncles, the whole crew. Saying hello would be crazy, creepy... Why were we at his house again? But then I spotted him, his hair much too short and his skin kind of greasy - or was that my skin? It's not clear- and he approached to exchange a brief hug. He didn't even seem shocked that we were there. But for some reason I was being blocked by one of his relatives; I could barely see over some guy's huge head, and Julie was standing a ways to my right, so he went to hug her instead. I think we left after that. Rob and I never actually exchanged any words or hugs, just went on our ways - me back into Julie's car and Rob back to his hoards of awaiting family.

Weird, right?

A Change of Pace

For some reason, I've put a mental boundary on my blogging recently. I'm always thinking I should keep it to the surface, only write about travels, weird experiences, novelty stories that the kids back home might have a laugh at. But in the meantime, I've effectively forgotten the joy of blogging for me, for my sanity, for my own self-reflection. I'm gonna give it a go again.

Yesterday was Travis's 26th birthday, so the gang, including Jules, Hessen, Jody, and Jason met up for dinner at a needle-in-a-haystack French restaurant on Hondori. The others had already been to this place once or twice, and had nothing but good things to say, including ridiculous stories of free whiskey and red pepper creme brule. So despite having just 4000 yen in my wallet, I settled on spending 3150 of it on a lovely birthday dinner. As expected, no complaints could be made about the food. The chef who owns the restaurant lived and studied culinary arts in Europe for four years some time ago, so he speaks a bit of English and a little French. The menu is always a set course, which changes monthly with the seasonal foods. Last night our first course was fried clams in a blue cheese sauce, with cucumbers and crispy green beans on the side. Next came a lightly baked white fish in a mushroom cream sauce, then the most amazing wild rice I have ever tasted topped with foie gras. Then he surprised us with steamed whole shrimp (complete with head and shell), and finally, we thought, a delicate chocolate mousse for dessert. Everything was lovely.

We're chatting about the discrepancy is quality between the book and movie of The Beach and Fear and Loathing, having a good time, and soon all the Japanese customers have gone home. Yoshi (the chef) then emerges with a bottle of chianti for the table.
"Now all the Japanese are gone! Let's drink!" he proclaims. Cheers from the foreigners.
2 minutes later, he gets up and returns with a second bottle, accompanied by the largest hunk of blue cheese I have ever seen, which he plops on a plate with 6 spoons.
"Sorry, no crackers," he says. That's okay! More cheers from the foreigners (drool from Hessen).
Perhaps you can't quite appreciate the value of a large block of stinky cheese naked on a plate in the middle of a table until you've lived in Japan, where the only cheese anyone recognizes is Camembert or processed cheese. It's a strange cheese-deprived world here.
Anyway, minutes later, another bottle of wine is brought out. And then a fourth. I am in disbelief. I realize this man is a genuine alcoholic. Travis says he sees the chef a few times a week on the way home from work, usually drunk by 4 or 5 pm, getting ready for the dinner crowd. I believe it. At this point, all efforts to use English have stopped, and the chef is slurring Japanese at Jody and I, as we are the closest to him, occasionally shaking Jason's hand, who is seated next to him, and asking if he'd like to marry his 18-year-old daughter, who is set to return in November from a 4-year high school study abroad in New Zealand. He also asks Julie and I to meet her and test her English.
In the midst of the slurring Japanese, the chef mentions something to me about his kanojo. For some reason I can't quite process that when he says "girlfriend," he isn't referring to his wife. He keeps saying how he misses her so much, that he hasn't seen her in almost a month. I don't understand. He slurs something about how his relationship with his wife has nothing to do with love, and I finally see it. So as he sits there wasted and complaining to me about how much he misses his mistress, I want to leave. I can't offer sympathy; it's absurd. I can't even believe he's telling me this crap. Anyway, soon the group realizes we should go before another bottle of wine is opened, so we do. Strange night. I'm sure we'll go back.

Today I started a new lesson with my kids. It's a blindfolded taste test deal... they have to eat stuff and describe it in English. It's great. All sorts of faces and laughing and a few teary eyes. One of the foods I gave them today was 99% cocoa chocolate. Disgusting. I had no idea when I bought it just how serious it was. Who eats that stuff? Baffling. Try it.

Okay, I'm out of steam. Time for gluttonous relaxation with the AC on.

5-Star 500-year-old Onsen

Last weekend was Julie's 23rd birthday, and so a few of us embarked on a celebratory trip to Shikoku, the smaller island south of Honshu. Matsuyama is a rather famous city in Shikoku, partly because it holds the oldest onsen in Japan, and also because it's a college town, thus full of the young people who are surprisingly hard to find in places like Kure. So off we sailed, the wind in our hair atop the deck of the ferry.

Actually, Tomo and I went later than the rest of the group. I spent that morning with some of the families from his company, sort-of fishing in the most disgusting sea I have ever seen (seriously, trash washing up all over the shore), and thank goodness we didn't catch a thing. Then we went to one of the employees houses and grilled meat all afternoon. I was persuaded to try "white meat," which turned out to be intestines, a favorite of Japanese men when they drink beer and BBQ. It was actually incapable of being chewed through, so I threw up in my mouth a little as I gummed it around and around, then spit it back into my bowl when no one was looking. The whole event was rather awkward, regardless of the white meat. It was the first time I've been in a group of Japanese people who haven't harassed me with questions about my life, prying me open and forcing conversation, however strained. These people just kind of did their thing, not ignoring me, but certainly not badgering me for my life story, and so I ended up retreating into confused nervous observance, playing with the neurotic cocker spaniel and conversing only with a 7-year-old boy, Tetuski, who belonged to one of the company couples, about sports, animals, and cartoons. He was quite the conversationalist.

At long last, we escaped the smell of grilled beef and made it to the port. We got there 2 minutes before the ferry was scheduled to leave (once every hour and a half) and were told that Tomo couldn't park his car at the port, so we ended up just driving it onto the ferry. A few hours and a beautiful sunset later, we arrived and found the rest of the crew (Jules, Brian and Kaori) at a little restaurant with a door the size of a Japanese person pre-occupation enforced milk and meat consumption era. We ate avocado tenpura, brilliant, and a few other goodies before heading off in search of dancing and/or drama. Long story short, we never found the dancing nor the drama, but rather spent the evening wandering from spot to spot, eventually just three of us after Brian and Kaori slipped out, Julie asking random strangers where the hip places were, them responding with the same place we had just left or just confused looks and giggles, and Tomo occasionally laughing or leading her away from shady characters.


Sunday the group awoke to a free breakfast that promised freshly baked bread, but provided only toast from a bag and mayonnaise based salads. We headed off to the oldest onsen in Japan, sure to be rustic and full of stories from hundreds of years past. Dogo onsen is not just one onsen, however; it consists of maybe 10 or 15 scattered about the same area where natural waters flow from the ground. Dogo-kan had been specifically recommended to Julie by one of the teachers at her school, so we headed there. The entrance looked more like a 5-star hotel than a 500-year-old onsen, and I was immediately skeptical. Kaori, Jules, and I went one way, Tomo and Brian the other, our group the first people in after the opened the doors. The place was really nice, therefore fundamentally disappointing and decidedly not centuries old. There was virtually no air of old Japan, though they did supply some lovely orange shampoo and hair treatment. An hour later after some serious quality girl talk, the ladies and I were scorched red and ready to return to the world of the fully clothed. We found the boys in the lobby, took advantage of a few free massage chairs, then left.

(below: the free foot onsen outside the real onsen)

Brian and Kaori had to head back early so Kaori could catch the train to Kobe, but Tomo, Jules and I stayed a bit longer. Not much happened after that. There was Indian food accompanied by people watching from the second-story window of the restaurant, some shopping, and at last the ferry ride home eating the cookies I made for Julie's birthday because the food vendor had already closed. When we got back to Kure, we stopped for udon and sashimi at the local equivalent to Denny's, Sunday Sun, and Julie realized she'd left her cell phone on the boat. The weekend was complete.

I Skied Down a Mountain with "Big" in its Name.

I skiied (skied?) for the first time last weekend. It was scary as hell and amazing at the same time. I started off with a face plant, ass in the air move on the way to the slopes. Who would have guessed how hard it is to walk up a slight incline on skis? Surely, not I. Eventually I clipped out and carried the skis the rest of the way to the lift - a workout in itself. I was feeling kind of gimpy and weak by the time I reached the lift.... omg the lift. Though the lift up was nowhere near as terrifying as the lift down... anyway. Back to the story. So up we went, skis in hand and pee running down my leg (joke). James, Hessen's bf, volunteered to show me some moves, or rather, how to move in general. After demonstrating my most obnoxious damsel in distress, "James, I'm scared!!!" he told me to suck it up and get on the hill. So eventually I adjusted to the slight feeling of terror that struck me while gliding sideways down the mini hill. Julie said I was ready for the big hill. Up another scary lift. This one was a bit trickier, because I was wearing my skis, and we had to do a graceful slide off the seat transition into skiing. This time I decided to try a tailbone-centered landing, complete with an urgent rescue from one of the ski lift guys who was afraid I would get skiied into as I lay stunned on the snow/ice. Ugh. I fought some more to waddle up to the summit of the slope, and I peered over the edge. Holy shit. This was not a bunny hill. What a cruel cruel joke. But I knew I had to get down somehow, and Julie looked genki and encouraging, so down we went. Most of the trip down was me screaming "Oh my god!" and Julie yelling after me, "Pizza!! Keeley, bigger pizza!" I guess they call snow plow "pizza" in England. It would have made me hungry if I hadn't thought I was going to die just then. Anyway I made it down the hill by some miracle of God, though unsuccessful at the left turn Julie wanted me to complete. How was I supposed to turn left when I was flying at the speed of light? Really, an impossibility of physics if you ask me.

This called for a ramen break. It ended up being a 2.5 hour ramen break, but seriously, I needed it. And the ramen was pretty good. Finally, I headed back out to the slopes by myself, but this time went in search of the actual bunny slope, instead of the one they call a bunny slope so your friends can scare the shit out of you on the way down. At any rate, I found the area most crowded with 7-year-olds, and started to go. And then I was skiing. I tucked my poles under my arms and straightened out my skis. I was flying! Of course then I got a little scared so I pizza-ed again... and I turned! So I went back and forth for a bit, gliding cockily by the toddlers... psh, rookies. It was excellent. Kind of similar to ice skating, which is my favorite thing in the world, for those of you who don't know. I hiked back up the hill in my boots and did it again. It was even better the second time. I had discovered the joy of skiing. I quit there.

The rest of the weekend was just partying and eating. I got to see Angie, caused a ruckus at an onsen, ate many fried things on sticks, and best of all - skied!!!!

Side note: I think my tailbone-landing maneuver may have been less graceful than I thought. Tonight during yoga I tried boat pose and nearly hit the ceiling. Itai!

Boulders and Water

I've found my favorite place in Kure. When I first got here, I heard about some place called Nikko Gorge but never felt any sort of inkling to go. But since Hessen's bf, James, has been here, he's been exploring all of the hidden treasures this hole has to offer, and he happened upon Nikko. So last weekend, he suggested a hike out to the gorge. Last Sunday, after a delightful breakfast of tofu donuts and instant coffee, a group of us headed out for a hike.


Despite the chilly air, the weather was perfect- sunny with a sprinkling of clouds, and not too much wind. We ended up spending about 3 or 4 hours wandering the trails through bamboo groves, past shrines, over bridges and into unknown crevices. The boulders, as you can only sort of see in the picture above, were amazing. Huge and crushing, worn smooth by water that must have risen and fallen a million times before we saw them. There were small pools of blue-green water for a summer dip, little plateaus for picnics, and so much green! I'm always really happy to find places like Nikko, because they're so obviously filled with God. Does that make sense? When I was climbing, every time my knees wiggled from exhaustion or fear of heights, I felt Him. Like the air I was breathing there was different somehow... cleansed or live-giving or something.

Anyway, a few of us went back on Friday night for a hike to enjoy the full moon. It was a little scary, I'm not gonna lie. There were moments when I couldn't see much of the ground in front of me, only the bottomless drop punctuated by bamboo directly to my right. But the moon was so bright! And sometimes I like it when my heart races. So it was fun. Below: a cute one of Julie and me.

This weekend is skiing in Tottori! I'm completely stoked. I'm sure there will be plenty of good photo ops of me on my bum. Stay tuned.