On Saturday, I’m going to take a highway bus out to Hiroshima to explore the town, visit the A-bomb dome, and do some island hopping visiting shrines in the area.

I’ve booked a hotel room for two nights, and I’m going to take a ton of pictures. I’m looking forward to this mini-vacation. It’s a three day weekend, so I can take my time and explore a new town.

Today we had a Halloween party for the ESS club, and we cooked cupcakes in the kitchen, ate lots of trick or treat candy, and had a great time. Pumpkins are hard to find in Japan, and they are super-expensive. A large sized pumpkin similar to what you’d find in the States can cost around $90, so I ruled that out. They have smaller pumpkins for about $20, but I think in the end I just didn’t want anybody to lose a finger trying to carve up a poor pumpkin.

This time we had a couple of teachers join us, and they watched the club tear apart the kitchen. I forgot butter, so the home economics teacher pitched in a few sticks to help out. Mr. Hayashi (actually, his wife) chipped in the cupcake mix, eggs, and some toppings. All the members brought candy and drinks, and we cooked up a storm. It was actually very easy, and a surprising amount of English was spoken.

The best part is that it creates a very relaxed environment – the students are far more comfortable speaking English. It’s a big difference from the scared students I see everyday in my class. The students did a great job, and we went through the very Japanese ritual of cleaning the cooking area thoroughly afterwards.

I cooked up some shrimp tacos tonight, and my apartment still smells of garlic. While I was cooking I ran laundry on the porch and cranked up my music, sending the voice of Jim Morrison over the rooftops over my neighbors while I peeled shrimp. I maintained my tradition of having a shot of tequila while peeling the shrimp, a tradition I picked up at the Birch residence.

I sauteed the shrimp in garlic, butter, and jalapeno peppers, and then wrapped them with shredded cabbage, onions, and cheese in fried corn tortillas. I topped the whole thing with Mexican hot sauce, cracked open a Kirin beer, and ate four tacos on my patio as the sun set in the west over the smokestacks of the factories in Takasago.

I had an extra taco, so I wrapped it in foil and took it over to the yakitori for the master. He grinned and took it, saying that he’d eat it a little later. A couple of regulars were at the bar, and begged me to stay for “just one drink”, but I begged off and headed home to finish up laundry and write some e-mails. Tomorrow is a two class day, with a big Halloween party with my ESS club in the afternoon.

After school I walk down the steps of my school, and turn left, going through a dense neighborhood of houses, interspersed with tiny shops full of alcohol, sushi, cigarettes, laundry. My students ride by on bicycles, calling my name out from behind. At the end I turn left in front of a garage that contains a religious shrine and several old men, and the air is filled with the smell of burning incense.

As I finish walking down the main street, with motorcycles, tiny cars, and bicycles buzzing by, I turn down a narrow alley and head towards my train station. The streets here are much more narrow, and if a car comes through, you have to stand on somebody’s doorstep to get out of the way. People are walking in and out of their homes, sweeping up leaves from their driveway, talking with neighbors, and cooking dinner.

The station is surrounded by tiny shops and large pachinko parlors, and behind and above every shop is another layer of shops and buildings that hold even more mysteries. At the train station I wait with fifteen or twenty other people for the 5:15 train, and when it comes, I settle into a chair near the door. The train is almost empty, since I’m traveling the opposite direction of the main commute. The countryside goes by quickly, and next to my speeding train the bullet train rockets by even faster, on it’s way to Kobe, Osaka, Kyoto, and then Tokyo.

The limited express train makes a quick eight minute trip to my station, and I walk down the steps into Futami and past the smells of fresh bread from a local bakery. The road home is lined with many stores, bars, and restaurants. I walk past a convenience store and see several people reading magazines for free right off the rack. One guys holds a porn magazine uncomfortably close to his face, but nobody next to him seems to notice or care.

I walk by people that glance at me furtively, looking away when I look at them. Kids stare, girls smile, old men frown, businessmen nod, ladies ignore, students grin. I walk past a temple that is older than the United States, and weave through a neighborhood of concrete and wood, saying hello to people I see everyday, and avoiding the homes with the barking dogs.

After a ten minute walk I approach my apartment block, and walk by twenty kids playing in sand under the watchful eye of five moms. One yells across the playground in Japanese, asking me what I’m cooking for dinner. The moms grin and look at each other, knowing the daily ritual. Still, they are curious, and listen carefully to my short, mangled answer in Japanese. I bow to them as I walk by, and they bow back and giggle.

As I walk up my staircase, I smell dinner cooking behind metal doors, with strange but delicious smells that I can’t identify. Finally, at the top of the first flight, I unlock my door, and settle into my apartment, getting my own dinner ready and looking forward to another tough commute tomorrow.

Just got back from watching Tears of the Sun at the local theater. Talk about a bodycount movie. I’m usually not one to worry about dead people in movies, but there were a ton. The movie overall was OK, but not great. Kind of the best and worst of so many war movies from the past. The ending seemed awfully corny, and overall, I’d call it a dud.

I had a new tonkatsu dish for dinner – it was delicious. The best part – since the Tigers made the championship, I got a free beer with dinner. Free beer – can you believe it?

Ouch! The Tigers lost the big game, and me and Mr. Komuri were left crying in our beers. Everything else about the evening was great. The people that were there were very supportive, and there were tons of darts players. They have tournaments almost every month, so I might have to come by and throw a few sometime.

Tonight I’m going back to Donkey, the strange bar where we celebrated the Hanshin Tigers getting the division championships. I’m meeting Mr. Komuri there, and we’ll be watching game seven of the championship. I’m looking forward to hanging out and watching the game with someone that has good English skills and a love of baseball.

At around 2:30 I went down to the station, and met Miss Kageyama. She was game enough to go to the festival with me. I think she just wanted to see a foreigner helping with the mikoshi. Apparently she had a big night last night, with a bit too much beer, but she rallied just fine.

I was amazed at how many people were at the festival. The place was packed! We went over to watch the mikoshi go by, and right away I saw my friends from the yakitori, sweating big time and carrying a monster mikoshi. They were really struggling, and a couple of times it almost turned over – I can’t imagine the run of bad luck that goes along with that.

After the first turn around the temple, one of the guys tapped me on the shoulder and handed me his happi – a gown worn by the people that lift the mikoshi. It’s not strictly enforced, though, and I saw other people helping in casual clothes. I put it on, and then I was committed.

We lifted the giant shrine and walked along. Thankfully, there weren’t too many advanced manuevers, especially since I couldn’t understand the instructions being shouted at everyone. We made a long trip down the back of the temple, and then sat the mikoshi down. I was sweating big time, and I hadn’t even taken it all the way around the temple. We sat and waited for some of the others to go by, and in the meantime, I introduced Miss Kageyama to everyone. Some people saw my outfit and walked up to take pictures with me. One guy even poured me a beer.

It became apparent that we were going to be there a while, so I returned my happi so that I didn’t forget and walk off with it. We mingled with the crowd a little, and then I saw Melanie and went over to introduce her to Miss Kageyama. Miss Kageyama had really wanted to meet Melanie to put a face to her name. We talked for a little while, and Miss Kageyama and I decided to do something about our appetites. There were tons of snack foods around, but we felt like something a little more substantial, so we decided to try out the new okonomiyaki restaurant near my house.

On the way, I popped in on the shaved ice lady, who nowadays is selling takoyaki out of her booth, since the weather has cooled considerably. I hadn’t seen her in a long time, and so we talked briefly, and then when she saw Miss Kageyama, they talked for a long time. I could only catch a bit, but they covered a lot of topics. Afterwards, she gave us each a hot package of takoyaki to take home. We thanked her profusely, and then I diverted back to my apartment to stick them in the fridge.

The okonomiyaki restuarant was packed, and we had to wait about 15 minutes for a table. That’s always a good sign, and as it turned out, the food was excellent. We ate shrimp and pork okonomiyaki, and we were surrounded by hungry people drinking beer and having a good time. The atmosphere was busy and loud. It kind of reminded me of a local pizza place in the U.S.

After an excellent meal, we made the long walk back to Higashi Futami station, and Miss Kageyama took the long train trip home – it’s about 30 minutes back to her place from that station. An exhausting day, but it was a lot of fun to try something new and see some friendly folks! Back to work tomorrow!

I was awakened at 5:46 this morning by the sound of children chanting. I kind of rolled out of bed and looked outside, and there was a whole line of kids marching southeast, towards the center of town. They were singing some kind of song, and they all looked tired and bored.

About an hour and half later, the community announcement system clicked on with a “Good Morning West Futami!” message, giving details about the matsuri festival today. People are pretty excited about it, I guess. The community message came on again ten minutes later, and then ten minutes after that. Weird.

Sara called this morning, and we chatted for a while. She’s hoping to visit in February, so hopefully that will work out.

I’m doing some housecleaning today, and then later on in the afternoon I’m off to the festival.

Today was my second hike to the top of Mt. Takamikura, the big mountain in the area. The weather today was much better than the last time I went up and this time the school nurse, Ms. Mizuta came along with me.

Mizuta-san hikes Takamikura about twice a month, and she’s in great shape. At almost 60 years old, she had no problem keeping up with me, and in some cases, I was having problems staying ahead of her.

The views were incredible at the top – the weather was slightly hazy, but we could still see quite a ways. There was a temple at the top, and also a monument to commemorate the first flight in this area, by a 21 year old kid with lots of guts. He flew a glider right over the edge, and lived to tell the tale.

There were people rock climbing the steep face, and lots of folks at the top. This was one of the rare mountains that I’ve come across without a bar at the top, but there were vending machines. The entire trip was about two hours round trip, and we covered about 15 kilometers, just about 9 miles. It was good practice for our 40 kilometer hike next month.

During the hike I was forced to use my Japanese, and we really got on just fine. Of course, from my point of view, things went fine – I’m sure there were some weird parts of the conversation on her end. After getting back to her car, she wanted to go out to eat. I had planned on cooking up some shrimp tacos at home, but I couldn’t figure out a way to communicate that to her, and by the time I had something figured out, we were already on our way.

She made a phone call to a restaurant that she knows, run by the parents of one of our students. The place is an izakaya, kind of a variety restaurant focused on drinking and lots of different kinds of food. Mizuta-san called ahead, and it turned out they weren’t open yet, but they said that the would open up for us, and by the time we got there, everything was ready.

I was in for a real treat. Since I couldn’t read the menu, we decided on getting sushi and a pot of nabe, a hot soup. They asked what kind of sushi we would like, I mentioned some that I liked, and Mizuta-san added a few more, so we had quite an assortment. The sushi here was different than the sushi I have traditionally eaten in the States, and the presentation was amazing. Mizuta-san helped me identify everything we ate, showed me how to some are eaten with chopsticks, some with fingers. She showed me how to eat the sushi so that there is soy sauce only on the fish, not the rice, and the master even tucked in some extra wasabi under each piece of fish to spice things up for me.

Once the master and his wife found out that I was a teacher, and their daughter was in my class, they started bowing and smiling, and a lot more food came out of nowhere. They talked to me eagerly, and I tried to keep up, but I was a bit overwhelmed. The hot pot came out, and Mizuta-san served us both, effortlessly dividing all the goodies between us and telling me all about the dish and it’s ingredients.

It was a great dinner, and I learned a lot. Here in Japan it actually pretty rare for me to go out and eat a traditional Japanese dinner, and so I’m still kind of a rookie. Eating with an expert helps a lot, though.

I downloaded and watched Whale Rider, and I highly recommend it. Not your typical movie. It has amazing cinematography and music; even on my tiny computer screen it was overwhelmingly beautiful.

When I got home tonight I saw that Amazon now has the ability to search within the text of about 120,000 books. I played around with it for a little while, and it was amazing. I found references to my tiny town in Japan in ancient Japanese literature, references to Glen Ellen in mystery books, and even more strange things. I highly recommend you give it a try.

Finally, Friday is here. The day went much better – I arrived at school on time, and my classes went very well. The students really got into the jack o’ lanterns today, and some of the other teachers were asking me about these strange orange faces that keep showing up around the school.

I was talking about my plans for tomorrow with the school nurse, and she mentioned that she will be climbing the same mountain that I was planning on climbing on Saturday. We decided to meet up and tackle it together. The weather had turned from cold rain to cool, sunny days. Perfect weather for hiking. I’ve signed up for a 40k hike next month, and then a 50k hike in Kobe in December. I need to get out on the trail and get in great shape!

Mr. Hayashi took off early today as compensation for a day a while back that he stayed late. He told me I could leave a little early today, since I was heading to Himeji to meet Carrie for dinner. Carrie had a late night golf lesson on the driving range at 9 o’clock, so we were hoping to sneak in a dinner before she had to meet her teacher. I snuck out around 4:30, and I was on the train and gone.

I’ve been to Himeji once before, but it still struck me as a shock walking around a big city after hanging out in Futami and Takasago all the time. I’ve been to Kobe lots of times, but we usually go into the Kitano district, which is a quieter area. Himeji was jumping, and everyone was dressed to kill for a Friday night. The Tigers were playing on TV, and everyone was excited about the “Nihon Series”.

I met Carrie at the most prominent landmark near the station – in front of Baskin Robbins’ 31 Flavors. Carrie had been to a Japanese food court that she had been impressed with, and suggested we head out there. It was a good walk, and we caught up on stories as we walked down the crowded sidewalks towards the illuminated Himeji Castle at the end of the long avenue. About halfway along we found the food court, and it was unlike any food court I’ve seen in America. There were many more restaurants inside, with plenty of tables spread out. There were televisions everywhere showing the baseball game, and the variety of food was excellent. Carrie and I surveyed our choices and decided to go with Indian food.

We had a couple of beers over a big plate of curry, rice and cheese nan bread, and talked about school, our adventures since our hike, and our plans for the next year. At some point we figured out that we’ve been here for three months – about a quarter of our year commitment has already ended. It came as kind of a shock to both of us – I certainly don’t feel like I’ve seen and done 25% of what I want to do in Japan.

Carrie went canoeing with some friends last weekend, and they ended up tipping in some rapids. Carrie lost her camera, her Gore-tex jacket, and one of her shoes. Everybody lost gear – I guess the rapids were pretty heavy duty. It sounded like a real horror story. She’s going to shop around for a new camera, which shouldn’t be a problem, but the jacket was really expensive, and it might be hard to find something like it here in Japan. Carrie is a pretty optimistic person though, and she was already in the “I can laugh about it” stage.

After dinner we walked out onto the castle grounds, and did a big loop on the grounds underneath the castle. I tried to take some pictures, but they didn’t come out at all. We agreed that it was just something you had to see for yourself. The castle is amazing by itself, but lit up at night it is even more dramatic.

We walked back to the station, and we each went our separate ways. I jumped back on the express train, and was home in about half an hour. I’m really lucky to be in a location where I can get to everything easily.

It was a great night and I feel very good going into the weekend. Tomorrow is a big hike, and then Sunday is the big temple festival.

Sometime in the middle of last night, the battery in my travel alarm clock that I’ve been using to wake up every morning ran out of juice. Later, I woke up and casually glanced at the blank digital screen where there are usually numbers representing the time.

And then I noticed that it was unusually light outside. And that I was remarkably well rested.

I hauled my butt out of bed and checked the clock in the kitchen, and it was 7:30 in the morning. Usually I am walking up the steps to my high school at this time every day.

To make a long (and painful) story short, I walked into the teacher’s office at 8:05 a.m., fifteen minutes early for the teachers meeting, and not one person even noticed that I was late. I told my master teacher what happened, and he just laughed and said that as long as I made it for the teachers’ meeting, no problem.

Despite the rough start, my day was actually pretty fun. My new lesson for the next two weeks is about Halloween, and so I spent today explaining jack o’ lanterns, pumpkins, and trick or treating to my dumbfounded students. At the end of each lesson, I pass out small squares of orange paper and we make our own jack o’ lanterns in class. It’s always interesting to see how they come out. Some students make an exact copy of the sample that I draw on the board. Some make incredibly artistic comic book versions, others make cute smiley jack o’ lanterns.

After I got home, Melanie asked me out to dinner – I had been to a place a while back that has great katsudon (fried pork cutlet over rice and carmelized onions with a fried egg on top). She just discovered katsudon, and so I showed her where the restaurant was, and we ate big for only a couple of bucks each. The place has the atmosphere of a Denny’s, the music of a bad 1980’s sci-fi, and great, cheap food. As we ate, lots of kids came up to say hello and stare at the foreigners. They were very cute.

This weekend is looking to be a lot of fun, as usual. Friday night I’m meeting Carrie in Himeji for dinner, and then Saturday morning I’m going to talk with my folks – It’s been a couple of weeks since I’ve had a chance to talk to them. Saturday afternoon I’m hoping to go into Kobe and buy some supplies for my English club at school. I’m hoping we can make cupcakes next week. Sunday is the Futami Matsuri festival, and quite a few of the neighbors will be there, Melanie from upstairs, along with the gang from the yakitori, and maybe even Miss Kageyama. I think I’m still slated to carry any insanely heavy portable shrine around the neighborhood.

About two weeks ago, I was tutoring Haruna, a third year student and member of the ESS club, for a college entrance examination. Nobody from my school had taken the exam before, and the sample examination looked extremely difficult. I wasn’t sure that she could make it, but I found out this morning that she passed the exam.

She came and told me herself, and I was so proud of her. She worked so hard on preparation, and it paid off – I was bracing myself for disappointment, but I was really glad that she’s in.

College works a little differently here – once you pass an entrance exam, you are automatically going to that school. You can’t shop around and see what other colleges have to offer – you pick which one to try for, and then you take the exam. If you fail, you try somewhere else, and if you pass, you’re in.

The college that she is entering is in Kobe, and it’s a school that focuses on international skills. The students of English in that school are in demand for international businesses all over Japan. Things are looking good for Haruna.