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.

Today I caught another half day at work – the last exams were finished, and so tomorrow we got back to our regular programming. The weather has turned to heavy rain, but I’m hoping it clears up soon. Walking to work in the pouring rain is no fun… the water always manages to get to you somehow.

The time off has been nice – I’ve been able to catch up on all kinds of things. I’m actually considered a part-time employee at work, they are really only supposed to have me working for 35 hours a week. In reality, I put in about 40 hours a week. I’m not making a big deal out of it, and times like this are nice ways to get some of that back.

More details are emerging on the trip to Australia this December. We are getting close to buying my ticket. There may be a chance for me to have a couple of day layover in Seoul, Korea – it would be a good opportunity to explore a little, and the ticket is much cheaper. I understand that the hotel and food is really inexpensive there, so it would be fun. I’m hoping that it works out that way.

Mr. Hayashi must have been feeling guilty about me working over the weekend. Today, since there were no classes, he let me leave around 10:45 in the morning. I got did some shopping for teaching materials, supplies for home, and a scale to weigh myself.

The scale is pretty funny. It is digital, and on the pad it says in English “Everything under control?” with a picture of a guy looking down at the scale. I think that’s an excellent question for people worried enough about their weight to buy a scale. As for my weight, I weigh 87.2 kilograms, which according to Google is about 192 pounds. I’m not sure what I weighed when I left, but I think it was around 200 pounds. Despite all the beer, great food, and the comparitive rarity of my hikes, I seem to be losing a little weight. I was very surprised.

I also went to the 100 yen store and bought all kinds of little chintzy things – a curry mix that looks extra hot, dried chili peppers, lots of candles, fun stuff like that. Afterwards I made a quick trip to the post office to mail some things off – it has been impossible to get there earlier, since they close promptly when I walk by in the evenings. I picked up 5 kilos of rice at the store, so I’m all stocked up on essentials. Now I’m unpacking everything, and enjoying a rare leisurely afternoon at home.

Today Mr. Hayashi hired me to work at school for a half day – we were administrating a test of English. All I had to do was sit around in the hallways, and point people to the bathroom if they got lost. I worked the half day, and then Mr. Hayashi asked me to stick around for the afternoon. Since I had nothing better to do, I went ahead and stayed.

My job really was pretty easy – nothing much happened, and I got to speak a lot of Japanese with people that were coming in for the test. I got a free lunch, and after it was over, I got an envelope with 14,000 yen in cash inside (around $125).

Afterwards, Mr. Hayashi got on the phone and arranged a custom meal at Graciani’s in Kobe. We drove out with Miss Yamamoto and Miss Kageyama. The first stop was an apartment complex in Kitano – the restaurant district that has so many different restaurants to choose from. We went up to an apartment, and then Mr. Hayashi knocked on the door. We went inside, and the place had been converted into an imported food warehouse. The selection was mainly Indian food ingredients, and I found some interesting things to buy – I ended up settling on just one thing, a jar of pickled garlic in curry… the owner of the place said that it was very spicy, so I can’t wait to try it out.

Graciani’s was excellent – it was the same restaurant that I went to for our first big meal together. The food was exceptional – a four course meal that topped the last one we had there.

As Mr. Hayashi drove us through the city lights of Kobe on the way home to my apartment, it occurred to me how surreal my lifestyle is nowadays. I’m really incredibly lucky to do what I’m doing here. I’ve talked to other ALTs, and their experiences vary significantly. I talked to one ALT who has to wait for a ferry to leave her island, and after a two hour ferry ride, it’s a half hour walk to the train station, and then a one hour train ride to get to the nearest large town. Here I am getting a ride into the upscale Kitano part of Kobe, to eat five-star food. Unbelievable.

Today I spent the entire day in Kyoto with the PTA of my school. A long time ago the principal invited me to come along, and at the time I had plans to go to Hiroshima. As it turned out, there were so many things going on this weekend that I postponed the Hiroshima trip, so today I got aboard a bus at 7 a.m. and we shipped off to Kyoto.

I met the PTA members here and there on the three hour bus ride. The PTA is all women, except for the president, who is a man. The teacher I talked to spoke about that like it was a natural thing – there might be a rule about that. There was nobody on this trip that spoke any English, so it was up to me to speak Japanese. It actually worked out pretty well – I was able to communicate for the most part. More complex things had to be skipped over, but I could handle the basics, and every once in a while, someone would come up with a word in English to bail me out.

The trip was organized by a tour operator, so they sent a bus and a guide, and the experience with the guide was kind of strange. Everything was organized down to the minute, and the guide spoke almost constantly on the intercom on the long drive to Kyoto, so I obviously didn’t get a lot out of that.

We made a bathroom stop on the way to Kyoto, and then we traveled up into the mountains north of Kyoto until we reached a major river. There was a boating station, and the tour had organized a boat trip into Kyoto itself. The boats carried around 25 people, and there were three employees handling the steering, rowing, etc. That turned out to be a good thing, because the rapids were actually pretty good. I got a little wet, but not too bad, and all the PTA members were shrieking each time we went through some rapids, which was very amusing.

I took lots of pictures on the way, and the two hour boat ride went very quickly. Towards the end a boat pulled up along side of us, attached itself, and sold us snacks, beer, sodas, everything. It was like 7-11 on a boat. I couldn’t help thinking of a scene from The Fifth Element, when Korben Dallas gets noodles from his apartment window.

Once we arrived in Kyoto, we walked to one of the major temples in the area, and ate in a restaurant on the property. Once again it was traditional Japanese style, so I was on my knees for most of the meal. My legs are pretty strong from hiking, but staying on your knees for that long is pretty painful. The people I was with looked like they could have kept it up until Christmas, but I had to sit indian-style in the end. I wasn’t sure if that was OK, but later on I saw someone at another table doing the same thing, so I felt better.

After a big lunch with lots of beer, tea, and unidentified (but delicious) food, we split up into small groups and wandered around that area of Kyoto. I saw a bunch of temples that I hadn’t seen before, and had a great time taking pictures and seeing the sights.

One thing I couldn’t figure out was an extra three hours in our schedule that was pretty much free. So far the tour company had been totally exact on time, so it seemed weird that they would have three hours of slop time in there. It turned out that the time was dedicated to a fascinating phenomenon called omiyage.

Omiyage means “souveneir” in Japanese – it is buying things to take home to your friends, co-workers, and family to show them where you were. As for me, if I’m out somewhere and I see something especially interesting, I’ll pick it up, but I’m not the kind of guy to go to Disneyland and buy personalized snow globes for everyone I know.

Here in Japan, the concept of omiyage is so strong that they… well, they dedicate three hours of your day to picking it up. I smelled a rat when the bus took us to a specific shop to pick up omiyage – but nobody else said anything – maybe kickbacks are normal around here. I went into the store, and I’ll be damned if I could identify one product that they sold. All the items were food items, but other than that, I was clueless. I didn’t buy anything there – one, it was way too expensive, and two, I didn’t know what the heck it was.

After that store we went to another area that had more stores, and shopped there for a while. People from my group spent almost a hundred dollars on various omiyage. I couldn’t believe it.

Anyway, we finally hit the road, with the very energetic tour guide speaking frantically, telling jokes and generally amusing the people in the front of the bus. On the way home they put in a movie to watch – The Perfect Storm, which was dubbed in Japanese, so that was very interesting. I guess we’ve dubbed enough of their movies that they certainly have the right to dub some of ours. We were approaching our destination, and they had to cut off the movie about fifteen minutes before it finished. The tour guide apologized, and then proceeded to tell everyone what they missed and gave a blow-by-blow account of the ending. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that – would you want to know the ending? Would you want to rent it? I already have seen the movie, so I knew already, but still – kind of weird.

Last night at the yakitori place I had told the master that I might drop by and look in on the Hanshin Tigers – they are playing the first game of the Japanese World Series. As I sat down, the part time girl came by and brought me a beer, and I did a double take – she was wearing makeup! I looked at the master and he just shrugged, so I don’t know what it’s about, but I’m hoping it’s not me. The game was tied when I left about an hour later, and so I finally dragged my tired body into the apartment, and I’m gearing up for another big day tomorrow. I’m helping Mr. Hayashi do a standardized English test – I’m not sure what it entails, but it sounds like I’ll be working for at least a half day tomorrow starting at eight in the morning. I’m off to bed early tonight!

Today was another day of exams, and I once again had almost nothing to do. Mr. Hayashi, Mr. Komuri, Mr. Kimura, and myself all went out to a place in Sone that serves tacos, and so we had a big lunch on Mr. Hayashi. The food was OK, but not Mexican by any stretch of the imagination. I loaded the tacos up with garlic tabasco sauce, but they could have used some of the habaneros I have stashed away at home.

After lunch we came back and I lounged around the school for a while, until it was time to get out of there. Mr. Komuri shuttled me off to Miki town in his car, and we found a parking spot near downtown Miki and walked into the town center. As soon as we arrived, there was a cluster of men surrounding a mikoshi, or portable shrine. Everyone was drinking and having a good time, and I was surprised to learn that these guys would be lifting this gigantic shrine up a steep staircase to the temple grounds. The mikoshi was a lot bigger than I had imagined – it looked like a tough job.

There were eight mikoshi all together, and each one had a huge team of people that would lift and carry it around. Inside the mikoshi there were young boys catching a ride, and also a drummer, who would beat the drum frantically or slowly, depending on the mood of the crowd. It’s hard to imagine, so I’m posting a movie to get a better idea of the scale of one of these things.

You can download the movie here. It is around 4.5 MB, so it should take a while to download.

Each mikoshi had to go up the steep stairway, and if the mikoshi went down at any point, it was considered a major problem. Bad luck, a pox on your family, you name it. We followed one of the mikoshi up to the top, and I couldn’t believe how many people were running around. The mikoshi that had made it to the top were circling in a giant courtyard, and people were milling around taking pictures, flirting with the people carrying the mikoshi, and drinking way too much.

Mr. Komuri went to a local high school, and so he knew a lot of people. We met one of his friends that lives in California (Pleasanton, CA) and comes back to Japan once a year to attend the festival. He spoke English quite well, and it was fun to talk to him and get his impressions of California, especially while being surrounded by such a unique Japanese atmosphere.

After watching the mikoshi run around for a while, we went down the steps and had dinner in a tiny restaurant at the base of the hill. The dinner was traditional Japanese, and so I really had to work with the chopsticks. Everyone in attendance praised my ability, but it was not easy slurping down giant udon noodles without flinging sauce all over the place.

After dinner we went out on the street, and we set up shop along the main avenue where the mikoshi come back down the steps. Each mikoshi weighs, according to Mr. Komuri, almost 2 metric tons. I’m not sure how much a metric ton is compared to a regular ton, but it sure sounds (and looks) heavy. The first mikoshi started coming down the stairs, and Mr. Komuri explained that the first mikoshi is not tied down, but each one after that is tied up so that if they drop it, it won’t go crashing into the crowd killing everyone. The first one is kind of a throwback to tradition, so everyone watched to see if they would be crushed by a runaway shrine.

I managed to survive – nobody dropped the shrine, so we were able to get out of there relatively early. On the way back, I couldn’t help thinking that I’m going to do this all over again in two weeks, when my hometown has it’s Matsuri festival. I had promised the gang at my yakitori that I would be there, so it should be interesting.

After I got home, I started downloading Survivor, and then headed over to the yakitori to grab a quick bite to eat. The gang was all there, along with a new guy. I spent time talking to him, and making him comfortable speaking English. We got to talking about the Matsuri festival in Futami, and one of the guys offered the use of his ceremonial robes for carrying the mikoshi, called a hoppi. I was hoping that it would be “no foreigners allowed”, but once you are wearing a hoppi, you are cleared for take off. Now I’ve got the gear, and I’ll be carrying one of these things around Futami in a couple of weeks. Yikes!

Tonight I cooked up some fried rice and gyoza, then started watching “Animal House” – a DVD that my folks had sent. In the middle of the movie, Antoine called me up to say hello. Apparently last night he went to his usual Wednesday night dinner joint, which is a “rastofarian Japanese yakitori”. He bumped into a guy who turned out to be a member of the Japanese yakuza, or mafia. It was one of those weird situations where he was talking to the guy for a half hour before he found out about his job, and then it all started making sense. The nice clothes, the attitude, everything.

The guy ended up buying Atoine dinner, so he can tell his grandkids that the Japanese mafia bought him dinner. Great stories here in Japan. I have yet to see a mafia member, and I’m not really looking forward to it.