The Last Few Months

Hey there. It’s been a long time hasn’t it? Sorry about that. I’ll try and do better about letting you know what is going on in my life in Japan and first I’ll start with this story, which is just a taste of the many funny little things my students say to me every day:

Setting: Kindergarten playground
Who: Me and a small group of kindergarten students
Language the conversation was in: Japanese
Translation for you: English

Cute kindergarten girl: “Austin sensei! You’re from America, right?”
Me: “Yes.”
Cute kindergarten girl: “But you live in Japan?”
Me: “Yep. I live in Mito.”
Cute kindergarten girl: “Wow, that’s amazing!” (many students think I commute
to Japan every day for school from America and are surprised when I tell
them I live in Japan)
“You came to Japan on a helicopter, right?!?”
Me: (laughing) “No, not a helicopter?”
Cute kindergarten girl: “An airplane?
Me: “That’s right!”
Cute kindergarten girl: “Oh, that’s what my mom said…” (she was so sure she was
right about me coming to Japan on a helicopter and that her mom had no idea
what she was talking about and very disappointed when she found out she
was wrong)

A lot has happened since the last time I wrote, although I can’t remember when or what I wrote about last time. [I was not connected to the internet when I was writing this so I couldn’t check] I’ll try and catch you guys up on some fun/important things that have been happening in my life since July.

My parents were able to come and visit me back in July! They arrived on July 3rd. On the 4th, after I got finished with a long day of teaching my highly impressionable students all the bad words I know in English, we went with a group of American and Japanese friends to a good Japanese friend’s house for a delicious dinner and fireworks, which got rained out…The next day, on the 5th, we had a great 4th of July barbeque/volleyball/surfing party at the beach and then dinner again at another friends house! Mom and dad stayed for 2 weeks with me in my little apartment and we had a great time going to Tokyo, Nikko National Park, the beach, hiking, lots of parks, etc. and we ate lots of good Japanese food. They even came to school with me for 2 days and got to meet some of the cutest students in the world and eat school lunch with me and some of the students and be treated like movie stars for a couple of days. Having them there even re-upped my status back to movie star rather than the strange looking giant with blonde hair, a huge nose, and blue eyes who hangs around the school all week and tries to get kids to speak English with him and miserably fails at speaking Japanese. It was a fun two weeks and after they left my tiny apartment felt huge! I was glad they got to experience a little of where I live and what I do everyday in Japan. Another bonus was I was expecting to have to spend a lot of money while they were here, since Japan is super expensive, but dad paid for just about everything so I actually saved money while they were here! Thanks Dad! FYI, gas in Japan is about $7/gallon. [update: it is down to around $5.80/gallon at the moment and it feels like heaven. Sad huh?]

My sister, Melody, was also able to stop by and visit me on her way home from the Philippines in July! Her trip overlapped with my parents for a couple days and we actually all went to Nikko together. We did a lot of the same things as I did with my parents: Tokyo, the beach, hiking, school, and she even went to the onsen (public nude bathing in a natural hot spring) with some of my friends. It was a lot of fun having her here as well. My students still talk about her sometimes. They think her name is really cool because the word for a musical “melody” is the same word in Japanese.

A week and a half after Melody left to go home I left Japan to head to Thailand again! This time I spent most of my time in a different area than where I was back around New Years. I also went to Cambodia! I got to travel with a great group of friends, Zane and Carla Schwab, Paul and Devan Weger, and Wade Miller. We spent a couple days in Bangkok sightseeing and meeting the friends I made last time I went, then we took busses/tuk-tuks/taxis from Bangkok into Cambodia and all the way to Siem Reap. Once you cross over into Cambodia you can tell you’re not in Thailand anymore. There are people begging everywhere and once you get through the horrible immigration process at the border, where they try to squeeze as much unnecessary money out of you as possible, the road from the there to Siem Reap is a basically one long, muddy, strip of huge potholes and cars/big trucks/bicycles/animals/motorcycles with numerous dead animals hanging from the back driving on whichever side of the road is available and going however fast they desire (and getting stuck if it is really muddy). We stayed in Cambodia for a couple of days and spent one of those days at Angkor and saw Angkor Wat and a bunch of other cool temples, including the one where Tomb Raider was filmed. Angkor is a really cool, huge, old temple complex and you’re allowed to climb all over most of it. It’s so big you can’t visit all of the temples in one day. I think it is definitely worth the hassle of getting there to see it once in your life and if you don’t mind shelling out the extra money you can just fly in and avoid that whole crossing the border process.


After being in Cambodia for a couple of days, we headed back into Thailand and then took a ferry to an Island called Koh Chang (means Elephant Island). We stayed in bungalows right on the beach for about eight days I think. It was a much-needed time of true relaxation and fun. I could really use another week like that right now. We spent most of our time relaxing, sleeping and eating delicious Thai food at an assortment of restaurants on the beach. During those eight days I finished up a book I had been reading for a while and then read through two Harry Potter books as well, all while sitting on the front porch of my bungalow with my shirt of, with the salty smell of the ocean in the air and the sound of the waves crashing onto the shore. We did more than just relax though. We played a lot of cards, rented scooters that were a lot faster than the one I drive here in Japan, took a day trip on a boat to some small islands for some great snorkeling, and did a treetop ropes course in the jungle. Anyways, it was a great vacation!


The last couple months I’ve mainly just been working. But I’ve squeezed in a few fun things as well. One day I went to Disneyland with Janet, Catera and Port and had a grand ‘ole time, I had my school’s sports festival and I’ve also had the opportunity to climb a couple of mountains in the Nikko National Park area. At the end of August Zane, Smitty, Wade and I drove to Nikko together and hiked up Shirane san. It is the highest peak in Nikko and in the northern half of Japan. It was a long, difficult day hike with lots of steep ups and downs and we summited two other smaller peaks along the way. It took about 7 hours total. I am in horrible shape. It was an awesome hike and a really cool area but, sadly, it was very cloudy and we could barely see 15 feet in front of us on top of the mountain.

My other hike was last week. Monday was sports day, a holiday in Japan, so I didn’t have school and this time I went alone because everyone else was busy with something else. I got about 2.5 hours of sleep on Sunday night (Monday morning), woke up at 4am and was on the road by 5am. Because of the holiday traffic it took about three hours to get to the trailhead of the mountain, Nantai san. Nantai san is a volcano and also one of Japan’s sacred mountains. It took me about 2.5 hours to hike up to the top. The hike was basically just straight up the mountain with hardly any switchbacks and a 1200 meter elevation change and because it is a cone shaped volcano it got steeper the closer I got to the top. Once again I was reminded of the pitiful state of my legs. Thankfully this day, unlike the last day I went hiking, the weather was almost perfect. The temperature was a cool upper 40’s/lower 50’s and the sky was clear. It was a little hazy, but I could still see a lot. On the way up I met a group of English speaking Germans and on top I met a man who I think was American who had a Japanese wife. We exchanged favors and took pictures of each other on the peak. On top I could see beautiful mountains all around, including Shirane san which I hiked before, and also Lake Chuzenji down below. It was beautiful! I stayed on top and rested for about 40 minutes and ate some sandwiches, chips and string cheese (a tradition of mine) for lunch while all of the Japanese people on top had brought their portable gas stoves and were cooking cup ‘o noodles. The hike down only took me about 1hr and 45mins and then I headed home in horrible traffic. It took about 4.5 hours to get back to Mito instead of 2 or 2.5.



So that’s a brief overview of what’s been going on in my life the last few months. Right now I’m struggling with the decision of whether to sign on for another year working as an English teacher in Mito or to go home or even on to some other opportunity that might present itself in Japan or another country. I am still really enjoying living in Japan and don’t really want to leave and still want to greatly improve my Japanese language skills, but I have been having days just about every week when I feel like I couldn’t do my job for another year, but then the next day is usually great. I hate big decisions like this. I think what I really need is an American summer vacation. I think I just need some time to recharge, but I don’t really get much of that here. I’m pretty sure that if I decide to go home, after I will have been home for a while I will be wishing that I were still in Japan. I still have things that I want to do here and I definitely feel like God can still use me here. I have to make a decision by mid November so please keep me, and the decision that I’m going to make, in your prayers. Also, more importantly, please keep Katie Blake and her family in your prayers. Katie’s father just had an unexpected heart attack and passed away within the last week. Katie went right home the next day and will be there with her family for a few weeks I believe. Like I said, it was very unexpected. Her mom and dad had just been to Japan for a visit during the summer and he seemed to be doing great. Katie’s sister is also going to be having a baby sometime in the near future and I’m sure that adds to the difficulty of this situation.

Once again, sorry it took me so long to get this post written and posted (I actually started it over a month ago). I will try and keep a more frequently updated blog. I know I say this every time I post, but this time I actually mean it ;)

The Holidays

For those of you wondering, I am alive and well. For those of you who don’t know, I was pretty stinkin’ sick two weeks ago. I arrived back in Japan from Thailand on Friday, January 4^th. After spending a week in Thailand’s “cool season,” 90+ degrees F, Japan’s winter, and my walk from the station back to the church building where I parked my bike, seemed extremely freeeeeezing. I shivered the whole way and wondered how I was going to survive the, even colder, ride home on my bike. Anyways, the next day I went for a run (first one in a long time) and came home tired, cold and feeling funny. This funny feeling lasted the rest of the afternoon/evening and I went to bed around 10pm thinking, “I’ll just skip class at church in the morning to get an extra hour of sleep, wake up feeling better and then go to worship service.” Little did I know I wouldn’t get even a wink of sleep until abour 4:30 or 5am due to the fact that even though my bedroom was 70 degrees I was shivering, every time I laid down my stomach felt really sick, and I had to get up every 15-20 minutes to go to the bathroom or throw up. Most places in Japan, apartments included, do not have central heating. My bedroom was warm, but my kitchen/bathroom was probably around 40 degrees. Let me tell you, the toilet seat in an unheated bathroom during the winter is cold in itself, but tack on a fever and chills and you’re asking for a very unpleasant experience. To keep a long paragraph from getting too much longer, I went to the doctor the next day with my good friend Mark, found out I had a stomach virus and got some medicine. I had to miss 4 days of school two weeks ago and spent a long, boring week in my apartment while everyone else was at work. I made it back to school on Friday and, after eating only broth, soup, crackers, toast, and drinking Aquarius (a sports drink) for a week (thank you to my wonderful friends who brought me movies and things to eat), I finally got to start easing some real food back into my stomach on Saturday and Sunday.

I’m feeling great now and was even able to make a trip to Tokyo with Wade on my holiday last week on Monday. We went up to the top of “Tocho,” the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building and the second tallest building in Tokyo. It is one of the only places in Tokyo with a free observatory. This was my first time to get a bird’s eye view of Tokyo, but sadly it was a cloudy day and, although we could see mountains on the other side of the massive concrete jungle, Mt. Fuji was hiding in the clouds. I was a little disappointed so I guess I’ll have to go back up again another day. We also went to China Town in Yokohama and Ogawa-machi. Ogawa-machi is in the middle of Tokyo and has a bunch of sporting goods stores filled mainly with ski equipment at the moment. But most importantly we ate a good ole’ American lunch and dinner at TGIFridays and Subway, my favorite reasons to go to Tokyo. Thank the Lord my stomach was able to handle real food by then.

So, the actual reason I started writing this post was to tell you a little about my trip to Thailand. I guess it’s time to do that now. Thailand was lots of fun. Thankfully, I stayed healthy the whole trip and didn’t get sick until I got back home. I went there with one of my Japanese friends, Minako, and we met up with a bunch of her Thai friends while we were there and traveled with some of them. We spent three full days in Southern Thailand around the Krabi area and 3 full days in Bangkok. On the way to Thailand we had a layover in Taipei, Taiwan and on the way back we had a short layover in Hong Kong and a 12 hour layover in Taipei. Because the 12 hour layover was at night we couldn’t really do anything so we slept in the airport.

Southern Thailand was really beautiful. In our area there were huge rocks and cliffs jutting out of the ground all over the place, land and water. Minako and I met her Thai friend, who we called Kani chan, at the Krabi airport and thanks to some connections we were able to stay for those three days with a Christian family in their home. The father was out of town on business, but we stayed with the mother and their 3^rd grade daughter who was really shy at first, but pretty cool and fun to be around. It was really cool to spend time with them and get to know other Christians in a different part of the world. While we were in that area we rode an elephant, went to a park with lots of monkeys (seeing a wild monkey has been a lifelong dream of mine even though one of them chased me), went to James Bond Island, went sea canoeing, hired a guide and stopped at about 4 different beautiful islands in the Andaman Sea in his little motorboat and saw some others, saw beach monkeys (who had big teeth and chased some unsuspecting girls into the ocean, which was really funny), and went snorkeling.

After Krabi we flew back to Bangkok and spent 3 full days there. I met about a million different people, with names that I couldn’t pronounce, while I was there and on the first night we went to a New Years party with a bunch of the Christians from that area and it seems like I met about 900,000 of the million people while I was at that party. This party basically consisted of a bunch of people eating for about 5 or 6 hours and then some skits and door prizes. Let me tell you, Thai people love to eat. I’m sure I gained a few pounds while I was in Thailand, but then I lost more than that when I got home and at ate near nothing for a week. My teachers kept commenting on how thin my face was when I got back to school, and that’s with my beard. The next few days, we did lots of stuff with a bunch of cool new friends. Of course we went and saw lots of famous places, like the Golden Palace, and went to some markets. I also rode in a few taxis, which were always exciting and amazingly cheap, and also a tuk-tuk. Everything is cheap in Thailand, not only taxis. I could watch a new movie for about $3, compared to the $20 it costs in Japan, buy a 10 piece chicken nuggets meal with fries and drink at McDonalds for $3, and at the mall in the food court I could eat for a dollar or two.

Oh, I guess I should tell you one more story. Let me lead into it with this: mosquitoes in Japan and America don’t usually want to bother with me. I guess I have sour blood or something, but if someone else is in the room with me they will just ignore me and if they do happen to bite me it doesn’t leave a bump or itch. My first 4 or 5 days in Thailand I heard lots of people complaining about the mosquitoes, but I didn’t get a single bite. Then one night at the Ram (short for another word I can’t spell or pronounce) Christian Center, where I stayed in Bangkok, it was pretty hot so I slept with the window open and fans blowing on me. I had done this the previous night and had no problems. (Quick fact: most places in Thailand don’t have air conditioning or hot showers for that matter.) Back to the story, I went to sleep that night and woke up the next morning with over 130 dark ugly mosquito bites on my face, neck, arms, and hands (yes, I counted). These weren’t little welts and they weren’t itchy, but they were just these little, dark, very visible bumps all over me. They didn’t start going away until about 5 or 6 days later. The funny thing is, though, these creative super Thai mosquitoes left a happy face made with bumps on my right hand. I didn’t know how it was possible for 8 mosquito bites to just somehow be in the perfect shape of a happy face. There were two eyes, a nose, and a mouth which was made out of 4 bumps. These were either very intelligent mosquitoes or God was leaving me a reminder on my hand to be happy even though I looked like I had a skin disease. I like to think the mozzies had a stomach ache after they got feasted on me. This is a quick version of my time in Thailand. There were many other things that happened that I can’t think of right now or don’t feel like typing because my fingers are cold and hard to move right now in my freezing cold school.

On to more recent things…my scooter, True Blue, which was a faithful and reliable, albeit slow, mode of transportation was stolen on SaturdayL. This scooter has a lot of tradition here in Mito. It was used by about 4 or 5 different people before I acquired it, more recently including my brother, Travis, and Mark Barneche. I was at Kendon’s apartment in Migawa, a section of Mito, watching a movie and some stupid person took it pretty early in the evening, sometime between 6 and 6:45 pm. Kendon’s landlord called the police and we had a powwow in his apartment with the po-po’s, otherwise known as filing a report. After this I got to ride in a Japanese police car with 3 policemen and try to explain to them in Japanese how to get to my apartment. Then on Tuesday I heard what I thought was some good news. I was told that my scooter was found and that the police had it. Then later on I was told that it was damaged and I couldn’t use it. The key hole was messed up, the seat cushion torn off, and below the key hole part of the scooter was cut, or torn, apart in what looks like was an attempt to hotwire it. There were also some other, less noticeable, problems. Right now I am using my friend Amber’s scooter since she has a car as well. The bad part is my scooter is ruined, but the good part is her scooter is faster than mine was! It kind of brings the exciting new scooter feeling back again.

Update: the scooter man picked up my bike, checked it out and told me it would cost 3 man (approx. $300) to fix it. Considering the fact that I only paid 50 bucks for it, the end has come for True Blue L. This is a very sad time, but she is being disposed of.

This One's for the Other Marshall (and everyone else)

Well, I think I’ve held you on the edge of your seats waiting for the next update of my life in Japan about as long as I could (based on one or two comments I may have received), so here goes.

The past month has been a month of firsts for me in Japan. This is not to say that the whole 8 months I have been here (can you believe it has been this long?) has not been a whole 8 months of firsts, because it has, but I am choosing to base this blog entry on firsts from the past month (well, it was within the past month when I actually started writing this). Here is an overview:

In the past month I:

-went camping in Japan for the first time
-went to an genuine onsen for the first time
-finally got to watch The Bourne Ultimatum
-ran a half marathon for the first time
-finally used a squatty potty
-used a bidet for the first time
-had Thanksgiving dinner in Japan for the first time
-accidentally locked my keys under the seat of my scooter for the first time
-learned how to open the locked seat on my scooter without a key
-made my final decision to stay in Japan for at least another year

Now I’ll tell you about all of these interesting things that make up my life in a little more detail.

Living the Good Life

I finally got to go camping in Japan. I went north a couple hours to a place called Inawashiro with Elizabeth, Minako, Julia, Katie, and Lance for two days and one night. We camped at Inawashiroko (Lake Inawashiro). This area was beautiful! The lake is extremely clear and surrounded by mountains. It reminded me of a scaled down version of Lake Tahoe in California. The fall colors were also very nice. We had a nice little campsite and there were no other people there tent camping. Ok, I should say “tent” camping. We had a small, maybe 3 or 4 (Japanese) person, tent. It was pretty cold and the girls all slept in the tent. Girls have this ability, and willingness, to sleep in spaces that are too small to fit in and enjoy it more. Needless to say, Lance slept in the car and I slept outside on a tarp. Other than it being November in mountain territory and a few minutes of light rain, I was perfectly happy outside on the ground in the mummy bag I borrowed from Pat. The first day, I went for a run and discovered a really cool park with an awesome playground while I was at it. When I got done it was dark, but the next day we all went to the park and just played like little kids. It was great. We also had some good food. For dinner we had hot dogs and yakisoba and for breakfast we had pancakes, bacon, and eggs scrambled in bacon grease…oishikatta desuyo. I desperately needed some time out in nature, away from all the normal distractions of life. I only wish it could have lasted a week instead of two days.

Onsen

I went to an true onsen for the first time last month. Onsens are natural hot springs (most of them formed by the many volcanoes in Japan). I went to one called Nozomi. It is an outdoor onsen overlooking the Pacific Ocean. At an onsen you wash yourself in a public shower area and then go sit in one of the many choices of hot pools of water with lots of other men with no clothes on. You also carry a small washcloth around to cover yourself with if you feel the need and while you are in the water, you put in on top of your head. I fell in love…with onsens, not any naked Japanese men. (Sorry, no pics)

Bourne

The Bourne Ultimatum finally came out in Japan last month. I watched it. It was great.

Painfully, but Pleasantly, Surprised

For 4 months before I came to Japan I laid off of running completely to try and get my knees in better shape. When I first got to Japan I injured my ankle and was unable to do anything but limp around very slowly for 2 months. Needless to say, I didn’t run much. After that, I still didn’t run very much. For the next few months I averaged about 0-5 miles of running a week with most of those being on the 0 end. The next few months after that I started averaging about 0-9 miles a week with probably 2 weeks where I actually hit 12 or 14 with my longest long run being about 8.5 miles. This was all in preparation for my first ever half marathon (13.1 miles or about 21 kilometers). It is bad when your weekly mileage is less than the length of your race. I also realized the day of the race that it had been over 11 months since I even ran more than 8.5 miles or any type of speed work. Despite all of this I was ready for the Iwai Masakado Half Marathon! It was a cold, cloudy race day morning. I was on the starting line with Wade, Tom, Minakosan, Hiyamasan, and over 4,000 other runners ready to get this race under way because we were cold. We hear the announcement, “5 minutes till the start” (in Japanese of course). Then, “3 minutes”. Then, 2 minutes before the start of the race it started raining. Tis a pesky thing in Japan (it was probably about 35 degrees when I went to my far away school this morning, and raining. That was a really fun 20 minute ride on my scooter). Anyways, the race starts and the rain starts coming down really hard and continues for about the first 15 minutes or so. It was freeeezing.

Ok, here was my strategy. Since I knew I was out of shape and had no idea what kind of time I could run 13 miles in, my plan was to go out slowly like a training run (about 7 min/mile pace). I was planning on coming through the first 5k in about 21:50 and then, as the race went on, slowly speeding up and just busting out whatever I had left in the last miles of the race. I thought I might be able to finish in 1hr. and 30 minutes. 1^st 5k (planned) 21:50. 1^st 5k (actual time) 19:42. My thoughts: “Oh great, I went out over a minute too fast and this is going to be the most painful run ever. I should slow down a little.” I did a tiny bit. The whole time I knew I was going too fast and by the time the first 5k was passed my legs were feeling heavy already and I was feeling like I was on the verge of my legs cramping up and my stomach throwing up my pb&h (peanut butter and honey) sandwiches and my banana that I had for breakfast. This lasted the rest of the race, but somehow, I have no idea how, those feelings were just “on the verge” the whole time. I kept my pace steady the last 10 miles and was able to finish in 1 hr and 24 minutes! It was a miracle and I was ecstatic to be able to average sub 7 min. miles for 13 miles despite the vast majority of my “training” being about 7:30 to 8:00+ pace. Although in my mind I felt great, the rest of my body was screaming in pain and I limped around for literally the next 3 days at school. I may not be in shape, but I proved to myself that I still had some guts left in my body.

Why Squat When You Can Sit

I used a Japanese “squatty potty” for the first time last month. Some of you who have lived in Japan may ask, “Why?” or “How is this possible?” Well let me explain. Actually first let me describe Japanese toilets to you who have never been here. In Japan, your toilets, other than urinals, are either a fancy throne on which you have a heated seat, bidet, and too many buttons to be able to feel safe pushing for things like fake flush sounds and who knows what else or what looks like a small urinal lying sideways in the floor. The latter is known by many as a squatty potty, because you have to stand over it and squat to do your business, and is the most common toilet in Japan. To foreigners like me it is like, “Why?” To the Japanese it is completely normal and they have probably never questioned it in their lives. I also firmly believe that they probably all have amazingly strong quads.

A squatty potty, fancy toilet, and close up example of the buttons on a fancy toilet (they are not usually this easy to understand).

Okay, back to the “How is it possible for you to go 6 months without using a squatty potty?” Once again, my bum ankle comes into the equation here. Since I tore 2 ligaments in my ankle after being in Japan for barely 9 days, it became impossible to bend my ankle and, therefore, impossible to squat. That knocks out the first two months. After that, my ankle was still sore for a few months and holding a squat position would still cause it quite a bit of pain. Other than that I just didn’t have any desire to use a squatty potty unless I really had to. Also, once it had been 3 or 4 months, I thought, “hmm, maybe if I keep this up I can set some kind of AET record for going the longest time without using a squatty potty…” Sadly, my attempt at a record was stopped dead in its tracks at the half marathon. Getting rid of whatever you have inside of you before a race is very important and especially important in a long race like a half. Before the race, Wade and I went searching for bathrooms. The first problem: there were three bathrooms with only 2 or 3 stalls each and they all had pretty long lines. You would think that in a race with 4,000+ runners there would be more than 7 toilets. Second problem: they were all squatties. Based on many years of race experience (good and bad) how important it is to get rid of that extra bit of “weight” right before the race, I knew I had no choice. For your sake, and my own, I won’t go into any details, but I took care of business using the squatty and that’s that. I still don’t like them.

I’ve Been Bideted

This is another paragraph concerning toilets in Japan, but this one is about the fancy shmancy throne toilets. I used one at the mall in Uchihara a few weeks ago. It was a cold day and as I was sitting there on the wonderful, warm seat in pure bliss I was looking at all of the buttons next to me. I found the one for the bidet and decided it was about time I tried this feature. I pushed the button and the stream of water shot up from somewhere inside the toilet and hit me. That was exactly what it was supposed to do, but I didn’t like it. It ruined my blissful experience I was having thanks to the warm toilet seat on a cold day. On top of that, I tried to turn it off by pushing the same button I used to turn it on, but that didn’t do anything. I thought maybe the shooting stream of water was set on a timer so I let it go for a little while longer, but of course it didn’t stop. I then desperately started pushing lots of buttons and getting fake flush sounds and other things until I finally hit the right button and it stopped. I then decided bidets were not for me.

Thanksgiving

We had a Thanksgiving dinner at church the day after thanksgiving. I really wished I could have been with my family back home and spent the day with them eating tons of delicious food, falling asleep on the couch while watching the Cowboys dominate, and playing nertz after finding my second wind, but it was a good day nonetheless. We had a good group of people at the church, lots of good food (although none of my mom’s famous pies), I baked a rum cake for dessert, and I had a great time cleaning up until 9:00 that night and then topping off the night with a relaxing visit to an onsen.

Locked “Out” of True Blue

My school hosted a Kabocha Matsuri (Pumpkin Festival) for the community one Saturday last month so I decided to go and see what it was all about and see some of my kids and see how surprised they would be to realize that I exist outside of school and that I don’t commute from Oklahoma to Japan everyday for school. I have always had this fear that I would accidentally lock my keys under the seat of my scooter where I store things like gloves, etc. I made it 7 months before it happened. I arrived at the school put my keys in my pocket before closing the seat on my scooter, therefore making it impossible to lock my keys in my scooter, right? Wrong, I put the keys in my coat pocket and then proceeded to put my coat under my seat and shut it. I started walking away then realized what I had done. To make a long story short, after many phone calls and trying to jimmy it open with some tools I finally pushed my scooter to a nearby bicycle shop and asked for help. In the end I learned that all it takes to open my scooter seat without a key is one foot on the scooter to hold it down and four arms with a little muscle to do the rest (don’t tell anyone).

Many More Adventures to Come in Japan

The last, but maybe most important, bit of information I will give you guys is this: Last month I officially decided to stay in Japan for another year once my contract ends at the end of March. That means I will be here at least until April 2009. April 2009 sounds so far away, but after lots of thinking, praying, and listening I think it’s what I’m supposed to do. I also think it will come like a snap of the finger based on how fast time has flown so far. My last thought: COME VISIT ME! You have a free place to stay.

Here you go Katie.

I think I’ll start this post out with a quick short story. Last Sunday I was getting ready to play tennis with two of the Japanese men from church, Hira san and Yamamura san, one of my IC friends, Koichi san, and a friend from OC on the Pac Rim trip, Chace Estes. We met at the church building to ride together and as I was about to get in the car, Hira san decided to start driving off before I was actually in and he ran over my foot with his car! No lie, he actually drove his car over my foot. Luckily, it didn’t hurt at all and I didn’t have to make yet another trip to the hospital/doctor like my first few months here, but I still didn’t tell him that he ran over my foot. Maybe I will someday.

Three Saturdays ago I went to Tsuchiura for a fireworks competition with a group of friends: me, Wade, Elizabeth, Katie, Minako, and another OC friend who is on the Pac Rim trip, Reid Agan. That’s right, this was not a fireworks show, it was a fireworks competition so there were a few people trying to make their fireworks bigger and better than the person before them. It was pretty cool. Some of the fireworks were huge and I saw a lot of things I never saw back in America. Plus, fireworks competitions and shows literally last for hours here in Japan. Another crazy thing about this event is the number of people who attended it. Last year, there were 800,000 people there. I haven’t heard a number on this year’s event, but I’m betting it was just as many people or more. We rode the train to Tsuchiura and it was packed. This is what it looked like:

Also, there were tons of Japanese foods available there, kind of like the fair in America, but I won’t lie; I like American fair food a lot better. I finally was able to try a fish on a stick. This is just a whole fish with a stick shoved through its mouth and cooked (thankfully) and then eaten by a foreigner like me. Of course, Japanese people eat them also. I didn’t like it. It was way too salty.

In my last post, which I guess you could call a “teaser” post, I told you I was going paragliding. I’m a man of my word. Elizabeth, Minako, Joey and I took the train to Ishioka, about 30 minutes from Mito, and went paragliding! For those of you who aren’t exactly sure what paragliding is, I wasn’t at first, it involves you, a parachute, a mountain, and you running off of the mountain. It’s not running off the edge of a cliff, but going to the top of the mountain and running down a steep part of the mountain until your parachute catches and lifts you into the air and then you fly for a while. We did tandem paragliding and our instructor that flew with us just so happened to be a Japanese guy who is the paragliding World Cup champion. It was pretty cool. Each of us was in the air for about 10 minutes and the view was really nice. My favorite part of the day, though, was actually after lunch while I was waiting for some of the others to have their turn. Those of us that weren’t flying at the time got to learn to paraglide on our own on the practice hill at the bottom of the mountain. We started at the very bottom of the hill and each time moved up higher until we got to the top. It was really cool.

Take off point.

I have decided that the last section of this post will be about some of the “delicious” things that I have eaten in the last month or two. Back in September my main school, Ishikawa, had its undoukai (sports festival). This is a huge, annual event for every school in Japan. After the sports festival the teachers all got together for an enkai, literally translated “drinking party.” These involve something like 12 course meals and even more courses of alcohol for a lot of the teachers. At this particular enkai I had an interesting menu of foods, many of which I had never had before. I ate sashimi (raw fish), shark fin, a whole fish head on a plate, eel sushi, and about 8 other plates that I can’t remember at the moment. Surprisingly, it was all pretty good or at least not bad. I actually took home a leftover raw eel, but I never ate it. It just sat in my fridge until it came back to life and I had to re-kill it and dispose of it in the proper Japanese way so I wouldn’t get deported.

Back in October I went to the Oarai Aquarium and had a great time there. One of my favorite things I saw at the aquarium was a giant octopus. Well, after I returned to Mito I went to my Koucho Sensei’s (principal’s) house for dinner and we had octopus salad. It was a little strange after seeing a real, huge, live one a few hours earlier. But I do like octopus a lot better than squid. I’ve had both a number of times in my school lunch since then. Usually my school lunch is not bad, but yesterday I had two whole fish sitting on my lunch tray in front of me. They weren’t staring at me like sometimes, luckily they were breaded and fried so I couldn’t see their eyes, but they were pregnant and tasted very fishy. The eggs weren’t very good. If they hadn’t been breaded and fried I don’t know if I could have finished them. Oh, one last thing that popped into my mind! In another school lunch back in October we had a salad that consisted of, literally, at least 150 tiny fish on a plate. That’s at least 300 tiny eyeballs staring at me. I devoured them. They were pretty good, but I don’t think I would order them at a restaurant if there were other choices.
I am going to the mountains of Fukushima this weekend to do a little camping! Lance Towers is in town visiting and gets to go with us. I’m really excited!

Exciting Times!

I'm going paragliding for the first time tomorrow in Ishioka!!! I'll let you know how it goes sometime soon hopefully.

First Blog Post of My Life

Well, hello there. Welcome to my blog. In case you didn’t know, or just forgot, I am living in Japan right now in a place called Mito, Ibaraki and I am so on top of things here. Evidence of that is it only took me 5 months and 3 weeks to post my first blog. I apologize. I have always believed that once I got this first one out of the way I would keep things updated way more regularly with shorter, interesting posts whenever something happens that I want to tell you about.

Obviously, in my almost 6 months that I have been in Japan for, I have had more than a few exciting experiences, funny stories, made plenty of stupid foreigner mistakes, and dated lots of women (of course I might be kidding, joking, joshing, siking, etc…just pick your favorite word. It’s like a “choose your own adventure” book!) Because of these facts/jokes (choose again) I will not even make an attempt to tell you any small percentage of the things that I would have liked to tell you had I been keeping this up to date all along, only a very, very small percentage. Basically, I will just give you a very brief overview of a few things from my first half a year here and tell you about some of my adventures from the summer. Here we go:

I cannot believe that I have been here in Mito almost six months already. It seriously seems like just yesterday that I left the beautiful state of Oklahoma for a little island with many things that I like, and don’t like, that Oklahoma does not have. One of the first things I noticed here was how low all of the door frames are. I have added many new lumps to my head since my arrival. But I have thought of at least pro to this problem. As I’m sure most of you know, bowing is a very important part of Japanese culture. Well, thanks to this low door frame problem, I don’t even have to think about bowing to the Japanese people when I enter a room because I have to automatically do it anyway or I’ll end up with new lump #327 on my head.

I stay very busy here pretty much all the time and lately it has seemed to just get more and more busy. I am teaching English in two elementary schools and a kindergarten. My main school is Ishikawa Shogakko (Elementary School). It has 561 students and it has a kindergarten also with about 50+ students. My other school which I attend once a week is Yamane Shogakko. It is a tiny little country school and only has 33 students total. The kids and teachers there are great and I love it. I basically work from 8-5 every day and then in the evenings and weekends I do things like go to Japanese class, play basketball, play soccer, play volleyball, try to find time to run, go to church, go to EBC (English Bible Class-I will tell you more about this ministry in other posts I’m sure), and whenever I actually have a small amount of free time I try and cram something fun in there when I really should be sleeping.

OK, I need to cut to the point here so this blog doesn’t require a next page->. Let me tell you a very abbreviated, lacking many details, version of my summer and then I think I’ll be done for now. At the beginning of my summer break-wait hold on a second-first let me explain “summer break” for you. The students get one month off of school for summer, but the teachers still have to go to school all day everyday the whole month except for 5 days special vacation that we can use. We can also use some of our regular, yearly allotted, paid vacation days during this time. OK, back to my abbreviated summer. At the beginning of my summer I did some hiking along a beautiful river in the mountains, called Takigawa Keiko ku, with lots of waterfalls with my friend Patrick and his dog Kandi. Then I went surfing the next two days. One day with Mark Hancock, his sons Christian and Charlie, and also Katie Blake. The next day I went with Wade and Shinobu. Sadly, these are the only days I have been able to go surfing so far. Later that week I left for America to take part in my brother, Travis’s, wedding. I stayed there a week and then made the long trip back to Japan. A couple days after I got back I climbed Mt. Fuji with Wade, Minako, Katie, Kendon, and Julia. We climbed all night and then watched the sunrise from the top. It was beautiful. Less than a week after that I hopped on the night bus with Wade and went to Kyoto (a very beautiful, traditional style Japanese city) and Osaka (third largest city in Japan). In Osaka we got to visit Gavin and Lindsay Dao and then we watched the last day of the Track and Field World Championships. It was really exciting for us track nerds to watch all of those fast people run who we had only heard of before that time. That is the very abbreviated version of my summer. All during that time we had a couple typhoons, lots of earthquakes and other fun things like that. I also hung out with Hitomi almost every day when I was in town until she left for OC.

OK, I’m done. Sorry for the novel. I promise my future posts will not be even anywhere close to this long. I had to get all of this out so that I can write shorter ones from now on. I miss all of you guys and hope you are doing well.

~Austin

P.S. I have lots of pictures from my adventures posted on Facebook. Check ‘em out. For those of you not privileged enough to have that time stealer, A.K.A. Facebook, I am going to try and start posting pics on a public site like Google Picasa. I’ll let you know when I do. Bye bye.