The Most Beautiful Day
If I have ever said, "today was the most beautiful day," I was lying, because today was the most beautiful day. I'm not even sure how to put into words what a beautiful day it was. First off, the temperature was perfect. You know how sometimes when its starting to get cold, there will be a few days where the breeze is chilly but the sun is hot, so your nose and fingers can be cold but the rest of you will be almost sweating? Well, it wasn't like that. It was just past that. The sun warmed the air to just the perfect temperature so, even though I was riding my bike to work, I wasn't sweaty but I wasn't too cold. The sky was the most astounding bright blue, with only the occasional wispy cloud to let you know it was the sky. I think the sky is bluer here in general. The sky in Florida is too washed out. The leaves on the trees have continued to turn, so they create a very colorful picture as I ride past them. Its strange that I can't put my finger on exactly why the colors of the leaves are so amazing. The red ones aren't just red they are glowing, sort of like how the embers aren't just orange, except embers really are glowing. And the yellow ones, they are my favorite but I just can't pin point what it is about them. Its like the colors are changing right in front of you so its impossible to describe what color they are. Oh, and the best part of the most beautiful day, the part that made me sincerely regret that I was going to work instead of spending the day outside, was that when I rode over the river there were seven or eight ducks splashing around right under the bridge. One in particular looked like it was trying to get the others wet by diving under the water and kicking water up with its feet. I almost thought I was going to get a second bath. I can only hope that this most beautiful day is followed by more just like it.
First Snow of the Year!
Ah! I just found out today that Fukushima had its first snowfall of the season! One of my students mentioned to me today that yesterday, Wednesday the 25th, it snowed in the mountains surrounding the city. It makes sense. It rained straight from Tuesday through Wednesday and the temperature in the city was 8 - 12 degrees Celsius (40 - 50 Fahrenheit) so I imagine that made for perfect snowing conditions in the mountains. (Not that I know anything about perfect snowing conditions). For those of you who are unaware, Fukushima City is in a basin surrounded by mountains. Its very beautiful but it makes for strange weather. I am told that, within the next few weeks, we should be able to see snow on the tops of the mountains. How exciting! I can definitely wait a while before the snow starts in the city but I am very eager to see it on the mountain tops.
Watashi Wa Imas
I had my second Japanese lesson yesterday. It was fun. I have to admit, I feel really excited after the hour of choppy sentences and vocab building. I know I have barely touched the basics but I can feel myself entering into this new world... OK, yeah corny, I know. Actually, I've already entered the new world, its called Japan. Now, I'm just learning the skills to successfully live here. With each lesson, new doors open. I can tell time and, how exciting is this, when the woman at the post office told me how much I owed her, I knew how much it was without looking at the register. Baby steps, yes, but I'm working on it. Unless you've been to a place where you didn't speak a single word of the language, you wouldn't understand how thrilling it is to finally be able to recognize a word or phrase. After a few months I am going to attempt the reading and the writing part. This will be a whole new ballgame. I can't wait to write letters to people in kanji, or katakana, or hiragana, or maybe I'll just make something up that looks Japanese because no one will know any better.
Azuma Mountain
Yesterday (Tuesday, October 17) I climbed Mount Azuma. Today I can't walk. Ok, ok, I can hobble. Anyway, I went with my roommate, Donna, and a friend of hers who acted as tour guide and translator. It was pretty amazing. The trees in the mountains were already turning, showcasing the beautiful shades of hibernation. I have to admit, as beautiful as the changing leaves are, at first, all I could think about when I looked at them was death. I was really depressed when I realized that the reason the leaves were such beautiful colors was because they were dying. They die, fall off, and then the trees stand there, frozen, all winter. And even more morbid was that people seemed to celebrate this mass cessation of life. They were all so excited to see the pretty Autumn colors that they dismissed the funeral bells echoing under the crunching leaves beneath their feet. How undeniably sad. BUT, then I realized, or rather forced myself to realize so that I too could enjoy the beautiful Autumn scenery, that these vivacious little children of the Earth don't die, they simply go to sleep. After all, when the snow thaws and the ground warms there will be little green buds on every tree branch. All the plants will wake up again and provide shade and oxygen for all the Earth's creatures. So now, instead of being depressed, I am happy that the trees get to shed their summer coats and take a rest, hence "the beautiful shades of hibernation."
Enough of that, back to mountain climbing. It was really cold. Really cold. We were on Mount Azuma for about three hours, one of which was spent near a lake sort of in a valley. We ate lunch there and admired the contrasting blues of the sky and the water. Unfortunately, my camera failed to capture the incredibly colored sky but I'm working on it in iphoto. I'll post pictures on flickr soon, so make sure you check them out. Once we were through tramping around the mountain, Donna and I climbed Azuma"Fuji," as the natives like to call it. Azumafuji is an inactive volcano that last erupted about one hundred years ago (not so long if you ask me). If you ask me, we were dare devilishly risking our lives. Ok, so maybe we weren't in danger of molten lava but, I do whole heartedly believe, that if I had jumped as high as I could, the wind would of blown me into the crater. It was so windy on the top of the volcano that I literally slid down part of the outer rim. (Don't tell my mom.) This is me trying not to look like I was freezing and about to fall in.
Like I said, more pictures to come on flickr. After all this excitement, Donna and I went home and I cooked a huge pan of stir fry, yum. And that was it. After the wind and cold I felt on the mountain, I'm a little worried about what winter has in store. Actually, I'm petrified. So, if anyone has any good advise, please send it my way. And for all of you who are going to say, "stay warm," I'm sending you a precursory rolling of the eyes.
I Think The Word Is Autumn
The leaves have started to turn!
As many of you know, I have lived in Florida all my life. I have never experience what people call "seasons." I believe I am now experiencing what they call "Autumn." I'm not sure if I have just been too absent minded to notice or if there was a drastic change between yesterday and today, but today was the first day I noticed the amount of leaves on the ground. I was biking to work and all of a sudden I noticed the crunching noise coming from underneath my tires. There were leaves all over the ground! When I looked up again there was a tree with red leaves all over it. Imagine, four real seasons.
It's something new everyday.
I'm sitting in the kitchen and I hear accordion music coming from the window. Camera in hand, I pull back the curtain and...
Three clowns? Yep. Apparently they were doing some sort of advertising. Fine by me, it was a nice afternoon diversion and a good source of amusement. Just another bit of news to send home. And speaking of news, I have a bit of local American news to share. My super awesome, extremely talented sister, Christina, was in the local newspaper today, or yesterday, depending on what country you're in I guess. She is becoming quite the volleyball star. Read here about her team and see her picture at the bottom of the article. She is #9, and, as my dad said, the one with perfect form, caught at the top of her vertical leap, toes pointed, hands together, fingers forward, and a huge smile on her face as she blocked the ball and shoved it back into the snotty faces of her opposing team. Ok, I added the snotty faces part. Pretty sweet, huh?
So, I went to a Denny's. Yeah, I know, that's what I said too, "Denny's?" But the thing is, you don't understand how good the food is here. Just the presentation is amazing. The Japanese apparently take great pride in their food. You know how when you go to a restaurant and choose a picture off the menu that looks absolutely divine and then you get it and it looks absolutely dismal? Not here. They get the pictures for American menus from Japanese dinner tables. EXCEPT the portions are tiny. None the less, I ordered caramel honey pancakes, which I thought looked like they had whippedcream or something on top. Fine, not a big fan of all that but the pancakes sounded yummy. So I get them... and there is ice cream on my pancakes. And OMG was it delicious. The best breakfast I've had since I've been here. I also got an egg on the side, and get this, it was actually egg. I know, not quite on par with traditional Denny's standards. Oh, and the orange juice, I was practically eating it because it was so fresh and so pulpy. Yum.
Doesn't get any better than this, oh, but it did. Later, I went to a kaitenzushi where sushi comes around on a rotating conveyor belt. I went to one in Sendai too. The sushi is SO good and only about 100 to 200 yen a plate. You can just grab from the conveyor belt or order something special if you want. I had miso soup with clams, grabbed 2 plates of sushi, and ordered another one with crab and some kind of sweet white sauce drizzled over it. I also had a fruit and yogurt dessert to finish. I think I'm starting to get the hang of this Japanese thing. The two most important phrases I know are "arigato gozaimasu" (thank you very much) and "sumimasen" (excuse me). These coupled with pointing and hand gestures can get you what ever you need.
Well, I'm off to have more adventures, sayonara!
Spider Terror Threat Level: Blue (guarded)
From Fukushima Castle to Nihonmatsu
It just keeps getting better and better.
On Wednesday, my day off, Katie and I made our way down to the Abukuma River, a 15 minute walk from our apartment. I was promised by several people that there would be good biking paths along the water and that is was a nice place to spend the afternoon. So I packed a lunch of white bread and tuna and off we went. I have to say, despite the background noise of shiny, boxy, Japanese cars speeding across the bridge, the atmosphere was quite peaceful. The water was somewhat of an industrial green if you catch my smog, but I did see a fisherman trying to reel in his dinner so I guess it can't be that bad.
After a tour of the river bank, we made our way up a set of stairs that reminded my of an Aztec Temple. Fortunately I was not sacrificed. Instead, I found myself standing in front of a dragon guarded tea room, once a part of Fukushima Castle.
Most of the other castle buildings had been torn down. What used to be the stables are now the Prefecture Office, and the west and east gates are little more than aged pillars. However, it was a very intriguing spot to walk through. A mound, maybe several inches higher than the surrounding ground, was once called Maple Mountain. Upon closer inspection this conundrum proved to be inconclusive because I have no idea what Maple leaves look like. Maybe someone can help me out here.
more
After we left the river, Katie and I took a stroll to the supermarket to pick up some dinner. We passed by a shop with kimonos in the window and decided to take a look. The front of the store was filled with little odds and ends, such as purses, handkerchiefs, and phone chains, while the back was lined with kimonos. The woman working in the shop was very excited to show us around. I imagine she was pretty bored. Not many people shop for traditional clothing, the average price of which ranges between 300,000 and 400,000 yen. ($3,000 to $4,000) With Katie acting as translator, the woman invited us upstairs where the entire floor was nothing but kimonos and kimono accessories. They were beautiful. They were more impressive than any clothing I've ever seen or even heard of in the United States. As we admired the robes the woman asked Katie something in Japanese. I still had my camera with me from our trip to the river and seeing it, the woman asked if I would like to try on a kimono and take a picture. !! !! Speechless! Really!? Try on a kimono, worth more than my entire (well almost my entire) wardrobe? Are you kidding! She let me choose any one I wanted, which took about 10 minutes. There were so many. Then she fully dressed me in the complete outfit. It took about 10 minutes just to get everything on. There are so many different layers and pieces. The only thing she didn't do was tie the obi into a bow.
I had so much fun! It was really exciting. There are more kimono pictures on flickr.
And as if that weren't enough, later that night I went to a lantern festival in Nihonmatsu with Marissa and Alexis, two other Nova instructors. What a blast that was! I've never seen anything like it. There were huge lanterns leading up to this beautiful shrine where many of the local people were tying prayers on trees and ringing the shrine bells. At 9:00 they had a parade where men and boys dragged these huge lantern floats on wooden wheels down the streets. The floats were several stories high with an even higher extension where more lanterns hung. On the bottom of the floats were drummers and flute players. Behind each float, people would follow and chant back to the people chanting on the top of the float. It was quite a sight.
Its really hard to explain any more. You'll just have to see for yourself. (lantern festival)
That is all for now. I hope you all enjoy the pictures, I enjoyed taking them. More to come soon.
