Ahoy!

Fishing! A while ago at Maizushi I met Masashi-san, the father of one of my friend Jon's students. A professional fisherman in Odonosawa, he invited us to come along on his boat someday, and this weekend we finally went. Sunday happenned to be his birthday, so he invited us and a few friends from the Tokyo Power Company to not only go fishing, but also to a birthday party at his house.


Here is Jon and I aboard the boat in our life vests. Unfortunately the weather turned sour this weekend. Though it did not rain while we were fishing, it was cold and cloudy.



Masashi-san, the man driving the boat.


First we went to the other boats Masashi-san was in charge of as they pulled up their nets. Unfortunately, the pickins were slim.



Then we pulled up an octopus cage but only found these small fish, sea urchins, and that angry eel (which Masashi-san beat senseless with a mallet)

After fishing was the party. Lots of great food. For example, lobster sashimi.



And good times ensued as Jon taught Mashimi-san the West Side hand signal.

24

The fourth season of 24 has come to an end, and now I feel a void in my life. Fortunately I can fill this void by going back and watching the previous seasons which I have not seen. Because I have friends who have not yet watched all of season 4, I will just say, it was good. Season five is just 8 months away.

And here is a random quote I got from someone else. It's funny.

"Heaven is an American salary, a Chinese cook, an English house, and a Japanese wife. Hell is defined as having a Chinese salary, an English cook, a Japanese house, and an American wife."
James H. Kabbler III.

rokkasho weekend

I spent a couple nights in Rokkasho this weekend, Here are a few pics.


Alex and Brad on the beach.


Nobuko holds Alex on a short leash.


The Tyack and friends.


The so called "rape blossoms." Beautiful, yes, but I didn't notice any rapes at all.

El Espanol en Japon

Since last year, every Thursday I have visited the house of the Matsuuras to eat dinner, and practice speaking Spanish. Because it is an uncommon language to learn around here, Reiko Matsuura had to search high and low for someone to practice with, and after calling the schools she found me. I went once, had a lot of fun, and decided to make it a weekly event. She cooks, and we have conversations with and odd mixture of spanish, english, and japanese. Now I am practicing Spanish more in Japan than I ever did in America.


Here they are. The mom is Reiko. The kids from left to right are Maho, Saki, and Kana. And not pictured is the father Osamu, who was busy working at the hospital across the street (he is a surgeon). As you can see, the kids were a bit shy about the picture taking.

Big Movie Weekend

You have most likely heard me complain that the nearest movie theatre to where I live is about two hours away. Whereas in America I would go to the theatre weekly, now I can only go monthly. And to make matters worse, since the movies don't come out on the same schedule as in America and since I have never figured out the Japanese web sites that have movie listings, when I go to the theatre I have only a vague idea of what is playing. Sometimes there are good movies showing, sometimes only garbage, and sometimes there is a good movie but it is only being shown dubbed in Japanese.

This weekend our plan was to take the train to Shimoda on Friday, watch Kingdom of Heaven, which we knew was coming out, and then return to Shimokita the same night. The plan changed though when we discovered that Kingdom of Heaven opened on Saturday, not friday (why would a company EVER open a movie on saturday?). So, we decided to make the most of the weekend and watch Blade 3 on Friday, spend the night near Hachinohe, and then watch Kingdom of Heaven on Saturday. The third movie of the weekend was Constantine. Quite randomly, a Mutsu community center was having 3 screenings on Sunday. Movies in Mutsu are rare events. It eludes me as to why they would choose Constantine for such a rare event, but for whatever reason, I went.

Chris's opinions:

Blade 3: Some pleasant one-liners, a remade Dracula (buff, buzz-cut, renamed "Drake," and ready to club), and an intense scene where Blade's ally weeps over the death of a friend and Blade tells her in a deep voice, "Use it. USE IT!" make this uninspiring action movie worth seeing just for the laughs.

Kingdom of Heaven: It's always difficult to know just how historical these historical epics are. Toss such notions aside and this was a good movie, though not quite as profound as it wanted to be. Compared to Scott's other historical epic, Gladiator, I would say Gladiator is the better of the two, in part because Crowe's Maximus was more interesting than Bloom's Balian.

Constantine: There were some interesting visuals in this one, such as when Constantine smites some demon and its face breaks apart, and as it dies the little pieces of the face lie on the floor and continue to talk and look around nervously. There are some entertaining moments, but dont come looking for plot, acting, or even action, because there isnt much.

Purikura

Photo booths, aka "purikura" or "print club". Though found all over the world, the obsession is particularly high in Japan, especially among junior high and high school girls. Kids take pictures, trade them with their friends, and paste them into books where page after page bursts with purikura. Here are the results of a recent bout. Each picture is about as wide as a penny. This is me, my friend Dan, and my friend Mayumi.



I made this one specifically to give to students who had been demanding some "kurisu no purikura" for quite a while. I handed out a couple shots to one girl and suddenly six more hands shout toward me, each begging for one of their own. Luckily I came prepared. In return I received a nice stack that some students had made for me, which also included some Spongebob Squarepants stickers. My students are cool.

More Golden Week Pics

Here are pics from Hirosaki, famous for its cherry blossoms. Unfortunately I didn't have my good camera with me, and could only take a few pics on my keitai.







And here is a nice example of incorrect English usage in Japan.

Golden Week

For Golden week my friend Dan and I set out from Mutsu to ride to Hirosaki to see its famous castle and park while the cherry trees were in full bloom. Dan took an old clunky bike he had never actually ridden, and I borrowed a bike from a friend. We had two days worth of clothing, sleeping bags, and tarps to sleep on. When we were hungry we stopped at convenience stores and restaurants. When we needed a shower we visited Japanese public baths called onsen. It seemed like a good plan.

Here I am taking a break and eating an onigiri (rice ball wrapped in seaweed, in this case also filled with chicken and mayonaisse) for breakfast.


The first night we stopped at a campsite before reaching Aomori City. After going to an onsen, we searched for a restaurant, but found the only one in the area was closed for the holiday. There were no convenient stores nearby either, so the best we could do was eat food out of vending machines at the onsen. They actually had soup and fried rice, but my stomach couldnt handle a big meal. Around 7:30 it had turned dark, and with no places to go in the area, we set up to camp. We had two tarps, one underneath us and one we put over our sleeping bags like a blanket. We didn't expect rain.

The first suprise of the night after climbing into our sleeping bags was a frog. It was on my head. I woke up and felt something move on my ear. I flicked it away, expecting to find a big spider, but no, it was a big frog. Very slowly, it hopped away into the darkness.

Next suprise: rain. Barely a sprinkle, but after a few minutes we realized it wouldnt be stopping, so we moved our things to underneath the porch of a building in the park we were at.


Here are pics of us riding the next day:




Sad to say, I did not finish the ride to Hirosaki. On the second day, as we approached Aomori, my knees began to hurt, especially my right knee which I injured this winter while skiing. The kind of injury I knew would only get worse if I kept riding. To get to Aomori I had to walk my bike up hills and coast down, and then I could ride while it was flat. I left my bike at the train station, and took the train the rest of the way, as Dan rode on. Then Wednesday my friend Jon came to Hirosaki for an art show and he picked up me and my bike and we returned to Shimokita.

I have some pics of Hirosaki, but they are on my cell phone and I wont be able to post them for a few days.