Chops

Today I bid farewell to these majestic sideburns, sometimes called mutton chops. If you look at my Australia photos or Charlie's, you may notice that I let my facial hair grow unhindered in my time down under. That was so until the final night, when instead of outright shaving, I decided to try something new.

At the time I hated the new look, but decided to endure just for the sake of being rediculous. Partially due to prodding by my travelling companions, and partially due to my own curiousity, I decided to keep the chops not only on my flight home, but to my first day of work. Japanese schools tend to be conservative. The students wear strict uniforms, and most of the men wear suits every day (I don't). I expected some kind of backlash to the chops, but there was none. Some were shocked, others impressed. Some loved it and some hated it, but there was no official disapproval from any authorities. Every morning for a week I fought with myself in front of the mirror about whether or not that would be the day to remove the chops. I kept asking other people's opinions until I determined that only one opinion really mattered -- my own. And off they came. They just didn't feel like "me".

But now, in retrospect, looking at the pictures taken during their brief lifetime, I have begun to miss the chops. Maybe I just didn't give them enough time to settle in. Oh well, I shall remain clean shaven for the time being, but the pictures have led me to believe, a short, clean cut beard could be a possibility in the future. We'll see.

note about my photos

As I mentioned in the last post, I am adjusting the way I post photos. I am using a service called flickr, where I can upload all the full-size images I want and not just the shrunk, low quality ones you usually see on my site.

To see all my photos, just click the link on the right side of the blog. Note that I will simultaneously be uploading new photos that I take and old ones that I want to archive on the internet. You can enjoy both, though it may be confusing at times which are new and which are old. I'll try to keep them organized in sets.

Corporate Adventures

Showing up to work on Monday wasn't easy. Even though I was seeing people, places, sports, foods and animals I had never seen before, Australia reminded me quite a bit of home and of all those things that I miss living in Japan. The trip was great, thanks in a large part to Alex who did most, if not all, the planning for our adventures.

You may ask why the title says "corporate adventures" as opposed to regular ones. It started with a DVD called, "The Corporation." It argues, convincingly, that there is a disparity in the fact that US laws generally treat corporations like people and gives them many of the same rights, but that if we were to judge corporations as we judge people, then they would all be heartless psychopaths. I don't know what that suggests about how to solve the problems of the world, but it was interesting, and it did inspire our idea about making a real human corporation, me. For the duration of the trip, I was referred to as "The Corporation." Alex even bought some shares for ten Australian dollars.

Now, I've tried to recall everything we did and I put it down more for my own sake than anyone else's, but I figured some might be curious, so here you can read where I've been and what I've done, complete with Wikipedia and other links and as little commentary as I could manage. I'm also trying out a different way of uploading pics to the web, Flickr. Just click on the photo at the top of the post to see all the photos I've uploaded. Unfortunately I'm not in many pictures, but soon you may be able to see some of the shots Charlie and Alex took.

Note - this timeline may have some mistakes (names mispelled or events out of order). Hopefully it will get fixed up.

Day 1 - Early arrival in Melbourne. Saw Casanova on plane. 2/4 stars. Alex (fellow teacher, Melbourne native) and Charlie (another teacher, who had arrived in Australia days earlier) picked me up and we went to a big breakfast in the middle of town. Bacon and eggs. It was huge. Next, ice cream. Visit to the market. Stop at Alex's sister's apartment. Drive to Alex's parents' house. Short hike in national park behind house. Attempt to spot wild koalas. Failure. Roast lamb (thank you Barkers). Games. First attempt to watch "The Corporation." Failure (too sleepy). Soft bed (thanks again Barkers).

Day 2 - Cereal. Second attempt to watch "The COrporation." Success. Drive back to Melbourne. Expensive luxury movie experience. Big, soft seat. Three course meal. Spike Lee's Inside Man. 3.5/4 stars. Beertopia. Sampling countless Australian beers and meeting Alex's friends.

Day 3 - BBQ. Wildlife sanctuary. Koalas (not "Koala bears". Kangaroos. Wallabies. Wombats. Platypus. Monitor lizard eating a chick. Out to a pub at night. Leaving early with Charlie due to exhaustion and having had enough beer the night before.

Day 4 - Black Hawk Down on DVD. Australian Rules Football game. Night out. Latin music club.

Day 5 - Hiking in forest near Alex's old home. Stopping for tea. Acquirement of Larry the Land Cruiser from Alf. Stopping on the Neighbors street. Taking bad photos. Vietnamese food. Pub Trivia.

Day 6 - Road trip begins. Meat pie restaurant (I chose the Thai chicken pie). Surfing in Lorne. Failure to ride a wave correctly. Fish and chips. Parking near Otway Lighthouse. Attempt to follow a trail to find the lighthouse in the dark. Failure (wrong trail). Card games in Larry.

Day 7 - Visit Lighthouse (sort of a musuem). Talk to descendent of light house keepers. Mistaken for university student on a babe-hunt. More driving. Rain forest hike. Another rain forest hike. On walkways at the top of the canopy. More driving. Stop next to cricket field. Cooking lamb meat sandwiches in Larry. Cards.

Day 8 - "The day with no lunch". Bacon and eggs. Visit first winery. Drink wine. Drive to Grampians. Observe devasation and regrowth after a forest fire. Hiking / climbing around on precarious rock ledges. Wild wallaby sighted. Decision to return to Melbourne a day earlier than planned. Visit second winery. Disliked by pourer. Watched The Da Vinci Code. 2.5/4 stars. Unable to get into Alex's sister's apartment. Cards inside Larry, parked outside sister's apartment. Intention to eat kangaroo. Discovery that meat turned green. Last night inside Larry.

Day 9 - Relaxing at Alex's sister's apartment (key acquired from Mr. Barker). Steak dinner. Bar hopping. Barred from clubs due to shabby clothing. Feeding possums in the park at night. Discovery that Australian possums are far superior to the American varieties (they're actually cute).

Day 10 - Charlie goes home early. Melbourne Aquarium. "Wave Rider" ride at end of aquarium tour. Utter disappointment. Melbourne museum. Slowly learning more about Australia. Greek lamb meat sandwhich. Flight home. Watched Match Point. 4/4 stars.

Big thanks to Sarah (sp?) and Heath, Morag, and Mr. and Mrs. Barker for letting us stay at their places, and once again thanks to alex for inviting me and being an excellent guide.

Australia

Going to Australia today, will be back on the 21st.

Aichi-Ken

Yesterday Satoko and I returned from our four and a half day Golden Week vacation to her hometown of Ichinomiya in the region of Aichi, near Nagoya City.

We stayed at Satoko's family's house with her parents and one of her sisters, Chikako. A big THANK YOU to Satoko's mom and dad for taking care of me and providing some delicious food. The house included an extensive Japanese garden which included nicely pruned trees, all kinds of flowers, a serious vegetable patch, and a couple bonsai trees.







We arrived late Wednesday and didn't do much before going to bed. The next day we all went to visit Satoko's grandmother, aunt, uncle and cousins and had a sort of tofu and miso bbq (putting tofu pieces on sticks, covering them in miso, and cooking them over a little fire).

We walked around Satoko's neigborhood, visited her old elementary school, stopped at a park, and checked out this neat shrine:



On Friday we went to Nagoya city, which resembled most other big Japanese cities I've seen. Here is a picture of Nagoya castle:



We had a few odd encounters in the city, the oddest at a stylish, expensive looking hat store which in retrospect I wish I had taken a picture of. We entered and started browsing through the hats. I found one I liked and tried it on, though I had no intention of spending any serious money on a hat that day. Though there was a small mirror on the wall for me to look at, the lone saleman urged me to try the large changing room, where I could admire myself in a full-length mirror. It didn't seem necessary to me, but he was quite insistent, so without quite thinking I went in and Satoko followed as well, and then the salesman closed the door.

Only at this point did I realize what I walked into, because the door he closed was no ordinary door, but a vault door, about 6 inches thick and with one of those big wheels you turn to close it from the outside. There was no handle on the inside. As soon as I realized I had been fooled, out went the lights.

Now, I was pretty sure that it was all just a lame joke, but you can't prevent thoughts such as "how long does the air in a room this size last?", "if I scream and knock on this 6 inch thick door, will anyone hear me?" and "if poison gas were to be pumped into the room, would I smell it?" from popping up. I used the light on my cell phone to look around the room while Satoko started banging on the door. I comforted myself with the thought that if I wasn't able to get out if I and ended up dying or being tortured by some sick hat enthusiast, at least I could enact some small revenge by thoroughly destroying the expensive hat I had in my hand.

Things didn't go that far as after about two minutes, the door opened, and the man apologized to us, saying that he "forgot." That is all we got out of him. He tried to strike up a "hey, what's your name, where are you from?" kind of conversation, but he had already lost my business and I just wanted to get out of there and buy a hat somewhere else as revenge.

The next day we visited a bunch of Satoko's friends, and at night made pizza at her friend Satomi's apartment. Here we are after finishing our meal (Satomi is the second from the left, next to her husband Makoto, and in the middle is another friend, Norie. The dog's name is Hanabi.):



And finally, here is a picture of me, Satoko, and her parents that we took just before we left.

Happy Birthday Satoko!

This is a day late, but happy birthday Satoko!

On Saturday night we had a little party at my apartment. We ate pizza, mashed potatoes and salad. We drank wine, screwdivers and root beer floats. We watched Finding Nemo in Japanese and a little bit of the Simpsons. (You can barely see in this picture, but we put sparklers in the pizza crust)



On Sunday, her actual birthday, together we made a special dinner of a hamburger and a salmon in tomato cream sauce pasta. And then we had a bit of cake, just the two of us.