Excuses, excuses, and Meeting the Parents

1. I have been really quiet the last few months, but I have been pretty busy. Work is taking up a monster chunk of my time, as it usually does, and I’ve made lots of new friends, all of whom I want to see on the weekend but there is not nearly enough time to see them all and do all those other things. Like grocery shopping (I’ve taken to freezing everything so it doesn’t go off in the fridge), paying bills, the ironing, the cleaning… but things are going tremendously well, though nothing of note to report. I have mentioned that I am enjoying this teaching business, more so that I thought I would, and I think I’ve got the hang of it now. Though I suspect it will be quite some time before I can say that I am good at teaching.

2. Actually I lied when I said there was nothing of note to report, there has been one thing. Last weekend I rather unexpectedly met The Parents. The Girlfriend and I were on a nice stroll through her part of Hiroshima, where she led me back to her house. I [hid] waited dutifully outside as she went inside to grab her mobile phone, and when she came out she announced that her mum wanted to meet me. Well! Ambushed, and having absolutely nowhere to run, I put on a brave face and went inside, (desperately trying to remember how to greet people in Japanese) and found an absolutely lovely woman who was slightly less inimidating than I’d expected. The Father, however, was not so successful.

3. This story is every bit as funny as you think it will be.

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Halloween @ Chinatown

1. Halloween is not a big deal in Australia, at least for anybody I knew back home. Here, there’s only one reason to celebrate Halloween — and that’s Nanja Events’ Halloween costume party at Club Chinatown last Saturday night.

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Seven Months

1. It was seven months ago today when I first arrived in Hiroshima; I remember stepping out of Hiroshima Station to a display of flashing neon and rumbling streetcars, feeling a long and unknown road stretch out into the distance. Weariness from travel and absorbing so many new things had me feeling a little romantic I suppose, but I felt as though I had finally crossed the threshold into the world my imagination had conjured months before my arrival. For the second time in my life I was living in a place that was truly foreign and completely outside my realm of experience. How many experience that even once?

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The Big Flop and the Big Durian

1. I have been rather lax the last couple of months, and I have no excuse besides laziness. So, a quick update on life matters.

2. Firstly, my long awaited trip to Kansai this month ran wildly off course and unfortunately had to be aborted mid-trip. It was disappointing, but Kansai is only a two hour train trip away, and I’ve been told November is the best time to go; as the country slips into Autumn it dresses itself in a brilliant red, a breathtaking sight. Not sure the finances will cope but a November weekend in Kyoto is a possibility.

3. Secondly, I won’t be coming back to Sydney this NYE after all. Plane tickets were just to expensive to justify the short time back home, so now I and a fellow teacher here will be going to Indonesia instead — climbing Anak Krakatoa, visiting Yogyakarta and the nearby Merapi volcano and getting under the influence for Christmas and New Years in the Big Durian. Molten rocks, millenia old Javanese temples and cheap cheap beer, oh my!

4. I’m working right now to expand my photography portfolio, and am planning on launching a web store in the near future to sell my prints. I think I’ve got some nice images now, and the cost of entry is so low there’s no reason not to try. More on that as it comes.

5. Not much else to report I’m afraid — weekend antics notwithstanding (and I ain’t talkin’ about that). All is well in the night.

Sake Festival, Saijo

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1. Sake Matsuri, held at Saijo every October bills itself as “the biggest Citizen’s festival in Higashi (East) Hiroshima”, which I’m sure it is. But let’s just get right to the point — it’s just an excuse to get absolutely, totally, unequivocally blind drunk.

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Hiroshima Carp vs Yomiuri Giants, 13th August

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1. I’m not the world’s biggest baseball fan, or indeed a fan at all, but Hiroshima Carp home games are legendary for the enthusiasm displayed by the crowd during the games. I went to see the Carp (Carpu Carpu Carpu Hiroshima!) play the Yomiuri Giants on August 13th, and the crowd didn’t disappoint!

(The team… not as much.)

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Hiroshima A-Bomb 61st Anniversary

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1. Every year on the anniversary of the Atomic Bomb attack on Hiroshima on August 6th 1945 people flock to the Hiroshima Peace Park to pay their respects to the victims of the bomb, as well as spread messages of peace at the Lantern Festival held on the banks of Motoyasu-gawa, the river that runs between the Peace Park and the A-Bomb Dome, one of few surviving structures from the attack. The A-Bomb dome, originally the Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall, has since become an iconic reminder of the destructive power of nuclear weapons.

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The Near Future: Survivor, Survivor: Fuji, Survivor: Tour Guide and Survivor: Tsunami and Alcohol Poisoning

1. There’s a lot of stuff happening between now and the end of the year, and it’s got me awful excited!

2. Firstly I’ll be playing my own version of Survivor this Wednesday, getting on a boat with a bunch of locals and having a barbecue on a deserted island followed by watching a fireworks display on the aforementioned boat. We already have a clique going — The Ones Who Speak English. Or, more aptly — The Ones Who Can’t Speak Japanese. Well, The Girlfriend will be there, as well as a Japanese teacher from work, so it’s 50/50. Let’s call it the clique-within-the-clique. Cliquity-clique.

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Summer in the city, medical news, Fuji-san and the Lens Dilemma

1. The rainy season has given way to summer in Japan, and while the humidity has lessened somewhat, the heat is, as the song goes, on. Last Thursday saw temperatures hit the mid 30s, and this week the daytime temperature has not been less than 32C, which makes for a hot and sweaty time in a shirt and tie.

2. The hot weather has been causing some health problems for a few people as well: heat exhaustion, sleeping problems and loss of appetite were a common theme. I’ve been suffering from sleeping problems and general fatigue this last week, though I certainly have not lost my appetite. That should come as no surprise to those who know me.

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Humidity, Plague, TV and The Elusive Otherworld of Thought

1. Mushi Atsui! That’s what the Japanese call humid. And boy, it’s humid right now. Going outside is much like going to a sauna, and to do even the slightest bit of excercise (say, like walking to the shops) means you’re taking a shower — fully clothed and in your own sweat. I feel like a boiled sweet, only salty. Mmmm. Boiled salts.

2. I was going away for the weekend this weekend, but unfortunatly the girlfriend contracted some virulent strain of the flu which has left her bedridden with 40 degree fevers. Her temperature is bouncing around like a yo-yo, from 40 to normal to 39 back to normal; needless to say she’s staying at home, in bed, and mostly sleeping.

3. There seems to be an awful lot of people I know that is sick with something over the last week. One of my co-workers has had a cold for a while, another teacher suffered heatstroke, a few of my students have had bouts of something which hopefully I haven’t caught, and I’ve had trouble with hayfever and asthma. Even my ezcema has gone a bit nuts lately, which is stranger because it’s usually dry weather that causes it, not super humidity. Then again, I’ve never lived for so long in super humidity, so maybe I just discovered yet another facinating side to my allergies. Oh, to be boring and allergy-less.

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