recently..

how quickly i get behind on rehashing every detail of my life for you all. where to start…
in the beginning of july people began decorating my street for the tanabata festival. there were long bamboo limbs hanging over the sidewalk every few feet. suspended from them were colorful strips of paper on which wishes had been artistically recorded.

tanabata means star festival and the story goes, there was a weaver princess and a cow herder prince who fell in love and began to spend every minute together, eventually neglecting their jobs which made the king very angry. he punished them by separating them on opposite sides of a river and allowed them to meet only once a year, on the 7th day of the 7th month. the lovers are two stars [altair and vega] and the river separating them is the milky way galaxy.

lizzy and i were having a sleepover at my place recently when we got the bright idea to explore some rooftops. in very un-japanese fashion, we scaled a tall pole onto one of the mainstreet’s overhangs, called gangidori.

from there we were able to watch young lovers leaving restaurants, drunken businessmen stumbling home after nomikai, or drinking parties, and older people out for evening strolls. we weren’t quite as stealthy as the ninjas we pretended to be…eventually someone yelled up at us so we hit the deck, laying flat on the rooftop, stifling our hysterical laughter, until he had lost interest in us and wandered on. we descended and headed home with the satisfaction you can only get from a mischievous adventure. here’s to box-wine courage!!


we recently had taikusai, summer sports day, at minamishiro high school. the students’ committee planned the events which consisted of some traditional games and bizarre obstacle courses. in one event teammates stand in a line and attempt to pass a huge ball over their heads all the way down the line, after which the last person rolls the ball back to the front and puts it on a stand. i would say the ball is about 5 feet in diameter and i can’t guess how heavy as the teachers weren’t allowed to play. a co-worker asked me if i’d participate in a teacher’s obstacle course…absolutely! i didn’t here anything about the event until the day of, as we’re readying to start, when they layed out the rules. it’s a sprint to the baseball bat station where you must put your forehead on the bat and spin around 5 times, dizzy bat style, then a sprint to these trays of flour. in each tray there is hidden candy which you must find without using your hands, then a sprint to the finish line. i managed to win, but as an afterthought i realized that besting my superiors was probably not the polite, japanese thing to do. afterwards, i was able to run around and threaten to rub my dirty face all over the kids.


melanie’s birthday was july 7 so that weekend we gathered at my place for drinks and dinner before heading to the beach for a dance party, the best in recent memory.

naoetsu, the neighboring town, has an oceanfront with incredible natural beauty and so much potential if they would just capitalize on it. there are numerous buildings on the water, most of which are run-down seafood markets and shacks that time has forgotten. the few restaurants aren’t hip and they close so early we’ve yet to make it there for dinner. the dance event was held in a covered space right on the water. we danced until daylight and then camped out on the beach.

july 15, friday night, carrie threw a get-together for mel’s and my birthdays. we invited a hodgepodge of people to eat and drink and it ended up being a lot of raucous fun.

to the right of me is takafumi, a new boy i’ve been messing around with a little bit. he doesn’t call me all the time, or stop by everyday wanting to hang out, or invite himself out with my friends or anything. good boy. you know how i like my space.

the next day carrie, mel, liz and i headed to kashiwazaki for a party and we went a bit early to make a beach day out of it. many of our friends started arriving in the afternoon, in time for the bbq planned by a couple of the locals.

there’s a great bar opposite the beach where we danced the night away. they had two floors of music with different djs and the place was packed. we’d invited a couple of japanese teachers we’d met on the beach that day and we were pleasantly surprised when they showed up with a bunch of friends in tow. ended up meeting some really cool guys.