hey all,
Been a busy week. Lessons are going pretty well, but I think my PM class is getting sleepier and sleepier every day. I have to have them go through an essay about designing stamps of all things on Monday, but hopefully we will have a new packet of material.
Yesterday went all right at work. A lot of baby lessons, but I got out at 5PM which was nice. Michi came over and we watched part of The Dark Knight, but the voices for the movie were really soft despite the volume being at 100% and we had to get up early for rock climbing anyway.
Today was the debut for my 70L hiking/camping backpack. It handled pretty well, and felt much lighter than my 46L. The bigger pack has more padding on the hips, shoulder straps, and back, plus it is actually designed for hiking as opposed to air travel like the 46L. But, I think I need to spot bringing all of my climbing gear on every trip though, because all those nuts, carabiners, cams, and slings really add up to a lot of weight that doesn't all get used. I think I'll really have to pack my gear carefully too, since it seemed...not full necessarily, but even with just my gear rack, water, rope, harness, and shoes the bag seemed like I'd have to start strapping stuff to the outside. Of course, I'll have to do that anyway for climbing/camping trips, but for just a climbing day trip it felt a bit strange.
We headed over to Yugawara, which I at least haven't been to for almost 4 months. We only climbed four different routes, but we climbed each one several times a piece, so we still got in a decent about of climbing time. Especially fun was a 5.10b called Christmas Rose which I climbed 3 times. The last climb of the day was a frustrating 5.10b called Alibaba, which I had to down climb because I couldn't make it to the top. As the last climb of the day, I should have chosen a 5.10a or a 5.9 since I was already tired.
If you're in to flowers, Japan is not a bad place to live, especially since being in to flowers doesn't seem to have any homosexual or overly girly connotations. Most of the people stopping and taking photos of flowers are actually middle aged or retired guys with monster cameras. What I wanted to say is that right now is the ume season (the Japanese plum tree), and there was a whole field of them at Yugawara. And of course, for the next month to 6 weeks, we'll have the sakura season. Basically, if you aren't in to flowers when you come here, you will probably develop a major thing for them during your stay.
In the "It's a small world" department, in case anyone has heard about that earthquake in New Zealand, it appears that one of Michi's friends from yoga school might have lost her life in the incident. The name, age, and profession all match Michi's friend, and I don't want to to run the odds on there being another Japanese woman with the same name, age and job being in the same place at the same time as Michi's friend.
In about 16 days, I'll be looking at 2 years in Japan, not counting the 4 day romp I had in the US for New Year's.
Cheers,
