Debut

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,

Roasted Mountain, Mmmm

hey all,

Cheers,

Jogasaki Crack and Natural Protection, and Mt. Omuro

hey all,

Pretty good weekend. We ended up taking a lesson from our climbing teacher about crack climbing and how to use natural protection. I'm glad Michi brought a big roll of sports tape, because without it, our hands would have gotten all beat and cut up. As it is, they're just a little sore.

I actually left the lesson after an hour in order to see the mountain grass get burned. The were serving lots of roasted foods: roasted chicken, roasted octopus, roasted corn, etc, all of which probably go well with roasted mountain. Pictures coming soon.

After that, I headed back to the climbing spot and rejoined the lesson.

That'll have to be it for now. As always, there is too much on my plate for me to get through on any given day, so I'll just have to keep having adventures.

Cheers,

Jogasaki

hey all,

Here is me and Michi with our wares.

Don't ask me why traffic cones need to be cute in Japan, but there seems to be a law about it.

Dramatic, no?

The mountain we went to see is near the eastern coast of Izu, where we went rock climbing in 2009.

Palm trees just a 40 minute walk from...

...This. The mountain we wanted to see get burned.

One of our teachers will be out for a doctor's appointment tomorrow morning, so I need to get in extra early to let one of the new teachers in, since he has an extra early class but doesn't have a key yet. That means it is time to take a shower, brush my teeth, and hit the futon.

Another picture of my climbing gear, but probably this is easier to understand. Quickdraws, carabiners, nuts, cams, slings, a toothbrush for cleaning dirty/chalky rock, and my protection removal tool (that black hooked device next to the toothbrush).

Cheers,

Wahoo Yahoo

hey all,

So this weekend's story would be really long, but it is already almost midnight, so it will leave it at this: Izu got the most snow they've seen in 15 years, and the burning of the mountain grass was canceled, or I should say postponed until next weekend. We ended up going to a museum, and taking a pottery class, and then spent all day today walking along the coast. After coming back to Tokyo, I met up with some of my former housemates, and they brought me the results of my JLPT.

As a quick side note, for some reason certain pieces of mail seem to be getting sent to my former place, and not forwarded to the new one, despite the fact that I set up a mail forwarding system at the post office.

Anyway, I passed the level 3. I got about 50% on the vocabulary/grammar section, and did a little better on the reading section, and for some reason I got 100% on the listening section. My Taiwanese former housemate said if I got about 20 points higher, I could pass the level 2, which is business level Japanese. I think I will try to take the level 2 this December. That will give me almost 10 months to get my vocabulary and grammar up to speed, since those areas are clearly my weak points.

Although this weekend was Valentine's Day, we didn't really do anything lovey-dovey (at the pottery class, we didn't even try to do "Ghost" homages). Probably next weekend, we have some more romantic things in plan, but it looks like Izu is planning on burning all that mountain grass next Sunday, so I might end up going to that.

Cheers,

Mail

hey all,

I received something in the mail today, but alas it was only my phone bill and not my anxiously awaited JLPT test results.

Morning classes are going OK, but my big PM group lesson is going through one of its frequent attitude shifts. Sometimes the students do really well, but sometimes it shows that they haven't been studying. Recently, I think the mothers have backed off a bit and since my students are all 7-10 years old for this class, that means that they've backed off as well.

Tired, so very tired. Probably a big bowl of curry and rice, plus a lot of pineapple chucks for dessert, on top of a second lunch of yakisoba is a bit much. And still I'm barely pushing 56kg.

Cheers,

Pictures, Etc

hey all,

So I was pretty nervous about NHK, but I think it went pretty well. They didn't focus on my class too much, actually, which was kinda nice but kinda disappointing at the same time. The rest of the day went pretty well. Nothing too much to report.

I have finally taken the initiative of uploading some pictures.

Here is my "old man" arm with a pain killer patch on it. I actually had to shave the hair under the patch to get the patch to stay on and to let my skin absorb the painkiller.

Here is some jelly and cream from one of my favorite Chinese restaurants. The jelly is made from ground up turtle shell. No joke.

My home made sweet and sour chicken.

My collection of rock climbing gear. You can see nuts on the right hand side (those hunks of metal hanging from steel wire), and cams at the bottom left (those half-moon mechanical devices).

These are some kind of shrimp rolls, I think. The one on the left has a demon/devil picture, and the one on the right is supposed to represent good luck. They're sold in celebration of Setsubun. These were really awful, but they were half off.

I may have mentioned it before, but I believe that I'm becoming a bit of a Hobbit. There is a joke in The Fellowship of the Ring before the Fellowship has truly formed and one of the Hobbits is complaining about not stopping for second breakfast, elevensies, tea, luncheon, or most of the other frequent meals that a Hobbit eats during the day. I, for one, have adapted the habit of eating a second lunch, since I often don't have much time to eat a full lunch with my students. I also need to keep my energy up for my afternoon classes, and besides, I'm still trying to get back up to 60kg.

Cheers,