3 Decades

Back from Okazaki, having completed a Japanese course that ended up being primarily review, disappointing but useful I suppose. Certainly I am more likely to impress the principal and vice principal with my new found grasp of polite Japanese when begging for favours.

Seized a chance to visit both Corinne and Berto in Gunma, arriving after 10 hours on the road in the middle of a torrential downpour that was so bad I couldn't see out the window no matter how fast my windshield wipers wiped. Fortunately, I didn't get lost on the way there. I arrived to find Eric showing two J girls his artwork, whilst Ryan attempted to work his magic on one and Dago on the other. Corinne and I just hung out and laughed a bit while I worked on my wine. There was a little music and dancing, departing of said J girls while we hung out on the "verandah." Around four, I gave up and sprawled onto my futon while Eric tried to convince a drunken Berto that I deserved to sleep, and it wouldn't hurt to turn down the music that was blaring not far from my head. Thanks to Eric's kind consideration, it finally happened, and the three, without cover of music to carry on the night, disappeared to search for the sunset, not returning until after eight.

Eric tried to sleep upon return, as he was to experience his first ever J girl date later in the afternoon, while Ryan continued to slumber and Berto and Corinne hung out in the kitchen with chu-hi, egg sandos, and Lila Downs, waiting for me who had been on the porch with "If no one speaks of remarkable things."Saving them from fighting over the last chu-hi, I savoured slowly with a children's book and tried to recognize Tears for Fears on the stereo. The day devolved into lazing and leisure as the boys all disappeared on dates with girls or friends. Corinne and I ventured off to a park to play on a giant slide with rollers that flung you around corners or knocked you on your ass as you tried to go down in a crouch. This was followed by adventures on a giant rope spider web, which made me think of the squares in the middle of giant clusters of bubbles. Corinne made it bounce and I tried not to fall off, and we were both put to shame by a small boy and his mother who climbed all the way to the peak.

After deciding to return later when drunk and checking to make sure our noise wouldn't wake neighbours, we returned to sit on chairs in the yard and spend our last afternoon together in Nippon in conversation. As the boys slowly made their way home, bringing other boys and unfortunate dating stories, we ventured drunkenly back to the park with Hiroshi while Berto attempted to catch up on sleep. Me being the eager fool I was went down the slide first and dried most of it off for the wiser companions of mine. We even climbed the spiderweb, but Corinne and Hiroshi were more fearless, ascending to the top as I came to look I was like in a real spiderweb near the bottom, causing Corinne to nearly fall off laughing at the sight of me swatting away in the midst of a massive rope web. We even followed this up with rides on a rope roller hanging thing that I don't know what to call before meandering back to the Lopez hotel for the rest of the night.

Come midnight, birthday choruses were sung and Berto awoken from his slumber as the Japanese fellow gave into his tiredness, collapsing into one of the gypsy tents out back. Once again, I succumbed to sleep around three or four, as did Berto, as Corinne and Eric munched on bagels and carried on into the wee hours.

Sunday morning I arose around eight and after a shower to refresh, was on the road for an unfortunate thriteen hours as I somehow got lost in the outskirts of Tokyo, a place I was never supposed to come near.

The ride back from Aichi to the inaka of Tottori was accomplished in my stuffed to the roof little car (I bought 20 or so books on two separate trips to Nagoya solely for that purpose) and a very squished Simona as she rode in the passenger seat with her knees around her ears. Unlike on the way to Aichi, I managed to make the return trip without earning a ticket of some kind. (I now have 4 tickets for 4 different offences in 4 different kens.) Simona, although somewhat socially inept, proved to be an alright passenger. And it is only my own social deficiencies that allowed me to recognize the same qualities in others.

Having been back for a week (and used my fancy new polite Japanese to request last week off, although I honestly had the requesting vacation politeness down pat before the course) I have managed to meet the two new Nambu JETs and cook for them, visit Elly in Tottori for card games and discussions about Japan and childbirth as two quasi-unrelated topics, cook lasagna for Cian and Pete followed by more card games, meet Katherine for lunch, and meet several new JETs at a barbeque last night.

Now, sitting at work wasting time writing blogs, thinking about how it would be kind of nice to be home already.... and I could really use another week off.