Irish Choir visitors

I love summer here, so chilled out. Been going to a lot of elementary schools for the last time lately, pretty sad saying goodbye to all the kids. Today I met a huge group of 80 Irish folks, mostly kids 12-16, at the airport. Acted as a translator which was hella fun. At one point we stopped off at a community building in Matsuyama town, and were greeted by a parade of motorcyclists dressed up as samurai- got to translate samurai stuff. After that we went to Ariake town hall where they had a reception with the host families and an indoor gun and cannon salute (which scared the pants off of the little kids). Was a really fun day, and was good to be able to help out- some of the families and Irish kids looked pretty nervous and extremely jet lagged. Highlight: greeting 2 kids outside of baggage claim, who said konnichiwa to us. My friend keith and I replied back "konnichiwa" and then spoke some english which surprised the kids, evidently convinced we were Japanese. Ahh, diversity. I remember you well. Tomorrow I get to join the fray again for some zen meditation, beach going, and tree planting.

kaggy weekend

Had a marathon night out at kagoshima city last night. Went with a bunch of jet friends. some of the highlights: met some cool girls who live near our towns randomly on the street, and a whole lot more random folks who were up for some conversation janglish style. went and chilled out at a sweet and really cheap restaurant in the university district, saw lots of people our age, a rarity in our small towns in the sticks. Moved on over to the Tenmonkan district for some dancing at doggybar. all the japanese folks seemed to dig it, but there was a truly awful regae DJ- got so fed up with his shrieking into the mic, and constantly changing songs every 20 seconds without a transition that we left for our usual hangout, club X, where you can count on snack girl eye candy, good music, and dancing it up with the local break dancing troup. tonight i went out to koigaura for a late surf sesh, had to meander around back roads of tiny rice villages in miyazaki and the windy coast in the fog, very trippy. like heart of darkness but without the violence or bad feelings.

Fireflies and genki younguns

Couple memories i want to jot down. I'm loving elementary school kids here, they're super into learning English, and these days are actually using it with each other and me after class. "Do you like red? So-So!" Found out that a shocking number of students dont like the color green. Had some excellent rides down at Koigaura today, the road was closed due to more unnecessary consctruction, so I legged it, and thus got to appreciate tons of views, flower smells, and such that I otherwise would never know. waves were perfect. Got my first ride where i dropped onto a wave with this other awesome surfer dropping next to me at the same time, following me. Had to pull some nice moves to shoot down the face or get a board to the ass. The other day I had round two with the Osaki rotary club, they invited me to a firefly viewing that I was initially skeptical about... (they gave me traditional japanese garb and i knew i'd be the only one wearing it, a little strange). The night was surprisingly good though, and we ended up at an izakaya, had pigs feet and other oddities.

Golden Week

Long time since the last post, been doing a lot of surfing these days- getting better slowly by slowly, definitely an art to the thing and a little difficult due to dumpy waves. Got heckled the other day by a crazy surfer dude with one arm, first incident of surf localism- nobody got hurt, I'm happy to say. My vacation to california was chill, did some standard San Francisco tourism and hung out with my family. Had "Golden Week,'' last week, which is one of the rare times when most people get out of work for a few days (its not actually a week long) and get to see their neglected families (crazy workaholics these folks). So I got out to kyoto again. Mostly did chilling since every temple and what-not was crazy packed. Went out to an izakaya and an incredibly nice italian restaurant for Mr. and Mrs. Fox's anniversary party. Tried gorgonzola ice cream of all things! Believe it baby. Word of warning for people taking 14 hour ferry rides to always check the predicted wave height, cuz damn. This weekend I went out for some food and karaoke with friends and their visiting relatives, best time at karaoke ever, singing old 80's songs. Been fun at school these days since I've been either kept busy with classes and engaging new teachers, or I'll show up and there'll be "Sketch day" (we drew sketches of views around school all day), or "camp day," when we all went down the road to a camp site, made barbq pits and ate yakiniku, and then played sports for the rest of the day. pretty cruisy really. elementary school visits are always great, I'm finding out that the better alternative for a clever game is just to give them interview sheets and have them ask each other simple things like "do you like red?" or "can you juggle?" Holy crap do they completely get into it. It puts the way they have to teach in middle school to shame, where one or two people benefit from overly-advanced but rushed reading practice and they can't even say something like "He watches T.V." So if I come back to japan in the future, I'm considering trying to get a job as an elementary school english teacher. Over and out.

Long time since the last post, been doing a lot of surfing these days- getting better slowly by slowly, definitely an art to the thing and a little difficult due to dumpy waves. Got heckled the other day by a crazy surfer dude with one arm, first incident of surf localism- nobody got hurt, I'm happy to say. My vacation to california was chill, did some standard San Francisco tourism and hung out with my family. Had "Golden Week,'' last week, which is one of the rare times when most people get out of work for a few days (its not actually a week long) and get to see their neglected families (crazy workaholics these folks). So I got out to kyoto again. Mostly did chilling since every temple and what-not was crazy packed. Went out to an izakaya and an incredibly nice italian restaurant for Mr. and Mrs. Fox's anniversary party. Tried gorgonzola ice cream of all things! Believe it baby. Word of warning for people taking 14 hour ferry rides to always check the predicted wave height, cuz damn. This weekend I went out for some food and karaoke with friends and their visiting relatives, best time at karaoke ever, singing old 80's songs. Been fun at school these days since I've been either kept busy with classes and engaging new teachers, or I'll show up and there'll be "Sketch day" (we drew sketches of views around school all day), or "camp day," when we all went down the road to a camp site, made barbq pits and ate yakiniku, and then played sports for the rest of the day. pretty cruisy really. elementary school visits are always great, I'm finding out that the better alternative for a clever game is just to give them interview sheets and have them ask each other simple things like "do you like red?" or "can you juggle?" Holy crap do they completely get into it. It puts the way they have to teach in middle school to shame, where one or two people benefit from overly-advanced but rushed reading practice and they can't even say something like "He watches T.V." So if I come back to japan in the future, I'm considering trying to get a job as an elementary school english teacher. Over and out.

day at Nogami

Caught three wintery days of nice surfing at my boy, nagahama beach. Yesterday quite huge waves, mostly just respected them from a safe distance. Today at Nogami elementary school I played some 7-up, english style, some "on-or-off-the-table," and finished her off with some yellow submarine for teaching colors. Consequently it I got lured in to playing the sukiyaki song on friday at the 6th grade graduation party. Should be good times, a weird meeting of east and west. Also was invited to play soccer with my lunch class, which was fun, and then the funny moment at the end when you realize that it was kindof a slightly formal and planned event to play with me. All of a sudden the kids self-organize into neat rows arm length away from each other, and someone barks the command to face me, and they all bow and formally thank me for joining them in sport. Solid, these kids are the best ever. Planning a trip to Redding, California, if you're in the area give a shout out and lets go hunting or something. More later..

Rotary part deux

Had to give a 15 minute speech in japanese in front of the rotary club of Shibushu town tonight, that stuff was funny. Started out with a terrible joke: in which state in the US do people have the best teeth? (most people say Ohio for some reason), the answer is hawaii which means "teeth are good" in japanese. oh dear. followed it up with some sentimental annecdotes about international understanding and my impressions of japan, which they requested but (as is usually the case) they didnt really care about what I was talking about. Indeed they were more about asking what kind of food and japanese women we like (as well as the odd question like how do i feel about the emperor (a joke?) and will I eat american beef when I go home?...) such a speech loving place, for real. and im so souped up on caffeine right now, its crazy.

Back from a sweet vacation to visit the Foxes in kyoto, did the full temple circuit and lots of chilling and ridiculous ammounts of going out. Highlights: Going to a club in Osaka called Pure, litening to good hip hop, a frat designed library room with a pool table, felt like i was back at williams for real. Helping that feeling alongthere was like one japanese dude there. Will always remember the albatross lady. Also going to the temple of the many gates, damn there were many. Christmas dinner great as always, got down and funky with some sweet acapella. gotta keep that shit up next year in NY. writing of which, i think ill come back to NYC and live a while, maybe try my hand at editing and trying to survive. had some really great surfing this weekend and last, in the middle of winter- when your head freezes from the wind you just dive under the water to warm up. its amazing. going to be hard to leave that and a lot of things here. hopefully ill become jedi at japanese in 6 months and be invited back as a diplomat. here are some photos from kyoto: the monkey of monkey mountain, and a photo of toodaiji because it's just necessary.