Rollerskating Aliens

Many months ago I posted on my blog about the next generation roller skates that I bought and started using for exercise. The weather the last few days has been amazing-great temperature, sunny, and a cool breeze-so I finally decided today that I had to take advantage of it. I found my skates, dusted them off, made sure they were still safe to use, and headed out the door. By luck (good luck if you like attention, bad luck if you don't like being a spectacle) the elementary school three blocks from our house had just released the students a few minutes earlier. I walked out the door of the apartment building, sat down on the front step, started to put on my first skate, and the mini-parade of children started to walk by. The looks and stares that I received ranged from "what's that guy doing?" to "I THINK AN ALIEN JUST ARRIVED FROM ANOTHER PLANET!" After four years, I'm pretty much used to sticking out as a non-Japanese living in Japan, so the stares usually don't affect me much one way or another anymore. But the innocent amazement in children's faces still makes me smile, even if it reminds me a little bit that I'm different here. And I have to admit, I'm VERY different zipping around the neighborhood on skates...

Goodbye, cicadas; see you next year!

I had never heard or seen a cicada (other than on TV) until I came to Japan. For many people here, hearing their noise above in the trees is part of the experience of summer. But summer is finishing, and so are the cicadas. I expect that I'll only hear them for a few more days. The evenings now are filled with the sound of crickets chirping.

The video I'm including was taken just a few minutes walk from our apartment. There's a neighborhood where several older houses have large plots of land with many trees. In the clip you can hear the cicadas, a couple of crows, and a dove.
(Video is offline right now...)

U.I.C.S. Family Camp

Friday afternoon, evening and Saturday morning, Nozomi's school (where I taught before) had a short camp for the students and their families. In American culture thinking, I would probably call it a retreat--staying together in a small hotel. I took a video of one of the ice breaker games in the afternoon: one person in the circle is the (secret) leader and randomly changes the actions everyone copies. The person in the center tries to guess who the leader is by watching the actions changing. Funny game, even to watch!

(Video is offline right now...)

After Roke

The typhoon was mostly finished by about midnight last night, and this morning the weather was sunny and beautiful. It's rather common for that to happen here; I'm not sure if that's typical in other areas where typhoons occur or not.
Early this afternoon, an amazing storm front moved in, maybe one last arm of the typhoon as it headed out into the Pacific Ocean. It's cloudy and drizzly now, but the forecast is for beautiful weather again starting tomorrow and continuing for a few days with warm, but not hot temperatures. Sounds wonderful!

Typhoon Number 15

This has been a long, active typhoon season this year, and there's still one more month to go! The areas around Nagoya were hit pretty hard again, but as usual we're fine here.
Today I found out what dragonflies do during a typhoon: hold on!
Culture note: typhoons do have names just as hurricanes have names in America, but here people rarely use the names, usually referring to them by number. This typhoon's name is "Roke".

(Video is offline right now...)

The Wizard of Oz

Last week, Nozomi & I watched "The Wizard of Oz". It was the first time that Nozomi had seen it, but since I'm a typical American, I've probably seen it at least a dozen times. (Well, OK, maybe I'm NOT a typical American in many ways, but I AM in how many times I've seen that movie...) However, it had probably been 15 years since the last time that I watched. That gave me a very new perspective on the film.
It seemed much more sentimental than I had remembered; not necessarily in a bad way, I was just surprised at my reaction to viewing the movie now versus my memories of the feeling of the film. Also, I was struck at how art deco the design of the Emerald City was. I suppose some people might think, "of course it's a sentimental film and of course it has strong art deco style--it was made in 1939-what else would you expect?" Yes, rather obvious, but I guess that just reinforces how different the film seemed to me after not watching for so long.
Nozomi enjoyed it too, and it was fun to share a piece of American culture with her. Americans (and English-speaking North American culture sharers), have you ever thought about how much that film influences our culture? All of the phrases that are used in common speech as idioms? ("I'll get you, and your little dog too!" "Help me-I'm melting! What a world-what a world!" etc.) So, for your 1st, 10th, or 100th time, enjoy "The Wizard of Oz".

ANOTHER typhoon!

A typhoon is just about to make landfall in Shikoku (southern Japan). Extremely heavy rain and high winds are expected there, but we are far from the main path, and no trouble is expected here other than lots of rain. So we're fine, but please feel free to pray for the areas that will be directly hit. The TV news is showing video of streets that have been turned into mini-rivers with people crossing in water up to their ankles.

Thunderstorm

There's a CRAZY storm moving through right now-almost constant rumbling thunder for the last 45 minutes! Amazing!

HURRAY! BBQ!

After searching off and on for about two years, I finally found one: a mini Weber BBQ grill (well, OK, it's actually from Coleman company, but close enough). I wanted a small grill to put on the veranda (or balcony or deck or patio depending on your local dialect; in Japan, "beranda" seems to be the most common word). I had the usual color from America in mind: black. However, Japan is the culture of "kawaii", which basically means "cute". That's a long, complicated story, so click the link if you want to know more. So, there were no black BBQs. The choice was light blue, or . . . pink. No, I am NOT joking. Obviously, I chose blue. I will be BBQing hamburgers soon. They will NOT be cute.

Another storm in "Thundertown"

I've probably mentioned this before, but some people here have told me that Utsunomiya's nickname is "Thundertown" because of the frequent lightning storms during the summer. Well, it's that season, so here's a short video. From our balcony on the sixth floor, we get a pretty good view of the area. The storm was far enough away that no thunder could be heard, but we definitely heard some earlier in the day! Very low quality video, but you get the idea (cell phone camera, bad lighting, etc. etc...) I'm looking forward to this evening, because there's a firework show not far away, and we may be able to see it from here!

(Video is offline right now...)

America 2011 Pictures 7 (conclusion)

We spent a lot of time just relaxing with family, and enjoying my parents' hospitality, which included a delicious Thanksgiving in April--thanks, Mom! And thanks, Gayle, for your always delicious lemon meringue pie! (There's a picture of one of our meals together that's very blurry, but I liked everyone's smiling faces, so I'm including it anyway...)
My father is an excellent woodworker and craftsman; you can see the amazing detail of his handmade deer figures and ship model. It's a model of the USS Constellation, which has a special connection to my father. That ship is the oldest surviving vessel in the United States Navy, and is now a floating museum. In the late 1980s, my father was part of the team that cut the huge pieces of wood that they needed to restore the ship.
On this trip, I sorted more boxes at my parents' house, and brought back about half of my musical instrument collection. In the picture, my sister is holding one of the more unique pieces that's now in the "Utsunomiya Branch" of my museum.

I think that's all the America pictures for this year, so on to other adventures next...

Fish Head Soup

The next-door neighbor gave us some delicious fish. He included the head, which is frequently considered inedible in America, but is the source of fish head soup in many other places in the world, including here. Nozomi made some wonderful sushi, some great fish and chips, and fish head soup. We're just about to have it for lunch. This topic, of course, made me think of a famous (infamous?) song from many years ago....
Click this link if you want to have a strange song stuck in your head.
(Or click THIS link if you want to watch the whole, bizarre video.)

Rude earthquake

A very inconsiderate earthquake woke us up at 3:55 a.m. last night. News reports say it was 6.4 or 6.5 (MY report says it was strong enough to shake the dishes in the cupboard, but nothing fell down). News reports say there was no tsunami danger, serious injuries or damage (MY report says after the quake I couldn't sleep well, but now it's early afternoon and I just woke up from a one-hour nap, so I feel much better).

America 2011 Pictures 6

A few more pictures from our walk along the river near the Sundial Bridge in Redding.

America 2011 Pictures 5

Activities while we were in Redding include playing games, jumping on a trampoline, laughing until we cried, eating lots of chocolate, eating In-N-Out burger (twice; I thought about going once more, but didn't really have time), eating Mexican food, and taking the infamous jumping pictures.

America 2011 Pictures 4

My sister (Jane), Nozomi and I drove to my cousin's house in northern California and spent a four-day weekend with family relaxing, playing games, walking, talking and just having fun. The city of Redding has a VERY hot climate during the summer, so it was actually good timing to visit in the spring this year. The first afternoon, before some of the other family members arrived, we went for a walk along the Sacramento River; the wild flowers were blooming and it was very enjoyable. Paula (my cousin) mentioned that the section where we walked was much more attractive at the time we visited (she's used to seeing it in the summer when it's so hot that there are very few green plants). The water level in the river was unusually high, which made the walk across the bridge a bit unique. Near the end of our visit, we returned to the river and went to another section of the trail where there is a bridge designed by a creative architect. The bridge also functions as a sundial, and has become a bit famous as a local landmark. The design really is quite interesting.

America 2011 Pictures 3

Our visit this year was shorter than in previous years, so our Portland stop was shorter too. After attending New Vision, we went out to eat with a big group and had a delicious lunch (Doran & Vineeta, sorry you couldn't make it-I assume you must have been out of town). I didn't think to take any pictures there-oops! Later, we had a video game extravaganza at the Robertsons-I have "getting ready" and "final pose" Brady Bunch-style pictures from there. We spent the evening on the East Side having a great dinner and playing games at the Porter Aguilar household. (Kwirkel? Quirkle? Kwerkul? Who invents these names?!?!)
Thanks again, everybody!

America 2011 Pictures 2

We just finished a great visit with family from San Jose, California, but before I post those pictures, I've got to finish pictures from the America trip earlier this year, so here's part two:
My parents and Nozomi and I took a trip to the beach and stayed a night at the Driftwood Shores resort. The weather was rather stormy when we arrived, but it was actually interesting to watch the wind and the waves from the hotel balcony. We went shopping in old town Florence for souvenirs at some interesting shops. We spent most of the evening at the hotel having dinner and playing games.
The next day, we went for a drive along the coast stopping at Sea Lion Caves (there's a live webcam on their site that I'm linking) and then drove further up the coast and enjoyed a delicious fish and chips lunch. We also took a walk along the jetty (sea wall) near the town of Florence before we headed back to Eugene/Springfield.
Thanks for a fun trip, Mom & Dad!