Week in Review pt. 1 (of 3)

So, I could talk about how I've been really bad about posting, and that I'm sorry that I fell off
the post-map for a while, but that would make me one step closer to this guy:
http://xkcd.com/621/ - so lets just move on. Also, this last week has been pretty crazy, so I
tell you story. Lets start on last Saturday (Sept. 4th), shall we?

Sept. 4th, Sunday

A while ago, Winston and I were looking for a place to play Go - Japansese board game, simplest game in the world, hardest game in the world, check it out - and we were told about a Go center/parlor type place in Kisarazu. (One train stop north of Kimitsu - about 9min on the train) Well, about 3 or 4 weeks ago, we finally made it out there to check it out, and it was pretty much everything I expected it to be. You know how in movies and what-not (I'm sure they actually exist, but I've never seen it) there are parks with chess sets on tables, and old men sitting around playing chess? It was basically the same thing in Kisarazu, except it was indoors- imagine a really really tiny food-court type area, except there was no food, just board games and old men. Awesome.

Well, Saturdays are the most popular day to show up and all kinds of people show up. Winston and I are close to the worst players in the place, (and I'm significantly worse than Winston - he
beats me pretty consistently) and this Sunday was particularly bruising to the ego.

(Hahaha, I make linguistic joke: in Japanese, they call "Go" "igo" - pronounced "ego" with a
slightly elongated "e" sound. Linguistic side note: all syllables in Japanese get equal length -
as opposed to English, where we rush through the unaccented syllables- so vowel sounds, and
double vowel sounds get the same "presence" as the more common constonant-vowel combination. eg: a, i, u, e, o are the vowel syllables and can be used alone, and they have the same "Weight" as syllables like ko, sa, to, me, ru, etc.)

Right, my igo ego: first I played some old man, who I think was one of the better players in the
place. My first hint was the huge handicap I got - one interesting aspect in Go is that the
ranking system between players is pretty clear, and to make fair games against disparate level
players, you get handicaps. Then we started playing...it was rough. We actually just ended the
game without counting up points because he thrashed me so hard. *sigh* So my next game was
against a mom (o-kasan) of one of the kids at the center. She wrecked me, too. Deflating,
definitely, but it was ok, because after the game we talked for about 30 minutes.

Talking to people is always a fun thing for me now that my Japanese is "good" (relative term!)
enough to actually say things. Also, most Japanese people have some level of English ability, and
many of them are eager to have someone to practice their English with. So most conversations
turn into some form of language exchange: they speak English until they come up against something they can't express in English, and I do the same thing in Japanese. It can be really fun if both people are pretty laid back about the whole language barrier thing, but its a different kind of satisfaction than actually having conversations with a stranger. I try to treat it like a big
game.

After that, I played one more game against a kid. He was 12, and he destroyed me too. Go is a
super complicated game, how can a kid who hasn't even mastered algebra be that good at this game? Seriously, he had trouble counting up the points at the end of the game, but he was still able to get way more of them than me! Grrrrr. Winston suffered a similar fate against the 12 year old kid's younger brother. After that, we decided to call it quits for the day.

To recover from out sound thrashing, we headed up to Chiba for dinner and drinks with out Chiba friends: Merdith, Ewen, and Joe. The three of them had their sports day that Saturday, so they were ready for some R&R. Merdith, Winston, and I went to a yakitori (kind of like marinated shishkebobs) place and dug in while waiting for Ewen to finish with his teacher's party and for Joe to wake up from his after-work nap.

After the first round of beer, we decided to start in on the sake. We don't really know much
about sake, so we asked the waitress for a recommendation, and, without telling us what we
ordered, she brought us this totally delicious bottle of cold sake. Now, I'm not really a fan of
alcohol harder than wine - and really, I stick to beer most of the time- but this sake was
amazing. I was sure that the house had brought us some riddiculously priced sake, and so (only
after ordering a 2nd bottle, of course) we asked how much we were really spending, answer: 500
yen = 5$. Hot Damn. We drank a lot of sake that night. It was awesome and wonderfully laid-back. We just kicked it in this small, very Japanese restaurant talking, relaxing and drinking sake. At one point, a pair of Japanese dudes came over to us and asks to take pictures of us, because we are just that cool. Ewen showed up at the restaurant, and being the crazy Scottsman he is, immediately picked up the drinking pace.

Afterwards, we met Joe at the train station and went out to another bar and hung out for a little
while. I borrowed someone's longboard outside the bar and spend probably a good 15-20 minutes just cruising around the block. I forgot how much I enjoyed longboarding; it was wonderfully nostalgic, and it was a really nice board, too. I miss my longboard. I suppose its not really mine anymore, though. Last I heard, Sonia had given it to her RA at SOU, so I know it at least has a good home. I'm a big fan of the notion that that board was bought in CA, broken in in WA, and now resides in OR. (I'm also a big fan of acronyms this morning, apparently)


We missed the last train out of Chiba, so we ended up taking a Taxi back to Yotsukaido, which is
where Merdith and Ewen live, but Joe, being the crazy(er) American he is, decided to stay out in
Chiba all night. So we get back to Yotsukaido and pass out at around 3am.

Week in Review pt. 2

Sunday, Sept. 6th

After an epic night of drinking and revelry, I woke up at about 8:30 am to head out to Tokyo for
Ultimate practice, because that's how Ultimate players roll. The train rides are long, but pretty
boring to describe. I've finally started to really decipher the train system around me. I've been
able to brute-force my way to pretty much anywhere I need to get go, but I'm finally becoming
savvy about finding and using the rapid trains, and figuring out the fastest route on the fly. So
that's cool. I head out so early because we were trying to have a long practice for our Japan Open
Nationals tournament the next weekend. I'm super stoked for this tournament, because in Tokyo we pretty much only play co-ed, and I was looking forward to a men's tournament. Unfortuantely, Sunday was not a good day for this ultimate player.

I'm still not sure how exactly I did this to myself, but when I was warming up before practice,
my back died. Really, it just decided it was done working for a while. Unfortunately, the rest of
my body didn't get that memo, so I was in a tight spot. Basically, my lower back just seized up,
and clamped down. I couldn't stand up straight, walking was really painful, and general torso
movement was a dubious proposition at best. Turns out your lower back is right in the middle of
your body, and it is involved in a ton of things I like to do. Also, I was about 3hrs of walking,
sitting, and standing away from my bed. It was a miserable trip home.

When I finally did get home, I lay down on my bed, and physically couldn't leave it for over 24
hrs. The next night, I still couldn't stand up, and I couldn't crawl, because, funny story,
crawling uses your lower back muscles. Turns out, crab-walking doesn't so much, so I crab-walked to get around the appartment. I know, I'm a classy s.o.b. By then, I had asked around, and the general consensus was that I had a back spasm. This means that I was not really injured, I was just in pain: my back wasn't hurt, just painfully confused.

By Wednesday, I could walk (slowly) and I went to the doctor. Someone from my company came by to drive me to the doctors and to generally facilitate the visit. She was fantastic: really helpful,
friendly, and her English was great. Its moments like these that I really really enjoy working
for a good, thoughtful company. Japanese doctor visits are funny, because they always x-ray you. Always. I came in, the nurse asked me what was wrong, I (through the translator) told her about what happened on Sunday, she said, ok, we're going to X-ray your back. So they did, developed them in probably 10 minutes, and confirmed that there was nothing wrong with my spinal cord, and then the doctor, after a bit more poking and proding diagnosed me with acute lower back pain. Good thing we got that X-ray. Everyone was very happy to see that there was nothing wrong with my spine- my helper even asked me if I was relieved to know that my spine was ok. I got a perscription for some pain killers and muscle relaxants that I am pretty certain are less potent than the Ibprofen I was already on.

I was planning on going back to work on Thursday, but my Kyoto Sensei (Vice-principal) told my company that since they were spending all day rehearsing for a sports festival that weekend, I didn't have to come. My school rocks. I was bumbled about missing all that school time, but it
turns out this was a "good" week to miss because they were practicing for the sports festival,
and over 4 days I only missed 2 English classes. So I go back to work on Friday, and have
everyone in the school- from the Kocho Sensei (Principal) to the ichinensei (first year students)
ask me if my back was ok, and show general concern that I was walking around and working. It was totally endearing. Also, I couldn't really explain that my back problem was really temporary, and that I really was feeling much much better, so I just said thanks, and smiled.

The Week in Review pt. 3

Saturday, Sept. 11

Saturday was the sports festival at Seiwa, and it was awesome! Its basically an all-day
school-wide track meet, but with a lot of really strange and fun events. The whole school breaks
up into two teams to compete in events like tug-of-war and three-legged races, and a bunch of
other Japanese games. A lot of this stuff would never fly in America because some of it is pretty
injury-prone, but in a wholesome, sometimes-kids-get-hurt, kind of way. One game was particularly accident prone: they put 3 big sticks of bamboo (like 10-15 ft long, and pretty thick) in the middle of a field, and all the girls on each team line up on opposite sides of the field. The
point of the game is to get the bamboo back to your side of the field, and the rules seem to be
simple: the only thing you can do is grab the bamboo and pull. So, there's some strategy as to
how many people from each team go after each piece of bamboo, when do you just give up on a piece of bamboo, etc. But, the game always seems to end with all the girls in the entire school
(probably close to 50) fighting over the last (15 ft) piece of bamboo. And every time it seemed
that one kid always trips/falls and gets hurt in the frenzy. Its kind of a recipe for disaster,
but still, it looks like so much fun!

Its a pretty awesome day, and the kids put so much effort and spirit into the whole thing. They
take it really, really seriously - to the point that by the end of the day, they are so exhausted
that pretty much everything sets them to crying. After the whole event ends, each team gathers
into a circle, and everyone stands up to say something to the group. My Japanese isn't that good,
but I'm pretty sure it was something along the lines of "today was awesome, you guys are great,
we worked so hard, congratulations all" and if they are a sannensei then 1, they are probably
crying, and 2, they also say something to the effect "I'm going to miss this, you younger
students are going to be awesome next year, I'm proud of you all, etc." Its all really emotional
and sweet.

That night, the teachers all got together for dinner and drinks to celebrate the end of the
sports festival in our own way. I think that the whole festival (which requires massive
preparation) is incredibly draining for the teachers, so it was good to see them relax
afterwards. Again, everyone had to stand up and give a speech about the day. I started my speech in Japanese, but by the second sentence, Kocho Sensei bellows "ego de!" which means "in English!" so I finished my speech in English with my English teacher translating. Everyone thought it was great - did I mention how much I like my school? Also, the food was incredible, like always. At these kind of events, the teachers eat so well! Sashimi, yakisoba, corn on the cob, crab legs, edamame, goma balls, yakitori, etc. It was amazing.

By the time I got home, I was not sober, and Winston pitched an idea I couldn't really refuse. We
had a bottle of sake from a while ago, and he wanted to go out to the train tracks and drink and
watch the trains. How could I say no?! So we go out and start talking and drinking and watching
the trains. Just as we reach the end of the sake bottle, someone comes up to us and asks us what
we are doing. We tell him, and we start chatting with the man. Turns out he works at the dinner
down the street, and invites us over for more drinks and conversation. We can't really say no,
and why would we want to, so we go on over. Our new friend's name is Gen, and he had a friend
there named Udashin. We spend the rest of the night drinking beer and conversing with our new
Japanese friends.

Turns out Gen is a drummer in a Japanese punk band, and he invited us to his next show in
October. He is also an electrical engineer who just moonlights at the diner on the side. Udashin
is a snowboarder, and he said he has 2 extra decks and that we should go snowboarding together
this winter. I freaking love this country. The diner was mostly empty, but there was a group of
girls there, and Gen told us that it was one of their birthdays. Well, when the girls walked by
on their way out, they said hi to us, and Winston and I - without prior communication - figure
out who's birthday it is, what her name is, and break out into the happy birthday song.
Righteous. We make sure to get Gen and Udashin's info before we leave, and don't leave until
around 1am when Gen tells us that they are trying to close, and we should go. So, that is my week in review. It seems like a lot, but I'm sure I'm missing things. Too much to do, too little time to write it all down.