Farewell Japan

To the rice field outside my building, I do not say goodbye. I do not speak to inanimate objects. But I will miss seeing it every day, glowing unusually green lately. Having agriculture in cities is a good idea. It reminds people that we have to grow what we eat.

I won't say farewell to the fire station on the bike ride to Liquor Mountain, because that's a building and it could neither understand nor respond. It was pleasant to see the fireman climbing up the side of the practice building one day, or arrayed in a row practicing the hose drills. They love drills in Japan, and there was a military feel to the closing ceremony today. Stand. Rotate. Bow. Sit. These are the orders. The students all in black skirts or pants and white shirts, their hair all black, so that from the back it looks deliberate, sharp, and clean - black on white. The student captain returned our speeches with one from the students, thanking Nick and I for teaching them. It made me sad to be leaving these students.

onigiri - rice triangles
mochi - sweet pounded rice
tonkatsu - fried pork and egg on rice
natto - stinky fermented beans, full of fibre, iron, protein, and one of the few substances that's directly good for the skin
ocha - green tea that I didn't really drink that often, but when I did I drank it cold from a bottle

I learned to love riding the train in Japan. The scenery is beautiful, old houses with their curve-tiled rooves, tunnels through mountains, the lake, fields. Then arriving at Kyoto station and being amazed by the size and audacity of that building. It has a giant staircase rising seven stories to the open air, and on which entire orchestras play music during holidays. The night I stayed over in Kyoto with Mayur, passing from bar to bar to avoid paying for a hotel room. The last train back to Nagahama leaves at 10:00, far too early for a night out.

I will miss Myles and Nancy, my neighbours from Vancouver whose perverse sense of humour luckily matched my own. Nancy laughing or urging Myles to behave, Myles doing some judo moves on Nancy to her annoyance.

It's getting late, I'm tired and this post is disorganized. I have a kuko to catch tomorrow.
Goodnight.

Electrical Storm

Like the U2 song, the sky tonight flickers in its stochastic non-rhythm of electroluminescence. Muted thunder rolls after a pregnant pause, leaving me still... hanging. Like some annoying 3-year-old playing with the light switch, where you just want to scream "STOP FLICKING THE DAMN SWITCH!!", the night sky offers no solid explanation for its pernicious behaviour. The humid air leaves my skin dripping in my overheated, underfurnished apartment. It's an oven even with the doors open. But just when I'm ready to give up and shut myself in the one room with air conditioning, a soft patter of rain hushes into existence. Now the air is dragged by that rainfall, ever intensifying, pulling a breeze through the apartment. Wow, it's really, REALLY coming down now! Scary hard!