Another fairly bland week is in the books folks. The highlight this week was a hike I took to
a mountain called Shizugatake. It was
about 90 minutes by train from my house and the hike to the top took another
90. The summit offered a 360 degree
panorama including two major lakes: Lake Yago (the small one) and Lake Biwa
(the biggest Lake in Japan, where I lived during study abroad.) My original plan was just to hike around the
smaller lake and I didn’t even realize there was a trail to the top of the
mountain. Overall one of the coolest
views I’ve seen anywhere, and not a soul in sight anywhere on the
mountain. See my picture on Facebook if
you haven’t yet.
Other than that work is about the same. Next week I am going to start a four week
one-on-one class with a fourth grader who is going to the US over summer
break. I have no idea how these classes
come into existence. I imagine someone
just walks into a branch and asks if they can whip up a custom course for their
kid. My boss must be hoping to rope in a
10 year old who will continue for the next five years.
On Friday I rode a full train for the first time. You must be thinking “that’s impossible, he’s
ridden hundreds of trains.” Well the
trains out of Nagoya run every 15 minutes and the 10:30 train was delayed 35
minutes. (Yes, 10:30 pm). Then when it showed up it was four cars long
instead of eight. So three trains-worth
of people in half a train. I was literally
shoved against the wall with four people pushing into me. Lovely.
Now I understand why groping on trains is a problem. One guy actually got his watch caught on my
belt buckle while trying to check his phone.
I’m really glad I don’t commute in rush hour now.
On Saturday night a few Americans watched the movie Tusk. I highly recommend it if you’ve ever wondered
about surgically altering a human to resemble a walrus. It has Johnny Depp too!
Okay, back to work tomorrow.
I’m off to practice cooking rice and learn those last 700 Kanji!!
Does Johnny Depp become the walrus? Of all the animals to turn a human being into, why a walrus?
ReplyDeleteI'm sure that 4th grader you're tutoring will be ready, after 4 hours of instruction, to communicate in English. Good luck with that.
Johnny Depp is not the walrus. You might not even be able to figure out which character he his!
DeleteHow did cooking rice go? Was there a trick?
ReplyDeleteI think I've been adding too much water...
DeleteGenerally it's 1 and 1/2 cups of water for every cup of rice.
DeleteIn my country we have rice cookers (and I don't mean women). I notice you continue to leave out the stories about all the women! We want to hear, stop being modest!
ReplyDeleteI don't know if I like rice enough to invest like 60 bucks in one. Maybe I'll just wait until I find a woman with one!
ReplyDelete$60 !?! Wtf... is that how much they are in Japan?
DeleteI second what Matthew said. We want to hear about the women.
ReplyDelete