Spousal Observations

A few weeks ago I caught an online sale for Eddie Bauer and bought Russell a variety of new T-shirts, etc. to replace the ones that are falling apart. The box came in the mail a few days ago. The first day, Russell opened the box, scattered everything around the living room, and picked out a T-shirt and collared shirt that matched to wear together. He proudly displayed them for me when I got home.

He liked them so much, he wore them again the next day.

Its been four days and I just realized he's still wearing the same blue t-shirt. I also just noticed that there is a perfectly good red t-shirt sitting in plain sight, but still in the packaging.

I guess some people just know what they like.

Pajama Night

The Wednesday swing group had a Pajama Night last night. I've been looking forward to it for two months. I don't really wear official pajamas - just t-shirts and the same flannel pants I've had since college - but since said flannel pants were pretty threadbare - and the seams were 70% ripped out, I decided Pajama Night was a good excuse to acquire some PJs. I looked around but couldn't find anything in the local stores that would fit me. FInally I browsed around online and found a cute pair of pajamas with owls. They even came with the guarantee that they would stare at your husband round the clock.

Unfortunately, they didn't ship to Japan, so I had to send them to my mom who forwarded them on. When they arrived I started wearing them right away. They were quite comfortable and thankfully light weight (since the temperatures they are a-risin'). Last weekend I got them all washed and pressed and ready to unveil at the dance. I also went out and found a pair of shiny gold pajamas for Russell at the local variety store. We were all set.

Along with the pajama theme, we were invited to take part in a Jack and Jill contest (our first). Jack and Jill contests are where you are randomly matched with another dancer and then compete. This one was casual - we just had one partner and there were no elimination rounds. We did a group warm-up, we each got as set amount of time within a song to perform for the audience, and then we all danced together again. The audience voted and the lucky couple won.

As in Russell and Miki (his partner for the evening. )

In fact, Russell not only won the Jack and Jill competition, he also won the best PJs award! He kindly informed everyone that I had picked them out for him and shared his prize - a free drink ticket.

I was not clever enough to take pictures myself, but several other people did. A few less than flattering ones were posted on Facebook, but I'm going to wait until I have some better ones to post on the blog.

Oh yeah - its summer

Summer has always been my least favorite season, but I never felt strongly about it in Oregon. I Japan I definitely hate it. Just to put icing on the cake, it looks like this year is going to be record breaker for heat and humidity.

Right now the temperature is 30C (86F) - which would be a lovely day in Oregon. However, with the thick humidity added to it, things are pretty miserable. Luckily the last few days have been mostly overcast, so we don't have the scorching sun to contend with, but outdoors is just not where you want to be right now.

It is definitely rainy season as well. We have had rain showers on and off for weeks. The rain I like, but the humidity is coming from somewhere and I'm afraid I have to blame the rain. Apparently there was a typhoon headed towards us this weekend, but it diverted to South Korea instead, so the rain and wind are lighter than they might otherwise have been.

Russell was telling me that due to the continued electricity shortage in the north and a push for the government to decommission nuclear plants, the Tokyo subways are going to only run air conditioning during rush hours

I don't recommend visiting Japan again until September.

Summer's Favorite

This is just... well... incredible on so many levels.

How could this NOT be a summer favorite? Mos Burger has rolled out Naan Tacos.

Update: We finally got around to trying the Naan Taco. Result? It was pretty good. Not unlike a gordita from TacoBell. Russell had the Black Curry Naan, which had a hotdog and black curry on top instead of taco salad.

So much writing

Just a quick update - I know I haven't been that good about posting, but I'm probably going to get a lot worse in the next month or two. It seems like all I am doing these days is writing as fast as I can. We have our own textbooks to write, the textbooks for a school in Tokyo to write, we have been tasked with writing some research articles and there is apparently a book project on the horizon.

The combination of no time to do anything fun and total disinterest in doing any extra writing has pretty much killed my blog motivation. I'll try to post here and there, though.

Umeshu

Around this season the grocery stores start stocking fresh plums. These are not plums like we get in the US. They are hard, very sour and generally inedible. They can be made into a variety of delicous things, though, given time and creativity. This year, we decided to experiment by making our own homemade umeshu. Umeshu is plum wine. In fact, you can probably find the same kind of plum wine we are making in your grocery store. Well, maybe. Its the one that comes in a large cylindrical bottle with the plums floating in the bottom. I believe the brand in the US is called Choyu. Something like that. It turns out plum wine is not at all hard to make, you just have to let it sit for a long time.

So how do you make it? First, you let the plums soak in water for an hour or two. This apparently mellows them a bit and takes away any bitterness. Once they are soaked, you pop out the little stems with a fork, dry the plums thoroughly, put them in a sterilized glass jar with rock sugar and white alcohol (all of which can be found on an endcap of an aisle in the supermarket) and you leave it to brew in a cool, dark place. We read that it is important to leave space at the top since a lot of liquid will come out of the plums. We did leave some room, but hopefully it will be enough... I would have liked to have left a bit more room if possible. Keep your fingers crossed!

So how long before we can try our creation? At least 6 months before its ready and it is apparently best to wait one or two years. Since the process was so easy, I want to make two more jars so we can try one at each time marker. We are also considering adding a bunch of fresh ginger to one round as an experiment. Seems like a good idea to me. If anyone comes to visit after New Years we'll have to dip into our little experiment and see how its doing.

The green stuff must be good for you, right?

I spent all of last week sick. Not sick enough to stay home from work, but feeling pretty crummy. That seemed to be echoed by most of my students and a few co-workers, too. Today is Sunday and I still don't feel great after a full weekend laying low. Last night Russell and I went to the grocery store to get things for dinner. Along with dinner we also spotted two other items of interest. One was materials to make your own umeshu (plum wine) and the other was a bag of single serving green powder to be added to liquid. The front of the package showed two pairs of aged but spry farmers in their green fields. This was clearly a health drink. I figured my health could only improve, so we threw a package in the cart.

I'll post about the uemshu next, but as for the green drink, we took it home and read the directions. It said it could be mixed with water or milk and should be stirred thoroughly until it fully disolved. We decided to experiment and try putting the powder in soy milk. A fairly safe bed. It worked out well and looked lovely in the glass I acquired at the belgian beer festival last weekend.

First impression? Tasted a bit like a seaweed milkshake, but was generally pleasant. Do I feel healthier? Not yet. Still working on that.

The Doppelgangers

We started swing dancing about a year ago. Around that same time, one of the faithful Osaka dancers who had returned home to Australia previously, returned to Japan. From the first day he met us he was convinced that we were the twins of a couple that had left Japan only about a year earlier. He brought this up often and referred to us as the Shelbyville version of his friends. He kept pointing out the similarities to other people who had known the previous couple and he generally got nods of agreement. It was driving him crazy that we couldn't meet each other.

Finally, his friends (Canadians) decided to come back to Osaka for a visit and to see a favorite band perform. The stage was set to get us together. Our friend was pretty sure something cosmic would happen if both of us were together in the same place. We arranged to meet at Captain Kangaroo (a foreigner bar in Osaka that boasts excellent chicken burgers, fries and even better selection of international beer).

The result? Nothing cosmic, but there were clearly some similarities in appearance and as our friend pointed out, both couples had come to Japan as a couple, which is something of a rarity. Our doppelgangers were certainly lovely people and we had a good night out.

Letterboxing in Nara - Almost

About a month back I ventured into Osaka to hear Russell's second band give their frist concert. The concert wasn't until later in the evening, but since I was already in Osaka, I decided to make sure I knew where I was going before heading off to entertain myself for the day. After some wandering, I discovered that the live house was actually right next to the station and I had walked right past it when I first arrived. That figured out, I sat down to figure out what I was going to do for the day. I had about four hours to kill. It occurred to me that there might be a letterbox in Osaka. I mean, it is a rather big city and there are tons of foreigners around. It seemed likely that one would pop up from time to time.

For those who haven't tried letterboxing or heard me emote about it in the past, letterboxing is a game where you get clues on the internet for a hidden box. You follow the clues, find the box (usually well hidden in a public area or hiking trail). Inside the box, there is a stamp (often home made) and a small book. You bring along your own personal stamp, book and ink pad and you stamp the box's book while using their stamp in your own book. Its a way to keep a record of the boxes you've found. Some of the stamp art is really cool, too and there is a huge sense of satisfaction when you can follow the clues all the way to your target.

Unfortunately, unlike geocaching, this has not caught on in Japan. I suspect it is because the boxes are quickly found and discarded by the overactive cleanup crews and conscientious citizens.

In any case, I did a search just in case something had popped up. Nothing in Osaka, but a new box had been planted in Nara. Nara is on the other side of Osaka from Kobe. Its a bit of a trek to get there, but I figured I would just have time. I managed to jump on an express train and was getting excited. I didn't have my own stamp or book, unfortunately, so I spent the train ride trying to figure out how I would remedy that. When the train pulled in, I realized that I was at the JR Nara station, which is a considerable hike away from the temple where the box was hidden. I debated taking a taxi, but that seemed a little extreme and I still needed to track down a stamp.

After a dozen blocks it was pretty clear I wasn't going to find a stamp. That left me with the option of making one on the fly. I jumped into a convenience store, bought an eraser, a small exacto knife, a notebook and an automatically inking brush (which I hoped would work for inking the stamp. I was running low on time, so I shot off for the temple. I was still only about half way there and time was running out. I figured out what my "point of no return" would be for time to make the concert. Unfortunately, the temple was farther than I had counted on and I didn't make it to my goal. I had to choose between a letterbox that may or may not have still been there or seeing Russell's first concert. I decided the box could wait if it had lasted this long. I headed back. I did make it to the concert on time.

I took a picture of my materials to commemorate the trip, but still no letterbox. I hope to head back to Nara in the near future. This weekend would have been perfect, but I have been sick and decided it would be better to stay close to home.

This has also made me want to start a letterboxing community in Kobe. Its an excuse to go hiking, be artistic and be sneaky. What's not to love?

What a way to spend a Saurday

Had a fun-filled Saturday yesterday. I started off the morning at the Big River Jazz festival. Several groups were playing Dixieland, swing and gospels down on the river in Osaka. It went from 11am to after 4:00 and it was tons of fun. I heard about it through the Wednesday night dance groups, so by 2:00 there was a group gathered to dance. It was perfect weather and perfect scenery. Several people had brought purple/lime green/gold umbrellas ala Mardis Gras and there were more than a few beads in the crowd. I arrived shortly after the music started and was the only foreigner. Since the rest of the dancers didn't arrive until around 2:00, I was of great interest to several people in the crowd wondering what had brought me to the concert. Finally one man came over and asked me if I was staying at the nearby hotel. I told him, no, I lived in Japan. He asked if I lived in Tokyo and I said, no, I lived in Kobe. Next he wanted to know why I was in Osaka. I told him I had come to see the festival. He seemed honestly taken aback. I think it made more sense once the dancing started...

After that, the remaining dancers headed to the Belgian Beer festival going on at the Sky Building. You bought a glass and 10 tokens to get started and hit the booths. Two tokens for a full glass of beer... not much opportunity for just tasting. My first beer looked dark, but tasted like someone had poured a cabernet in a Heineken. Not what I was expecting. The brown that followed was much better. As were the french fries. The festival was packed. There was music on a stage and at least 30 different beers to choose from. It seemed very well organized - much better executed than the German Christmas Festival in the same venue the last two years.

We stopped for bowls of ramen after the beer festival and then headed our separate ways. I had been invited many time to try Swingweek - a different swing dance group that meets on Saturdays. Usually, Russell and I already have plans for the weekend, so we rarely make it into Osaka. That paired with a vague sense of bad blood between the two swing groups and the worry that going to both might make us traitors, and we simply hadn't tried Swingweek after a year of invitations. I was invited again on Saturday and I figured I couldn't really plead previous plans to be elsewhere. I knew many of the dancers go to both, so I figured I would try it out. It was fun, but unless I'm in Osaka on a Saturday I probably won't be going as often as I go to the Wednesday dance. There's just something about celebrating being half way through the week with a good swing dance that attracts me.

And where was Russell? He planned to come, but decided to be grumpy and skipped out at the last minute. His loss.

Today we are going back to that spa with our friends. It will be nice after a full day on my feet.

A couple updates

I heard today at work that there was a storm moving in. It was starting to sprinkle as I was heading home and one of my co-workers said he had heard it was suppose to be stormy all weekend.

Then I got a weather advisory from the US Embassy.

It appears there is a rather big typhoon on its way to Japan. The advisory was for Okinawa (significantly south of Honshu, where we live. It looks like Okinawa is in for a very big blow, though. We will catch whatever is left of the storm, but all signs point to it slowing down significantly before it reaches us. Considering we did have an exceptionally large typhoon the first year Russell and I were in Kobe and it had very little effect on the city, I'm not at all worried. I suspect Okinawa is similarly fortified against typhoons. Hopefully there will be nothing to report but a soggy weekend.

Which is good for research, I might add...

So what was my other update? I was walking home from the grocery store today (heavily laden with both groceries and various other bags from work) heading uphill, when an older couple stopped me. They had a bag of takenoko (bamboo shoots) which they offered to give to me. They explained that they were really quite tasty and they were a gift.

Keeping in mind the last time I was offered a "gift" on the street, my friend had $300 lifted out of her wallet (no not in Japan), my first inclination was to at least hesitate. I told them in my broken Japanese that I really couldn't and I pointed out that I didn't have any hands to spare. They assured me I would love them and hung them on one of the other bags I was carrying. I tried to thank them as earnestly as I could and they continued on their way as if they make a habit of gifting strangers every day. Perhaps they do.

Somewhat taken aback by the whole exchange, I continued home.

I'm going to have to try my hand at cooking bamboo shoots. Russell and I bought a shoot when they first came out in spring because they seemed to be a hot commodity and everyone was eagerly grabbing them up. We figured this was an experience we needed to have. After a great deal of research on the Internet for how to cook the shoots we kind of gave up. Its a process that takes both patient and diligence from what we can tell. Not our strong suits.

Guess its time to learn. And hey, where are we going this weekend in a storm anyway? Seems like a good time to gather around the stove.

Rainy season?

I haven't ever figured out when, exactly, rainy season is suppose to be in Japan. My understanding is June or July - getting things nice and wet before the heat picks up and everything gets muggy.

The last two years I remember very little rain until August or September - and usually associated with typhoons. This year, however, we seem to be rotating between extended rainy patches and perfect summer days - and its only May. Is this a traditional (if early) Japanese rainy season? Or is it yet another anomaly?

I just hope it doesn't lead to higher or longer humidity this summer. I'm definitely nervous.

Random Photos

It seems that often I get too busy and forget to post. I was going back though my photos recently and found several that I had intended to post but never got around to. With that in mind, I thought I would use my post today to share.

The first picture is of a dish Russell and I often get at Japanese pubs. They are little fried fish, and as you can see, they are fried whole. You get to eat the tail, fins, bones, head and what's left of their eyes. Succeeding at eating something like this, if you're coming from an American perspective, lies in just not thinking about it. Everything is perfectly tasty - in fact, the head doesn't have as much meat in it, so its delightfully crisp and flavorful. The bones are so fine you don't notice them at all. You just munch away. Every time we order them, though, I think, "huh, I wonder what everyone back home would think..."

If you get the chance to try some, I recommend them.

The next picture is of my "No Russell Pizza Party." Russell has parlayed his newly developed intolerance of dairy here in Japan to an anti-pizza stance. Even though he has medication to help him eat dairy, he has decided that pizza is just one of those things that should be avoided anyway. The minute he steps onto an airplane for a business trip, though, I race home, call my friends and have a pizza party. The local "Chicago Pizza" (not to be confused with chicago-STYLE pizza, which it definitely is not) has a three cheese pizza that's to die for. Mozarella, parmesan and camembert for the win. Since my friends are health conscious, we made huge salads and piles of edamame to fill ourselves up before the pizza arrived, but none of the pizza survived the encounter in spite of our efforts.

Finally, proof that it does snow in Kobe. Our first year, snow occasionally fell, and it would collect on the trees in the hills, but none every accumulated in the city. This winter, we actually had a handful of nights when snow accumulated. I made sure to take pictures. I was very excited. You can see the white fringe on the rooftop - its snow!

Okay, it wasn't always that lame. Never a real pile up, but we did occasionally get more than that.

A little R&R

If you have been reading my blog for awhile you may recall an early post about Ganbanyoku. This is the spa treatment where you lay a towel over hot stone tiles and sweat away. I went twice with an early co-worker and while I quite enjoyed the experience I never really established a routine for going. Once my co-worker had moved away from Japan I just stopped going.

One of the reasons it was less appealing was because it was for women only. I couldn't take Russell and I felt bad leaving him out. Especially when the only time I could go was weekends.

Recently, I had been talking with a different co-worker about going, but we never seemed to get around to it. Finally, her husband looked around online and discovered that there is a rather enormous spa in Kobe that not only has Ganbanyoku, but is open to men and women alike. The two of them had tried it out during Golden week and came back raving about it. They both wanted Russell and I to join them the next time they went.

This weekend turned out to be the weekend.

The spa was amazing. It cost approximately $24 each, we were given cotton pajamas, a robe, towels, etc and then had access to an impressive array of hotspring baths and saunas, several different ganbanyoku rooms, relaxation rooms, an internet room, comics room and movie theatre. There was also free tea.

We started in the hotsprings (these were sex segregated), scrubbed down and soaked for a while. We tried some different saunas and then my co-worker and I changed into the cotton pajamas and met the boys in the ganbanyoku area. There were several different temperature/ atmosphere rooms with a large resting area in the middle. The resting area had a variety of mats, cushions and chairs, all overlooking the Kobe view from the 13th story. It was night time when we went, so the lights were beautiful.

Technically we could have stayed until 3am, but after three hours (we arrived around 7pm) we decided to head out in search of food.

Maybe if I need to work late one night I will just go spend the night at the spa? Could be worse...

A Golden Week of Swing

Golden Week is officially coming to an end, but looking back, it was pretty awesome.

My Golden week was split into three sections. I got last friday off but had to work Monday (so I had a three day weekend) followed by three days off in the middle of the week, then Friday back at work and now the weekend. Not as good as Golden Week gets, but none too shabby.

To be honest, I've already forgotten the first three day weekend, although I remember enjoying it so much that it felt like four days off. I'm pretty sure there was some Dead Guy Ale in there somewhere. Maybe a guacamole burger.

For the three days in the middle of the week it was time to strap on the dance shoes. Tuesday we went to Takatsuki Jazz Street and listened to live performances all around central Takatsuki. We met up with the swing dance group and had fun dancing to a number of performances. A day outside with friends, good music and dancing is always awesome.

The next day was the Golden Swing Dance, but before that one of the local top notch dancers was giving a rare lesson, so we jumped in on that. He taught us how to adjust for fast dancing and slow dancing - something which has always been tricky at best and often impossible for Russell and I. The lessons was very well timed for us and we got a lot of use out of what we learned in the coming days. Level up!

Wednesday is our regular swing night, but the Golden Swing Dance was much more crowded than normal. All the regulars descended plus several people from out of town who dropped in for the lesson earlier in the day and two live bands. It was difficult to dance at times, there were so many people on the dance floor. I had some fun with with a new dress, makeup, contacts and curlers - none of which are part of my normal lifestyle. It was a fun night. Russell and I left Osaka around 11:30 - later than normal but still in plenty of time before the trains stopped. Unfortunately, we managed to dazedly stumble onto the wrong train enroute and ended up in Itami - not the direction we intended to go. With a bit of luck we made it back to Osaka in time to catch one of the last trains and we did get home in the end.

We got home around 1:00am and fell into bed. We both turned off all alarms and vowed to get some rest. We woke up around 9am and realized that we had another swing lesson in Osaka at 10:30. We have never gotten ready so fast in our lives. It usually takes about an hour to get to the studio in Osaka from our house, but we hit the trains perfectly and were granted a bit of slack since the lesson wasn't officially starting until 10:45. We make it just in time. Good thing, too. It was not a lesson to miss. We learned a move I had learned to mimic from watching people but never learned to do properly. By the end of the lesson the step seemed easy and way cooler than I had realized. Of course, the "seemed easy" part was all due to our awesome instructor.

We all had lunch together and several people from the class made their way to Kobe to do some sight seeing before the big band dance in Kobe that night. Russell and I split off from the group for a while but I went down to meet them towards the end of their tour at Meriken Park (near Harborland). The plan was to stage another Shim Sham video in Kobe. We stood around a boulder, ate some souvenir treats and enjoyed the sunny day. Once everyone was gathered we filmed a Kobe Shim Sham interrupted only by large stones in the grass in inconvenient places and a couple children dashing in front of the camera at regular intervals. A good time was had by all.

But the adventure wasn't over. Next we headed to Gessekai - the glamorous cabaret in Kobe I mentioned a while back in another post. Kansas City Band, a 10 piece big band from Tokyo, was playing and the location really can't be beat. The dance floor was crowded once again. It was so much fun. I even got a chance to try the new move from class that morning - and completely botched it. Son of a... Of course, messing up one move does not ruin a dance. Far from it. But this cannot stand. I will be practicing.

The funny thing was, I couldn't figure out what I had messed up - which worried me even more. Its kind of hard to fix something if you don't know the problem. Sometime around 3am I woke up and remembered, though. I was suppose to kick, not step. That solved, I slept peacefully the rest of night.

My mind was not on work today.

But now its the weekend AGAIN! Yay!

An unexpected pleasure

Russell and I had a bunch of errands today, including updating our phones/ re-upping our contracts and buying me contact lenses, among other things. By the end of the day, we were pretty beat. I was craving pub food, or at least a good hamburger. At first we thought about going to Hobgoblin - a British chain pub (we actually lived across the street from a Hobgoblin when we lived in Reading, UK, also. Turns out it IS the same chain!)

With the royal wedding still on the radar, though, we thought Hobgoblin might still be a bit busy. Instead, Russell decided to use his new, much faster phone to search out a new burger joint to try. We found one a bit of a hike up the hill from our place. We had passed this place once before back when we were running, but we hadn't ventured that far away from home any other time. The place was called Shin's Burger and it certainly had the correct trappings. Route 66 memorabilia, red and white checked table cloths on picnic tables, an add outside announcing a guacamole burger. This was looking good.

And the menu? Guacamole burger, bacon burger, avocado chicken burger... all very nice. To drink? Dad's root beer, cream soda, Dr. Pepper... oh. And Rogue Brewery's Dead Guy Ale. Seriously. It was 700 yen (almost $8) but how could we pass that kind of opportunity?!

Russell ordered the Dead Guy and the restaurant proudly presented it to us explaining that it was from Oregon. We happily informed him that we, too, were from Oregon.

We was very apologetic about the price. We assured him that just having it available, and walking distance from our house made it invaluable.

Hearts warmed, we headed home to watch a historical drama about the Meiji restoration.

Golden Week begins

I'm sure I've posted about this before, but every year there are four national holidays that happen all around the same time. Generally, businesses just give their employees the whole week off, making "golden week" one of the hottest travel times in the country.

This year we have the emperor's birthday today (Friday) and three more holidays next week on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. But what to do with Monday and Friday? Most companies just gave everyone the full week off - so a nice 10 day vacation for the country. Schools, on the other hand, are teaching Monday and Friday.

Right! Like any of our students will be there!

Oh well.

Russell, unfortunately, does not get these days off, so we won't be able to go anywhere. There is going to be a bunch of swing events in the area, though, so we'll make up for it dancing away the week. I have a feeling I'm going to be hobbling to my Friday class.

But then it will be the weekend again!

No thanks - just water for me

Japan is the land of vending machines, and our school has no shortage. We have four machines fully stocked with soda, juice, tea, coffee, cocoa, water and whatever variations the soft drink companies can dream up. Hot and cold. Generally, I try to stay frugal and just stick to instant coffee, tea and water which can be had much cheaper in our office.

While today was quite chilly again, the last couple of weeks were starting to get pretty warm. I was keeping up with my morning cup of instant Nescafe but by the end of class its been too warm to justify coffee for an afternoon pick-me-up. I decided to try Pepsi Nex. Is that what its called in the US? Somehow I doubt it. Its basically a variation on Diet Pepsi. Perhaps not even a variation. We have no theory on what image "Nex" is suppose to inspire. I think of Nexxus shampoo, myself.

In any case, the first can was quite refreshing and packed a reasonable dose of caffeine. The next day after class I found myself heading down to get another.

Along came Friday. We have been giving our students homework where they have to come ask the English teachers questions and record the answers they hear. It gives them an added opportunity to practice English outside of class and draws them into the English office so they are more likely to come on their own down the road. This week was favorites/likes/dislikes. One of my conversations went something like this:

Student: "Questions... Okay?"
Me: "Yes, go ahead."
Student: "Do you like Japan?"
Me: "Yes, I do like Japan."
Student: "What is your favorite sports?"
Me: "My favorite sporT is swimming.
Student: "Do you like sushi?"
Me: "Yes, I do like sushi."
Student: "Really?"
Me: "Yeah, really."
Student: "What is your favorite drink?"
Me: "My favorite drink is coffee."
Student: "Not Pepsi Nex?"

I'm switching back to water.

One Year of Swing

I just realized that this coming Wednesday will mark my first year of swing dancing. Russell and I have really learned a lot in one year and made a lot of good friends. We owe a great debt of gratitude to the swing group in Osaka that taught us, dragged us through our first attempts and continued asking us to dance in spite of the job we were doing. We were lucky to mixed up with such a friendly and upbeat group.

We are also lucky to be going into the Spring blitz of swing events. All around Golden Week the swing scene in Osaka comes alive. There will be the normal weekly dances - but with some added flare, workshops, dance events centered around live performances and jazz festivals that will likely be taken over by dancers. Its a good time to be looking to dance.

During English class at the university the other day, we were doing a speaking activity designed to get students to socialize with each other and use English. They had to ask each other if they liked doing certain activities, like playing video games, skiing, etc. Of course, I was wandering around the group answering and asking questions, too. One student asked me if I liked dancing. I told him I did and as a follow up (bright kid, gold star for him) he asked what kind of dancing I liked. I told him swing dancing and he immediately looked it up on YouTube. He verified with me that he had found the correct style (he had - it was a fairly representative social dance - thankfully not a competition with aerials) and then he showed it to the other boys that were hanging around. "Hey, this is what the teachers does!" They all started laughing hysterically.

I choose to assume they were laughing with sheer respect and awe.

Adventures in Light Fixtures

After more than two years, Russell and I decided it was time to spring for one - maybe even two light fixtures. On our first every shopping trip we managed to procure one large light fixture for our kitchen area, so its not like we've been living completely without light - the apartment even came with light fixtures in the toilet and shower areas. We've managed just fine with those three sources of light.

Sure, its a little dark in the winter, but not so bad...

Today we had some time to kill downtown, so we decided to peruse the fixtures at the local electronics mega-store. The key reason we never settle on a fixture for the living room is that the fixture has to hang from an already low-hanging beam- dangerous for Russells. The fixture in our bedroom is right next to the beam, so all the wide fixtures available won't fit. We either needed a hanging one (which would be too low) or a super skinny fixture. We gave up after a while.

Today we finally found a fixture that was both relatively low profile, skinny, and as a bonus, light. Even if he does hit the light, we figured Russell would have a sporting chance. Unfortunately, there was only one fixture in the store, but we figured one was better than none. We bought it and headed home.

We hung it in the living room and it worked perfectly. That is, until we tried to turn it off for the evening. Where was the light switch? We have now determined that we need to buy one of the "comes with a remote" lights for the living room. Thankfully the fixture was skinny enough that it will fit in the bedroom.

Getting a hot lightbulb out of a skinny fixture while turned on proved to be a scalding experience, but necessary in order to get the fixture down. Eventually we unscrewed the light bulb with a towel. Things were easier from there.

So the living room is now dark again, but we can see every nook and cranny in the bedroom.