that mountain i climbed.. and fell all the way down.

Mt. Hotaka.. see.. the scrapes were worth it!

small god statue of the mountain


the fearless leader..

there is no way to capture this weekend in a witty little title.

sooo.. this weekend.
I met up with one friend Friday night in Tokyo. We stayed at this pretty nice hostel. We met up with my other friend around 1pm the next day. I gotta say, the subway/train line is so ridiculous here and amazingly sweet. There is an insane metro system (with like 4 shades of green colored lines) PLUS a train system that has a bunch of loops within the city and out to the nearby areas. It was pretty easy..except for this one station that is miles long with a couple of malls and sooo complicated to get around (especially after a night of drinking, dancing, tired and at the 7am rush hour.. but thats another story). So we meet up with my friend and decide we want to go to the beach so we head out to Kamakura.. the city my grandparents lived. We don't exactly know where we would be staying that night but we go and hope to find something there. When we get there there is a tourist info place so I ask about hotels/hostels.. she basically laughs in my face and was like.. all these places were booked weeks ago.. you're screwed. But screwed or not we decided to hit up the beach. It turned out to be pretty dirty but at least there was water and a bunch of surfers to watch. After a while we wonder around looking for anything that looks like it could put us up for a night and figured if we found nothing we could always head back to Tokyo and get something there. We walk past a surf shop and given they had a sign in English in the front, we decided to ask if they knew of anywhere. They tried but no success. So we hit up some drinks then headed to the beach to hang out. On the way down we pass a bbq.. and the surfers from before are there. Within 15 min this one adorable girl surfer is like.. you guys are staying with me. We played the "no, its ok, really we were fine" for a little but said yes and were tickled pink. So we hang out for the rest of the night with these sweetas surfers. The girl we are staying with is unbelievable and we have all fallen deeply in love with her by the end of the night. She doubles as a clown and pulled out balloon tricks later that night.. how can't you love that ? Another guy we were chilling with was one of the most famous surfers in Japan.. too bad we didn't catch his name.. Anyway, after everyone goes home Mika (surfer/clown/host) insists on us all sleeping upstairs we finally go to sleep, 5 of us sharing two futons.. yea it was cozy.

The next morning we had hoped to learn how to surf from this famous guy but there wasn't any waves so we hit up Hase-dera (really beautiful shrine and Japanese gardens) and Daibutsu (a really big Buddah). They were as I remembered from going their when I was younger. Except that the Daibutsu keeps on looking smaller and smaller to me each time I visit. We head back to Tokyo to hopefully catch a nap before our night out. First we have a nice dinner with Aya and her breakdancing teacher.. Then we head to this show that Jurawa had informed me about from Peru.. DJ Krush and Lupe Fiasco. This place it was at was ridiculous.It's HUGE.. they didn't allow cameras in so I couldn't take any pictures. But there was the main stage, a tent stage playing the second rate DJ's (they were playing such a weird/bad set of old and new hip hop), a pool stage that we didn't check out until the end but had some real decent house, and another stage that I just walked by but was playing some pretty good jazz. Before Lupe Fiasco there was this sick beatboxing group.. then Lupe played. i didn't know him at all but he gave a killer show. Then DJ Krush, but we were too pumped up to listen to his tranceish stuff. We danced basically the whole time until like 6:30am. We walked through the main stage area on our way out and they were playing Rage.. me and Cristina (friend) rocked it out..these Japanese thought we were hilarious.. but we finally headed out.. had a terrible experience with the huge confusing train station and got to bed at like 8am.... we headed home the next morning after a dazed but delicious tempura breakfast.

... and now im about to get a very concerned email from my mother (im safe.. i promise)

mmm.. Japanese Gardens..
"the three little idiots" as Cristina lovingly calls us..
DAIBUTSU!
there were a couple of weddings happening at this shrine.. but i forgot its name (dad.. its the one at the end of the street that leads to the beach.. the really big one)
mmm.. kimonos
clown work..
kamakura.. surfer beach style..
outside the club.. at 7am

Sports Day Extravaganza!!

Pics from the sports days (yes there were multiple)

Village Sports Day.. delicious festival food..
A personal favorite.. the ball toss
Yea.. have no idea whats going on in this picture.. but it was awesome
Junior High Sports Day.. the students and our mountain view
Another fav.. the 20 person jump rope.. i think they got up to something like 50 or so jumps together.. i tried once.. it was a disgrace
this one is complete insanity.. three boys carry one and run at each other and try to to pull each other down, the nurse's tent was flooded

Discovery #4: Don't let the shy demenor fool you, the Japanese are ANIMALS when it comes to athletic events, ..or maybe I'm just really out of shape.

So, this weekend I stuck around Katashina. Sunday marked the village's SPORTS DAY! (this is a massive event taken with all seriousness.. I had to go to 2 practices in preparation). It began with tasting all the festival food they had. I even fronted making my students practice English when in actuality I was just making them give me some of whatever they were eating. Then was my event... the 100 meter sprint. I guess I was concentrating more on not messing up than I was at warming up so that when my turn came I gave a fairly poor attempt. I came in a solid 4th with two pulled quads and maybe even a pulled groin. After struggling to smile as everyone gave me their congratulations, a man informed me that I would also be running in the relay. Needless to say this was also both excruciating and pathetic. Afterwards, I was sitting at my house, icing my poor legs when two women came to my door and invited me to the dinner and drinking party for the sports day. After taking the necessary Advil I went and had my cup filled and topped off countless times with beer by the village folk, all becoming increasingly confident with their English and wanting to congratulate me on my spectacular performance from earlier that day. We moved to the village karaoke bar where I did a crowd pleasing rendition of a song by The Carpenters. I headed to bed early because I was to meet a teacher from the Junior High at 7:30am the next day to do an 8 hour climb of a nearby mountain....
I woke up in surprisingly less pain that I had anticipated, got ready and met up with the teacher. The first stretch of the climb went really well. It was a gorgeous day, we practiced our Japanese/English, and climbed along this amazing ridge line, looking out on the valley and mountains in the distance. Strangely, there was a huge techno festival nearby so between the bird calls we could here the unz unz unz of techno bass lines. We summited around noon and to eat a hearty lunch. However, as I pulled out my sandwich, my friend begins to pull out a whole gas stove and pot for water. I didn't realize that we were going all out for this lunch and my contributions were looking increasingly pathetic. Even so, the lunch was great and we moved on to take a different route back to the car. Although he warned me that it was a little more difficult, I wasn't entirely prepared to summit two more peaks, do some rock climbing, basically slide down really steep hills, re-pull both quads, scrap some knees, and plead for the end. All in all though, it was great. Although when he (as chipper as ever) turned and said to me at the end "Great hike, huh?" all I could think to say (as I was disheveled with a muddy shirt, dirt and scrapes all over my legs, and my whole body dripping in sweat) was "call the paramedics." The day ended nicely as I experienced my first onsen (bathhouse), and sat in a outdoor pool watching the sunset and trying to ignore all of the quick looks I was getting from all the women who had never seen a naked foreigner before.

Discovery #3: Teachin ain't half bad

So, among all the adventures listed below I have also managed to hold a job. I've been assisting in the village's Junior High- mainly helping out with pronunciation and keeping the kids interested by making a fool of myself on a daily basis. It's fun and the other teachers are really nice. The head English teacher is really relaxed and helps me out a lot. (He's the one in the back in the orange shirt in the teacher's group pic) The students crack me up everyday and most will even try to talk to me in English! As I walk to and from school there is always a group of students across the field yelling out "good morning" to me. This past week there was a regional speech contest that 6 of our students entered. I worked almost everyday with them, got to know them pretty well, and worked on the ever evasive "s" and "r" and "th" sounds. And we won! Well kind of. These two hilarious 7th graders won "Most Comical." That counts right?
This past week also marked my first time visiting an elementary school. For these visits I have to plan all the lessons for the 6 grades. It was a lot of work and I can't say everything went smoothly but I left pretty happy and with a bunch of 1st and 2nd graders REALLY excited to say "HELLO. MY NAME IS ___" at the top of their lungs. I hand it to all teachers out there.. they deserve to have the whole summer off.

My first teacher enkai (Drinking Party)
The 7th graders (the boys won most comical.. and im damn proud)
Me and Kaori.. another speaker
Our werewolf student (he's a handful at full moon time)
Pics from teaching the 1st and 2nd graders

I went to Nagano

So I went to Nagano last weekend. Did a little Kareoke. Did a bit of getting lost. Saw ski jumping. It was sweet.

There's a skier at the top of the picture
Our attempts..

Discovery #2: Obachans kick ass.

1 story..

1.) Last Friday I went for a run around the village. Over the hills and through the rice paddies I went, getting a little lost and running a little farther than I had expected. On my way out I passed a small "obachan" (old woman) who came up to my shoulders with a small straw rice paddy farmer hat on. As I return she beckons over to me to stop. So I do. She then informs me that she was 83 years old and farmed all the land that was surrounding us by herself (by informed I mean she spoke Japanese and this is what I gathered through hand motions and my dismal amount of Japanese). She then motioned to the corn fields next to us, which I responded with "oishi" (yummy). Next thing I know I am down in the fields with her, picking corn and wondering how on earth I got in this situation. After gathering about 15 ears of corn we put them in a bag. She hands the bag to me, as a gift. I accept gratefully and wave goodbye, hoping to run into her some other time. However, at this point I was about a mile away from my apartment so I trudged back, with a brown sack over my shoulder, though my tiny village that I now call home.