You Might As Well Throw Away Your Kobe Beef

So much has happened since the last time I blogged, even though I only let about a week go by this time!  Where I left off last was of course having an awesome time in Nagasaki with Izumi and Sumihiro, my two favorite people.  Also a giant centipede which was a "little" centipede, and the promise to get pictures of a big one wrapped all the way around the border of the city, which I'm still waiting on.

I greeted the weekend with open arms.  My boss wanted to take me out of town on Saturday, and as is common with bosses and holidays, he said we should plan on leaving town even earlier than I normally even leave my house for work.  So I got up about 10 minutes before he got there and took the world's fastest shower because it takes me about 9 and a half minutes to get dressed for some reason.  Here's a picture of me in the shower:

We drove and drove and drove and drove until finally we came to a town known to the locals as "Hirado" and known to everyone else also as "Hirado."  Hirado has, hands down, the finest beef in all of Japan.  I don't know why the rest of the world is gaga (no reference to Lady) over Kobe beef.  We ate the most wonderful steak lunch.

That steak practically melted in my mouth.  It was so tender and juicy.  And then it came with dessert.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.  I guess I was a little too excited about the food.  BEFORE the food, we spent like 5 hours hiking around town to various historic sites and panoramic views.  Here's the Hirado Castle:

Actually, that's a minor outlying building of the castle, taken from the top floor of the main castle building.  We also went to see a view of temples and a church, 110 meters to the left of this sign:

I suppose you want to see what that looked like.  I'll have to post that in the next blog, I didn't get a great shot of it so I'll have to get it from my boss.  But here's a picture of him getting a great shot of it.

We also climbed a lot of stairs.

After all that, I went back to Omura, where I met up with my friend for dinner and drinks.  We had dinner at his place, and then went to the bar his cousin owns called Shochu Bar Mizu.  His cousin was treating us that night, and insisted that I have the opportunity to try some of the finest and rarest wines available in Japan available at his bar.  For example, this beauty:

"Tamaekane" runs about $15 a glass.  The owner told me to order it by its name in English: Balls.

Later in the evening, after my best friend ditched me, this also happened:

The very very next day, I went sightseeing in Nagasaki again, this time with my good work friend.  Nagasaki is a big town, so there wasn't much overlap in my Nagasaki sightseeing trips.  We got to see the Peace Park which is pretty much where the bomb fell.

We also went to Glover Park, which is where some guy named Thomas Glover bought a bunch of land a long time ago and became famous, and they still keep up his historical house. He also had something to do with Madame Butterfly, and maybe some koi.

And here I am carrying a little person:

We ALSO went to see the night sky view of Nagasaki.  This is where Sumihiro and Izumi and I went too, but we went during the day.  My work friend and his wife and adorable daugter and I went after dark.  We parked low on the mountain and hiked nearly a mile to the top, only to reach the observatory JUST as the rain started coming down.  So we RAN out onto the roof and snapped a few quick pics and said "That's good.  You good?  I'm good."  Then we took a taxi back down to the car.

Compare that to the night sky view of Omura, which I was fortunate enough to see last night.

Not as bright, but still beautiful.  Of course my camera does't take great pictures...it looked quite a bit better than this in person.

I didn't know where to fit this photo in, but I'm at the end of my story now, so here it is, from the side of a public ash tray:

A Month's Worth of Blog in One Post

I haven't written a post in about three weeks, and for that I apologize.  Once everyone found out I'm leaving soon, my life got a lot busier. Actually, once I found out I'm leaving, I made my life a lot busier.  Finding out that you have to fit a year's worth of memories into 6 months is like, um, something but I'm not sure what.  But something rough.  Maybe it's like sandpaper.

Anyway, over the course of the last month I have been to many places and seen many things.  I went to a classic car show.  Here's a picture of some classic cars.

That was the same day I went to a waterfall.  This waterfall, in fact.

The weekend after that, I had a GREAT barbecue with my co-workers after work on Saturday.  It was raining, but we barbecued inside the work facility and all.  We had already scheduled the barbecue some time ago, but since everyone found out I will be leaving soon, they altered it to be my going away party and they pooled their resources and bought me a really nice modern-day stationery set with a really nice retro theme.  I say modern-day because rather than stationery, it has a nice pen, a 4Gb flash drive, a mouse pad, and a business card case, and they're all sprinkled with gold dust.  Lit'rally.

After the barbecue, I missed out on some really great karaoke but at least I got to spend hours and hours with the company president in a dimly-lit, smoky bar you may have heard of before, called Snack Funny.

However, the next day I got to go to Penguin Town City Hall, which is not what's it is called in English OR in Japanese, but I like the ring of that so I'm sticking with it.  We met all the council members as we served them lunch.

And we got a rare glimpse of the King of the Penguins, sitting on His throne.

I also found out on short notice that my really super awesome little sister Izumi from when I was an exchange student found time to come visit me!  So Tuesday after work I picked her up from the train station.  It was SO good to see her.  We ate a hearty dinner at my favorite pub with my best friend.  Mom sent loads of cash so that we could paint the town red while Izumi was visiting, so we ordered anything and everything we wanted from the menu.  Here's a stock photo of Japanese money because I forgot to take a picture of the food.  But I will mention: raw horse.

Wednesday I took the day off work to spend with Izumi.  My best friend Sumihiro also took the day off work to spend with Izumi.  He drove us to Nagasaki (proper) and showed us the bits and pieces of Nagasaki that lots of people don't know about.

Some of these backroads end abruptly in stairs, so there's no way for vehicles to get through.  So if you live up in the hills and you order a package from Amazon, the delivery man straps on a giant backpack and hikes up all the steps way up into the hills to deliver your package.  It's true! I saw it on TV!

Here's a picture of me about to enter the women's bath.  Silly American!  Don't you know those characters on the door mean "women's bath"?

The funniest thing is introducing Izumi to people I know as "my little sister."  The other person invariably IMMEDIATELY looks at her, and she very casually nods in agreement...no smile on her face or immediate offer of explanation.  To us it's just a given that we're brother and sister.  Then of course when people ask, we go into detail, but if they don't ask, we just let them think about it for years to come.

Last time I came to Japan, Izumi and I had a movie moment, where I was on the "passengers only" side of the glass barrier and she was on the lobby side, and I ran out of prepaid cell phone usage but I had already entered a text to her in my phone so I just pressed my phone up to the glass so she could read it.  Then we both cried so hard.  THIS time, we've come a long way and realized how small the world is and how strange the world is and that we'll almost surely see each other again, and probably soon.  Not that it wasn't difficult parting ways AGAIN, but it was a lot easier than last time.

That brings us up to today, because Izumi left this morning after a late late night of drinking wine and talking about our childhood together, where we've been since then, religion, philosophy, relationships, parents, children, EVERYTHING.  

So, while we're on the subject of today, here's an old-timey internet we use at work.  In the photo, I'm using it to check Facebook.  It's different, but it works.

And here's a picture I managed to capture of two monkeys playing in the sand.

Author's Note: I opted to not put pictures of giant biting centipedes in my post today because it was only just announced this week at work that it's "officially centipede season" and we should be checking our shoes regularly before putting them on, and the centipedes we have seen around the office so far have been the "small" ones, only a little longer than my middle finger.  The "big" ones will be around soon, and I will post panoramic photos of them as I see them.

Public Service Announcement at the End

I'm going to have to pick up the pace a little on this blog posting.  I am only just now getting to Golden Week Part III but there's a lot of stuff that's happened since Golden Week!  And I have a feeling it's going to get even more adventurous for the next few weeks.

So, to speed things up, on Friday of Golden Week, my work friend took me to "Urami no Taki" which is a wild flower preserve/nature trail leading to a waterfall whose name literally translates to something like "View the Back of the Waterfall" because the trail leads around behind the waterfall and you can see the back of it.  Except that part of the trail was closed, so we could only view View the Back of the Waterfall from the front.

We spent the day hiking and exploring the area, and we also went to the New Tea Festival, where they celebrate the first green tea harvest of the year with live music and lots of vendor booths and snow cones.  We took a hike from there across a bridge to a lake where you can ride a duck-shaped boat, but when we got there, there was no water in the lake and no duck-boats either!

But the bridge was cool, and the hike around the dry lake was fun and beautiful.  And we ended the day with an all-you-can-eat dinner.  It was an excellent day!

In the span between this hiking day and today, there have been quite a number of fun bromantic dinners, trips to remote desert ice cream stands, late-night-on-the-town antics, life-saving hard-disk file-recoveries, shopping trips, and work antics.  If I put them ALL in this blog, then I won't have anything to talk about when I get home, so I'm just going to post a few quick pics.

Ice cream.

Bromance.  Italian and Japanese and German, in perfect harmony.

No caption necessary.

Old-fashioned erotica.

This old-timey robot brings us our coffee at work.

Ok, that should bring everyone up to speed.  Now, on with the Public Service Announcement.

I am going to be in Bloomington on June 28th.  This time it will be for more than 12 hours!  I think congratulations are in order.

And that's the real reason I had to bring you up to speed with what I've been doing up to now; my schedule has gotten decidedly busier since all of my friends found out I'm leaving them behind for a while, so I will have lots more photos and antics to post in the upcoming days, I'm certain.

You May Want to Sit Down Before Reading This Post

Hi there.  If you're wondering why in my last blog i said I would post more "tomorrow" and I am only just now posting more, it's because of the time difference.

Golden Week Part II: Wherein the Hero Takes a Bath

On Friday, May 3rd, 2013, We were once again on vacation from work.  So my friend and I took a loooooooooooooooooooong drive.  When w got to where we were going, it turned out where we were going was a castle!  Japan is chock-full o' castles, which is really great because I love castles and I hope to some day live in one.

My friend said "Eh, this castle is kind of small," but I was thinking "How much room do you need?!"  Then right after that I was thinking "Boy it sure would be cool to be a samurai standing out front of this very castle with a big goofy grin on my face."

Shortly after I had that thought, we were approached by a ninja out front of the castle who offered to make us into samurai warriors with big goofy grins on our faces standing out front of this very castle.  I am not joking about the ninja.  But the ninja may have been joking about being a ninja.  But it was that kind of joke where you are dressed like a ninja and you don't say whether or not you're a real ninja and then *poof* you vanish in a puff of smoke, vowing to avenge your family's honor.

Keep an eye on the ninja in purple at the top of the steps.

*Poof* No ninja.

But wait!  I need to back up.  The walkway up to the castle was really quite beautiful.  Here's a photo of it:

And as you approach the top, if you're quiet you might catch a glimpse of the Mother of the Birds in her wild habitat:

Ok, back to me being a samurai:

And who is this right at the top of the castle?  I recognize that face!

Next we had lunch at a nice little place with an old friend of my friend.  Here is a picture of what I ate.  That is a whole crab, some fish eggs, I see most of an octopus tentacle laying there in the middle, I believe that's a raw shellfish just to the left of the tentacle.  It was fantastic!  And I forgot to take a picture of dessert before I ate it, but it looked like little eyeballs.  But it wasn't.

After all that, we finally went to bathe.  As I mentioned at some point to someone in time and space, I have some tattoos so we had to find a public bath with a private room.  Most public baths have signs up that say "No tattoos allowed" or "Please leave your tattoos in your locker" or "Tattoos must be on a leash."  So I thought I would never have a chance to experience a Japanese public hot spring bath.  Then I did.  I should have taken some photos of the room and the view (it was partially outdoors), but by then I was pretty naked so I was feeling too shy to take nature photos.

But here is a series of photos of me in a Japanese hot spring, in case you're curious.  You may want to cover your children's eyes.

After the bath, we visited he ocean and drove the long way around the peninsula to get home and saw a lot of great sights and ate some deep fried potatoes on a stick.

I could post a million photos here of our trip, but I won't this time.  I think you've seen enough.  But keep in mind this was only day 1 of our 4 day weekend.

See a Picture of a REAL Monkey!

Let's see now, where did I leave off?  Oh yes, blowfish.

The sightseeing trip with my old college buddy around Fukuoka (pronounced "San Diego") was really a blast.  And we spent one evening up by Shimonoseki/Mojiko in a swanky jazz club (not live music) reminiscing and catching up and talking about how weird it was that 12 years after the last time we saw each other I was working in a small town a mere train ride from her home.

Speaking of train rides, I am always terrified to ride the trains by myself in Japan.  I always think I'm going to get on the wrong one.  I have yet to make a single mistake, but I'm still always afraid.  Come to think of it, I'm always scared to ride the city buses in Indiana too for the same reason.  

Now since I said the word train, here's a picture of trains!  That one that looks like it could go really fast goes really fast.  If I got on that one by accident, in minutes I would be in Canada.  So I always arrive at the train station 28 hours early so I have plenty of time to make sure I paid for the right ticket and I'm standing on the right platform.  

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that Mijoko is famous for bananas.  It's where the bananas first landed when they discovered Japan, like the Japanese version of "Plymouth Rock" or the East Indies version of "America."  So below, I have included a picture of bananas. And since the first thing you think of when you think of bananas is little street performer monkeys, I have also graciously included a picture of one such monkey.  I didn't catch his name, unfortunately.  But we did exchange glances.

Absolutely bananas

Actually, that monkey's wearing a dress.  I think he might be a she.

Then there's this guy.  He was in a museum full of things I wasn't allowed to photograph, but there was a sign on his chamber that said "You may photograph only this statue."

I also saw the birthplace of Einstein.  Actually, I can't be sure he was born there, because he seems to be German.  

And also, this building had nothing to do with Einstein, it was a different building that had anything to with Einstein at all.  But I can't seem to find my picture(s) of that building.  However, just so you believe me, here's a picture of a picture of Einstein in said building.  He's at the head of the far table.

I'm going to end this post here because I have company and he's probably thinking "get off the dang computer so you can get back to watching TV with me!"  And I know anyone who reads this is anxiously anticipating the bath photo, but I haven't gotten to that trip yet.  This post, however, concludes the review of my first Golden Week trip.  Stay tuned for reviews of trips 2 and 3, which include bathing, the sea, a remote desert ice cream stand, and more.

Oh, here's another picture of blowfish:

Well THAT Was Different

So, here in Japan there is this thing called "Golden Week" which is a great week in which a thousand holidays fall within a few minutes of each other and everyone has nearly the whole week off.  Originally, when I got my work calendar for the year, I was working at my company and so I thought my holiday week was split into two long weekends.  But then I started training at our sister company, and they had the WHOLE WEEK off!  So I started thinking about making bigger  plans.  Then the day before vacation, the president called and said that during the 3 days when our sister company was off, I should go back to our company and work.

At any rate, what ended up happening during my holiday was some of the most fun I've had since I got here.  I met up with my long-lost friend from Ball State, Keiko.  She lives in Fukuoka.  Here we are at the top of Fukuoka Tower.  Well really this is just her.  I'm the one taking the picture, so you can't see me.

Luckily, Keiko works with groups of college exchange students and organizes sightseeing trips for them while they're going to the school she works for.  So she knew all the best places to take me.  See photos below for said "best places."

Sushi served on big ol' leaves!

Big Tall Light-Up Parade-Thingy.  People carry it by hand during the parade.

Only put toilet paper in the toilet, not people.

Fancy after-church lunch with Dad (who also went to Ball State in 1976) and Mom

Canal City

One night while I was in Fukuoka, I spent the night in a Capsule Hotel.  If you're picturing rows and rows of small sleeping chambers or "capsules," one after another all up and down the hall, you're probably picturing the 2nd and 3rd floors of the hotel:

I, however, got a deluxe room on the 4th floor.  My room has a tiny desk and an accordion-style sliding cloth door.  And my sleeping capsule glows with the eerie light of the afterlife.

Also I ate blowfish.  The raw blowfish is the almost completely clear mass on the upper half of the blue fish plate on the upper right corner.

Now I don't want to kill anyone with sensory overload, so I'm going to end here.  But as a sneak preview of tomorrow's post, AFTER I went back to work for 3 days, I had a 4-day weekend during which I got to go to one of the public baths you hear so much about.  Actually, I had to get a private room at the public bath, because I have tattoos.  But here's a sneak preview of me in the bathtub: