GorillaDust In Japan

Serious Rain

I was woken up this morning to what I thought was a passing train, but it turned out to be the year's first real thunder storm. Now this is no standard storm and rain, it's the type where if you're caught outside in it for literally 8 seconds, you're completely soaked to the bone. Hmm, may be difficult to walk to work today...Stephanie just got home from an ill-timed run and she's a little wet.

Made it to all my appointments yesterday, and all went well. The doctor seemed to think the bone is coming together nicely, and that the soreness I've been experiencing is normal. I'll take his word for it, but I'm still damn uncomfortable. The hospital seemed a little livelier than normal, so I spent a good amount of time sitting around watching people (and they watched me). Should be the last time I have to go, so cheers to me!

Beekeeping!?!?

What the hell, did I miss a memo or something? For the second time in as many days I've read or watched a story about how beekeeping is becoming all the rage again. One story in the newspaper was about how yuppies in London have started keeping bees as hobbies, and a story on the news tonight was about how people in Tokyo have been getting interested in bees. One person even went so far as to say that bees are cute, and have nice faces. Eh, these are bees, right? I mean, I like honey as much as the next person, but keeping a bunch of hives around is something I'm simply not going to do. Ah, to each his own I guess.

I'm heading to the hospital tomorrow morning for my monthy check-up, and then I'm off to Ikebukuro in Tokyo for yet more training. Luckily they just said on the news to expect torrential rains. A statement was made that "Umbrellas are generally useless when the rain falls this hard." Excellent, good to know it'll be an entertaining day at least.

Fish On!

We went out fishing the other day on our local river and I finally did it - I hooked into a nice sized carp! I was slingin' the fly left-handed, and I think pretty much by chance hooked up a 14-15 inch male carp. I was pretty pumped, but was the only person to see it as Stephanie had taken that moment to wander off looking for a bathroom. Exciting for me anyway....and the moment was ruined minutes later when I spotted a large, green spider on my right wrist. Instinct took over and I jerked my arm out away from my body, causing the spider to hurtle off into the bushes and me to be wracked by severe pain. Good times....good times. I'm pretty damn sore today, but at least I caught my first fish in Japan! I'm not proud of it, but it was carp spawning season, so I won't brag too much. Still happy.

So we've also got our vacation dates settled - June 30th to July 21st. Aww yeah, looking forward to that! More details to come when we get everything together.

In an unrelated side note, bottle rockets are on sale again at convenience stores all around Japan - it's time to party!

Vacation Alert

Aww yeah, it's almost within reach! We've put in some vacation requests for the beginning of July - Actually June 30th to July 21st. Now that's a vacation! We have yet to hear if it's an actual 'go' or not, but I think we should be set. Excellent, looking forward to returning to the States for a bit and doing some serious relaxation.

So why haven't I been posting lately? Well, I asked myself that exact same question strangely enough, and I think it just has to do with being busy and generally exhausted. It's started to warm up here, so suddenly I'm hot and not up for doing much. Stephanie spotted some fish today in the Omoigawa river, so I think we might try a little fishing tomorrow, sans-licenses. We'll see if I can manage to sling a fly or two left-handed.

Speaking of hands and such, my shoulder is improving again and I've been doing pretty well. I'm typing with both hands, so that's a good sigh, though damn uncomfortable. I head to the doc on Tuesday to see how it's going.

We've spent the past couple weekends populating our deck with many forms of plant life. We've got some tomatoes, a strawberry plant, and a few flowers. It's nice to have some green out there, and the local gardens are going crazy right now. Ahh, spring is in the air.

Aside from that, just read this amusing article about "Lost In Translation". I haven't seen the damn movie yet, but it does sound interesting. Cheers!

Mmmmm, discomfort

It's been some time since I've written, but I've been in some bad shape these days. Since my stairs fall at the beginning of the month my shoulder has been in some pretty serious pain. Little things like yawning, sneezing, and coughing have turned into monumental pains-in-my-ass, and my neck has almost ceased to work. It's been even worse since I went to Shinjuku for work yesterday. A few hours on the train pretty much totalled me, so it's tough to get around. Ah well, so it is...good times. Mostly I think about my dad, who goes in today/tomorrow for an angioplasty procedure. I'm certain he'll be fine though.

On a lighter note our friend Q drove us down to the beach at Oarai, in Ibaraki the other day. It was cool to get a little extended car time in and see the countryside for a bit. It was also some great beach-going weather although I wasn't able to do much rock-skipping or frolicking. We went to a seafood restaurant that was named, oddly enough, Mexico. Did it have any Mexican food? Not at all. Did Adrian eat any seafood in one of the seafood centers of Kanto? Negative, I had a small steak which was pretty darn tasty. Stephanie had some sea urchin (uni) rice which she said she liked, but I steered away. A very nice trip.

I've also started developing another script, and I'm thinking of dedicating it to my goddamn collarbone. Whoops, that just slipped out, but it's true. It's the tale of a disaffected federal employee, a gang of rosy-cheeked youth, and their intelligent, know-it-all pooch getting into all kinds of wacky adventures. Mmm, not really, but one part of that is true...

Till we meet again!

Big ol' earthquake

Hoowa, just got woken up this morning by a pretty big one! I was sleepin' in, hitting the snooze button and enjoying my first morning in a bed in over a month, when the apartment started shaking around. It went on for quite a while (30 seconds maybe), and it turns out it was a 5.5 centered maybe 40 miles to the east. Pretty good sized! It's been a while since I've felt a quake, so pretty happy at the moment...as long as they don't get too much bigger.

Sakura Everywhere

Word - still alive and kickin' here. Took a fall at work last week on the stairs and went down straight on my right elbow, so the healing process may have been set back a little bit. Way sore now, so that sucks because I was healing up nicely. Ah well, as the world turns with Adrian and Stephanie. She's all recovered from her bout with bronchitis/pink-eye, so I guess things are looking up.

Yesterday we finally had a day off together, so we headed over to a little town called Ashikaga. It's only 40 minutes away and actually is a super cool little place. There are a bunch of temples there and the Ashikaga Gakko, Japan's oldest school which was founded in the area of 1410. It never ceases to amaze me how old things in this country can be. We get all impressed in the states when things are from 1850...yeesh.

Well we wandered around town before finding a hill where a bunch of cherry trees were. After a nice little climb we found a hilltop with an incredible view of the area, complete with tornado-like winds. Pretty sweet view, and cherry blossoms everywhere.