GorillaDust In Japan

Pottery Town, Japan

We spent last Friday up in Mashiko, one of the famous pottery towns of Japan. It's well known for it's Mashiko-Yaki, a rough and utilitarian type of pottery. According to this site, there are nearly 400 pottery studios and kilns in Mashiko. There are two festivals a year where all the artists in town set out tables and sell all kinds of pottery, and Friday was the first day of the festival this year. Now I like pottery, but there was far too much to see, and I don't like it enough to spend endless hours browsing thousands of sake cups. It was pretty impressive though, and we picked up numerous items such as a fine sushi platter, some flower vases, and a cat lamp which Stephanie had second thoughts about as soon as we got home. It's pretty 'neat' though. They also make claims about some indigo products, but I didn't see any. We did, however, eat some fine chili dogs.

Aside from that we've just been working away. Stephanie took some time on Thursday to head to an onsen in town with some folks from Tochigi-city, and that seemed to treat her well. Yesterday I attacked our tatami room to try and remove some of the empty boxes in there, so that's looking a tad better. The balcony garden is growing, and we look forward to having many tomatoes in the near future. Looking mighty forward to some vacation in July!

It's actually Golden Week right now, so all the locals are off work and slackin' around. While I was at work today there were some bands playing outside the mall, and I had the pleasure of listening to a Japanese metal band. It was a huge improvement over the pseudo-jazz band playing endless versions of "The Girl From Ipanema" yesterday. The music selection here can be odd at times - we've heard "Country Roads" done so many times and in so many ways (often with Japanese lyrics) the song is slightly disturbing now. Stephanie said she heard a guy driving by and singing it to himself in his car the other day.

OK, that's all for now, the original "Planet of the Apes" is on now. Sweet...

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!