A Great Weekend and Only Six Weeks to Go

Well my last weeks in Japan are speeding by much more quickly than I thought they would - I have so many things to do before i go, but it will all get done eventually. My last day at AEON is April 19th. On the 21st I will leave for Seoul and then Beijing to visit my folks who are teaching English there. I'll spend a couple weeks in Beijing before heading back to the U.S. via Seoul and Tokyo. If all goes according to plan, I should be back in Minnesota on May 9th or 10th.

I've had a great time in Japan and made many new friends who I hope to keep in contact with and have visits from. My experiences here have ranged from the odd to the beautiful, from the noble to the ridiculous - in other words, pretty much the variety you experience any place in the world. I'm anxious to return to many of the people and things that I've been away from for the last year and two months, but in coming home, I will be leaving so many new friends and will miss a lot of cultural things I've come to appreciate.

This weekend was nice because two sets of students invited me to spend time with them. On Sunday, Fumi and Aiichiro invited Anthony and I over for lunch - they called it Anthony's welcome and my graduation from AEON party. Here's a rather staged photo of Aiichiro offering Anthony a natto roll (Anthony did try one - just before this picture was taken, and vowed never to eat natto again - wise choice, Anthony):

Today, Mieko picked up Tomoko, Stacy, and I in front of city hall to take us to Karasuyama. Our first stop was at some falls - we had a bit of time before our tours started. Unfortunately the river and the falls contain a pretty foul stench - for those of you Mankato people reading this, it's the same smell you get when you pass that farm on 169 just north of Le Sueur. But the reason for it here is because this is the country and some of the smaller country towns do not have proper sewage systems in place. Therefore, waste is dumped in the river. Here I am with Mieko and Tomoko in front of the smelly falls:

Next, we toured a cave where sake is stored. This cave was built by students and was used in WWII to store munitions I think. Here I am at the entrance:

And here're the four of us next lots of sake, being aged in an environment which offers a constant temperature:

After we sampled a variety of sake and bought a few bottles, we decided to go to lunch before visiting a washi (Japanese handmade paper) workshop. We had this kind of rice dish that people have told me the name of several times throughout the day, but for the life of me, I can't remember at the moment. Anyway, it was good and this is what it looked like:

After lunch, we went to the paper place, but the workshop was closed so we just looked around a bit. Then we stopped at an onsen on our way back and relaxed a bit before heading back to Utsunomiya. Once back, i made some amazake (sweet, hot sake, with some of the sake cake that I bought. In the evening, I headed over to AEON to write my farewell message and to meet Kanako, Yasuko, and Anthony for a snack at Cafe Praktica. Yuki - who is moving to Nagano next week - also came. Here's Kanako posing with a sculpture in the cafe. The artist who sculpted this corpulent figure has made several around town and they are to be found in various shops about the city - kind of like the Charlie Brown statues, but a bit more odd and shocking the first time you see one:

For the last three Mondays, I've been making Praktica my evening hangout - I go, get a pot of Irish malt tea and a small dessert, and either read or write or surf the net. I've known Ako-san and Kin-chan all year, but have been getting to know them better in the last few months. Ako loves classical and jazz music and has a pretty discerning taste, so I made her and her husband a disc of the Boswell Sisters, which they loved. Here I am at Praktica with Ako-san:

And here's the gang (from left to right): Kanako, Yuki, Me, Yasuko, and Anthony. It was fun to hang out with this group tonight.

That's it from my neck of the woods; what's happening where you are?