To do list from the last few days - a retrospective

-Get last minute gifts. done
-Take friend to the airport so she can get home in time for Christmas. done
-Play violin for Xmas Eve.done
-get a new cat and name it Walter. done
-Buy short skis for new years eve outing. done
-get used boots. done
-buy snow pants on sale. done
-work new years eve but take off a little early. done
-take a nap before going to Afton Alps for the night. done
-ski for a couple hours with friends and have a blast. done
-find myself unable to execute a turn on the last run. done
-crash into a packed bank. done
-experience excruciating pain. done
-go to the ER. done
-get told that my right shoulder is fractured in three places. done
-ring in the new year sitting in a hospital gown, snow pants and Sorel boots. done
-Go to sleep on my sister's couch at 2am. done
(thanks to Dan & Sandra for bringing me to the ER and driving my car to my sis's house, and for moral support. Thanks to Becky for picking me up and helping me get medication. Thanks to Ken and Becky for letting me use their couch. Thanks to two year old Miri for saying in the cutest voice possible, "What's the matter, Uncle Matty?")

Camping, communibus locis

I started by titling this blog "camping, et. al." but then looked up the Latin abbreviation to make sure I was using it correctly. I should have remembered it means "and others" or "and elsewhere." I didn't want to resort to etc. either because that's too commonplace. But the point is, when I looked up the meaning of et. al. in Wikipedia it opened a whole page of Latin phrases that I nerdily nerded out on. That's why today's title is "Camping, communibus locis." I am not, however, a tech nerd, so I still can't figure out how to do italics in html on my Mac browser. I do like having foreign or archaic words italicized, so if you do too, just pretend that the phrase above is tilting a little to the right. As for the meaning of the phrase, you'll have to do some nerdly sleuthing on your own, or simply not care what it means and move on.

This is another catch up post to let people know what I have been up to. Last weekend I went canoeing and kayaking on Lake Elmo with my sister Becky, her husband Ken, and my niece Miriam. Here I am taking an obligatory self-portrait:
Here's Ken bringing the kayak that I would be using down to the lakeside. This was my first time kayaking and, as it happens, I turned out to be not so bad at it. I gave my arms a good work out and was able to move fairly quickly.
I also bought a tent last weekend because after traveling around Asia, I thought it would be good to travel around Minnesota and see its parks a bit more than I have. Anyway, it's a Coleman tent as you can see and goes nicely with the Coleman lantern Beck and Ken gave me.
On Wednesday our department at work had an outing. We were all invited to go to a Saints game. The pre-game bbq highlight was watching Jean perform feats of magic:
Just after this picture, Kristin and Jean and I skedaddled into the stadium to get more beer and keep Kristin's buzz going. That's it for the game - we only lasted 2 innings before deciding to go.
On Friday after work I went on my first camping outing of the summer season with Becky, Ken, Miriam, and their dog Sammy. We went to Afton State Park and had to hike in one mile to our site. Here's our little campsite after we got everything set up:
The rest of the pictures are pretty self explanatory and I cannot think of anything else you need to know before looking at them except that I brought my tripod which explains the fact that the pictures at dusk a) include all of us, b) are not blurry, and c) did not require the use of a flash.

Sayonara!

I have been reading Basho's Haiku prose/poetry travel diary, "Narrow Road to a Far Province." It was a gift (one of three books) from Yoko, who is brilliant, and has been taking my short story reading course. This book describes the poet's journey from Tokyo (then called Edo) to the remote upper areas of Honshu. As I was reading, I got this brilliant idea of composing some haiku to put in this blog entry, but all I could come up with was:

A lonely gyoza
Left uneaten on a plate.
A fly heard buzzing.

The gyoza was an obvious (if you live or have lived in Japan) nod to Utsunomiya (宇都宮), which has over 30 gyoza restaurants. But then I couldn't make the rest of the poem work in any meaningful way, and anyway, I'm pretty sure, if I were in a room with a plate upon which a lonely gyoza sat, I'd eat it before the fly ever got near it. So I have abandoned the idea of writing anything of poetic value in this entry (I do have some pics below of sakura, or cherry blossoms, so perhaps I'll be inspired further down).

I'm including pictures here from the last week or so - it's been a busy time, getting ready to leave Japan. And I've been lucky to be able to spend time, between packing and getting things organized, with a lot of the people I've grown to care a great deal for. A week ago, I played tennis with Tomoko, Isao, Motoki, and Anthony. Soon after we arrived, Anthony and Isao went off to play doubles with some other players on another court which left me, Tomoko, and Motoki free to play tennis and pose for silly pictures:
Isao and Anthony joined us after a bit and I was able to get this cool shot of tennis balls (and Anthony in the background):
After tennis, we had a great lunch spread out for us at Tomoko and Isao's. I love spending time with Tomoko and Isao: one is always certain to be well fed, to never have an empty glass, and to always have great conversations. After spending the afternoon there, Anthony and I had to head out to a small party at Aiichiro and Fumi's. Michel, Seiko, and Kohei were also there. Aiichiro did himself proud by cooking up a great Chinese dinner. Seiko brought her violin so that Fumi and I could play part of Bach's double concerto in D minor. This was a surprise I found out about only a day or two before going over there, so I practiced with Fumi a bit and then we had a concert where we played only the intro part of the first movement - I have never played that piece well, and after such a long time of not practicing, my playing was pretty rusty, nevertheless, it was a lot of fun:
Aiichiro and Fumi had also invited a candidate for city office over for dinner and he made a short speech which Aiichiro translated for us - this was amazing, as it was the first time, I'd eaten dinner where a political speech was made. I found this much more agreeable than what most politicians here do, which is to drive around in vans with loud speakers and yell about how everyone should vote for them. One of the things he talked about was the issue of a memorial that the local Korean community wants to erect near a mine where several Chinese and Koreans, forced into labor there, died. If you check out Michel's blog, he does a fine job outlining the history of this controversy (unfortunately when I use Blogger in my browser, I'm not given the option to create hyperlinks). Here we all are minus Fumi (who was the photographer):
This next group of pictures was taken at my farewell party last night. Madoka booked us a large tatami room at a restaurant near the school and it was perfect. The atmosphere was much better than the last couple places we'd had such parties at. Here I am with Isao and Tomoko:
It was great. Everytime a camera came out (and there were many), people would dive over tables, squash together, make peace signs with their hands. Here I am in a couple such group shots:
Scott was able to come up from Nagoya to spend the evening with us, which was a great surprise to many of the students at the party:
It was also the last time to see Michel and Yoshiko on this side of the world, so I was happy they could be there. I'll miss you guys - come to Minnesota soon!
I was humbled by the many gifts students gave me: pictures, flowers, sake, books, a soroban (Japanese abacus), furoshiki (traditional Japanese wrapping clothes for gifts, lunches, etc.), picture albums and frames, and lots of cards with warm messages. Yet none of these made me laugh as much as the shirt my Friday night discussion class presented me with. The front had a picture of me with the class - taken a couple Fridays ago. The picture on the back made me jump and let out what may have been as close to a scream as you will ever hear come out of my mouth. Here 'tis:
After Anthony led a Matt trivia game (won by a student who I've never taught before, but talked to in the lobby many times), Yasuko made a toast, Stacy gave a speech, and the staff and teachers presented me with a really nice fountain pen. Then I got up and gave a short speech - I had to keep it short because it was like the third time that week that I was worried that I'd start crying in front of my students. But I made them promise to visit me in the Land of 10,000 lakes as well as e-mail me from time to time, so I hope to be able to continue the many friendships that have begun here.

Earlier in the week, I took some pictures of the cherry blossoms, and as my kid sis asked me to post them, I am doing so here. But first, another fat lady sculpture - I like this one a lot:
The last four pictures were taken in Hachimanyama, the park where we had our hanami last year:

Okay, let's try a haiku again for the picture below:

The cherry tree's limbs
Droop and claw above my head.
Attacked by shades of pink.

(I think I'm channelling a bored student in a seventh grade English class during a poetry unit, rather than the spirit of Basho)



Tomorrow Anthony and I will meet the new teacher, Dayne, who is fresh from training in Omiya. Then two days left of work and a ton of things to do before leaving for Seoul on Saturday.

Nearing the End

I've been meaning to post something lately, but haven't really known what to write about. In some ways the last couple of weeks have been harder than I'd expected. This is primarily due to the fact that I have had so many nice messages from students since they've heard I'm leaving Japan. In spite of some of the problems on the administrative levels of this company, I've really come to care for and respect many of my students - so many of them have become good friends, and it's hard to leave good friends. I don't really know what more to say about this except that I hope many of the people I've encountered here in Japan will come visit me back in Minnesota.

I'm also very excited about returning to the States next month and seeing friends and family whom I've been away from for too long. I am a little nervous about the return - I've had no real nibbles from the applications I've submitted for work, and am not quite sure what it will be like to be back in the US after living in a place as different from it as Japan. Anyway, these last too paragraphs have taken far too long to write for as wordy and uninteresting as they are, so I will move on to pictures taken recently.

After tennis a couple weeks ago, Stacy, Anthony, and I were invited to the Suda's for dinner. We had a lot of fun playing with their new toy: Wii. Here's Stacy and Anthony boxing:
And Stacy, Motoki, and Tomoko in the kitchen whipping up some paella:
Here's the gang after the meal:
Later that week, Michel's family stopped in Utsunomiya with Michel and Yoshiko for a visit. Here we all are at AEON:
I went to Tokyo and Yokohama this weekend. Here's a shot of Tokyo Station:
Chinatown in Yokohama:
A temple in Chinatown:
I walked around Yokohama bay and saw this nice looking ship:
I really enjoyed my afternoon/evening in Yokohama - the architecture was really interesting, and in spite of the drizzly weather, it was fun to walk around and take some shots of the buildings and amusement park:



I tried taking some night time sakura pictures, but the cherry blossoms, while beautiful, didn't really look the way I wanted them to with a flash on them and I didn't have my tripod to take a good evening exposure. Ah, well...

Daikura!

Yesterday morning started with my cell phone alarm going off at 5:00am.

I quickly turned it off, knowing it would go off again in a quarter of an hour, and again in a half an hour, and again in three quarters of an hour. But before it had a chance to go off a second time, it let out a sound like a plane flying over head - that meant I was receiving an e-mail.

Michel checking to see if I was up yet.

I replied with an "Ugh! Yes" text and got an "Ugh!" back as a reply. We AEON teachers are not used to getting up at such hours; our school day doesn't begin until 1:00pm. But today, we were going skiing and I had to get my butt out of bed and jump in the shower to meet the cab over at Michel's that would take us to the east side of the train station to meet Ray, his daughter, and our bus to Daikura. I had been telling my students all week about my ski plans and purposely dropped that I hadn't been downhill skiing in over 20 years just so I could see the look of surprise on their faces. Yet, as I put on the ski/snow-boarding suit Stacy loaned me (thanks, Stacy), and later picked up the short skis at Michel's to hand them to the driver, I think I surprised myself more than I had my students. "I'm really going skiing. and not just skiing at Afton Alps or Lutzen back in Minnesota (for those who've never traveled to my great state (or never watched or read "Little House on the Prairie") Minnesota is flat, with the exception of a few hills), but skiing in the mountains. Big, steep mountains." But Michel assured me there were beginner slopes at all elevations and that I would be fine.

The taxi arrived early and dropped us off at the gyoza statue on the east side of the station. We waited in the cold for about 20-25 minutes until the bus arrived. We loaded up our gear and soon were joined by Ray and his daughter Rina. Ray is one of our outstanding former discussion students who still meets us for drinks at the local pub outside of our office on Wednesday nights (NOVA teachers, I understand, are not allowed to fraternize with students). We all spread out in the back of the bus when Ray turned around and handed us each a beer - a beer before 9! Michel and I were happily surprised by this refreshment and after a quick "kampai," we opened our cans and were on our way:The bus filled up at our second stop, but then proceeded to stop every half hour or so - so passengers could go to the toilet. Now, I have a VERY small bladder and normally would be thankful for this, but it seemed excessive even to me. Besides, it was cutting into our ski time. As we got closer the snow got heavier and heavier. The ski resort was beautiful and full of skiers, snow-boarders, and ski-boarders all enjoying themselves. As I was borrowing Michel's short skis (thanks again, Michel) I didn't need poles - only boots. I quickly got these and we all got ready and were off. This was my first time using a ski lift in my life (I'd only used a tow rope before), and after a little help from Michel and the lift attendant, I figured out how to get on and off the lift with a minimum of embarrassment (Michel will probably tell a different story, but so be it). One of the nice things about the lifts here is that they come equipped with a plexiglass hood that comes down once you start off and keeps the wind and snow away:
Here I am at the top of the hill with Michel and Rina:There were many types of ski outfits sported on the hill, but Rina's was the brightest which made it easy for us all to keep an eye on her. This was her second time skiing as well so she and I were the beginners. We all had distinct styles of skiing. Michel and Ray were obviously the most expert of our team - Michel gave me many helpful pointers on executing a controlled, curving descent down the hill. His own style showed he knew what he was talking about. Ray had long, straight skis and looked quite European with his controlled, classic way of getting down the hill. Rina snowplowed and worked on her turns. It was fun to watch her ski down to where we were and then hear her cry - half fear/half delight - grow loud and then soft again as she swiftly passed us, unable to stop. My own style was a work in progress. I was having a bit of trouble bending my knees as I turned and this contributed to my initial lack of control in my descent. By the end of the day (except for the time on the intermediate slope when I literally tumbled my way down the final run), I felt much more confident and could even execute a pretty good hockey player type stop (tho' here again, I must have looked a bit ridiculous as every time I turned to the side I either a) lost my nerve and did 2 or 3 stops to finally stop, or b) executed the stop well, but did not put my weight into it enough and lamely drifted off to the side like a discarded candy wrapper blown by the wind). Anyway, Here I am with Ray and Rina:And here we are after a nice lunch, back up on the slopes. The weather cleared enough for us to see the endless mountains and take in the true natural beauty of this country, far, far away from rust and concrete:


(If you click on the pictures, you should be able to see an enlarged version and can get a better scope of the beauty of these mountains):All in all, it was a perfect day for skiing and a great refresher course for me. Hopefully, I'll be able to make it out to the slopes one more time before the end of my contract at the end of April. Thanks to Ray for taking these amazing pictures of our day on the slopes.

Today, I am researching teaching opportunities in Vermont, Colorado, and other mountainous regions of the good old U.S. of A.