Back to Japan

I flew home at about 8:30 Thursday morning. I had only brought one suitcase for the trip, and I was coming back with a lot more stuff. (Candy for Halloween and Christmas, supplies for activities, etc.) The suitcase came up as 62 pounds. I was prepared to pay $50, which used to be the fee for overweight luggage. Apparently the rate had changed that month, and the guy at the desk told me the fee would total $282. It's important to mention that I was not using my full allowance for checked bags: I was technically allowed 100 pounds of luggage, although it had to exist as two bags of 50 pounds each. Dad darted off to Wal-Mart and got me a $20 medium-sized suitcase that worked perfectly; the disaster was averted.

I was flying back on the route I should have taken in, which means I got to fly into Denver for the first time. The original itinerary gave me 30 minutes to make my connection in Denver, and then 1:10 to make my connection in San Francisco. The Denver-San Fran flight was delayed by 45 minutes because "the copilot's chair was malfunctioning." I distracted myself as well as I could with my datapad and the newspaper (which headlined Obama's nomination), although I was more than a little nervous about the mathematical impossibility of making my connection in negative-fifteen minutes. We apparently took a shortcut to Denver, because we got there about ten minutes early, and they held the connecting flight long enough for the five or six of us who came from Springfield. (This is precisely why I try to fly the same airline on these trips.)

The rest of the return trip was uneventful. The in-flight movies from San Francisco to Tokyo were crap, so I passed the time with On the Road and The Selfish Gene. I caught the connecting bus from Haneda to Narita airports in Tokyo, watched the pouring rain delay my Fukuoka flight for an hour, and finally got to Fukuoka at about 10:00 that night. I woke up the next morning (Saturday, thanks to the date line) and caught my flight back to Tsushima with no trouble.

Glendale, where'er we go, whate'er we do...

Monday I stayed around the house and relaxed after all the driving. At some point, I ate at Andy's, which is a local place that serves frozen custard. It sounds like a pretentious distinction to make, but anybody who's had Andy's knows it's definitely not just ice cream.

Wednesday, I went back to Glendale. Last time I caught up with Akaike-sensei, my Japanese teacher--we all just call her Sensei--she told me that all I have to do is tell the office that she's expecting me as a visitor. I tried that, and the office lady called Sensei, who thankfully played along. I made my way up to her room, walking as slowly as possible in order to observe the students.

Sensei has her own room now. For those of us who had her class (gulp) ten years ago, that's a big change; she used to be forced to jump from room to room depending on which one wasn't being used that block. Incidentally, that room belonged to Mrs. Stewart, who taught me English junior year. We also used that room for J2 in '99; I distinctly recall awesome folks like Chris, Tony, Heather, and Mary, as well as an idiot named Fong.*

I knocked, went in, and sat down in the back while Sensei finished opening the class. I discreetly took pictures of the class to show my students, knowing that the mini-skirts, t-shirts, jeans, and air conditioning would blow their minds.

Sensei mentioned that this was her J1 class, and that most of the students were freshmen. She gave a brief introduction about me, making sure to mention that my first year of college did me a world of good. (I was a holy terror in her class, and the first thing she said to me when I visited her after my first semester in college was, "You've lost that arrogant smile." She was serious, but she laughed as she said it. I think she felt vindicated.) Of course, she also mentioned that I finished my degree and am now teaching English in Japan.

I stood up in front of the class and talked a little about life in Japan. I had to reorganize my thoughts on the fly, because I hadn't been expecting to talk to students on their first day of high school. I knew better than to talk about college, because I know I didn't know or care about that until I was halfway through senior year. So I decided to stick to the broad strokes, like my job, the weather, the food, etc. I felt like crying when I realized they understood every word I was saying. (It's easy to forget what that's like when you go eight months without speaking to a group of fellow anglophones.)

There were lots of questions, which made me feel like crying again, for the same reasons. I think a few of them may have been genuinely interested in the job, but they've got a long way to go before their bachelors. Anyway, the bell rang, everyone filed out, and I gave Sensei a hug and said bye. That was 5th period, and they had last lunch, so I was able to snap a picture of the lunchroom--another phenomenon completely unheard-of in Japan. I also strolled around the school for a few minutes, peeking in all the rooms I remembered.

Gone are Mr. Sly (AP Calc/AP Physics '00-'01), Mr. Collins (AP Lit '00), Mrs. Adams (Algebra II '99), Mrs. Calvert (Keyboarding II '99), Mr. Davis (Physics I '98), Mrs. Rowe (Eng IIH '98), Coach Whytlaw (Trig '00), Mrs. Stewart (Eng IIIH '99), and Mrs. Miller nee Wingo (World History '98). Even Dr. Pamperien, who took over for Buffington as principal before we graduated, is gone. Just about the only people I still recognize are Mr. Fotsch (Chemistry '99, Programming '00), Mrs. Maslowsky (Computer Applications I and II, '99-'00), and Mr. Clifton, who I never had any classes with anyway.

After walking aimlessly in the halls, I went back to the car. I spent a solid twenty minutes just sitting there, reminiscing. If I make a concerted effort, I can remember bits and pieces of every class I had in high school. I don't think that's especially rare, though I do think losing the ability to recall with such clarity is probably one of the most distressing parts of getting older. I try not to dwell on that for long, but it's definitely motivated me to write down what I remember when I remember it.

* Just because I'm shocked I can remember it so clearly: Star Wars: Episode I came out that May. My parents are so cool that they checked me out of school--maybe the third time that happened to me in twelve years of school--so I could get in line at the Dickinson 8 theater for tickets. I was within the first hundred people in line, and three guys behind me talked about the re-releases of the original (non-Special Edition) trilogy in the 80s. One of the guys had totally avoided all information about the new movies, hoping to see it with an open mind. The next day, I heard from someone (Chris, I think) that, when they found out why I was absent from Japanese class the day before, some of the guys in class (most notably the aforementioned idiot, Fong) made fun of me. Heather, probably the nicest person I've ever met, apparently took up for me. Granted, I did buy tickets for her and her friends...

End of the road

After barbecue, we went adventuring in St. Louis. I wanted to show her what little I knew of the area, so we parked downtown and walked to the Arch. On the way, we passed the new Busch Stadium, and walked up as close as you can get to it without paying. As it turns out, Heather was there with Megan and her family, watching the Cardinals beat the snot out of the Braves.

I'd only been to the Arch once before--with Kristi, almost exactly three years before--but I remembered it well enough to show Wakako. We went up into the Arch and gawked at the view of the city. The Mississippi was smaller than she had been expecting, though she did admit she hadn't pictured it from 630 feet up.

She was also amazed at the near-total lack of hills anywhere near St. Louis. I sort of felt the same way: having been in Japan for so long, I'm used to always being able to see mountains. Apart from huge urban areas, just about everywhere in Japan has mountains visible on the horizon.

We sat on the steps facing the Mississippi and talked for a couple of hours. Wakako had some random questions about college life in America, like how to politely enter a professor's office and the differences between mm-hm/uh-huh and mm-mm/uh-uh. I kept her entertained with questions about Nagasaki's dialect and some of the choicer words my students have taught me.

For supper, we headed back toward her apartment, and she showed me a nice district that reminded me of downtown Athens: lots of restaurants, bars, and sidewalks, and very little parking. We found an Italian restaurant she had heard of, got a table outside, and had pepperoni pizza and lasagna. (The pizza was easily the best I've ever had from a place not named Pizza Hut.) Whenever we wanted to talk about something that people around us might have been offended by, we just switched to Japanese. It was awesome.

We left at about 9, and noticed there wasn't anybody else out on the road. We got back in the car, talking about something in Japanese, and it wasn't until I saw an oncoming car that I realized I was driving on the wrong side. Thankfully, that car wasn't a cop, because I doubt the officer would've found it as funny as Wakako and I did. On top of that, we got lost on the way back. (It looks different at night!)

We finally got back to her place at about 10 and said goodbye. The trip back for me was easy, at least after I found the stupid interstate. I got back to Springfield at 2 a.m., four days, 1,700 miles, six states, five aunts and uncles, four cousins, three Mountain Dews, two barbecue restaurants, and one Hungry Howie's after I left.

St. Louis!

I woke up bright and early, checked out of the hotel, and stopped for breakfast at the slowest Burger King in the world. Seriously, half an hour for a Croissanwich and tater tots? Anyway, I got back on I-55, and got to St. Louis three hours later.

Back in April, I started giving English lessons to a girl named Wakako. She lived in the same town, working at city hall, but was from Nagasaki city. I found out from her that teachers aren't the only government workers who get shuffled around like the military--she was in the second year of her four-year island tour-of-duty. She had been accepted to Washington University's social work program, but was trying to transfer to Columbia. To do that, she had to improve her score on the English language test, and that's what I helped her with.

We met once a week over dinner, and spent most of the time just talking in English. We'd spend a good chunk of time doing mock-interviews using her study materials, but conversation took over more and more of the lessons. She didn't do well enough on her test to get into Columbia, but she was fine with that. She left for St. Louis in June, and I made it a point to visit her while I was at home.

I got to St. Louis at 11, and found Wakako's apartment after a few U-turns. She'd rented a car so she could practice before getting her license. She asked for my help getting gas. At first, I thought it was just the use of English that had intimidated her. After thinking about it, though, I realized she'd never actually pumped her own gas before. All of the stations in Tsushima are full-service, and I haven't seen any self-service stations in Nagasaki, either.

Naturally, we picked the one station with the broken pump. After wasting twenty minutes (and probably confusing her even more), we went to another station and had no trouble. We filled up her car, and later she got to practice on my car.

We met her Chinese roommate, Ella, and talked with her and a friend for a bit, before setting out for lunch. During our lessons, I had raved about barbecue, so she wanted to try some. I had no idea where the good barbecue restaurants were in St. Louis, so we stopped at a gas station and asked. It's amazing how differently I was treated with a Japanese girl with me. Most of the people we talked to seemed a little confused and surprised when I spoke English to them.

Anyway, the lady told us how to find a nearby place. We found it easily, and thoroughly amused the girl behind the counter as I explained things to Wakako. She was vaguely aware of cole slaw and potato salad, since those have infiltrated Japan, but she had no idea about baked beans, pulled pork, brisket, and ribs. I've never much cared for brisket, and she doesn't like beef very much, so she got a pulled pork plate, and I got ribs. The pork was so-so--I'm forever spoiled after working at the James River Grill--but the ribs were pretty good. Not quite as good as the Barbecue Shack in Toccoa, but not bad at all. She liked the pork, and loved the ribs.

Afterwards, we went to Wash U. We walked around campus, looking at all the beautiful buildings and landscaping, and the sight of a huge open quad made me want to throw the frisbee and go to Snelling. We walked around, talking about her classes and life in general. She seems to be adjusting well enough, and she looked relieved when I gave her the tea and seaweed I'd brought her from Japan.

New Orleans!

Armed with the remnants of my Hungry Howie's, I struck out for New Orleans. At the state line, I was welcomed by a sign in French. The rest of I-10 wasn't very remarkable; it was just another beautiful day on the Gulf Coast. I was given the option of taking the I-610 perimeter west to avoid New Orleans proper. I wanted to see some more of downtown, so I stayed on 10. At first it was great: I crossed Lake Ponchartrain and got a great view of the New Orleans skyline. The highway snakes right through neighborhoods and business districts, without much wiggle room. For some reason, I found this really interesting, as I'm used to arrow-straight interstates with lots of space around the shoulders.

Anyway, I peeked down into the city below as best as I could. I wanted to stop and explore, but I was running far enough behind schedule already. I did, however, get to see a cemetery from the interstate. It turns out Coach Huerkamp wasn't lying to us in 9th grade geography; cemeteries in New Orleans are in fact all above ground.

I couldn't see any of the leftover mess from Katrina, but I'm not sure if the parts by the interstate were damaged badly. I lost another hour in traffic just past downtown. I-55 starts just past New Orleans on the west side of Pontchartrain, and that's where I began my trek north. I stopped to fill up, and found strawberry-flavored Mountain Dew. It was exciting and delicious enough to keep me amused for the next half hour, which was good, because the first hour of I-55 is featureless bayou. There weren't even exits--just straight, boring interstate and mildly interesting swampland. I found blue Mountain Dew later.

I took I-55 all the way up to Memphis, stopping for supper at a Waffle House. I'd decided to drive until I got too tired, and I reached that point at around midnight somewhere near New Madrid, Missouri. So I pulled off there and spent the night in a hotel.

Road trip p... Ooo! A Hungry Howie's!

After saying goodbye to Aaron and Ruth, I headed out at about 9. My next planned destination was St. Louis that night, but wanderlust and my tummy got the better of me. There's no interstate that runs from Mobile to St. Louis; probably the easiest would be taking I-65 north to I-64. That didn't take me through anything new or terribly interesting, though. I decided to go west to I-55, and take that all the way up to St. Louis.

Heading that way kept me on I-10, and I-10 passes Biloxi and Gulfport, Mississippi. I stopped in Biloxi first out of sheer curiosity: I saw the devastation left after a hurricane a few years ago (pretty sure it was Ivan), and wondered how much progress they'd made. They've recovered admirably, but there's still a lot of repair work on US 90. I also decided to closely inspect the repair work done on the Beau Rivage's $1/$2 no-limit Texas Hold 'em tables. You know. Just to be sure.

One hour and $10 later, I hadn't caught any remarkable hands. I cashed out my remaining $90 and headed out. I stayed on US90 west, planning to take US49 up to I-10. There just happens to be a Hungry Howie's in Gulfport off US49. I may or may not have deliberately planned my route to bring me to a pizza place.

Hungry Howie's makes decent pizza, or at least they did the one time I tried one, about twelve years ago. Their main attraction is the pizza sandwiches. Sort of close to a calzone, but ever so much tastier, Hungry Howie's pizza sandwiches are another food Mom and Heather and I aim for every time we visit Alabama. In fact, I've been to the same one in Montgomery three times, stopping each time I've made the trip from Athens to Mobile over the past five years.

I was disappointed to find that this Hungry Howie's in particular was take-out only; half the fun for me is spending half an hour reading a book or doing the crossword while waiting for the sammich to cool. So I ordered my baked ham and cheese pizza sub, tossed it in the passenger's seat, and pressed on.

I'm a weirdo: I like pizza and pizza-related foods much more when they're lukewarm rather than piping hot. Maybe it's because it reminds me of getting delivery pizza when we were kids, then munching on the leftovers for breakfast and lunch the next day. So I drove for about half an hour, battling with my willpower amid the aroma of the sub, before deciding it'd cooled enough. I ate my Hungry Howie's going 75mph on I-10.

Goodbye to Alabama

After dinner and dessert, we all sat around and visited in the living room. The Olympics were on, and we watched some of the ridiculously good diving events. When everyone decided to call it a night, I headed back with Ruth and the boys. I let Matthew drive us back, still in mild shock at the fact that he's freaking sixteen.

They live in Semmes, about 30-45 minutes from Mobile. Their house is reportedly ten years old, but I think that's ridiculous, because I clearly remember visiting it when it was still being built, and that simply can't have been ten years ago.

The four of us stayed up until well past midnight visiting, and for some reason I showed Matthew and Andrew the Star Wars episode of Robot Chicken. My uncle Aaron is a firefighter (captain, in fact), and his schedule has him alternating 24-hour shifts. (It's not as bad as it sounds; I understand they get to spend most of their down-time sleeping at the firehouse.) He was on duty that day, so he was heading back in the morning.

I woke up the next day at about 7, and Ruth cooked a huge breakfast for us. (Unfortunately, we ate it all before I had a chance to take a picture.) The menu consisted of scrambled eggs, bacon, biscuits, sausage gravy, and Conecuh sausage. If you've never tried Conecuh, and you're a fan of sausage, you desperately need to try it. It's only available in and around Conecuh county, Alabama, though.

Afterwards, I had to pack up and head out. The hardest part of the trip was having to say goodbye to Aaron and Ruth so quickly. I tried my best to visit everybody, and I guess that's what matters.

Fay was barreling toward Mobile, expected to hit sometime that afternoon, so Aaron was battening down the hatches as I packed up the car. I made sure to get pictures with them all, and somehow decided it was a good idea to stand on the step below Aaron and Ruth. Go figure.

Dinner with everybody!

Sherry, Reed, Katy, and Justin (and their dog, Sadie) live in Mobile proper, about 45 minutes' drive from Fairhope. They moved into a brand new house last year, and it's every bit as gorgeous as I remembered. (They soon adopted a cat and named him Vader.) Katy's just starting high school, so we talked some about her classes. Justin and I watched some funny clips on Google Video, and then he showed me some of the things he's built out of Legos.

Reed's parents and Gail arrived later, and we all sat down for supper. Reed had fixed up a delicious pasta casserole, with salad and toasted French bread. Sitting around the table over a home-cooked meal was simply awesome. I'd forgotten how much I miss that. We talked a lot about Japan, from both my and Reed's dad's experiences. He served in the military during the Korean war, and visited Okinawa on R&R.

We kept on talking through dessert--a tasty cake Katy made, and ice cream!--when my aunt Ruth and cousins Matthew and Andrew arrived. School and work had kept them from making it by suppertime, but they still got there. Matthew just turned sixteen in July--yet another reminder of how old I'm getting; I was there when he was born--works a part-time job, and is pushing six feet. Andrew isn't far behind him, and their voices have already changed.

Everybody seemed to especially enjoy hearing me talk about my students' English. I believe their favorite part was about how we begin class. At the bell, everyone stands up. Normally (for non-English classes) everyone stands at attention, bows in unison, thanks the teacher, and sits back down. In English classes, we (all the other ALTs do this too) have them stand, and greet them: "Good morning!" or "Hi!" etc. (They learn "hello!" at some point, but that gets repetitive, and the 'l' sound gives them trouble, so they sound kind of like a stereotype.) We follow with "How are you?" While some of the more creative students--and most of my students after I spend a year working on new answers with them--will reply with a thoughtful "I'm hungry" or "I'm sleepy," most of them revert to a stock answer. Somewhere in their English education, they've been programmed to respond with "I'm fine, thank you. And you?"

There are a couple of problems with that. While there aren't any 'r's or 'l's to contend with, the 'th' sound is troublesome. Most Japanese learn to reduce the 'th' sound to a plain 's.' A bigger problem arises from that scripted response undergoing rote memorization. Chanting it over and over to jam it in the student's head produces a rapid-fire version. The combination of those two problems results in most ALTs hearing this: "Ifinesankyouanyou." They say it just like that: no pauses, no intonation, no rising tone at the end to indicate a question. I-fine-sank-you-an-you.

Fairhope, continued

We got up and moving by 8 in the morning, which is a late start by Gail's usual schedule. She didn't have much to do, though, so we took it easy. I met one of her clients, and we talked for a little and saw some of her paintings. Afterwards, we went to the East Shore Cafe, which Mom and I always go to when we're visiting Gail. I had a crab meat omelet--mmm.

After breakfast, Gail drove me around town for some sightseeing. I wanted to see as much as possible both for my enjoyment and so I could share with my students. Our first stop was the Fairhope pier. There's a little park on the beach with a duck pond, and we saw a mother and her daughters giving bread to about twenty mallards, Muscovy ducks, and geese. It reminded me of going to Twin Hills, the park in Crestview, with Mom and Heather to feed the ducks when we were little.

We walked out on the pier, and Gail told me stories about Mobile Bay. At low tide, the water around the pier is shallow enough for wading out to the end of the pier. Most of the local seafood restaurants serve fish caught from the bay. Sure enough, we saw a group of guys casting a net off the pier, and another man walking along with a fishing pole.

The original 1968 pier was destroyed by Hurricane Ivan, and while they were trying to rebuild it, Katrina came along and messed things up. You can learn a lot from informational plaques.

On our way back from the pier, Gail showed me some of Fairhope's beautiful houses and downtown architecture. Just as it was when I first got back to Springfield, I was shocked at how big everything was. I felt like a tourist in my own country.

We went back to Gail's, and chilled out for a little. I decided to head out while Gail took a nap. Before I left, though, I walked around the yard a little. She's had the same property for as long as I can remember, and though the landscape has changed almost entirely, I can still recall snippets of how it used to be. Walking around is good for that; I'll look up at the trees from a certain part of the yard and suddenly I'll see the old barn with the chickens and the bathtub for the horses. I think I remember being kicked by a horse, but if it actually happened, I got lucky--it didn't leave a scar or anything. I do remember being told over and over to never stand behind a horse. I also remember riding Tiny, the pony Gail and Bill gave me for Christmas.

As I mentioned, Gail has always loved animals. Behind where the old barn used to be, there's a little grove of scrub pines. Set among the pines is a small pet cemetery. Almost all of Gail's pets are buried there, but the rest of the family has used it, too. Sherry and Reed's Doberman, Chewbacca (who was a puppy of Leia, Gail's dog), is there. So is Fritz, the first dog I ever knew. He was a salt-and-pepper miniature schnauzer, and Mom and Dad had had him a couple of years before I came along. I remember standing there under the scrub pines twenty years ago, crying my eyes out as he was buried.

Anyway, I strolled around the yard for a while. It wasn't nearly as depressing as that last paragraph might suggest. The plan was to get everybody together at my aunt Sherry and uncle Reed's house for dinner that night. I decided to scoot over there early to spend some time with them.

Road trip! First night in Fairhope

I finally got to Gail's at 9:30. She had made a salad and cooked steaks, and had made an extra for me. She said it was no problem that I was late, that she didn't have to get up at her usual 6am the next day. We visited for a while, and she showed me her new laptop. She's just recently taken the plunge with computers and the Internet, and everyone else in the family gets to tell stories about how funny she is about it. She was trying to get her wireless router hooked up, so we set out to get it working that night.

After half an hour of reading the router's manual and hooking things up, followed by another half-hour on the phone with tech support, we got it working. As I was talking her through what the tech guy was saying to me, I told her to click on Internet Explorer. She clicked once, waited two seconds, and when nothing happened, she clicked on it five more times. We watched as, over the next twenty seconds, six IE windows popped up. Apart from that, though, she didn't seem to have any trouble with it. Only those of us who know Gail understand how proud we all are of her.

Between setting up wireless and just talking, we stayed up until 12:30. I spent the night at her place, and slept in the smaller of her guest beds. Whenever my mom, sister, or I visit Gail, we deliberately choose that one over the larger and cushier guest bed she has. Gail loaned Mom and Dad the little bed when Heather and I were kids: it was the first bed I had after outgrowing cribs, and the same happened with Heather. I finally got to sleep at around 1, after a good bit of lying awake and reminiscing.

Gail takes care of pets for a living. She boards animals at her house--smaller ones in her kitchen with her dogs, larger ones in kennels in her nearby barn--and also makes house calls. Fairhope has a fair number of wealthy retirees, and their frequent vacations ensure demand for Gail's work.

She loves all animals. While she only owns dogs now, she's had many other kinds of animals at one time or another. She used to have chickens and horses.* ** She also had two dobermans named Leia and Punky Brewster. *** She's also had a goat (named Broom-hilda), and some cats. She especially loves dogs, and her favorite breed is the Yorkshire terrier. She's owned several, and, the last time I checked, has five: Maggie, Glory, Fern, Lily-Rose, and Melanie. ****

She has about four acres well off the beaten path, about half an hour from Fairhope, which is itself an hour from Mobile proper. She and her neighbors live on a dirt road that hasn't changed much for as long as I've been around to see it. She has a very nice trailer with a fenced-in garden and small pond. Near the trailer is the barn, which easily dwarfs her trailer. It has an air-conditioned room with kennels for her smaller clients. There's also small fenced-in yard for the boarding dogs to get out and play.

In front of the barn is a large pond, created a few years ago and stocked with fish. Thanks mostly to hurricanes over the years--such as Erin, Opal, and Ivan--her yard has been pretty well cleared of trees, leaving a huge plot of grass.

*In fact, one of my first Christmas presents from her was a saddle. At least, that's what she and her husband put under the Christmas tree for me. I couldn't have been more than 4, and the way everybody tells it, I was upset when I saw the huge piece of leather with my name on it. The horse was out in the yard--they had carried him in a trailer for the hour-long drive to our house--and I named him Tiny. Mom and Dad didn't quite have enough acreage in suburban Pensacola, Florida to support a horse, so Gail and Bill kept him for me. I got to visit a couple of times, but eventually they gave him to a local family who had enough pasture for Tiny to be happy. Dad still likes to joke that they sent Tiny to the glue factory.

**Also, a Christmas or two later, when we lived in Fort Walton Beach on waterfront property, Gail and Bill gave me a four mallard ducks. I named them Scrooge, Huey, Dewey, and Louie. They were awesome, until they got eaten by raccoons.

***They gave one of Leia's puppies to my aunt Sherry and uncle Reed, who named the puppy Chewbacca. Ain't my family great?

****Melanie is her newest, adopted from a local family. Fern and Lily-Rose are Maggie's daughters; Maggie and Glory are sisters. Maggie and Glory's mother, Nugget, passed away last year; before that, Fern or Lily-Rose (I can't remember which) had puppies, meaning for a short time, Gail had four generations of Yorkies in her house.

Road trip! Springfield to Fairhope

Last Christmas, I gave you my heart. But that's not important right now. I went home to Missouri, and made a whirlwind trip through Georgia, to see friends and family. About half of my family lives in Mobile, Alabama, which was just too far away for me to make it. I've been meaning to see them ever since.

After visiting Glendale on Wednesday, I talked it over with Mom and Dad, and decided to take off for Mobile the next morning. Mom couldn't decide whether to go or not, and immediately regretted not going. So I packed up my car and took off. Perhaps of greater interest to my journal and its readers, though, is that I borrowed my dad's camera for the trip. The pictures are all available here, but I'll try to link to and insert them where appropriate.

(By the way, I do mean my car. After three years [and still a full year ahead of schedule], I completely paid off the loan. I officially own my first car!)

The 700-mile journey was amazing. Though I've made the trip many times, it was my first time going solo. I get strange looks from most people when I tell them how much fun twelve hours alone in a car can be, but I absolutely love it. It was especially impressive after having spent most of the past eight months on an island whose roads have no more than two lanes, and whose maxiumum speed limit is 30mph.

The first part of the trip was unremarkable. I took US-60E out of Springfield, and stayed on it until US-63S near the Arkansas border. I took 63 all the way to I-55S through Memphis. Determined to stop at either a Pizza Hut lunch buffet or barbecue (whichever I saw first), I found a Tops Bar-B-Q just before Memphis. I'd never heard of the place before, and it wasn't a big deal. It did, however, serve barbecue with all the trimmings--slaw, beans, bread, and sweet tea--so it fit the bill.

After Memphis, I drove across literally the entire state of Mississippi. The trip wasn't bad at all: the weather was simply gorgeous, and the time flew by with NPR blaring and my windows down. I-55 brought me down to Jackson, then I took US-49 down to Hattiesburg and I-59.

The trip was semi-secret: my aunt Gail was my co-conspirator. I wanted to surprise as many people as possible, but I also didn't want to show up to find out everyone had plans that couldn't be changed. Letting Gail in on things was the compromise: she casually asked around and made sure nobody was busy when I was planning on being around. I let word get out after I hit the road, though, so everyone knew I was coming by Thursday evening.

In Hattiesburg, I stopped at a Taco Bell for a snack, and to pore over my road atlas and daydream. The cashier struck up a conversation with me, and we talked about Japan while I waited for my food.

After wolfing down my decidedly disappointing chicken-cheese-and-rice-in-a-tortilla-but-with-this-month's-new-name burrito (there's just no beating Taco Bell's chicken quesadilla and Cheesy Gordita Crunch), and calculating the total number of miles I was going to cover this trip, I headed out the door. On my way out, I passed a middle-aged couple that was also leaving. The man struck me as a middle-aged version of Critter, my first landlord. He good-naturedly asked where I was headed, and he told me to be careful, since Fay was coming our way. It had already made landfall three times, and had just made its record fourth Florida landfall. I spell that out because that's what he did, making sure to hold up the corresponding number of fingers to avoid any confusion.

He went from Fay to talking about Katrina, and how his wife hadn't been able to work for a week, they had lost their house and had had to use $20,000 of their savings to recover from it. He went on to tell me that Katrina had pushed his homeowner's insurance payment up from $800 to $2,000 per month. After my answer to his first question--where I was headed--I really didn't say much else for about ten minutes, besides the customary "Hm"s, "Huh"s, and "Really?"s. Finally, he asked where I was coming from. When I told him I was from Missouri, I learned that he'd been to Missouri. He'd been to 39 states and 10 countries, in fact. I'm kind of glad I carefully neglected to mention I was visiting from Japan, because I was running late enough as it was, without spending another hour in a Mississippi Taco Bell parking lot listening to this nice man's travel stories.

I plowed out of Hattiesburg, and made the rest of the trip to Fairhope. I finally got to Gail's at 9:30.

Alma mater, our dear old Glendale High

Since I graduated back in 2001, I've made it a point to drop by Glendale High whenever I'm in town. To satisfy my conscience, I tried checking in at the office the very first time to get a bona fide visitor's pass, but an overprotective volunteer mom shot me down. Undeterred, I resorted to just walking into school. Winters when I was in college were easy, since all my teachers remembered me (and would thus vouch for me), and I could wear one of my sister's extra ID badges with the first name erased. Mrs. Calvert was especially helpful, and Mrs. Maslowsky, Sensei, Mr. Fotsch, Mr. Collins, Mrs. Adams, and Mr. Sly couldn't have cared less that I didn't have a visitor's pass.

In the years since, those teachers have retired or otherwise left the school, and my sister has graduated, making it a lot more difficult for me to fly under the radar at Glendale. The last couple of times I've tried to visit, I've had to bite the bullet and check in at the office. While the office workers aren't nearly as vicious as that volunteer mom was, they still consistently (and, in my opinion, with an unnecessary degree of sternness) tell me that unexpected visitors are only allowed on campus after dismissal.

On Wednesday, sometime in midmorning, I dropped by Glendale. I knew school wasn't going to be back in session for another week, so nobody much cared that I just walked into the building. They've done some pretty impressive remodeling since I graduated in 01. Central air conditioning was finished a few years ago, and this time they were in the middle of gutting the area around the Circle Drive. There used to be a continuous hallway running from the auditorium and gyms all the way to the second-floor wing of classrooms. Due to the construction, almost that entire hallway was sealed off, which made a hassle out of getting from one side of school to the other.

The room that Coach Keltner abused us in* for Driver's Ed in 98, and Sly used for Calc in 00-01, has been converted into the guidance office. The room next door, where Brian, Nick, and I dinked around in Fotsch's Programming 1 class in the winter of 2000, is another office-type room. The room at the end of that hall--in whose adjoining office Chris, Brandon, Shobutsu, Taylor, and I did a little reading and a lot less Japanese work--is being used as the interim office.

Like I said, with no students for whose sake to be on alert, nobody really noticed I was there. I took full advantage, walking every bit of the school, including a couple of small hallways I never walked when I was a student. With no teachers in their rooms, I decided to try the library, where Mrs. Maslowsky is headquartered now. Mrs. Maslowsky taught me how to use MS Office--which I use for several hours every day now--before taking over Glendale's A+ Program, which is Missouri's well-intentioned if inferior attempt at a HOPE scholarship. A very sweet and talkative secretary, Mrs. Johnson, told me that Mrs. Maslowsky was in a meeting that would last until lunch. She thought I looked familiar, and we decided that she must have known my sister. She checked on a few other teachers for me, to see if any were around, but nobody was. I left a note for Mrs. Maslowsky, thanked the secretary, and strolled out. On the way, I passed by the meeting, and noticed that Mrs. Calvert, another teacher of mine, was in on it. They looked terribly busy, so I didn't linger, and decided I'd swing back by next week when classes resumed.

*No, seriously. Apart from the tedious but necessary explanation of the Missouri driver's handbook, he made us watch an hours-long history of the American auto industry. Afterwards, he tested us on it. On the test, we had to correctly match the brands--Pontiac, Cadillac, Lincoln, Mercury, etc.--with the manufacturer.

Datapads

About six months ago, I heard about the Amazon Kindle. For those who don't know, it's basically an electronic book--a small computer or big PDA, depending on your perspective--that displays text files.

The big thing that makes it different from a computer or PDA screen is what's called E-ink. That's a nifty little invention that displays images on a screen without needing to refresh it every second or two, like old TVs and computer screens do. It's also not backlit, which makes it readable in broad daylight (though not, conversely, at night without a lamp). This cuts back on eye strain, making reading on it more comfortable. All of this combines for black text on a newspaper-gray surface. The Kindle features a wireless connection to Amazon.com, which lets you buy and download books in about two minutes. Amazon's isn't the only one; Sony has one, and so do a couple of other companies. The storage space of the readers, combined with the puny size of text files, means you can easily store a few hundred titles and always have them with you.

I immediately fell in love with the idea for two reasons. First, I have shelves and boxes of books at home that I read and love, but the paper, plastic, and ink that goes into their manufacture, as well as the time and energy spent transporting them to stores, are ridiculously wasteful. Of course, a rather tried-and-true solution already exists: it's called a library. I don't have any English libraries nearby, though, which leads to the second point. I love to read, but I also love to travel, and lugging boxes of books with me isn't very practical or cheap. These two reasons combined to make the idea of one of these readers fascinate me.

I did a lot of research, spending at least half an hour a day just browsing forums and review sites, reading about the different models. The single best resource I found is called MobileRead. Their forums are great, and they've got all kinds of ebooks and add-ons available for free.

Amazon's Kindle runs $450, and its main feature is the connection to Amazon. That doesn't work outside of the continental U.S., though. Also, I've found several sites (most notably gutenberg.org) that offer text files of public-domain literature absolutely free. Since these readers display text files, I'd be able to read all the classics I could ever want, at no additional cost. So I ruled out the Kindle.

Sony's reader stands out next, and costs "only" $300. I could have mail-ordered one in Japan, but shipping would have brought it up to about $450, and I still hadn't seen one up close. I wanted to make sure the screen was everything it's cracked up to be, so I waited until I got home to see one for myself.

As soon as I could, I went to Borders. They had one on display, and I fired it up. After reading a few pages, I couldn't tell the difference between the screen and the paper I use to print handouts for my students. I was convinced, and bought one on the spot. I didn't use it for the rest of my visit home, though; much as with the last Harry Potter book, I opted to focus on the friends and family I would only be able to see for a few days.

Home, part 3: Nom nom nom

The day's worth of delays meant I got home on Sunday, the day before Heather's birthday. This was her twenty-first, so the actual party would be held that night, leading up to midnight when she actually turned legal. Unshaven and wearing a t-shirt too big for me that I hadn't worn in a few years, I went to the party. A bunch of her friends and coworkers were there, and there was a ton of stuff to eat and drink. I was running on empty, and I knew exactly what was in store for the birthday girl, so I bowed out pretty early. The next morning, though, I dropped off some bagels and Powerade at her doorstep.

That day, the four of us took Heather out to lunch at a hibachi grill. It's called Hinode ("sunrise"), and it follows the exact same formula as Inoko and every other Japanese steakhouse I've been to. Except they can't hold a candle to yellow sauce, but that goes without saying.
We were trying to think of what to do that evening for her birthday, but Heather was on-call that afternoon, and got called in. Mom, Dad, and I decided to go see a movie. I had three movies on my to-do list: Indiana Jones and the Ridiculously Long Title, Wall-E, and The Dark Knight. I had them listed that way, too, in order of increasing expectations. Indiana Jones wasn't even at the dollar theater--an indication of how it had fared; I'd avoided reading reviews or following up on it after its release--Wall-E wasn't playing at the time we wanted, and we were going to wait for Heather to see The Dark Knight. Undeterred, we headed to the theater and picked one at the last minute: Swing Vote. It was cute, but more of a rental than a theater flick.

On Tuesday, I played golf with Dad, something I'd been longing to do for a full year. I managed two pars, which is as good as I've ever done. For having gone a year without touching a club, I don't think that's half bad.

Other than that, though, I can't keep track of when I did the things I did at home over those first four days. I tried in vain to find a Pizza Hut with a lunch buffet--the one I found over Christmas had been bulldozed--and instead settled on Breadeaux, which was one of the places Brian and Eric showed me when we used to skip lunch in high school. I also stopped at a sushi bar, and ate at Waffle House an average of once a day. (Hey, I had to make my rounds.)

Home, part 2: Getting home

Our flight landed in San Francisco on time, which is to say an hour later than originally planned. We arrived at about 1:30pm, after having departed Nagoya at about that time. Another reason I had chosen this particular itinerary was that it routed me through San Francisco and Denver on the way to Springfield. I have some buddies in both cities--Evelyn (just back from Tsushima) and Heather in San Francisco, Mary and Kristi in Denver--two of whom I haven't seen in a while, so I figured it'd give me a chance to see them. Heather met me at the airport, and we spent a while catching up. It'd been about three and a half years since I'd been in her neck of the woods, so we had a lot to talk about.

Aware of my still-long layover, I didn't bother checking the flight status for about half an hour. When we finally went to look at the board, I noticed that my connection to Denver had been cancelled. This wasn't the end of the world--I had a two-hour layover in Denver; I could still catch the next flight there. The lady at the counter put me on one an hour and a half later, which would give me a doable if somewhat rushed layover. Satisfied the disaster had been averted, and completely neglecting to ask what this would do to my luggage, I went to have lunch with Heather.

We hung out for an hour or so, swapping stories about pugs and Bali, and headed back to the flight status board to check on me. My new flight had been delayed half an hour, giving me about thirty seconds to make my connection in Denver. The lady at the counter--a different but equally helpful one--explained that there was another flight to Denver that evening, but there wouldn't be another one to Springfield from Denver until that time the next day. So she routed me through Chicago, where there was an earlier connection to Springfield.

Ever since arriving, the time difference had kept me off-balance. As time passed, I got more and more woozy, so by now I could feel my body sort of shutting down. I was only vaguely aware that the flight to Chicago didn't depart until 11:59 that night--about seven hours later. Heather happily offered to keep me company if I wanted to go hang out in San Francisco proper, but I knew I was fading fast. We said goodbye, and I spent the next seven hours floating around the airport, napping, and avoiding the monitors with CNN and Fox News playing.

The midnight flight to Chicago arrived right on time, and I passed out for the two-and-a-half-hour duration. With the time difference, we landed at 5:45a.m. My flight for Springfield wasn't leaving until 7:50, so I availed myself of a Quizno's breakfast sandwich and a Granny Smith apple, reminding me of how much I'd missed both. The flight left on time.

I got to Springfield right on time, and finally got to see Mom and Dad. Still sort of numb from the time difference and exhaustion in general, I went with them to baggage claim. Mine was, of course, lost. The guy in charge of such things filled out a claim form, misspelled "orange" (?!) when I described any distinguishing characteristics about my bag (a bit of orange ribbon wound around the handle), and gave me the meaningless non-reassurance that they'd get it to me as soon as possible.

Too thankful to be home and too tired to be frustrated about my luggage, I spent the rest of the day like a zombie. Well, except I didn't eat brains. I think.

Home, part 1: Getting out of Japan

As I mentioned, back in July I had a nasty bout with homesickness. Right after Christmas, I came back from home reasonably confident I could make it a full year without visiting home. Needless to say, that confidence dried up pretty fast. I decided pretty quickly that I desperately needed to go home before Christmas. I didn't have enough vacation time left on my first contract, so I had to wait until my new contract started in August. I tried making it work so that I'd be home for the tail end of July, to be home for my mom's birthday and my parents' anniversary, but that didn't work out. I ended up planning a trip that guaranteed I'd be home for my sister's birthday, August 17.

When I was in college, I'd come home for the summertime and head back to Athens around the first week of August to be back in time for classes. After college, I started working at Inoko, and being one of only two managers for most of my time there kept me from taking too much time off. I hadn't realized it, but it's been eight years since I've been around for Heather's birthday.

I threw together the trip at the beginning of July: two weeks, departing 8/15, returning 8/31. I thought about tacking on an extra stopover in Georgia, like I did for Christmas, but it's just too freaking expensive. I love and miss all my friends and family in Georgia, but I just couldn't do it this time.

I'd planned to take the first flight out on the morning of the 15th. However, the forecast called for a 50% chance of rain that morning. Ever since my flight to Fukuoka got cancelled on account of fog, I've been a little paranoid when it comes to getting off Tsushima. That in mind, I decided to fly out the night before. (I later found out the morning flight went off without a hitch. Oh, well.)

I checked in at Fukuoka with no problem, and the connection to Nagoya was uneventful. I'd write about Nagoya, but I know nothing about the city, except that its airport is fine. Better than Taipei's.

In Fukuoka, when I checked in for the Nagoya-San Francisco flight, the lady cheerfully informed me that I'd been upgraded to business class at no extra charge. I had no idea what that meant: I don't really pay attention to the front of the plane when I get on, because I'm convinced that walk is designed to make us disappointed with mere economy class. She told me that, in addition to the cushy seats, I'd get to visit their Super Fancy Executive Lounge prior to boarding in Nagoya.

The lounge was every bit as Super Fancy as advertised, with its own little elevator connecting it to the terminal floor, free wireless internet, and an open snack bar. The flight to San Francisco was delayed an hour, but that didn't worry me--I had planned on exactly that, and had made sure my connections had two- or three-hour layovers.

When I finally got on the plane, I couldn't believe how much different the service was. The actual seats were bigger and cushier, but that didn't really impress me much. The in-flight movie on-demand screens were the same size as in economy, so no points there. The service, though, was mind-blowing. They fed us what must have been six times on a nine-hour flight. We had normal pretzel/peanut snacks three times, a bigger snack once, and two huge meals. The dinner meals (prime rib!) had three courses, and while they were just as "meh, not bad" as economy meals, you were left stuffed. Breakfast was the same quality, but the portions were freaking huge. Maybe having been in Japan for eight months made them look even bigger, but still. Oh, and they let you have all you wanted to drink, including booze. Considering the upgrades from economy to business, I'm convinced first-class has a buffet and an ice cream bar.

All that food being thrown at me left me wondering how much money airlines spend on this stuff. In terms of inventory and handling, they purchase the materials, heat the meals, and take care of the garbage. All that extra food and drink takes up space and--more importantly--weight on the plane. Though I resent it, I understand their need to one-up the economy service wherever possible, but surely they can find portions smaller than Glutton and Heifer to satisfy their first- and business-class passengers.

Anyway, I gained twelve pounds from in-flight meals. The movie selection was pretty piddly, especially considering how eager I was to gobble up any American culture I could find after an eight-month hiatus. I did find a good one involving George Clooney and the beginnings of American football. After giving up on movies, I moved on to reading. I'd brought Order of the Phoenix with me, and though not the wisest choice for portable reading-on-the-go material, it's still a great book. (This was my second time reading it, and I think I was too harsh on it after the first time. It's a really good book, and I confused being annoyed by Umbridge with a poor story, when I'm pretty sure that in fact Rowling deliberately made parts of the book awkward and embarrassing.)

After reading for a while with the same kind of overhead light they give you in economy, I noticed a little black reading light attached to the side of the seat. I pulled it out and tried to turn it on, but failed miserably. Keenly aware of the lady sitting next to me, and trying desperately to pretend I knew what I was doing, I had to put it back and give the impression I'd decided to stick to the overhead light. The lady next to me (who for all I knew had been upgraded from economy just like me and was trying just like me to look like she belonged) eventually used hers, and I watched out of the corner of my eye as she twisted a little knob at the end. Still ashamed that I'd been thwarted by a twisty piece of plastic, I waited a minute to make it look like I'd independently decided to use my reading light too, and easily turned it on. Triumphant, I plowed through about 300 pages of the book.

Touring the south

After spending Monday nursing a nasty sunburn--I'm still new to this snorkeling thing, and failed to realize just how much of your back and shoulders stick out when you float along looking at the pretty fishies--we four southerners all piled back in the car on Tuesday for a whirlwind tour of Tsushima south of my town.

Mike had left the morning after our Kinkai night to go to America for two weeks, Joey was leaving that weekend to go to Thailand for two weeks, and I was leaving that Friday to go back home for two weeks. That meant I wouldn't have a chance to show them around until September, but with school starting back up, there would be all kinds of welcome parties for them, so finding time to do stuff would be kind of hard. That's what made me want to show them as much as possible before I went home.

We stopped first at a mountain about ten minutes south of town. It's the easiest mountain to hike on Tsushima: you drive up a big hill, park at a staircase, and voila--summit and amazing view! Gavin noticed you can see vague outlines of mountains off in the distance. It's either Iki or Fukuoka, as that's the southeast coast of Tsushima.

The next stop was Oura, the beach with the diving platform, and where we had a barbecue last month. Gavin ran out and jumped off the platform some, while Joe, Rose, and I walked along the shore.

After that, we went to Ayumodoshi, a huge park situated along a river. The river flows over smooth, flat rock, which provides a lot of space for sitting. There are a couple of big pools that are great for swimming, and lots of families visit the park in the summer. There's a big wooden suspension bridge spanning the river at the entrance to the park, which reminds me of Indiana Jones every time I go. We took a walk along the river, and on the way back we noticed it was clouding up.

As we headed to Tsutsuzaki, the last stop I'd planned, it came a cloud. Just like the summer storms in Georgia, Florida, and Alabama, it went from beautiful and sunny, to cloudy, to torrential downpour, and back to sunny, in the course of half an hour. Luckily for us, that's exactly how long it took us to get to where we were going.

Tsutsuzaki is the southernmost point of Tsushima, with a lighthouse off the shore, amid some rocks jutting out of the ocean. There's a weather station at the top of a hill which affords a spectacular view of the bottom of the island, and there's a very old munitions shed dating back to the time of the Battle of Tsushima in the Russo-Japanese War.

Our crazy trip finished, we headed for home. My little bitty Suzuki Kei, all 660cc of it, performs admirably when it's just me in the car. With four full-sized Americans, though, the hills on this island--which are difficult enough as it is--are just brutal. We'd be coasting along at about 40mph with the air conditioning on, then come to a hill, and all of a sudden we'd be going about 10mph with the engine at 2500rpm. Shutting off the AC provided a noticeable boost, but we'd still have to make do with 20-25mph up hills.

Beach party with the newcomers

Two days after everyone got together at Kinkai, we four southerners--Gavin, Rose, Joe, and I--drove up to Miuda, the beach way up by Joey's place. We got there in the late afternoon, and by the time we bought all the barbecue supplies and got to the beach, the sun was setting. We got the coals lit, and scrambled around the beach in the dark looking for driftwood for a bonfire. Joey made excellent burgers, and we enjoyed the gorgeous summer weather.

We four woke up Sunday morning and went to the beach. Joey had stayed at Miuda with a friend the night before--they had stayed up to watch the sunrise before coming back to crash at his place--so he stayed in bed. We got to Miuda right as Kim arrived, having gotten a ride from one of her neighbors. Miuda was packed, with easily the most people I've seen at any beach on Tsushima, ever. While there were a fair number of Korean tourists, there were actually a lot of Japanese families, too, which surprised me more.

The water was just about the temperature of a hot bath, which Kim just couldn't wrap her mind around. There's a small island a good ways off from the beach. If you look closely, you can see a mound-looking thing on top of the rock. Mitch and Joey went out for a closer look last year, and realized it's a nest for the kites we have on the island. While Gavin and I did some snorkeling, and Kim and Rose walked around the beach, Joe decided to swim out to the island. If there isn't a fairway involved, I'm not very good at estimating distances, but I'd guess it's a good half-mile out there.

When he was about halfway there, Joey showed up. Joey and Gavin decided to swim out there, too, and I decided to give it a go. A little ways out, I ate a wave, and that sort of took the wind out of my sails. I'm not really sure I could've made it out there, with as out of shape as I am. Anyway, they all made it, did some exploring, and came back. Joe found a flag on the island and brought it back. It looks much more like a Chinese flag than a Japanese one. Hmm...

Memorial

Unlike last year, I was well aware of the anniversary of the bombing of Nagasaki. It wasn't nearly as intense for me as it was last year, probably for several reasons.

Saturday morning, everyone went to school as usual. There was an assembly held at 9 in the gym, with all the students gathered. One of the teachers, who had been placed in charge of the assembly, gave a brief speech reflecting on the bombing, and introduced a film. It was a claymation story about the bombing, through the perspective of a group of barnyard animals living near Nagasaki. A mother horse and her foal are the main characters. To summarize, the first 10-15 minutes of the story show the foal's first few weeks of life, interacting with the other animals and his mother. The bomb is dropped, and everyone dies, except the foal. There's a particularly heart-wrenching scene where the foal emerges from his hiding place in the aftermath, sees the silhouette of a horse standing in the middle of the pasture, and runs up to his mother, only to find that she's dead where she stands.

After the film, the teacher gave another speech about the bombing. Then a group of students, who I later found out are the student council, performed on stage. Dimly illuminated by muted floor-mounted lights, the nine students lined up and told a story, with each student reading a different line. I couldn't catch everything, but they were discussing something about what it would have been like to have been there immediately after the bombing. As one was describing the scene, other students began intermittently moaning "water!" and "mommy!" What began as one or two in a low voice soon became all the students nearly shouting their pleas.

After a pause, their tone changed. Again, I didn't understand everything they said, but they were entreating everyone to remember those who died. They ended by chanting "remember!" in unison.

Again, just like last year, there was silence at 11:00. At precisely 11:01, the loudspeakers throughout the town blared the air raid siren. They wailed for a full minute, coming up from the speakers elsewhere in the city, echoing off the mountains.

I can't begin to tell you how much of a relief it was, not having to give my introduction this time. The significance of the day still made it intense, but this time I could at least find comfort in knowing I wasn't the newcomer this time, and that nobody else was shooting accusing looks at me.

Hellos

Aaron's successor arrived the afternoon after Aaron left. His name is Gavin, and he's from Oregon. He's lived most recently in Hawaii, and is pretty big into surfing. He's also 25, making him the oldest newbie, the same age as Aaron, and, of course, a year older than me.

Before he left, Aaron asked me to take over for him as block representative. Basically, the prefecture's ALTs are grouped into blocks depending on their region, and each group has a designated representative. That person is in charge of helping out in general: helping the newcomers adjust, giving advice, and networking. Aaron made it a point to organize at least one thing every month, be it mountain climbing, bowling, or going to the beach. Eager to pass on the hospitality and kindness the two of them showed me, I accepted.

Last August, Aaron made the effort to round up as many of us as possible, as soon as possible. That's how I met Mike and Mitch so early on. This year, the weekend after Aaron and Evelyn left turned out to be the only weekend in August that all eight of us would be on the island. So we scrambled and threw together a crazy-ambitious plan for the weekend. The most important part was dinner Thursday night. We just barely got everybody together at Kinkai, a yakiniku restaurant conveniently located halfway between the northernmost and southernmost ALTs on the island. Dinner was a lot of fun. I met Kim, the fourth newcomer, who's from Maine. All the newbies are great, and everyone hit it off well.

Summertime at school

Official, mainstream classes at my schools ended for the term in July. Beginning in August, the students have the closest thing they get to a summer vacation. While the commercial-track students didn't have to come to school, everybody else--the remaining 3/4 of the school--kept coming for extra classes. The earliest classes started at 7:30 for the top-level university-track kids, but all the other college-track students had classes from 8:30 until lunchtime. After that, everyone went to their club activities, and would practice until 5pm at the earliest.

Still, though, this counts as summer vacation here. The teachers are much more relaxed: we don't have our daily 8:20 morning faculty meeting, and the teachers who aren't in charge of extra classes pretty much sit at their desks like I do. I spend literally eight hours a day at my desk with nothing to do. Here's how I passed the time.

Now, I don't consider it time wasted. This summer I got all ambitious and decided to tackle the first Harry Potter book in Japanese. I stuck with it for about two weeks, spending about an hour each morning struggling through each sentence. In those two weeks, I got about five pages in.

After my daily struggle with Harry Potter, I'd practice Japanese in general. I've focused most of my energy this past year on practicing kanji (the writing), relying on immersion in general to teach me grammar and vocabulary. I've learned to use the frequent breaks in teaching (the week leading up to, the week of, and the week after midterms and finals, as well as the week leading up to field day) to plow ahead with my studying, and I'm pretty satisfied with my progress.

After that, I'd usually tinker with some lessons. Just as I imagined when I recontracted, it's much, much easier to revise existing lessons than it is to draw up new ones from scratch.

By that time each day, I'd start getting tired of Japanese. That's just as well, because three hours per day of studying and lesson planning took care of just about all the work there was for me to do. I'd spend the rest of the day reading prodigious amounts of material on Wikipedia, checking my email, Facebooking, and updating my blog. (That's what produced the slew of updates about the Bali trip, by the way.)

School not officially being in session means the teachers can take vacations without the guilt and pressure of falling behind. That means that, at any given time, about a third of the faculty was off the island. Another third was teaching extra classes, and the remaining third sat around the staffroom like me.

To break the monotony, I started bringing an apple to school, and picked a spot somewhere each day to eat it and soak up the view of the surrounding mountains.

I wanted to play the piano, but members of the brass band are up in the music room practicing from about 9 in the morning until 6 in the evening, every single day. Incidentally, most of them are very, very good at their instruments. I know it's harsh of me, but I find it hard to believe a few of them manage to stink as much as they do. Yet despite practicing at least four hours a day, seven days a week, an average of forty-eight weeks a year, several of them just can't hack it. Instead of changing to something new that they might enjoy more, though, they keep at it. Depending on how you look at it, it's a noble example of unfailing spirit, or a silly way to create stress instead of release it.

Goodbyes

Aaron and Evelyn had chosen to stay long enough to see the festival, and were leaving Tsushima the very next day. Luckily, that Monday was a holiday for everyone. Joey, Rose, Joe, and I went up to the airport to say goodbye. There were about fifty various townsfolk there for the exact same reason. They included some of their students, parents of those students, fellow teachers, and adults from their English conversation groups. We watched them go through security--Evelyn made it all the way through before she teared up!--and waved one last time as they got on the plane.

For me, the second year more or less officially began with their departure. It was great having them around to show me the ropes, and I only hope to pass on their kindness to the new folks.

The four of us took care of some errands--Rose's and Joe's luggage had finally arrived, and Joey needed to book a ferry to Fukuoka for his trip to Thailand the next weekend--and then reconvened at Otaura, the beach closest to me. We spent most of the afternoon just chilling out with a frisbee, baseball, and snorkels.

Arirang Festival

Every year, Tsushima has the Arirang festival. Named after a famous Korean song--there's a video of it here--it's a celebration of friendship with Korea. No other place in Japan has this festival, mainly because no other part of Japan is as close to Korea (50km) as Tsushima.

The festival falls on the first weekend of August. A large plot of land next to the seaport is used for the event, with a large stage put up for music and dance performance. Lots of tents are set up near the stage, offering food and typical carnival gimmicks--games and trinkets. The fairground area is open Saturday evening and all day Sunday.

I still didn't have a camera, so all these pictures I'm linking to are from Joe's.

The food sold includes french fries; corn dogs (called furencchi doggu, or "French dog"); fried chicken; snow cones with free condensed milk topping; skewers of grilled chicken, beef, and veggies; plum-filled pastries; takoyaki, fried dumplings with diced octopus; and okonomiyaki, an omelet-like dish with cabbage, diced octopus and shrimp.

This year there were games like "pay $1 to draw, from a huge pile of cards, one card whose number matches a prize that just might be a Wii (unless we happened to remove that number from the pile) but will probably be a plastic noisemaker." There's probably a simpler name for it, but I think combining the explanation and the name saves space. They also had the game where you toss a ball into a cup and win a goldfish.

Sunday is the day of the parade. Lots of folks from Tsushima, and some from Korea, get together and parade around in really nifty costumes. Even though I've seen two of these parades now, I still have no idea if there's any big significance to the costumes, other than their being old-style traditional Korean and Japanese garb. I'm pretty sure these are Japanese, while these, these, and these are Korean. There were also ridiculously cute little girls in bright dresses with fans. Some local women were in dresses, too. Don't mind their lack of smiles--it was pretty hot that day, even for those of us without layers of traditional clothing on.

The parade also had a group of dancers carrying small drums. They'd bounce around, banging the drums in unison, while a guy played a very bagpipes-sounding horn. What made this even cooler was that some of the girls had special hats with swiveling attachments on top. The attachments had a long streamer coming off it, so they could flail this ribbon around with their heads, while still bouncing around and playing the drums.

Even the non-parading townsfolk dressed up for the occasion, with almost every girl wearing yukata. I saw lots of my students, and it was a little disorienting to see the girls all dolled up--they aren't allowed to wear much/any makeup at school, and of course they're always in their uniforms. The second-year girls, one of whom thinks it insults me to call me Adam Smith, stopped for a photo op.

After the parade, the six of us--Joey, Aaron, Evelyn, Rose, Joe, and I--hung out by the stage, idly watching the performances but mostly people-watching. Among the highlights were a shy-looking diminutive twentysomething mother wearing a tank top that said "F*** YOU YOU F***ING F***"--minus the *s--who was pushing a stroller with her toddler in it. Joey, as you can tell in the picture, stood out a bit in the crowd. There had apparently been a big arm-wrestling match earlier in the day, so the competitors from that--deceptively slim-looking sailors with Popeye forearms--tried talking Joey into taking them on.

As the sun set, everyone gathered around the stage. There were professional-looking groups who sang and danced, as well as groups of elementary students who did a much cuter job of singing and dancing. There was an awesome taiko drum performance toward the end. As darkness finally fell, a super-secret surprise celebrity guest came out. None of the Americans recognized her, and judging by the crowd's response, not many people knew her at all. Or maybe everyone just wanted to see the fireworks that were coming. She sang a song or two, and we humored her with token applause. She wasn't a bad singer, but it's kind of hard to outdo a fireworks display.

The two emcees finally counted down to the fireworks. I don't have any pictures to prove it, but... wow. It was flat-out spectacular. I'm sure I appreciated it a lot more because I hadn't seen fireworks since the Fourth in 07, but everyone agreed it was a great show. We found it hard to believe that an otherwise upper-lower-class/lower-middle-class island like Tsushima could afford such a big expenditure. Most of the fireworks were launched from boats in the harbor, which was only a couple of hundred feet away from us. Maybe that's what made it so amazing--we were right under the show. The finale featured a steel tower that had streamers arranged to spell, basically, "We <3 Tsushima!"

It was a lot of fun. It seems I'm doomed not to have any pictures of my own from this: last year's were lost when my computer died in October, and this year my camera was dead. Since the festival is in August, my contract will have expired by next year. Maybe I'll stay long enough to see it one last time...

Kayaking and the new arrivals

The end of July meant the end of our contracts. I renewed my contract back in February, so this was no big deal. Three of the veterans--Aaron, Evelyn, and Rob--did not, however. Rob left as soon as his contract expired. Evelyn had to move out of her place by the 28th, but Aaron was able to stay until the first week of August. Evelyn stayed at Aaron's, so they were around a little while longer.

Evelyn taught at a total of fourteen different schools. Some of them only had four or five students, but she still had to go to fourteen different buildings, with fourteen different faculties, and fourteen different groups of students. I still can't wrap my mind around that concept. Neither could the powers that be, apparently: her position was carved into two pieces, and two new ALTs were contracted to fill her shoes. Those two arrived on July 28. Their names are Joe and Rose, and they're from Minneapolis-St. Paul and Dallas-Fort Worth, respectively. We all got together for a goodbye dinner for the departing folk that doubled as a hello dinner for the arriving folk.

Aaron, Evelyn, Joe, Rose, Oliver, and I went sea kayaking the first Saturday in August. The weather was almost as gorgeous as the scenery, and our guide was awesome, too. Tsushima is divided by Aso Bay, which joins the Pacific in the west. Our guide, Ueno, took us out to a small island, where we swam in the surf for a bit. Like most of the beaches around the island--especially on the western side--this one was covered in trash. Ueno asked us each to pick up one plastic drink bottle to bring back and recycle.

The group had lunch at Mos Burger, the island's one and only burger chain. Afterwards, we sort of split up, but Joe, Rose, and I got together for dinner at Border, my favorite Italian restaurant in town. Then we headed for the festival...