An update

The Osaka trip redeemed itself, mainly in the form of Mexican food at Osaka's El Pancho restaurant the day after the USJ adventure.

Oh, I should also mention that we went to Costco. There are a few Costco outlets scattered around Japan, and they look exactly like their U.S. counterparts, down to the products and store layout.

When we arrived by train and taxi in the early afternoon, there was a 20 minute wait to sign up for membership (roughly $40 for a year). We then were set loose in a jam packed store -- think holiday weekend at peak hours -- for about an hour and a half.

We didn't have a car, so we couldn't fill a cart full of wonderfulness. Also we couldn't really do things that needed to stay cool.

I bought a huge container of Picante sauce, a 20-pack of flour tortillas, a small pack of beef jerky, and a some onion and cheese bagels. It all fit nicely into my backpack, but that meant for a heavy bag to heave around train stations.

Hopefully we can head back to Costco again some other month, but this time by car, so we can load up on more items and perhaps even take orders from friends.

I gave away half the bagels, and my half is long gone. We used 10 of the tortillas at a bbq/burrito party, and the other 10 are nearly gone from my fridge. The jerky went fast during a night out at the bar.

Meanwhile, the winter holiday season approaches, and I need to start thinking about plans now. I was in Oregon as recently as June, though I was busy with the Canfield-Nealon wedding. Then I hit Hawaii in August. So I'm strongly leaning toward staying out of the U.S. this Christmas.

I might instead hit the slopes of Nagano. There are a few others already talking about putting together a trip, and it would be nice to see if I can still ski after a several-year break.

Other options include an even wintry-er destination: Japan's northern-most island of Hokkaido.

Still undecided. And I guess it's possible the U.S. could slip in there. Oregon? New York? Money?

Hollywood Dreaming

I report this morning from Osaka, in fact, in the middle of Osaka. Yesterday I went to Universal Studios Japan, referred to here as USJ.

I should note that it is the middle of a 5-day weekend. Three national holidays aligned themselves to make a mini-vacation in the summer-heads-toward-fall period of late September.

Needless to say, USJ wasp packed.

We managed to ride only one real attraction, a rollar coaster called Hollywood Dreams. The wait was more than 2 hours.

Meanwhile, the mass of people walking around the park, in the still-summer heat and Osaka humidity, were naturally thirsty. But vending machines at USJ are scarce. Seems they'd rather have you wait in line for an hour to get a drink and why-not-a-meal at one of the theme park restaurants.

This next (last for now) picture might not mean much to those outside Japan, but this country is loaded with vending machines. They usually look like the one in this picture, except for the red light shining beneath every beverage. That means that all the drinks are gone. Yes. All of them. This was at 6 p.m. Four hours to closing time. It was never re-filled.

The Earliar In The Night Show with Jay Leno

Thanks to the Internet and its pirates, I watched the first episode of the new Jay Leno show, NBC's consolation prize/cheaper-than-a-drama 10 p.m. hour of something allegedly "new."

Instead it was the same old Jay. The trappings of The Tonight Show morphed into something that felt 1990s. The musical backupled by the same laughing leader, renamed "The Prime Time Band." The same burst of energy from back stage flowing into the same handshake affair the faux host Larry Sanders once comically tried in an effort to boost his ratings.

As for the conent, its much the same too, with an opening monolouge that was as strong as you'd expect when it draws from three months of material. Leno himself was energetic and appeared in his element. But the comedy bits fell flat. Kanye was there, too, apologizing again, and garnaring more headlines and angles for Jay's debut. Jerry Seinfeld, in a tux, was funny as you'd expect, and his bit-within-a-bit featuring Oprah was perhaps the comedic climax of the program.

But judging from Day 1, the new show hardly deserves the "new" designation. As he expands his roster of guest comedians in skits, and perhaps follows up on stated plans to give the mic to up and coming stand-ups, maybe the show can find a niche. But I imagine the Leno niche -- already established from his days with The Tonight Show -- won't be seeing a major shift at all.

The Swine and the Surgical Mask

Swine Flu is making its way through my school this week, with one 40-student homeroom on a 3-day leave because the virus was spreading rapidly. A few other cases from other classes, all second-years (juniors), have been reported.

I came down with a bug last week, manifesting as a sore throat early in the week. Out of an abundance of caution (haha) I stayed home on Wednesday. It didn't get any worse so I returned to a normal schedule. As usual the sore throat shifted to sinus pressure and then some sneezing (this time only about three sneezes in total) and then it faded to nothing in time for the weekend.

Not Swine Flu.

But I guess there is a fair chance I will catch it, working in a school. Many students and staff around here are wearing what we call surgical masks as a preventive measure. Fortunately they also pressing more logical prevention techniques such as thorough hand-washing and sneeze-etiquette, as well as keeping the known sick kids at home.

I am trying to remember to wash my hands more often, and I need to get in the habit of bringing my own hand towel.There are no paper towels and hand-dryers in the bathrooms here, just a single towel than I guess they think everyone should use. On top of that there isn't always soap in Japanese bathrooms, even at schools.

The Swine Flu fear has changed this a bit, in the form of more readily available soap.

A rather flat post, but I wanted to try to keep blogging after that rush of posts the other week. I will try to keep it up from now on as well.

I want my money back

Here now, is a weekend wrap-up:

On Friday, mainly I lost money.

Well that wasn't the plan, but a post barbecue trip to the bar led to an impromptu 3-person poker game, a tournament-style hold-em bout that I failed to win.

Here is the money (roughly $30) in the original pot.


I lost. Then I tried to buy back in. Then, I lost again ... to this guy, on the left, who informs me his winning on Friday led to more winning in a much larger Saturday-night game.


The barbecue was a nice little get together at Sean's place (Sean being the Guy On The Left Who Took My Money). Nice burgers, made nicer with the kick from some Huy Fong Sriracha. Now that I think about it, I left my Sriracha at Sean's too. He takes everything.

On Saturday I headed for Nagoya. I picked up an application for the Japanese Language Proficiency Test, which I plan to take in December to prove that I am kinda OK at Japanese but not as good as I probably should be after 2.5 years.

Then I went with a friend to the Port of Nagoya, where we toured an old scientific-explorer ship-converted-into-a-museum. More on that in a later post, perhaps.

After looking around the port area, it was time for a dinner of Indian curry.



Overall, a nice weekend. Some stats:

Money lost: $20
Mannequins of Japanese scientists on a ship-museum posed with: 3
Spiciness level: moderate to high

That's all for now.

sketched

Many of our students are talented artists. Often, as English Club winds down, these students flock to the white board and begin sketching. Popular choices are sometimes interesting takes on characters like Doraemon, Hello Kitty or others. Occasionally we ALTs become the targets as well.

Here is a caricature done by a second-year student we call Oku-Rina. I think it captures me well.

Map My Run

As noted a few posts back, before all that food and sight-seeing stuff, I'm attempting to put some more exercise into my routine. Last week was solid, but it didn't take off beyond the 6-mile run and the single gym trip.

Needless to say the weekend went by without any further exercise besides plenty of walking around the tourist spots of Ise.

This evening Annette and I headed out for a run after dark, so we headed through the city instead of out toward the bay like last week. We also planned to cut the distance in roughly half.

We followed a path I've taken before, along the Seta River toward the city center, and then back again. I like the route because there's not much traffic and it's expandable if you feel like going farther up the river.

I signed up for a website -- www.mapmyrun.com -- which does just that. Below is a look at today's run (let me know if you can't see it). We actually stopped running right at the 3-mile mark, though we didn't know that at the time. A quick cool-down walk and we were home again.

A nice, quick, and mostly painless run. New goal: repeat or build upon the effort tomorrow.