Next Stop: America-Town

After seven months away from Freedomsville, my return is imminent. For 12 days in Oregon, I will eat pizza without corn on there, enjoy sandwiches with wheat bread, sample microbrews that don't cost six dollars a pint, avoid Japanese restaurants and sushi, read the Oregonian in print, and who knows what other things I haven't realized I've been missing.

Of course, the trip will be framed around visiting family, spread across Oregon, in Portland, Pendleton and Corvallis.

I will arrive in Portland next Friday, March 7, in the early afternoon, departing again for Japan on March 18. When I write that it seems like such a short trip, but it was quite a thing to squeeze it in amid a host of things happening here at what has become "home."

I am leaving immediately after my duties end for the final exam period of the third and final term of the school year. I will get back just in time to go along with the students and teachers to watch the baseball club participate in a national tournament, much like they did in the summer.

The baseball tournament, and one other major event, is what kept me from traveling during the proper spring break, though that would only have been about 12 or 13 days anyway.

The other option would be putting it all of until summer -- but summer would be more expensive to fly, I think, so I wanted to push for a spring trip.

Also, I want to do a little shopping for clothing, which isn't impossible here but is certainly inconvenient when it comes to sizes and styles.

But enough about shopping ... I nearly got a headache just thinking about it.

The key here is that in a week I will land in the U.S. -- in San Francisco, where I will change planes -- and enjoy what I have left behind. Exciting, much.

Run, sensei, run!

Another successful Beer Wednesday at the brewery last night. I wasn't hung over so much in the traditional sense but I felt and still feel run down. I think the twice a month thing may be a little much for what amounts to competitive beer drinking. You are competing against yourself of course, striving to drink all 10 of the day's offerings.

We started at 6, ended a few hours later. Sleep comes easy, naturally.

Our marathon beer-drinking is pretty impressive, but earlier Wednesday, the Yamasho kids ran a "marathon" of sorts ... not a real marathon by distance but a lengthy run. It's a big school event. Everyone has to join. The girls ran about 7 kilos while the boys hit 10. The longest I was ever forced to run in school was a mile. We all hated "running the mile," didn't we? I wasn't fond of it. But we should be thankful we weren't Yamasho students.

The weather was quite nice, as it is today. Mostly sunny with temperatures near above 50. We still have some coldness ahead before spring turns on for real.

For the boys, the best times were around 30 minutes, I believe, while the slowest of the bunch topped an hour. Best times for the girls were near 2o minutes.

A few people asked me why I didn't join ... I usually dismissed such comments with "maybe next year."

But really if anyone actually feels I should join, they should consider telling me about the event earlier than the week of. Maybe, say, a couple months out, when the kids start training, so I too could train a bit and be a good ALT and join in the fun.

Really though, among the staff, only the principal participated. But a lot of the students seem to think I'm more on their level than being seen as a teacher. Oddly, if they see my cellphone out in the school they'll tell me that "we're not allowed to use a cellphone," with the we seeming to include ALT Dan. In my book, such a rule applies to students. Maybe it does apply to teachers ... maybe we're expected to use cell phones only in the teachers' room ... but that's just silly.

I decline to participate in such silliness.

Beer Wednesdays

Soon I will join the regular all-you-can-drink crowd at the Ise Brewery down the street. On the two middle Wednesdays of the month, Ise's only brewpub hosts a special all-you-can-drink event. For 1,000 yen, less than 10 bucks, you can enjoy as many pints as you can handle in an hour. These tap beers, which range in variety from dark to crazy-town, normally cost not-much-less-than-1o-bucks for just a regular single helping.

So it's a good deal.

But there are things to keep in mind. It is important to:

1. Eat something first. While they do have some bar food available, the focus is drinking, and it starts right away, and it usually doesn't let up for the first hour, which often leads in to a second hour. When you arrive you get a sheet listing the day's beer selection. There are 10 of them. You can have them in sampler size, in a glass, or something closer to a pint. There's also an even bigger one that I've never tried. I always aim to try everything on the list, at least in sampler size.

2. Start early. Don't wait to the normal "go to the bar" time. Get started as soon as you've had time to freshen up from work and down a tuna sandwich. Our appointment is set for 6:30, which means a 2-hour session has us out quite early. Whether we decide to keep going in some after-party formation or to throw in the towel weighs heavily on how we feel at work the next day.

And with that all should be well. What really sells this thing for me is that I live three-minutes away on foot from the place. Another thing: Because there's always a chance I'll be hosting an overnighter who cannot drive home because of alcohol, I'm always inspired to clean up on these Beer Wednesdays.

Here's to hoping it all goes according to plan. Cheers!

Nonde Nonde Nonde

The term of hangover in Japanese translates to "second-day drunk."

The second day has arrived.

Now, to the beach.

In the news and on the home front

In the news today, the Mount Hood climber story has taken a sad turn toward closure, a court in Libya sentenced a group of foreign health workers to death, and President Bush said the military should be expanded to help fight the War on Terror.

On the home front, I've been busy this week running errands for Mom. On two consecutive days I sent packages of cookies and calendars and things to far-off relatives, standing in long lines at the Pendleton Post Office to ensure arrival by Christmas.I cleared the house of empty beer bottles, making way for the Next Round, which will certainly be larger thanks to visiting brothers who are en route from Portland.

It's cold here, friends. About 24 degrees cold. Driving to town from our homestead on Gopher Flats on the Reservation, going the Up Way through the fields, where the brush is frost-bitten, motionless and white, it looks almost like time has stopped.

But the cold didn't stop me from changing into a turtleneck and shorts and taking the dogs, Betty and Hunter, for a run up the hill and back. When I returned to the house I was hacking. I tried water, I tried a shower, I tried standing by the space heater. Nothing worked.

Then I cracked open a bottle of Alaskan Winter Ale, and that seems to be doing the trick.