Readership going down, can't fight tides of indifference, giving it my all, but can't....break....through....to....audience.



My site meter reported that all six of you who visited me last week did a nice job of keeping the love, however the rest of the world just didn't give a crap.

This should be a signal to me to put s'more love into the ol website.

Here's another one of Aso-san. I would imagine that the fiew from the top of Asama is about the same, except for a little more plant life and a lot more fog.

This is not a picture of the mountain that I climbed today, but of the one from our Kyushu trip. It is pretty much the same sort of martian scenery, but on this particular day, you could see it.

So today we hiked to the top of　浅間山. This would be Asama-Yama, as i'm sure anyone who has traveled in Japan or possibly watched enough samurai movies knows, Yama means mountain. Anyway this is actually the 3rd vocano that I've ever seen personally and the second that I've climbed to the top of.

Lara, Shane, Jennifer and I went with Andy, a guy from the south eastern part of Nagano ken. Though his house is but 80 kilometers from us, it still took about 1:45 to get there because of the crazy-ass roads here and the super traffic and the mountains. At any rate we spent the night at his house in Mochizuki (the name means rice cake moon) and awoke at about 3:45 this morning to get cracking at the devilish peak. This seems insane to me, but actually the sun starts rising at around 4:30 because the Japanese in their infinite wisdom have forsworn the wonders of daylight savings time.
Anyway, we were climbing the mountain before 6:00 and had reached the summit at about 9:00 amid gale force winds and fog. It was a rippin good time while we ascended into the bomb shelter on the top and had a bit of breakfast. Honestly, I couldn't stand up straight, the wind was so fierce. It's possibly a result of the Typhoon that's coming our way tomorrow. Honestly, the hike up to the rim was really wonderful, some of the best scenery I've seen in Japan. Should anyone actually visit me in Japan, I'm all over hiking that one again.

I've posted some pictures of our previous hike to mount Aso in Kyushu. The landscape was pretty similar, but in this case we couldn't see it.

I don't care what anyone else thinks, Elton John sucks.

To provide the appropriate "atmosphere" for an english conversation school my employer utilizes cable radio to pull in a preposterous number of stations. The one that has been selected is an easy listening/soft rock channel from Hawaii. Every day we listen to "romace through the night" piped in from across the ocean. It seems like the damn station (while probably owned by the Clear Channel) is sponsored by the Elton John fan club. There is at least 1 of his songs per hour. Let me tell you, you can only listen to "Yellow brick road" so many times before you go mental or punch out your eardrums.

Ahhh the buffet, how I had missed it. We went to a buffet restaurant on sunday. It was an unusual eating affair by japanese standards. For the most part japanese restaurants are sullen and over-polite, not necessarily welcoming in the American way. However, there's something about buffet style eating that really makes people behave like americans around their food; huge piles of fried things, mountainous salads and long ques when the specialty dishes are brought out. Maybe that's why they call it "viking" meals. That sort of atavistic eating behaviour is rather rough and tumble compared to the rest of the japanese eating experience.
As might be expected, I gorged myself to an uncomfortable level of fullness and felt like puking for a good 2 hours afterword. It is honestly so nice to do something like that after trying for months to keep my composure around the small serving sizes offered here.

I almost got my ass busted by a big friggin truck the other day. I've taken to riding my bicycle to the more far flung places that I teach at, mostly because it's good exercise and it's more fun than sitting on a sweltering train wishing that I could be riding. With the rainy season upon us, it's pretty imperative that I get out the door as often as possible to avoid going crazy. Anyway, as for the truck incident, it was the standard squeeze out into the curb that I deal with every day here. This time however the mirror sailed right by my ear and I tried to evade by hopping up onto the sidewalk via a driveway. Unfortunately, like almost all joints in the road here it was separated by a 2 inch ledge, which in turn skidded me onto my ass.

Sure roads are narrow and all here, in fact many streets are passable by only one car at a time, but jezus, give me a break. I get to my destination at approximately the same time as the car drivin man, they can give me a break and be patient or at least courteous once in a while.

Instead of the fun fun silly willy weekend I had planned, I got a rippin good sore throat. Soooo, jennifer and i spent a lot longer in the apartment than out. However, i did watch all of the Pride and Prejudice mini-series and did a good deal of reading as well.
The most interesting thing that resulted from my shitty weekend was my discovery of a new and novel sore throat cure. That is, you take Methylene blue, the biology stain used to dye tissue for microscope slides, and you apply it via cotton swab to the back of your throat. THis in turn tastes like shit and gags you, as well as turns your tongue, throat, urine and stool a strange blue color. Apparently it's an antiseptic as well as an anisthetic which is nice, it reduces the healing time quite drastically, so I've heard. Give it a try if you've got a sore throat. I did and look at me now!!!

And the best one yet. It makes me wish for vacation eternally.

the ubiquitous romantic shot on an island paradaise.

Oh yeah, can't forget the butt shot. Just so you know, i'm the one with the less hairy ass.

when the waves are small, one still can have a bit of fun. I really enjoyed getting thrashed by the sand.

A rather flattering picture if i do say so myself

I am kinda bummed about the old 仕事　(shigoto, ie: job). I learned today that my boss Tomo, the Japanese post hippie that I've come to love, is leaving to go back to gradual school. Not that I really blame him. His job sucks even more than mine. He teaches a bunch of classes and he's got to deal with all the bullshit from above and below. Alltogether he works a shitload, which must be tough; he's Japanese afterall, but he's got the heart of a slacker deep inside. I'll miss him for sure in the office, but most worrysome is the prospect of some "I gotta prove myself" wanker filling his spot. I'm not relishing the prospect of something like that. I guess I can only take it as it goes.

We spent some time meeting the locals

Us posed by a waterfall, island paradaise to the max.

One of the monster trees on the island. THis is the Yaku-sugi (yakushima cedar)

The first rainforest I've ever been in. They say it rains 35 days a month here.

I almost got Tarzan in the shot, but he yodeled like hell as soon as he saw us and off he shot.

One of the many waterfalls on Yakushima. THis was by far the high point of the vacation. Not this waterfall, but the island itself. You'll probably notice this because of the preposterous number of pictures I took there.