The Traveller's Typewriter

So the punch line of last week was a good one. It had been a while for me since having gone to an Enkai, or ‘dinner out’ party. These work-related gatherings can be quite fun, if not just for the food. Friday’s ‘sending off, and welcoming in’ Enkai was just that -food. The lot of our department, some people who work directly in our office and some who are posted to different parts of town like say, the library, all gathered at a hot spot restaurant in the Friday p.m.

I was among the first to arrive, with another co-worker/friend in tow, and after ascending the steep, unforgiving stairs as seen in so many Japanese homes to the second story we pulled a sliding door open to find a nice, low and long Japanese-style table laden with multiple plates per sitting and cushions for tired backsides all appropriately arranged.

Each seat had a small nabe or soup pot with tiny burner underneath, a plate of sashimi (of course the prawn still toting eyes and shell), hand-formed nigiri sushi, seared beef tataki with sauce added just for color, and plates of fried zangi, or chicken bits marinated and fried to mouth-popping and searing perfection, etc. It was a nice spread. But of course no Enkai would be complete without assigned seating, tobacco-smoking, beverages overflowing, and chatterings of hungry/exhausted workers laughing away while seated on rich-smelling tatami floors. The food was great.

After the ‘first’ sitting, we group of twenty-five or so neared our time-limit and were off to our ‘second’ sitting at a local karaoke/snack establishment. Simmered daikon, Japanese pickles, and other vegetable/tempura-fried offerings all appropriately plated rested on table tops and we all called in our beverage of choice. Toasts were again made and soon Japanese rhapsodic-melodical music was soon pouring out of speakers, lights dazzling off of old CDs and traditional posters streaming (almost decoratively) off the walls; and we sat and sung our way further into the night.

Friday’s Kansougeikai was a success, and the event comes only once a year -sending off workers that are changing departments and welcoming new workers into others. Saturday and Sunday were both fun days for me, too. Saturday I took a drive with another office-friend and we endured our way over still-snowish roads out to the Okhotsk Sea and back home. Sunday was a day for shopping at a nearby town with an onsen soak in the evening. Not too much money spent on my part, but much fun had over those sunny two days.

Today however, the snows are back. More slush and steady streaming snowfall outside. Nothing some sunshing cannot handle. I was informed on Sunday that the sakura-viewing season is nearing its peak in Tokyo. Here in Hokkaido after some chilly spells at last pass over our island, I am sure we will be graced with the viewing of Japanese cherry blossoms, too. Well, until such a Spring-ly time comes I feel that I have endured enough winter to not care too much about a few more snowy days. With classes back in session this week -though none for me today (lest office work), there is certainly enough to do and watch over to keep one’s mind from tarrying over the weather.

No coffee today yet. And maybe there won’t be. I went a full week without the black brew last week only to endure some mild caffeine-withdrawal symptoms. Headaches, headaches, sleepy feelings, but some kind of pure and ‘clean’ feeling was soon to follow -that is after about five days of no drink. I don’t miss that kind of caffeine all too much today but still agree that coffee is certainly a necessary and important part of my life. Coffee, a warming tradition that pulls people together for pensive thought, or tepid conversations. The swirling bits of steamy air escaping off a fresh-brewed cup of joe lending the almost temporary air that every short, stalky, clinking saucer to annular-based cup offers -escape.

So please do continue to have a fine Spring. And the next time we chat there may be more sunshine to complain about. But today, it’s snow. Content and longing.

Ciao,

(sunsets in northern Japan. ‘The Land of the Rising Sun’ certainly knows how to throw in a tasty sunset or two..)

(the wild-set weather made me feel like I was back in Niseko, snowboarding in a snowstorm..)
So, right now outside my workplace window there is a horrible weather pattern raging in full. Northern Japan, near-enough Wakkanai, Sea of Japan-side. My goodness. Over approximately the last two days our news networks have been tracking the comings-on of a low-pressure system from mainland China into the sidling seas. Today, the weather system has come to our town and most of Hokkaido.

The winds are rushing left, right and all about as they did in the midst of winter. I am talking deep winter, like when we had mounds of snow outside that were big enough for for climbing -and then climbing from mound to the top of your house. Mounds as big as houses. But that snow has since melted, for the most part.

This morning we had a foot of fresh snow, slopp-ish powder with a steady wind carrying snow all the morning. This is almost enough to make me want to get back on coffee, caffeine. Maybe I will…

Yesterday, too we had a mail-out weather alert from our consulate in Japan, too. There were warnings of possible flooding and landslides for other parts of Japan. As we continue to endure the brunt of the LPS (low-pressure, yada, yada) -one can only hope (and then keep watching news and tv) that the rest of our fellow Japan-dwellers, too are well given the weather.

Wherever you may be I hope that Spring is bright! Send that brightness our way, too!

Ciao

Back to Monday.
It’s funny writing every Monday, always finding myself back at the same place, position -at desk, coffee cup near at right hand. Speaking of which, I’ve been off the coffee for about two or three days. Not that I feel I have issues with kaffe, but I want to see how I fare and feel when not ‘on’ the liquified and pulverized Coffea genus beans.

I do have some exciting news though! -and this is coming to you from a single fellow living in a small town out-nowhere- I recently had delivered to my home this very afternoon a bamboo sunning chair, or reclining chair. Wow. The chair has had some tack repairs but is in recline-able condition. The seat even came with a cushion. Okay, okay, I know, this is not the most exciting news. But for me it is!

Last weekend also saw some more sunshine. Yup, sunshine and melting snow. The ruckus outside my door and windows has been replaced by hammer and nail. The tiny hub-delivery shop that operates across the open space from my front door reaching across the plot where an old and fettered house used to be… the shopkeep of that nearby shop has been having the place renovated. Every morning, hammers. (Though I do admit the carpentry and joinery is quite a job!)

In the winter I always had ferocious blowing and ghasping winds outside -audible, of course. Now it is hammering. Before that it was the daily disassemblement of the rotted house next to mine. Always some kind of ‘big news’ or ‘big racket’ here in town. But when one lives in a small town everything is ‘news’.

As for weekend facts -none really. I again had the hope and plan to board city bus to the next town and visit an onsen. And if that plan failed I had planned to board our town shuttle to onsen. But none. I cleaned my house, went for walks, cooked, and downsized some stuffs that I don’t really need.

It was a plain and good weekend. The weekend was so good and plain, and right in fact that it did me good like when a doctor says get rest -something simple, and one does just that. The simple, the act itself (doing nothing) was good.

Today was a fact and shock in the office. When I walked in just minutes to nine (a.m.) people were shuffling past me. It had all but slipped my mind that April is significant. People leaving, people coming. Work positions change, work partners change. The fellowship moving past me this morning was headed for the meeting room. It seemed like every last person escaped the confines of their workplace and desk and went off (somewhere).

Reluctantly, I inquired from our office clerk and then followed behind closed conference doors. I squeezed into the room beside parallel-aligned bodies, people standing in rows, all wearing suits. We heard names read, people welcomed, commissioned, discharged (so to speak). People that had fulfilled their terms of service, and other people beginning new ones.

Then that meeting was done and the day began as usual. But I have never seen such a rush and flurry in the office here. Health-checks, papers for people to fill out, all kinds of things going on in town hall today. April is a busy season.

As for myself, I am hoping to plan a trip or two as the seasons change and as the warm weather finally comes about. Today is still blowing winds, sometimes including snow, and bursts of sunshine -but sunshine not enought to keep belief. But more sunshine soon, I’m sure.

Finally, after work today I will mull over to the Sports Centre in town. I am hoping to enquire about drop-in fees. In the next days, weeks too, I would like to try my hand at the gym -you know, gear up for better weather. And dinner? Maybe tonight can be udon night. We’ll have a look-see.

In the meantime, thanks for the read and good luck with Spring!

Hopefully more to report soon -photos to be shared!

Ciao,

…oh, and a very happy un-coffee day to you. I was given a cup of ‘service’ coffee at Friday night’s dinner; a nice cup of instant, stir-in coffee. I never meant for it, but I drank it. I am trying for a week without coffee just to see how I do. I am sure I can make it until the weekend!

(a drive to Wakkanai makes for nice ocean-scape-like sunsets)

There was something this evening. Another English class, another evening. Another Tuesday. I was ready for this class but even while I was sitting at my desk ruffling papers and pulling bags of Canadian paraphernalia from my foot locker I knew something was going to be different. And it was.

You see, just to parallel some information on just why this post, and why now I need to tell a few. Lately work has been overwhelming, tiring, and all-consuming. In an effort to scramble to keep up with classes, attend after school taiko practices and all that jazz I was getting worn out. After the last six or seven months of errands, schedules, and daily get-ups and get-ready routines things were far too normal for me here in Japan. I think that kicking back while at home after work until pre-midnight hours became normal. And so I was losing sleep, getting up early for work.

Trying to keep up with kids at school, running, jumping, enthusing, and being an ‘active’ part of school life -at four schools- kind of began to eat away at my soul (so it felt). I got to the point after months of busyness, and allowing myself to be busy on my part, that I broke down. I was in dire need of rest, I got sour at myself and a little sour at my surroundings. I have to say that I have since come to realize that for myself even after a college career of studying other cultures and intercultural difference and travel, etc., I was not prepared for the adverse affects of a lifestyle/country of differences on my body system. Hearing a foreign language every day, things just being ‘differen’t all around me.. All of these differences somehow take a toll on the system. These cultural difference that I so love, still took a toll on me.

But I have since been getting a lot of rest. I have been forcing myself to get out of my house and to see, explore, enjoy the cities around me, too.

But tonight, my last volunteer English conversation class I felt something was going to be different, and it was. Even from the get-go with these classes I did not quite know what to expect, nor what exactly was expected of me. But still I took all in stride and took a deep breath and just talked, and enjoyed the company of those attending the class. Tonight, the last class was about Hobby English. I requested students to bring a favourite item and we all worked together to introduce brought items to the class.

One fine lady brought her Japanese Tea Ceremony set. At the end of class she shared handmade pastries with us all and we slurped matcha. Other members of the class brought favourite CDs, introduced me to new artists and hobbies, gadgets. Another student kindly shared about her own passion for her culture. Japanese culture. That same student allowed me her book on Japanese kimonos and colours. A thoughtful gesture.

You see, I came home wanting to write this post -or, just anything- right away because I finally had the sweet taste of something that I have not tasted for weeks, but has been wafting right in front of my nose this whole time. This evening I felt the sweet, warm love for Japan again; a sensation that I have not had the luxury of re-realizing for a while. It is like when you hear a moving story of how work had got in the way of a father from loving his family for some while. Work having taken the priority from his loved ones. And why do I compare my experience in this way? Well, I unquestionably share a family-like love for Japan. People, buildings, actions, sweetnesses, unsaid expressions, toilet paper left in little woven baskets in a restroom confident that no one will take nor bother the rolls -I know- it is things like this, a collection of lovely observances that make this place so confidently special for me.

This re-realization is a big deal for me because I have had to focus too much on my own health and well-being lately to open wide enough my eyes and take in every last detail around me. No, I haven’t been living blindly to this enthralling experience around me (Japan), but even regardless of my personal difficulties, as aforementioned, I have strained to smile at the fantastic nearby me. For example, sunsets and glimpses of nature still move me, the way people do their daily here still strives me, and the height of the curb from the roadway still gildes me.

And listen, I know that some posts have been lacking life, soul, or any scape of experience at all. But you may very well know that those posts and tellings have been the shell of my experience on those very lonely, very tired days here in northern Japan. But I have not and will never give up hope. I am learning a life-and-self balance unlike any I have known before. And I have the luxury of life-learning while living in one of the country-places that I find most enjoyable. Japan.

So I thank you for the reading, and for following my most plain-jane of endeavours while ‘on task’ here in Japan. I promise to work-up some photos for you, and to even go back and tack-on some pictures from the places that I have been, affixing those pictures to previous posts.

I hope you are surviving yours, too. Always leave room for yourself, and never blame for having tried and failed. For I think we never really fail as long as we keep trying. Or something like that.

Have a really good night. And we’ll talk again soon.

Ciao,
(tea set, busy hands, and a flan-tastic end to a four-series after-school english conversation class here in town. A joy and a surprise was the tea, the company, and the consummation of events)

Another week has happened here. Do I notice? Why of course! There is a lot to consider considering that Spring has finally come. There are big, blotchy patches of muddy earth where footsteps have hounded melting snow and exposed the dark belly of rich earth hiding beneath. Okay, I get excited when weather changes. This very northern location has made for quite a lot of winter. Intense winter. So much winter that it was in fact snowing this morning. Last week it was warm and sunny enough that I said ‘no’ to my inner needs to sit and sleep and sit and I instead donned running gear and went for a quick ambulation around the block -at running speed!

I also had the great opportunity to take last Friday off of work. At least the second half of the day. From noontime p.m. I was off. I went home, rested up and even visited our local onsen in the evening hours. This is the biggest golden nugget for me in my JET placement. Onsen. I get on a free shuttle, am carted out to our onsen and for mere pennies soak and rest in not one but two types of mineral-chalked waters for hours. Sometimes I even treat myself to dinner at our onsen spot. Great, hey?

But this last weekend I went out with a friendly bunch from here in town and was carted to Sapporo to watch another football match (Consadore Sapporo -soccer). A good match in a stadium of about twenty thousand fans, some fish stock-based dipping-style ramen, a Japanese-style hamburg patty for dinner (eaten with chopsticks and rice -topped with curry and cheese) it was a good and full weekend. But the workweek happens…

And change has come. School has ended and Spring has… begun? Already it is amazing to hear of the blooming cherry blossoms around Japan, and around the world.

Much to my amazement -and that of others- we had a full-on snowfall this morning. Peeking out from between the folds of my livingroom curtains this morning I saw snow coming down in a comitted fashion. Steady snowfall. Then after arriving at work the snow started and stopped, started and stopped. This snowfall hid a lot of ice under its white blanket. Before warmer mid-morning temperatures hit, this hidden ice made for a tricky walk to work. (Yeah I know I said rich earth a few moments before, but this morning there was ice…)

As for events surrounding town and this Springtime season, I had the opportunity to enjoy an end-of-year ceremony at elementary school. School anthems were sung, report cards distributed to class representatives, and other such formalities.

These days I see students in irregular places -that is, outside of school and outside of class. Young learners have some two weeks off before the new school year in early April. I see students at stores, riding bikes, streetside, etc. It is quite fun to see a bit of ‘change’ to the on-and-off of regular school and teaching patterns. This change brings a renewed brightness to daily life, hopeful of Spring and seasonal change, methinks.

Today and tomorrow some childrens’ films are being screened in effort to provide holidaying students with activities about town. But I am more in favour of tomorrow’s samplings including Pirates of the Caribbean. If I can steal a few minutes away from my desk, I might enjoy some of the film and maybe say hi to a few students on the way..

Although it is gray and snowfall-y outside I know that the sunshine is just waiting to tell us that it loves us here in northern Japan. With a few more national holidays on the charts I am planning of some inter-country travel and some more relaxing days. I hope you can say the same for yourself -relaxing days and such.

If it be a busy season, I wish you the best! But don’t forget, get outside and enjoy that which nature has to offer -in the views Thoreau and Emerson as found in Elgin’s Voluntary Simplicity, nature is the doorway to the divine, the most fitting place for contemplation and [spiritual] inspiration.

So why not get outside? Say no (okay, I’ll say no) to an excessive caffeine intake and instead go and enjoy the beauty of Spring! (And don’t worry, I’m okay. I haven’t turned over a new leaf, or re-arranged my marbles, or anything. I am just happy for Spring)!
(BIKKURIDONKEY, Japanese hamburg, not hamburger, restaurant. I drank a cup of yoghurt with my cheese/curry hamburg. Eaten using chopsticks; and a side of rice -amazing ♡)

I have a stack of papers sitting to my left. Among the rustle is a leaflet of tax papers waiting to be sent home -to Canada. There are also cuddled in the mix, notes; journals; folders; and even foreign alphabets. Having spare time to wait or prep while at one school or traversing to another schoolhouse I like to keep my mind busy. Recently, Hebrew script has been a re-fresher for me. Having studied the language albeit briefly in college I have found spare moments to scribble a string of Hebrew letters both here, and there.

At last my weekend was something more worth writing about. Worthwhile for me. I made it out to Sapporo. I watched films, shopped, drooled over shop-able things and spent money on just a few items. A necessitate computer-case, natural hand-cream, and food. I don’t know what it is but I used to smirk when people doppled a bottle of handcream back home and slathered their mitts. But now my knuckles are crinkling, often, and I need cover. Lotion-cover, that is. I found a nice tuber of Burts Beeswax lotion. I was happy to drop a dollar on a significant salve.

My hotel in said town was also grand. One of those spots that have a Japanese bath in the basement. I think I lolled around in the hot water down there some two or three times. My goodness I felt clean. I even spent a dime on a massage. Once having had to trek to a very distant body-shop some blocks from Sapporo Station, I found a massage clinic at the station -one in the same- where I exposed aching muscles and air-tight shoulder flexors to the rigorous hands of a trained professional. Worth every penny.

But I am now back in town. I am slated for an awful lot of desk work. Not so much key-punching for me but paper work. Reading up, prepping home travel and school for the Fall-time. I have organizing to do and language to study. Japanese. Studies are going well.

I have recently shevelled my at-home routine as well. Let me have you a laugh -I go to be after 9p.m. I have had such a mess of a time with work lately that my exhaustion had not allowed me to travel farther then the Seicomart at river’s edge in town. I went nowhere. Now, I have been bedding down early and loving every minute of it. I have even migrated from futon-aside-stove on the floor and moved to the bed in my guest space at home. I am sleeping on a bed and loving it.

I have about two pounds of ground coffee at my house and am loving that, too. Although I recently discovered that one of the Kyoto blends that I purchased is really only good for mixing-in with another stronger coffee. The former has no taste of its own. The coffee is too mild to savour a palate.

Recent re-discovery has led me to Maslow’s Basic Needs. In psychology this means that within Maslow’s theory of Basic Human Needs, the first of about eight needs entails physiological needs. These needs hinge things like sleep, warmth, food, etc. After recent re-evaluation of my life in lieu of a busy lifestyle (or just work), I have taken the shovel-to-earth and wedged out more sleep, larger meals, and warmer beds. And I am better for it.

And last on Japanese culture. I am finding given my present experience abroad that after I have been worn to the bone with work, faced with a very foreign language and script in a very ect- or outside/separated setting, I grow tired. In all my intercultural training and travels beforehand not much could have prepared me for what it is like to be take and propped in a corner or Japan so dislodged from.. things. Foods, temples, people, cities, mountains, access to trains and travel. It costs me just about as much to get somewhere from where I can travel as it would to travel at twice the cost. I say, I am displaced in Japan and it is costly just to get somewhere from where I can travel elsewhere.

That being said I have time to learn coping strategies. Ways to be alone. I am surrounded, yes, by people, by this town, but a very affluent fellow who loves being social -I am secluded. And my best friends are films, books, and newsprint. The odd email, and buttoned email-by-phone. I have less contact than I would like.

Why would I be so honest? To make the most of my experience I need to name and face what it is upon which I stand. And so for this time until now -and then till summer- I am glad. Tomorrow I will have a graduation ceremony at elementary school to attend. And then some office work, and some hollow-like days at elementary. But the snows that keep on coming in so busily like overdue travelers off of the nearby ocean will depart. Depart once and for all at the change of season. Spring will come and then Summer. Weather will warm and spirits will rise. And I will rise with the best of them. And I, too, will warm with the weather. I will plan to visit friends and travel here and there. Just a little.

So, there are a few rambling from a Monday-fiend. You know that pasty-white, chalk-white that used to coat my workplace windows so that you can see no further than the glass itself? It’s back. I can’t see outside even now due snow. But that snow will go. Things change and I am waiting for that change, too. But in the meantime I am making the most of what I have and what I can do. And you should, too.

The good news, better news? Coffee is still coffee when it comes out of the hot-watered filter no matter what the morning looks like outside. Here’s to consistency, and here’s to change.

Have a good, fine, astounding Monday.
You’ve earned it, and you deserve it.

Ciao,
(listen, I used to want to pant-kick people who were living in Japan and didn’t ‘dine out’ on Japanese every night, but you would understand the claim to ‘Having the Best Burger In Hokkaido’. I had to go and see. And, well, this is what I got. And, I liked it -oops.)

Hi there.

The last few days have indeed been interesting ones.

Outside of an extended need for rest, I had two visits to the walk-in clinic. Now the clinics here are indeed called hospitals. But I would have to say that having visited the clinic now a handful of times, health-work check ups, etc., the hospital in my town is little more than a clinic. Mostly outpatient procedures. I would assume any/such larger cases would be shipped to a hospital-sized hospital such as Asahikawa (a larger city than my own). My town has clinics.

But Monday’s post came to none because on Monday and Tuesday afternoon I was granted afternoons off due to said clinic visits. So I went to the clinics, and so I went home.

Those days had a lot of sleep involved and a lot of gratefulness for alotted rest.

I feel my work has been busy lately. In part, I feel that my body has finally protested against taiko twice a week, being on-guard at school (teaching or supervising), meetings outside of work hours, and new volunteer conversation classes after work hours. Maybe I’m just a sprite of a fellow for whom a broad array of activities both inside and outside of work come to be too much.

So, I have been remedying myself with early bedding. Something like going to bed at the holy hour of nine or nine-thiry p.m., and getting up a few minutes after seven a.m. I am trying to suck the life out of the beast of sleep. The very beast that sleep is.

Rest assured I am working on putting the put-able things on hold in my life that I can, thus allotting more time for recovery and such.

On some cultural note I would say that we are within the eve of end of school year graduations. Next week Tuesday, a holiday day, I will attend and enjoy the elementary school graduation ceremony. Any other cultural tidbits? Well, I haven’t really ventured that far outside of town lately. Maybe it is time for a trip away… (though I may have said at some point that I was going -even to Sapporo- I had backed out due to need of rest). But I will go.

And finally, to share within the cultural tidbit bracket, I was offered a crafted caramel (a caramel nonetheless) by a right-old lady on the onsen shuttle bus here in town. It was a nice dry caramel, the palatable kind like say, a Werther’s. After so many closed-up, extensive, and carefully manicured social relationships -relationships in a work and life setting that don’t allow for much fun and lucid interaction, it was nice to be offered a caramel by a townsperson. It really made my day.

And I am also sorry to say that at my physician’s request, I have cut back caffeine intake to whatis one twelve ounce cup of coffee per day (or just slightly less). But the coffees that I brew with utmost care most mornings have been a most consistent and quiet haven for me in the midst of working-on things. Tough things, difficult things. And so I am led to ask, where is your sanctuary? Mine may be this feeble brew-ish act, but where do you find your bliss, peace, and center in the day? In the morning?

This cup’s for you.

Ciao
(school graduation at the end of March. In Japan -it happens)

(this post may be on hold, but the food selection certainly isn’t! Thanks for the wait.)

Today’s post is on hold. The post is on hold for self reasons!

Took the afternoon off work but will be posting tomorrow. Thank you for your patience!

Until then,

It has been another fine weekend in town. A few days of cold winds, and a few more days of warm enough temperatures to continue melting snow. ANd the melting snow is happening. Lack of snow can be seen by the dry and normal patches of highway on the main by-way that courses through town. It is nice to see the truth of earth visible to my eye. No more cold and ice to freeze-over what really exists below. Spring is coming, even to Hokkaido, and I wait and wait.

Spring brings along with it a mess of school events. April　brings a turn-over of workers at various workplaces. March-April is also the time when many school graduations occur. I recall sitting at a cafe back in Canada with a Japanese friend who over coffee kindly explained and diagramed the course of the school year in Japan. Now I can see the course of the school year firsthand.

Last week I was invited to participate in several afterschool practices for a dance performance at elementary school. This dance performance was for the sending-off ceremony for the sixth graders departing for middle school next month in Embetsu.

A handful of dance practices, and popular costumes saw a few of the other elementary school teachers and myself dancing to a popular AKB48 track in front of a gymnasium of students and parents. Was the experience worth it? Well, either we teachers have given the students something to remember their graduation by, or we managed to embarrass ourselves all over. But the experience was fun and I know that I will forever remember the dance, the costumes, and the times we had. I may have also learned a thing or two about what is humour in Japan.

Aside that all I am feeling it is about time to high-tail it out of town again. I need the touch and feel of shopping in a big city, and having things like cafes and cinemas available to me without pain. I have movies I want to watch and things that I want to do, like drink coffee. It has been a few too many weeks for me to be waiting and sitting in my little town. I need to be freed from this.

So if all goes according to plan I will board bus and shuttle out of here. Sapporo is always welcome. A long bus ride, yes, but the promise of a one night hotel and good good food makes the journey that much easier.

Have you been taking long strides just waiting for winter to end? I have to say that winter wasn’t as bad as I had it described me. The winter in Hokkaido is about alright. But there certainly were rough and tumble moments. I suppose I can say that my ‘winter skin’ has been toughened and I can look for minus temperatures back home wihtout so much disdain as before. I am used to more cold now.

With so many events to look forward to come Spring, I am also reminded of the number of months that I have left in Japan. Somehing like four. That time will pass quickly, too. I am in the course of writing happy letters to the person that will fill my position in the later summer. Letters that I will one day send when I find out who is next here. Preparation, just. I am also writing ideas of what are of priority to me while I am still here in Japan. Things like seeing a Jpop concert, or traveling to see friends in other parts of this island-y place.

So long as I can pocket some bit of cash for my return home. Now that will take some planning indeed. I hope you are as ready for Spring as I am, or as the rest of the wintered world. All my best to you and I look forward to another read soon.

Good day. Monday. Coffee day!

Ciao,
(the sunsets here, they are so beautiful. I am at wonder, for it is the same sun that we see in every part of the world. But just how, and where the sun does set makes that same setting ritual seem like the most magical thing… Whether behind mountains, over the sea, or between. It is a healing sight. An amazing sight -especially here in Japan.)

Another week has come and gone. I have gone no where. I have gone nowhere really -I mean that I was really just in town this last weekend. I did have a great time just sitting about the worrying about things like what I should cook for myself for dinner, or for lunch. Worrying about if I should cook at all. And, well, did I cook? No, not really.

I do have one thing to be most happy and grateful for, and that is my ability to whip up a hot stock of miso soup in minutes. Now, some of you wittier and un-bent individuals living here in Japan may say to yourselves, gosh, all you really have to do is dob the packet of instant mix into the cup of hot water and you’ve got yourself a soup.

No.

I am talking about the kind of soup that you rabble up from scratch. All chopped and prepped by hand aside from the consistently tasty dashi fish stock powder that sets the broth and flavor for any miso soup. I otherwise boil water, hash vegetables with knife, simmer the tofu, bean curd, potatoes, carrots -anything else that makes for a hearty cup of steamy, dreamy miso soup.

And the last step in this soup-making is the blending-in of the miso. You see, I have become rather partial to red miso lately. And the real clumpy, not-too-processed miso. When you mix your miso with just enough stock to create a pasty liquid you can still see the happy little flecky bits of soybeans ‘n stuffs looking at you before you add the whole addition to the hot pot of soup et legumes.

Now is this all I spent doing this weekend? Mostly, yes.
I have just finished reading a rather brief but informative article on the difficulties facing students living and studying abroad. You can no doubt guess that in my case, winter, and for anyone, yes, can be a trying time. I have learned that for students living aboroad (though this article described foreign students studying at American universities) that they would engage in solitary activities such as, painting, drawing, reading, movie-watching.

And there it is, the latter.
My weekend was filled with enough movies and television shows to rival a major theatre’s screenings in a mid-to-large-sized city. Now I don’t want you to picture me all pudgy and worried with my puffy nose and glasses glued to a tv screen, but I will encourage you to picture a person set tv-side taking in some rest and relaxation by film as was necessary.

And let’s see, what’s a Japanese cultural tidbit for you rabid readers back home? Well, all in a quest for good ice cream, after having sampled everything previously from red bean and chocolate, to green tea and banana, and after all these good and other flavours of ice cream I found Haagen Dazs ice at the convenience store. Really, tiny little cups of the stuff that the company would throw at you on a hot summers day to sample. I mean these cups of the ice cream they sell are no bigger than the pill cups that they serve your meds in at the hospital. (And my honest condolences and well-wishes to anyone’s anyone in a hospital)

But the ice cream was fine. And a flat flavour of strawberry very nearly met my ice cream needs this weekend. For a very necessary last-minute dinner, too I found Japanese rolled omlettes with skipjack tuna flakes, and then a minced and fried cutlet complete with a tiny packet of sauce for topping. The two items clocked me no more than two hundred yen (maybe two dollars) and I downed said samples with rice from home (rice that I purchased from our agricultural high school) and the miso soup I told you of.

And that was the weekend.

I will cut this post off and dry abruptly today. I do hope to keep things most readable and curt lately. I hope!

Good news otherwise, I have begun fully boiling water for my morning drip-to-drink coffees and adding more grounds. Standing there half-asleep while waiting for coffee to dribble into my cup. Pouring hot water from a tiny, spouted teapot to get the ‘pour’ just right. The coffee is great. That is certainly a perk for me these days, too.

Are you enjoying your tea? Or do you drink coffee?
Anyways, I am sure I have asked you that a thousand times.

All the best and do keep your activities Spring-worthy! For Spring is surely on the way.

Catch you next week, too,

Ciao.