up in the hills

Right now I am up in the hills and mountains in Sougawa. It is a great place and the 11 kids that populate the entire elementry school are great too. However the 1st and 2nd graders were outta of hand today. That is only 4 kids too. Two boy were just pounding and scratching each other during class so I broke out the coloring activity and then they quieted down. Ryota and Yasahiro. For lunch today were had some sort of vegetable tempura and on the side some small tiny fish. These guys are tiny. After lunch I could feel a small piece of food in my mouth that I couldn't chew too well. I knew what it was before I plucked it out of my teeth. It was the head of one of those little fish guys. One of its eyes had already popped out. Yummy, ne?
One other crazy thing. Head lights. In the US many cars are equipped with Day Time Running Headlights, right? They run all day. No big deal to see a car with its headlights on, no? Well here, it's a no-no. I have been flashed, gestured, and beeped at by other drivers because I had my lights on when it was still light out. Most of the time I just forget to turn them off after coming out of a tunnel. There are a lot of tunnels in the mountains here. One time a guy came out in the middle of the road to stop my car, and then motioned me to roll down my window like he was going to say something. All he did was just point to my headlights. So unless it is completly dark out, you shouldn't have your headlights on. Unless you want to be noticed.
Last night I met a calligrapher teacher. She seemed nice but kind of strict. Maybe I need that. She told me how to take my shoes off and how to arrange them next to the mat at the door. Well Shuji, calligraphy pays attention to small details, and for to be a shuji master, I guess she notices every little thing about everything.

Back in Miyama

Yesterday was a holiday. So on Monday night I caught a train to Osaka and met up with a Japanese friend of my brother. He is from Tokyo and was in Osaka for a toy show. I also met up with his buddy from Kyoto. Together they showed me around town it was a great time. We stayed in Osaka at a cyber-cafe-hostel place. It was a really cool place underground where you rent out a cubical for a certain number of hours. In the normal cubical you get a computer with broadband access and a comfy chair. The larger cubical is for 3 people and has a small floor with two computers, a tv, and a playstation 2. These weren't seperate rooms, but rather cubicals. So if you stood up you could see arcoss the room and above all the cubicals, however you can't see inside the cubicals. You get free drinks, movies, magazines and manga. One long night in the large cubical was about $35.
Later in the day one of the guys took me to Kobe and showed me around. It is a cool place, but still felt like we were in Osaka. The Kobe/Osaka area is just one gigantic metroplois. However, from what I saw, a part of Kobe was set in the mountain side and reminded me of Monte Carlo or San Francisco.
We went back to Osaka and ate at some Asian/French restaurant.
I never realized how long it takes to get home from Osaka. It took me almost 3 hours to get from Shin-Osaka to my house last night. It always seemed shorter than that. I am hoping to now go to Kyoto one of these weekends.

Touche Pussycat

Yesterday I went to Osaka again and spent a ton of money on an electronic dictionary, some memory for my computer, and a region free DVD player. Region free? Well to further divide the world, the world is divided into 6 regions for DVDs. Japan is region 2 and the USA is Region 1. Australia is region 4 and so on. So I have DVDs that region 2 from Japan and some DVDs that I brought with me so I had to find a player that could play both. I found such a player in Den Den Town. I found a nice Pioneer region free player. A tough find at a good price.
So yeah. And then also bought a Tom and Jerry DVD. You know the one where they are in France and there is that little grey mouse that says 'touche, pussycat.'
The language barrier isn't so bad. Actually at times it is good. Usually I don't have much to say in English, I guess so I am at times kind of dull. There are times that I don't really want to talk to people or don't have anything to say to people here. So at times it is good to have the language barrier and people here understand that I am quiet because I can't speak Japanese too well and they can't speak English too well.
I am here at Kasamatsu elementry school on a Sunday. They had a big relay race in which all the students ran this morning. So today is sort of a school day. The school is close and it is a Sunday so I thought I'd stop by and give my support.