"We didn't need dialogue. We had faces."

A blog cruelly neglected and a Hula trying to make ammends. This post promises to maintain maintence, but blogspiration comes and goes. At the very least I can provide the play-by-play, which, in turn, has more twists than O'Henry.

Since I've last written I've changed my hair thrice. Blond to blonder to V for Vendetta short. Today I'll go back to basics. Brown and all things natural. Silly, as I can't remember the last time I've been without color. I call it the quarterly year change. Every 3-4 months, like clockwork, my hair changes, and in turn, slightly, so do I.

In related news, I think I'm having a love affair with commas today.

I suppose I should start with August 6th. It's as memorible a day as any, and I'm fortunate to have spent it in Hiroshima. We (a gaggle of friends and I) met up in the early morning hours to observe and pay our respects to the memory of the Atomic Bomb dropping. There was a peace vigil held in Peace Memorial Park. Thousands of residents gathered around the centograph in the heart of the park. It was early and I couldn't find my friends so I slinked in amongst the other observers and watched from a difficult distance. There was chatter, and general crowd bearing noise, but when the ceremony started I could hear every typically sound-less sound: the fidgeting of feet, a child clamping her barrett in place, the well paced two step of each woman who laid a wreath at the Heart of the memorial. This kind of silence is scary, and everyone watched with rapt attention. What we were so concerned with seeing, I can't remember. I know I needed a focal point, because to look at anyone else seemed an admission of guilt. The crimes of our country, no matter how old, never leave us.

8:15 promised a moment of silence. Everyone was positioned and poised to bow their heads, listen to the bells and think of lives lost. But then, the deterrent. A political protest some distance back that bellowed, ever so softly in the distance. It was a chorus of cries and I initially chalked it up to a dubbed recording of the screams of the victims of the bomb dropping. My, this is morbid. To hear that- as a product of your own making, never leaves you. It's the crime scene you witnessed. Or a loved ones last words before the machine shuts down. When I was later told about the protest I was incensed. Can't they observe a moment of silence? Can't they pay respects to the living in addition to the dead? But it all makes sense in the end. They were serving the only purpose they had left to serve. To fight it to the end. And their rhythm and rehearsed chants only fueled my conviction that this was something, and is something and will forever remain something that should never again happen.

Fast forward through the day. We purchased laterns and wrote messages of peace to be sent down the river, candle in tow, at nightfall. We splayed ourselves over bridge hangings and watched the laterns tug-a-lug down the river. Some laterns adherred themselves to others. Like lovers, hand-in-hand they floated. Some tipped, and the Sharpie penned messages washed away in the water. It's kind of redeeming to think of the capsized laterns. Their hope is forever embedded in the river walls. So it goes.

I saw a gold ring, from the bottle of the river. Glinting, at my foolish heart...

...oh my foolish heart, it had to go diving. Diving, diving, diving into the murk.

It's exhausting, keeping up with my blog. It moves so quickly- like a small Japanese child that remarkably (smallish legs and all) always outruns me.

So catch up. It's as fun a game as any. The Hiro Happenings have been plentiful. They are, as follows:

The initiation and consequent undertaking of SUPER ADVENTURE MONDAYS! Now, SAM is a little idea I cooked up one evening when my friends and I realized why were were always so skint (see: totally broke, cash-less, without appropriate financial support). Drinks are expensive. Drinks at popular drink venues late into the evening becomes even more pricey. So why not cut out the middle man? The tenants of SAM are simple: It should be free (or free-like, the costs of bus/train/ferry fare are acceptable), and it should be wild/crazy/interesting/really, really, really pretty. So there was no better way to jumpstart our SAM than to venture on down to backwoods Kumano. Kumano is not so much backwoods as it's NOT city saavy like Hiroshima. My pal Dan lives there and we packed a picnic, donned our bathing suits (in my case another stellar three piece that really resembled a wetsuit) and headed out to a resoivor for some swimming, fishing and Happy Station Music listening.

Who knew we'd find danger and all things terrifying in pacifist Kumano. Perched atop the resoivor was a large stone wall. It had to be at least 20 feet, and my go-get-um attituded friends thought it would be fun to jump off said wall into the lake. Umm.. okay, that sounds as good a plan as any, but lets not forget my intense fear of heights. My fear of deep water. My fear of people seeing me in a bathing suit from a variety of angles. Well regardless, we did a couple test runs off a smaller, 8 foot type wall and it took all my friends in the water chanting my name, and a slew of 6 or so teenage Japanese boys counting backwards from 5 in English to get me to jump that measley distance. What followed is my greatest Kumano accomplishment. My apotheosis if you will. So I jumped. SAM is such an ego-boost.

Next Monday was lack-luster. We bought tickets to the Sun-Dance festival. This sounds more alluring than it is. No, we did not see fabulous film in Hiroshima, instead we paid the rough equivalent of $30 to go to a dirty beach. I can't complain- the company was good and transportation was included, but I'm not much of a beach bunny and we all agreed that next Monday should most certainly include more adventure.

On the agenda: Super Adventure Karaoke. My team mate John and I (see: the Dynamic Duo, members of the band "It's Something So Sad") have an agenda that includes the singing of Richard Marx, choreography, costume and stellar stunts. It is definitely something to blog home about.

Going up a mountain, coming down slowly

"I have come a few miles. I have blisters on my slippered feet, as I rise, as I rise."
All idealists should climb a mountain. Anyone foolhardy enough to believe in the good of all men, the beauty in all things, that right that exists in all wrong, should strap on some boots and scale a mountain. A tall one preferribly, in the middle of a cold, quiet Japanese night only to arrive at the summit at sunrise. It was something so much more than beautiful. It was an epic score.

I did it! Or rather, we did it. Scaled Mt Fuji. CELEBRATE!!!!

I took the 6:40 shinkansen to Tokyo to run around and do Tokyo type things with friends Tara and Matt. This weekend was touted a big reunion as 6 of our 7 initial Amity trainees we're meeting to climb the biggest mountain in Japan. Some new editions entered the fold, Kevin and David, and I was able to eat a mexican (?!- in Japan!?) dinner for proper nourishment pre-climb. This seemed sensible because everyone knows how nutrient dense chips and salsa are.

What followed dinner was chaos and confusion. We couldn't find the bus that would take us to the mountain. Our backpacks were locked away somewhere in Tokyo station (and anyone with any knowledge of/or an imagination realizes that this game of find and seek can potentially take all the days of their lives), and Owen (another friend traveling from Fukui) was running late, late and later and feared missing hte bus. Apparently Fuji was on our side as, at the last minute we found our bus, bought our tickets, extracted our baggage and boarded the bus. Something so sad, or perhaps tragic: Owen arrived just in time to watch our bus pull away. I did see him the next day at the base of the mountain and I've no worry that he had a lovely climb.

Arrival. Hooray. Celebrate! We gear up and begin our ascent. The path is nearly deserted and unlike anything I've ever traveled. For sometime we feel completely enclosed in our small bubble of friends and worry that we're descending or taking the road less taken. The first hour or so saw solely our headlamps and singing and shouting.

The mountain is peppered with another 5 stations where we could purchase provisions, if needed, and stop and rest. The distance between each station was enough to warrant a rest whenever we approached one. Initially, with all the excitement and low level terrain I moved quickly and found the climb manageable. After the sixth station, however, I began to feel the burn. We were nearly vertically climbing. Holding onto big rocks, haphazardly placed atop one another like a Lincoln Log set. Most of my group had previous climbing experience, but I merely run the roads and found the ascent increasingly difficult. I kept my pace. I didn't outdo it, and marched along with the leaders of our group. Looking like an Addidas astronaut, I wore my silver running tights to wick off sweat and maintain heat. This was all good and great, and my gear was appropriate, but my pisspoor athletic ability was tested to the limits. After an hour of vertical climbing and acclimating my body to elevations of some 3000 meters, I began to familiarize myself with akward climbing technique. I enjoyed jumping from rock to rock and even humored myself a badass adventurist. I convinced myself I was made to rock climb. I started calling Mt. Fuji my darling lover. I couldn't stop smiling.

2/3rds into the climb, climbers began appearing in droves. We're they materialized from, I know not. Many climbers hike during the day, spend the night in the few huts scattered at each station, and ascend in the early hours of the a.m. to see the sunrise. Regardless, we were engulfed by them and what followed was an eerie procession of hushed voices and lowlit lamps that moved in accordance with one another, pursuing a common goal. I was happy to walk in step with them. We regulated eachother's breaths. We felt one another's sore heels. We moved in one unit. In rhythm and time.

And then, the summit.

Whoa.

I've never seen anything like it. Sky for days, no mountains to surround. I felt as though I were on top of the world, and while there were hundreds of people surrounding me, speaking loudly of their adventure and hopes and dreams, the moment was muted and there was nothing but clarity and control and hope and happiness.

We watched the sunrise. Silly, I've never seen a sunrise. I usually rush about my everyday doings. I have to move, move, move that I never allowed myself the simple pleasure of this everyday event. And now I'm hooked, although I fear nothing will compare with this particular sun. It moved in stages, like a controlled ballet and turned the sky a milieu of colors. It was stunning. Everyone at the peak huddled around the makeshift wall and watched with simliar amazement. Cameras flashed, keitais clicked and we each captured a moment our minds will never forget.

Then, the descent. Oh doctor. Now I'm regretting this fool decision.

There is nothing romantic about the descent. It is not scenic. It is not exciting and it most certainly is not easy. Despite its downhill draw, the descent is murder on the knees. You escape the summit in steep terrain, on a sandlike surface that requires you balance yourself with every step to keep from falling forward. I cursed Fuji in my descent. I fell four times. I cried and ran screaming for the final base station. But then, some 2.5 hours in, it's all over. I browse the gift shop, buy, buy, buy for students and school and am filled with pride and accomplishment. I climbed Fuji! Me! And I smile and smile.

Fear not the finicky eater

How I know I'm going to be okay...

A product of my own making.

This may be my proudest moment.

Oh how I love this place, it's sweet and bitter taste, has left me wretched, wretching on all fours- Hiroshima, I'm yours...

Big plans in the making. The training crew (in near full) is meeting up in Tokyo this coming weekend to board a bus to the fifth station of Mt. Fuji. That's right. We hope to scale the tallest mountain in Japan. It's an overnight climb, and if we all make it to the top we'll huddle near one another and watch the sunrise. I think that promises to be something so lovely.

Now I am more than pleased with my extravagant camera purchase.

I've been trying to save money as best I can because spending is the name of the game here. Weekends out are pricey. That darling and far too complicated shirt in every store window is necessary. And because Japan basically mandates that you walk around with a concerning amount of yen in your pocket because credit cards are nearly non-existent, it's easy to fall prey to anything and everything pricey.

Working hard on establishing a running regimine so the International Marathon goal may be realized. Richard and I hope to run the Tokyo marathon, and fingers crossed that we get accepted despite lottery, and I hope he's all in. I tire of running alone. I can slow down with the promise of another. I can't imagine what it is to cross with added energy. I bet it's the best feeling in the world.

Green tea is delicious. I think I'll take up yoga. Japanese, as a language, is tricky.

Oh, and I have no idea what I'll do with the rest of my life. I have nine months left of careful contemplation. But I'm always contemplating. I'm always thinking and planning and proving. I was hoping to escape introspection. Maybe in my old age.

The weather is fine, and I'm sure, at least for today, that it will hold.

My nemesis is dead. Now what?

"Have you ever seen an idealist with grey hairs on his head? Or successful men who keep in touch with unsuccessful friends? You maybe think you did, and I could have sworn I saw it too, but as it turns out it was just a clever ad for cigarettes."

Typhoon? Typhoon! Really? Are there precautions to take? Batteries to buy? Places to seek shelter?

School was canceled and I was a mass of critical concern. Natural diasters usually prompt a Hula freak out session, but strangely enough the promise of a typhoon was strangely alluring. I headed into the city center with hopes of joining my other impulsive, move to Japan on a whim, like-minded friends to watch the eye of the storm circle and swoop. We romanticized danger. Howling winds a gentle chorus. Tipped trashcans a playful waltz. Maybe we were trying to create. Make an allegory of our experiences. Maybe we needed the permission to destroy our past life in exchange for this new one that we tiptoe around. A storm. A natural diaster that wouldn't be a product of our own making. That's making a madness of metaphor, but it's also quite telling that the typhoon didn't materialize. That we were safe. Reeling. Waiting. Holding eachother in the hopes that we'd desperately need that tight grasph. And, it worked. Here's a home. Here's a love. Hiroshima is happiness.

We meet here for our dress rehearsal to say, "I wanted it this way"...

"...because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you can the blue centrelight pop and everybody goes 'Awwww!' ".

Perfect quote to segway into my Japanese Independence Day. Photos and all!

By Japanese Independence Day I'm really referencing American Independence Day celebrated in Japan, which was infinitely more entertaining. I haven't had a Japanese Independence Day yet. Not of the accepted, calendar added variety, but the day I feel I've overthrown the culture shock and reveled in my own revolution. I'm certain it's forthcoming. Wars of this massive scale aren't often won overnight.

Regardless, I met some friends in the park nearest the Hiroshima Castle. What a beautiful thing to be walking to a destination, a tepid July evening, meeting friends at a Castle's entrance. I'll never again read a text asking to meet at a castle, turn left at a shrine. It's certainly something to blog home about. Well, we had ourselves a lovely time as Japanese children's stores sell fireworks a-plenty. Alone, yet obnoxious in the park, the police didn't mind if we blew off our own fingers, so long as our danger sticks weren't pointed at the nearest road. What followed was silly pyro-technic shows, attemtps to scale trees, and and grand tour of Hiroshima's nightlife well into the early hours of the a.m.

oh Hiroshima. I'm tired.

No matter, the city is still breathing and my bronchial infection has finally subsided.

Because everyone thinks that it goes away with age...

everyone thinks they've got her appraised, but she's still miles away...

Time sprints softly and I can now upload and update from the confines of my birdie of an apartment. I have internet. Celebrate! Now we're cooking with gas.

Too much to catalogue. I was fitted in a traditional Japanese Yukata (summer kimono) for Hiroshima's Tokuasan festival- a festival that celebrated something no one was entirely certain of. That was no matter, because the ladies sucked it up and were corsetted, the men dolled lose, pajama like obi's (there is something so wrong with this dress code) and we ran around the city in our gaigin glory. About Yukatas. If I can give any advice to anyone interested and willing, it would be: not to. Such pain. Although I suppose I can't complain much. I accessorized with Converse kicks, and took off the garter, rope, stomach contraption early into the evening. I like to breath. I found it helps with conversation.

I've been over the moon for festivals, as I visited the Mikuni festival outside of Fukui a few weeks after I'd arrived. Fukui was lovely in the way that Hiroshima is exciting. I sometimes wish for the tree lined avenues of Japan's quieter alcoves, but Hiroshima is something much for intoxicating. Considering on a simple few streets there are some 3,000 bars, the association takes on many meanings. I've found falafel! A touch screen camera with a memo pad that breeds endless vainity! Karaoke co-conspirators! Marathon maniacs! I can't stop smiling for fear I'll miss any one thing.

What follows is the thrilling tale of Hula's international Disney exploration. Well, it's something rather sad in the sense that I couldn't convince my friends to hit up Tokyo Disneyland (without doubt more magical- arguabley better than the Tokyo DisneySea we settled on). Something knock me down gasph worthy: I wasn't in much of a Disney mood. I attribute it to the night terrors of the previous night. I think they were a product of my own making as we slept in a capsule Inn Hotel (see: slept in the equivilant of a coffin) and I got myself one stellar hour of sleep, if that. No matter, because I was in my mecca and ran around every bit of it (save the super scary rides that I'm much too much of a whimp to take on). I must say, the Japanese have greater control of the disney than I was willing to give them credit for. While Japan is all sorts of clean in a creepy, big brother as janitor kind of way, Disney was the porcelin basin of my grandmothers tub. It was the Oriental Rug, twice vacuumed daily. It was beautiful for those who find beauty in Disney (and really, what sort of tyrant doesn't?) I'll return in January with the sister to visit the real Disney. Then, my loves, we'll have something to blog home about.

The gymnist- high above the ground....

... limbers on, and falls tender down. Ankles splay and dull tide. The gymnist, long has arrived...

True, that I am afraid of most everything (see: heights, needles, roller coasters, fish, spiders, confusing miniature electronic devices, and children with excellent posture) but nothing has prepared me to face the deamons of one of my greatest fears. Cue the cockroach my friends.

I was able to run screaming from the monkeys, and do my best lamaze type exercises on those makeshift gondolas, but where can I seek solace. The JT staff said they are inevitable, regardless of how clean I keep my apartment. Awww snap. This is not the alley I trash in.

I can't sleep for fear of being a creepy crawler snack. I guess there is truly something to be said about cohabitation. I may have to befriend my neighbors. I think I may become the friendliest gaigin ever to be found in these parts if only to have some roach exterminators in close proximity.

Missing home.

But also loving the Hiro happiness.

I'm my best contradiction.

"Please, remember me, happily, by the rosebush laughing, with bruises on my chin, the time when we counted every black car passing your house beneath the hill, and up until someone caught us in the kitchen with maps, a mountain range, a piggy bank a vision too removed to mention"

I am listening to hear where you are...

Golden Week globetrotting. And by globetrotting I'm pretty much suggesting that to comb all of Hiroshima and its surrounding areas is akin to globetrotting. No matter. Hiroshima is big enough to exhaust a good 5 days and I live to tell the tale (after a close call with some crazy eyed monkeys and a karaoke binge that would leave Bukowski comatose). Below please find the play by play which isn't probably of considerable interest to anyone other than my super BFF Jason who braved monkeys and 4 hour marathon promenades with me, and my mother, who loves this kind of shit.

Okay, okay. Here we go! Vamanos!

Sunday: I take the shinkansen to Osaka early with the hopes of meeting up with training buddy extraordinaire Daniel. So we make active use of our keitais to find one another at shin-osaka, with a transcript that went a little something like this: "Hula: I'm at Central Gate. Daniel: I'm at Central Gate". funny, as in funny ha, ha, ho, hee, Daniel and I were at different train stations. For shame. Terrified I'd get further lost in Osaka I jumped on the next JR train to Kansai airport, thinking I'd arrive all kinds of early, browse about and eat frozen yogurt at that stand I took a liking to when I first arrived. Well it took some time longer than I anticipated so by the time I arrived at the airport, sumimasen'ed a few airport personnel I realized Jason had already landed. I ran to the rendevoux area and was immediately accosted by a Japanese television station. Big cameras. Lots of lights. Boom mics and me looking totally bewildered and still without my voice from last week's sickness.
Okay. this is where the week starts getting interesting. So this show, "music edge, osaka style" asks me if they can interview me. I've nothing to do but wait so I oblige. they're more interested in who I'm waiting for and proceed to make impromptu posters and scream "jason" to anyone exiting the arrival gates. so Jason and I are interviewed in full by a very emphatic host so then asks us for our memory song. Uh.. we don't have a memory song. So after Jason offers up a Pixies tune and I a Guided By voices song, they practically spoon feed us lines and tell us our memory song is "Fragile" by Sting. Sure. Why not? Who doesn't love them some Sting at akward moments in Osaka.

Monday: My manager and his wife took us to a Hiroshima Carps baseball game! Ohhh doctor, I've never seen fans of this caliber. There were organized cheers and noise makers galore and bandstands. Such a time. I'd like to argue that I memorized the cheers, but really I just followed the phonetic sounds of the carps clad kids next to me. No worries, as the Carps kicked some serious but and won by a lot. A lot roughly equates to 4 runs, but I'll take what I can get. I'm a serious Carps fan now. Fair weather and all.

Jason and I ran about the city some that night and hit a few of the foreign bars that we'd rehit repeatedly throughout the week. My favorite being Molly Malone's an unassuming Irish Bar with fantastic western toilets. I gauge my hot spots based on my ability to urinate as I would at home. I think it a good caliber of measurement.

Tuesday: Ahhh... we scaled some mountainous structure. It was bea-u-tiful. Our walking map referred to it as the Promenade of Culture but by the end we had other words for it. Promenade of hurt calves, promenade of exhaustion. Well worth it though. I've never seen anything like it. After our newfound acquistion of ashthma we hit up Hiroshima castle and a Chinese Garden. All lovely. All well worth the hike(s). After which I'm fairly certain we hit more foreign bars. That seemed to be the theme to end each evening.

Wednesday: Sad, somber day. A bomb dome and museum. They were preparing for the flower fest that weekend, so the park was lovely and a-bustle. More nightlife in Hiro to follow.

Thursday: Flower festival! Some one million people flocked Peace Boulevard for some of the more memorible parade floats and walking processions I've ever seen. After which they had a peace lighting ceremony in Peace Park. We created candles to commemorate and they lit up the entire park in the evening for a lovely, yet somber festival end. Unfortunately something became of Jason's candle. Gone. He must hate peace, as I LOVE peace and mine was standing tall and proud. No matter. It was a site to see.

Friday: Miyajima! My most favorite place in the entire world (save Walt Disney World, but come on- I'm programmed to say that). Deers everywhere. Our Hiro guide map warned us not to lose our ferry tickets to a deer and we laughed at the possibility. Nope. That is most certainly an option. We think they may have been animatronic or sedated as they let kids tug on them and basically ride them without so much as moving. We took a rope way across Mt Misen because I apparently ahve a newfound affinity for rope way gondola type things. We were some 500 or so meters in the air in a cab that held 30 plus Japanese tourists heading toward the monkey district. So I obviously discarded my newfound sense of adventuer and silently freaked out. This was captured in film. Repeatedly. Miyajima was the best. So picturesque and crafty. I bought my keitai charm there. An orange Disney thing that said Hiroshima. It must have been made for me as I LOVE orange and have a concerning obsession for all things Disney. I also adore Hiroshima, so I splurged for the disney charm. We also ate the best meal I've yet had in Japan there, at a small authentic restaurant that catered to our obnoxious vegetarianism. I don't know if I've ever taken in as much food as then, but it was well worth it. Good. Great. Now we're cooking with gas.

Saturday: Yuki! Oh, Yuki! You screwed me. This is supposedly the site of some infamous hot springs and onsens that must be mystical as we couldn't find them. We traipsed about Yuki which is a small, no, make that tiny, back woods town about an hour bus ride away from the furthest point in Hiroshima. It was pretty harrowing riding the bus as it seemed to go anywhere but where we wanted to go. Yuki did redeem itself though. Right as we were waiting for the next bus we spotted a band of monkeys. The crazy kind that you don't want to look in the eye. I got spazzy and freaked out, thinking the monkeys wanted my Yuki Onsen cookies I bought to bring back to my school and started running for cover. Funny, as the area I ran toward had only a brick wall for salvation. funny, maybe funnier that the only way out was to run toward the monkeys. Jason took a slew of action shots of me running in circles screaming for help that I haven't yet mastered in Japanese. In the end i was able to escape free of monkey scar.

Sunday: Rest, rest, rest as we ran about the city non-stop for an entire week. We went in search of Okonomiyaki (a famous pancake type conglomeration in Hiroshima) but were foiled when we eneded up again in Molly Malones and then off to some sweet, sweet karaoke. Something happened, and I don't know how, where our karaoke marathon session cost a cool 10700 or so yen. Oops. Thankfully Big Echo takes major credit cards. I'll make sure to do a bittle more research before I respond in kind with Hei to everything.

Monday: I saw Jason off, took the shinkansen back and feel as though I need another good week to recover.

Sigh, oh, sigh. Gotta love Golden Week.

You said you'd take me nowhere, I said that suits me just fine...

This city scares the shit out of me.
Browsed the remnants of the A-bomb dome yesterday. Elementary school children make chains of cranes in colors that now mandate more meaning. It's beautiful in the way the beautiful used to mean something. I love it.

Missing home. Missing Jason and Helen and too many names to mention. Saught comfort in a newfound Hiroshima crew. Fun, fabulous people. They took me in with open arms. I should probably now open my arms, eh?

Consumerism is the name of the game here. I'm so tempted to buy, buy, buy but want to watch my money so I can visit Matt, Mel and Owen soon enough. Golden Week is quickly approaching. CELEBRATE! Now we're cooking with gas.

Oh the sights I've seen. I love Okayama because it was my first taste of Japan, but I love the quiet bustle of Hiroshima. The clean streets. The fancy droves of midday shoppers. My apartment view is mountains to the east. Mountains to the west. Mountains, again north and south. How did I ever deserve such beauty?

I need to figure out my keitai and make my apartment my own and lesson plan for the next year. I should also enjoy Japan. I think I may make that my first priority.

I used to say, with regularity that Chicago was my disappointing lover.
I may now argue that Japan is a pretty impressive lover. Of course, there is better. But I'm just a bittle biased. :)

This lonliness will fade.
These streets will soon shout.

The alley I trash in

A braggarts blog.

I can say with complete assurance (in an uncontested dude off....):

my manager kicks your manager's ass.
my outgoing FT kicks your outgoing FT's ass.
my JT's could make soup of your JT's. (Miso maybe. Still tasty).
My apartment, well, it's probably comporable to yours...
My city, in way of Vegetarian options would annihilate your city (see Hiroshima: it's the bomb).

how did I ever get so lucky?

Am I making something worthwhile out of this place?

Am I making something worthwhile out of this chase?
I am displaced...

At home in Hiroshima. This city sings. It's less of a bustle than I expected it to be, but that is a welcome homecoming. The past two days have been quiet, and that's a far cry from the boisterous one week training session of constant companionship and Okayama flavor.

My apartment is lovely. It's small with potential and everything feels and smells new and foreign. My refrigerator, rice cooker, microwave and washing machine match (the Jazzberry series, so adorable with their matching purple and blue splash colors-yet made my different manufacturers?...) and my bathroom, shower room and kitchen are surprisingly roomy. The former foreign teacher left me a nice stock of books (she is literate, that one. I like her) and my manager chose a bedding set that isn't a filthy eye-sore. More like a modern, stylish art deco set. I think I'll like him, Mr. Manager.

I havent' seen much of Hiroshima yet. The first day I inadvertently consumed 4 Benedryl, with the intent to take 4 Ibuprofen - so I was both socially inept and sedated when my fellow teachers picked me up at the station. Funny, as in funny ha ha ha ha, I also drugged my fellow trainees, passing out Benedryl like chiclets (of which Japan has none). Joke's on them I suppose. It's a good thing humor isn't all that evident here in J-land.

I'd wax poetic about the cherry blossoms I browsed or have a small Kimmie freak out session gushing over the super too cute Japanese lunch box I purchased today, but I'll reserve these stories for posts to come.

For now, know I have found beauty and peace in these parts and will regale my audience with silly vending machine pictures and Mr. Roboto stories so soon.

Work tomorrow. Oh the kids. They can kill a man.