Kitkowskiland!

Woke up at 2AM. We started driving at 3. Got to the foothills at 5:30. From there was a 6-km crunch straight up a mountain with a backpack full of food, drinks and extra clothes as needed.

My throat was getting worse, so I drowned the pain with gargling, Chinese medicine (kampouyaku), and about 20 CC-Lemon throat drops. I filled my belly with mucous and crazy-sweet lemon juice. Realizing that the only drinks we brought were Ripobitan-D (the stuff they based Red Bull off of, a classic Japanese “Wellness/Energy Drink”) and about a gallon of Pocari Sweat. Some bread items, but none of them *weren’t* sweet. So my stomach was touch and go for a bit, but by the time we hit the summit, not only had it warmed up a lot (it was about 8 by then), but my sore throat and stomach pains disappeared. Rock.

We spent a few hours walking the wetlands, seeing historic houses and the like as well, taking in the sights and especially the sounds of the Oze wetlands. Specifically, the fact that there ARE NO SOUNDS, and that it is perfectly quiet. If you live in Japan, and especially in or near the cities, this experience is about as rare as black pearls.

Hiking in Japan? Basically the same. The only thing that was obviously different between the US and Japan is the staple food (rice balls, but who couldn’t have guessed that), and the fact that everyone straps little bells/chimes to their backpacks. THey’re nice at times, as they take your attention off the strain of the hike, but other times it just seems like More Noise. In any case, they’re used as “kuma-yoke”, “bear protection”, apparently warding off bears with the sound.

After lunch (Calorie Mate, more juice) we headed back down the mountain. THe climb up, honestly, took me off guard: It was really steep, and even though I’d done far tougher hikes in the past,  I kept losing my breath. On the way down, it was easier on the muscles and energy, but there was a lot of shock in my legs/knees. THat night they were in pain.

On the way back down the mountain, we hit up a little traditional food place, and Orie and my dad ordered wild mushroom miso soup (really delicious, made with local picked mushrooms, about 5 different kinds), and I had something called “Tarashi-yaki”. I had never heard of it, and neither had Orie or her dad. It turned out to be a tough pancake slice with a kind of sweet miso and onion paste. It’s apparently pretty rare, at least in this area anyway.

After that, we went back to the car, and my dad figured it was an equal distance to drive straight back, or to make a line over to Nikko on the way back, so we took the Nikko route. You can look up Nikko on Wikipedia, but for now just know that Nikko is Awesome. I love going there, Especially to Toushougu, the Crying Dragon Temple and the like. Even though I knew we weren’t going to walk through those places (none of us had the energy), just driving though town would be nice. Since it was the fall, right at the time that the leaves are changing colors, the nature should be pretty.

We forgot that, even though it was a Monday, about half of Japan was thinking the same thing. Result? Crowded, crowded streets, bumper-to-bumper traffic for miles going through town and down breakneck-curve mountain passes. Still, it was rather beautiful seeing all the leaves, the lake and all.

On our way back, we hit a Save-On: I grabbed some NON SWEET tea, a “yakiniku mayonnaise” riceball (never seen one of these before), and we headed home.

After we got home, we grabbed bentos at the local bento place, took a bath and went to sleep early, aching from the exertion of going up and down the stairs to the second floor where the bedroom was.

Woke up this AM at 7:00, still haven’t totally shaken off the ‘lag. But that’s ok, I guess, because back in the US I feel like fried shit if I try to wake up earlier than 8:30 or so.

Anyway, today Orie is visiting friends in Maebashi (the capital city of Gunma), and I’m chilling out today with Eikichi at his place. His younger sister Miho just had a baby (a girl named Kokoro), and is doing the thing they do in Japan, where the mother returns home to her family for 1-3 months while the father lives by himself (or with other kids if they have them, not the case here with my cousin). The mother gets to relax and learns to take care of the baby while her family supports her and takes care of her. It’s an interesting phenomenon, and even career mothers and the like are expected to take off from work for quite a while before returning.

At Eikichi’s home (where he returns from Tokyo every once in a while), there lives his parents Yoko and Mikkyo. His father (now a grandfather) used to be like a super-yankee. Basically, a rebellious youth gang leader (but not about violence and drugs, more like about riding motorcycles, living outside the system, sticking it to the man, being a nuisance, etc). Now he’s totally a grandpa. A grandpa who still goes to hard rock/punk concerts, but he’s totally in “grandpa mode” now. Eikichi’s grandparents (who own the farmland and the house) also live with them. Wonderful people. They lived through the great war, which can do weird things to one’s concept of the enemy from back then (my grandmother used to go on and on about “the Japs” and how “they killed our boys”), but they totally love having me over. It’s really cool how people can overcome their surroundings. Anyway.

Now Eikichi and I are eating Japanese snacks and watching some anime he brought. Right now we’re on episode two of KAIBA (”Memory”). Joushua Neuman, this one is one you want to get your fucking mitts on. The anime style is REALLY weird, like the old-school style childish “Astro Boy” style of design and animation. But the story is 110% Shock:. Surreal as hell, all about this world where people have ther memories stores on little cylinders, and can trade them into new bodies, edit their memories, etc. Meanwhile there appear to be creatures that eat memories… now we’re on a side-story about a girl on some kind of generational ship, and is being interrogated for being a “memory smuggler”. It’s all not making too much sense now, but that’s apparently the point: the more you watch, the more it becomes clear. Eikichi’s seen all the episodes but the last two, and even he says there’s a lot that is left unexplained or up to the viewer’s imagination. I can’t tell if it’s “awesomez” or not yet, but it’s really quite interesting to take in. It really feels, aside from the visual qualities, like an action-y Greg Egan novel-made-anime.

Later today, Orie and I are going shopping again: There’s more culture to get my fix on (music, games, books, etc).

(UPDATE): Watched episodes of Paranoia Agent and Seto no Hanayome as well. We were going to watch Princess Tutu but he didn’t have the first disk with him. I told him about my friend Matt and our Anime Nights once a month, and Eikichi said that he’d love to meet Matt some day, it sounds like their tastes match a lot.

I loved Seto no Hanayome (The Bride from Seto (Sea)). It’s a comedy about a girl who is a mermaid, her engagement to an average kid, and her family (who are all gangsters) who are both trying to keep them together (for the sake of the girl), and tear them apart at the same time (because the father decides that he doesn’t want his little girl to go away with another man). Many Ls were OLed.

We decided to pack it in early to get ready for the next day, hiking in Oze.

I’ve realized that it’s been like forever since I used my wordpless blog over my LJ blog, even though all these posts end up over there (and can be commented on over there as well). I’m so used to getting all my friend-feed from Livejournal that I kept forgetting to come back here for my general posting (and subsequent crossposts to LJ).

Anyway, I’ve been in Japan a few days, and have posted some blog posts over there (zigguratbuilder.livejournal.com). I’ll be posting further updates here.

Go!

Damn, this year seems to be the year of Buying Crap. TV broken, need a new TV. 2nd car was needed, got a second car. Also, I’ve been so utterly tight with money for my own fun purchases that I’d shuffle back and forth on buying something for $30 that I’ve wanted for a year. I guess it’s because we’ve got so many big purchases/events in the pipeline (screened-in-porch remodeling, bathroom remodeling, going to Japan again this year and doing traveling when I’m there) that I’ve been hyper-conscious of spending. I’ve been finding myself wanting to eat out every now and then, as I normally do. Then, I realize that “I can’t decide on a place that I want to go”. Turns out, after thinking about it more, my problem was simply, “I didn’t want to pay $15 for a meal out somewhere”, and that pre-purchase stress was clouding my mind, making me think I was indecisive as to where to go to eat. Huh.

Anyway, here’s some things I bought recently, in no particular order:

Plasma HDTV

HP 24″ Flatscreen Monitor for work

Honda FIT (see previous post)

A meal at the Himalayan joint up the road: Good!

Video card (for work PC)

Eye Pillow

2 pounds of Yerba Mate and a steel straw

Delicious coffee from Southern Seasons

A place at Camp Nerdly

Stiff meditation pillow

One lottery ticket (work pool)

Yoga strap
PS2 Cable

A room at GenCon

Melatonin (3mg)

A meal at Firebirds

Stuff I’m looking to buy:

Free time (another few days off?)

Another Quill Mouse/Aerobic Mouse (my current one saved my wrists from constant tendonitis)

Some sort of night light (LED light?) so that I can sleep while Orie reads. Otherwise, I bolt upright after 20 minutes and can not return to sleep. Started happening recently, I don’t know why.

Delicious pie. Perhaps Peach.

A PS3. Though that might be a ways off, maybe next winter.

I have maxed out on my vacation time.  That is, I have officially accrued so much vacation from not taking regular vacations/days off that I have maxed out (approx 20 days). That doesn’t include one bonus swing day I have, or the 6 days I’ll accrue from working the holidays.

I guess that shows how much I love this job. Which is bizarre, cause this kind of thing never happened before. I even took off two weeks this year (some time back in Feb, then in August).

First, look! Futuristic Jackets. I would like one of everything, plz. I have a new health goal: Get in shape enough so that I can easily wear pretty much everything in this catalog. I love independent fashion. Anyone know of any other cool sites or links?

Second: We put a downpayment on a new car. This is the first new car I’ve ever bought. It should arrive in a few weeks (it’s really a popular/scarce model in the area). Honda Fit, Sport model, Red.

It was a weird experience, buying a car. We did lots of research and test driving, went to a few dealers (including an agent at Leith Honda who was a total mutation of a shark AND a badger), and locked down on one in the area. It’s also refreshing to be able to buy a car with cash, it’s like doing the “Matrix Neo back-dive” away from debt. But we might take out a loan of a small portion of the price ($3k or something) and pay it off in 2-3 months, just so we have more reserves in the bank.

In any case, it’ll pretty much be Orie’s primary car (we’ll finally be a 2 Car Family, after living with one car for about 7-8 years). I’ll still drive the Civic (and later, if that dies in a few years, I’ll probably get a Toyota Yaris). But I’m totally going to pimp her ride out with Hello Kitty decals and stuffed animals in the rear window.

Third: Right after we came home from the dealers, we realized that our TV (which is larger than life, but I got a sweet deal on it a few years back from a co-worker) was broken. Doesn’t switch on.

On one hand, it probably will cost $100 or so to fit it. On the other hand, the TV takes three large men to lift and carry. It is just too damn big. I was hoping it would last a few years so that I could eventually get a flat panel, primarily as a remote PC monitor, and sometimes use it for DVDs and the Playstation. Instead, I’ll probably list it for free on Craigslist, and borrow a friend’s small TV for a few years.
We went to Furnitureland South again looking for some lamps, and instead fell in love with a Creative Elegance bedframe that will be ours in a few years. FLS doesn’t really do lamps in the style we are looking for.

Ahhh, stuff.

I dunno what it is, but I’ve only gotten a few (2-3) hours of sleep the past few nights.  Tuesday night-Wed morning was totally my fault: I tried to read Greg Egan’s Diaspora for a few hours Tuesday night, and like most of his novels, putting in one hour of reading usually equals 1-2 additional hours of the brain racing, trying to parse all the crap you just read. He’s an incredible hard SF author, but it’s hell to read late at night.

Wed-Thurs I didn’t get much more than 5 hours of sleep, and I was dragging Thursday because of the insomnia-hangover from the previous day.  Today, I feel much more awake and receptive, despite the fact that I got about 90 minutes of sleep. I could simply not get my brain to shut up, so I watched episodes of Big Bang Theory (cuter than I originally thought) and Life (I dig this show a lot, I hope the back-plot doesn’t drag on too much though) until I felt tired enough to sleep. All I remember is closing my eyes, then feeling like they immediately flew open again as Nacchi performed his morning ritual of jumping on my face and crotch as he rolls all over the bed looking for scratches.

I have a feeling that I’ll not be doing much other than resting this weekend. And work. Have some work projects to finish.

-Andy

So I know I’ve been talking up yoga a lot recently, but holy crap I’m loving it, as much as I loved Wing Chun kung fu, but without the bruises and killing strikes.

Yesterday I stuck (again) a deep downward dog with my heels on the floor, which always makes me tingle. Did a severe closed-hip stretch called “Eka Pada Rajakapotasana” or “One-Legged King Pigeon Pose”)

Anyway, this caused me firey awesome. I’m not to the point where I can grab that back heel yet, but I’m closing in. I go into this trance where it doesn’t feel like my front leg is real after a minute (though it’s not asleep).

Also, have discovered that plank pose is my enemy, because of the corework involved. Core work is my true yoga nemesis: I end up shaking to pieces any time I do any kind of core-work, like the “Paripurna Navasana
Full Boat Pose”.

I’m going to specifically request it (or other core work) each session so that I can pound my core into submission.

Also, I found that yoga.com is cool, and yogajournal.com is awesome (especially the Vinyasa-builder).

So Orie left today at 5:50AM (I drove) for Japan for the next month, give or take a few days. It’s her yearly pilgrimage back home to Gunma to help out her family, and probably her last. Her uncle is finally, FINALLY getting married, and while he is still a nice guy yet total unrepentent home-slacker (he makes tons of money, yet grandma still makes his meals, cleans his clothes and room, etc: Grandma has a bad back and he doesn’t think things like “maybe I should hire a maid”, “maybe I should get someone to drive her to the doctor for physical therapy”, etc) that means that his nice new Filipino wife approx 20 years his junior will *hopefully* be picking up in that regard.

Meanwhile, back at the main ranch sis-in-law is keeping home-home locked down, doing cooking and cleaning, so that’s nice. But neither she nor brother-in-law think, “Maybe we should go help out grandma who lives a mile down the road” (though they visit from time to time). That’s where Orie comes in.

But this is her last year doing that. 3.5-4.5 more weeks of this, then no more unless there is a crisis. Next time we go to Japan, it will be for Us. An Us-Vacation, with Us-concerns and an Us-itinerary which will involve going all over the place by train, like to hot springs and the like. I cannot wait.

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