From Hawaii to Japan

I'm in Japan now, have been for a full week, but I should begin with my niece's first birthday party.

Wow...that was a big party. At least by my standards. There were about 200 people, including little kids and infants, and I knew many of them as old family friends or old friends of my brother, Chad. As my cousin Su said, it was awfully nice of Chad to throw me a going away party. Actually, although the lady of honor was late (she overslept), she completely adorable in a little mu`umu`u made from the same patterned material as Chad and his wife Chris were wearing. My Aunty Donna and Uncle Carl had also flown down from Reno, Nevada, to visit and help out and share in the festivities, and it was great to see them. The party was Saturday, September 8th, just two days before I left, though really more like one, since I was leaving early on Monday morning.

Sunday was spent in packing, hanging out with family, and seeing a late night showing of 3:10 to Yuma, the second film version of the Elmore Leonard novel of the same title.

On Monday morning, I was early, around 5:30, I think, to pack up those last few things, eat a leisurely breakfast, and get driven to the airport by my dad. I was about two hours early for my flight, but I prefer that to any kind of last minute rush, and beside, with Honolulu traffic, one can never really be sure how long it will take to get somewhere. As I was taking a United flight, Lori, my step-mother, emailed some friends working the trip and so I was able to get a little personal service, which was really nice. All in all, a pleasant flight (especially as the seat next to me remained empty, making it easy for me to get up any time I wanted).

And though I left on Monday morning, I arrived Tuesday afternoon...a miracle of time travel! Or the ever confusing International Dateline. I was picked up at the airport by Rika, a woman who works at Osaka Gakuin University and was given the arduous task of helping me get settled. We took a luxurious ride in a taxi (cost: roughly $250!) Over the next few days, I spent a lot of time cleaning and setting up utilities (gas, cell phone, internet connection, bank account, and alien registration). Actually, Rika set it all up, even filling out the forms for me (it would have taken me years to write out the kanji as many times as she had to)...I just sort of sat there with her. Anyway, most of that was done, and the cleaning, by Saturday evening. So over the last few days, I've been meeting with friends, mostly old but some new, and organizing my things (which was not included in my "cleaning" time.)

Last Friday, though, in the midst of the cleaning frenzy, I took most of the day off to go back to my old town, Aioi, to meet Kaori, a former student and friend, and to go up to my old school, too. While trains almost always run on time here in Japan, or they used to anyway, Friday morning JR (the biggest company) was running late...so I was late meeting Kaori by 30 minutes. When I saw her, for the first time in years, I really felt like I'd come home. A second home, to be sure, but a home. There in my old town, with my old friend. It was nice. As she'd had some time since I was late, she'd gone up to the school and discovered that that day there was a cultural festival at the school (which I'd helped students work on when I was there). However, the gym was under renovation, so everyone, students and teachers, were in the next town over at a concert hall. Kaori and I went up to the school and chatted for a few minutes with some of the old office staff, then drove over to Ako where the festival had moved to. I got to see some old teachers, but not as many as I would have liked, many of them having moved on; in Japan, teachers usually only stay at a school for up to seven years, thereafter being transferred to another school within a certain geographic area. Anyway, that was a lot of fun, and I'm planning to make another trip back in the fall.

On Sunday, I got to meet up with Tomoko, a Japanese girl I'd met in Virginia when she worked at the office of my old job at George Mason University. We spent a fun day hanging around Umeda (the main train station area of Osaka) with a high school friend of hers.

That brings us up to today. I went to Kyoto to meet a friend for dinner, but unfortunately she had to leave immediately as her mother was ill. Tomorrow my uncle Trav is in town; he's a flight attendant with United Airlines and is on a layover. On Friday I'm getting together with some of my new colleagues (most of whom I've not yet met), and Sunday holds a get together with some of my best Japanese friends, Ryota and Sunao and their daughter Himari, who, I think, is two...and apparently speaks some English!

School starts October 1st, and I'm going to start having meetings as of next week, so this is my last hurrah...I've been off for the last three and a half months, and while I'm not dreading returning to work, I'm not overly eager for it either. Oh well, it is what is. I think I'll enjoy the work, and I'm already enjoying the environment.

Take a look at my flickr webpage for more pictures of my apartment, and hopefully pictures of other stuff soon.

August is gone, and I've got only five days left.

Hard for me to believe, but August flew by in a blur, and here I am with only a few days left. Luckily, I did most of what I wanted to, and anything I didn't get to, I can do next time.

August...I read a few books, saw a few movies, hung out a lot with friends and family, went to the beach a few times, went hiking a few times...and that's it. Pretty nice, ah? You know, I really got into running as a kind of mediation, a good, healthy way to relieve stress and get some balance, but since I've been here, I've not had much need to do it for that reason...and I bet you can see why.

Still, there were some highlights. First, there was all the shave ice I was eating. (For those of you who may not know, "shave ice" = "snow cone.") Now, of course the most famous place to go in Hawaii is Matsumoto's in Hale`iwa on the North Shore of Oahu, but my personal favorite is a place called Baldwin's in a rundown old shopping plaza in Aiea. Instead of a cone, they give you a cup, so you don't have melted ice and syrup running down your hand, and I just like their consistency the best. A lot of friends like Waiola, in Kapahulu or Mo`ili`ili, but for me, the ice is too slushy. (I know, some of you must be laughing as I'm getting so picky about this, but you'd say the same kinds of things if you were here eating it like I have been.)

Second, and I must say, far better than the shave ice (which didn't help me lose any weight), was the day I saw dolphins at Waimea Bay. I've grown up in Hawaii, and I've been to Waimea a lot, but never have I once seen dolphins anywhere. But two weeks ago, I was at Waimea, sitting on the beach, reading a book, when I heard a girl sitting a few feet away say something like "I wish I could be out there." So I looked up to see why she would say that, and about 80 yards out I saw about five fins crest, breaking the surface in smooth short arcs, the dolphins coming up for air. A few seconds later, a few more fins. There were a few people out in the water, kind of near, so I dropped my book, pulled on my goggles (which I'd luckily brought with me), and ran down to the water. I swam straight out for a minute then stopped to see where they were; when I first saw them, they were heading from right to left across the bay, but now they'd turned back. But to make it that much cooler, right then, at that moment when I'd stopped to see where they were, a dolphin comes flying out of the water, spiraling like a drill. Then another, in the same spiraling flight. Utterly beautiful. I watched for a moment longer, but no more breached the surface, so I started swimming again, catching up to the herd in another minute. The water was pretty clear, but I still had to get about 20 yards away to see them. There were probably about 20, some still young, just lazily swimming across the bottom of the bay, maybe 20 or 30 feet down. Unfortunately, after only a minute or so of this the lifeguards got on the loudspeaker and asked all of us in the water to stay 50 yards from the dolphins, and as that would afford me no view, I swam in. Still, I have had few such moments of amazement as that. Definitely one of the favorite moments of my life.

Finally, there was Kauai. I went there to help my brother and his friends reroof the rental property that my dad and his wife own. Kauai is beautiful. Quiet. Peaceful. Country. Just the kind of place I'd love to live now, but with the expense of property and the poor job market, I couldn't afford it. I mean, the locals say the beaches are "crowded" when there are 20 to 30 people; for me, that's still empty. Everything there just moves at a slower pace, a pace that seems more reasonable for actual living. And we got to do just that. We hung out on Thursday and Friday, just sitting around eating delicious food my dad's wife Lori cooked up, talking story (a.k.a. "chatting" for those of you not familiar with that local term), and laughing. On Saturday we had to work hard. No, work HARD. We started at 7:30, took an hour for lunch at 11:30, then finished up around 4:30. I didn't want to move for the rest of the day, but we did get the whole thing done in a day, which meant Sunday was a day for rest. We hit the beach again, hung out, ate more. On Monday, my flight left at 8:30 PM, while everyone else left at 2, so I decided to use the morning to go kayaking up the Wailua river, at the end of which you get to hike into a valley (with very little elevation gain) to a small water fall and swimming hole. It's a very mellow river (Class 1 for those of you who know what that means), so I didn't have any trouble paddling the "sit-on-top" ocean kayak I had. After that, I decided that if I live in Hawaii later, I'm going to have a kayak.

My niece's big first birthday party is coming up on Saturday, and I even have my aunt and uncle flying down from Reno for it. My brother tells me something like 200 people. It should be a lot of fun.

The only other news I have is about my job. I got to meet some of the people who I'll be working with in Japan, as they are all from Hawaii, as well as the woman whose job (and apartment) I'm taking over. They are all really nice, friendly, down to earth people, and I'm excited about working with them. I think it'll be a lot of fun. I also got my work schedule: Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday. Yup, three days off, though no two days in a row. I've been told that once a month, though, we'll get a Saturday off, which means that I'll get a three-day weekend...that sounds cool. But hopefully after this term, I'll get two days off in a row...and still have three days off every week (I HOPE!).

That's it for now, I think. I hope you are all in good health. Take care. Aloha.