So, there's another typhoon. It's, like, the 36th typhoon this summer. I want to go outside sometime, deshou. On the upside, I did my yoga tape tonight for the first time and it's not so tough after all. Which is good, because it means I am more fit than I thought, but also bad, because I want to be more fit and there are no more yoga tapes in English, not even for ready money.
I added some more people to my links tonight, but mostly I worked on the Kochi AJET site, soon to be launched. Well, as soon as we find a place to launch it at. Did you know that Yahoo now asks for a credit card number to verify your age BEFORE it will give you a free account? Pretty ass, if you ask me. I'll be getting rid of my Yahoo! accounts as soon as I can, thank you very much.
I have finally dried out after all the soakingness of the night before and so has my camera, whew! My gift to you tonight: the first entry in my photolog and a new webcam photo.
All I have to say is, "Drunken men + burning sticks + taiko drums = I <3 Japan."
However, I do not <3 waking up after 4 hours of sleep and driving to work. But I have lots of pictures and still think it was worth the exhaustion. We got to party with one of the taiko teams before the festival, and the foreign men got to help carry the torch through the streets. You might assume that I would feel slighted at not having the opportunity to carry the torch, my being a woman and all, but once you realize that said torch is constantly *burning* and dropping red hot coals and black soot all over its bearers, in addition to constantly falling as its bearers swerve in drunken elation, you will see that I am quite pleased at not being invited to take part in such an activity. Once we reached the shrine, I started taking pictures of the lanterns hanging around and the beer tent guy gave me free o-den. Maaaaahhvelous!
In other news, I received the first part of my Halloween costume in the mail only to find that part 2 is on back order...grr. We shall see.
Today is such a lovely day here. I spent the morning calling the 'rents and cleaning up my house, and I am about to go for a run. Two things strike me about Japan today: strange smells and crying babies. One of the first things that I noticed about Japan is that there are some nasty smells in the air at times. I think it's because many of the toilets in my area are composting toilets--the old, smelly kind. Today I am considering closing my windows even though it's a lovely day because there are some nasty smells wafting in. As for the baby, the neighbor lets her baby cry all the time, without stopping. It's become a background noise for me. I wonder if it's a culture thing or a mean mommy thing. Mostly I just wish it would stop.
I'm getting all excited for the concert and festival this weekend! I hope to get much better pics of the festival this year--it's just an amazing thing to experience.
Last night, just before I made dinner, I started to get a migraine. I had one the night before as well, but it didn't hurt much and I just worked through it and was fine. But last night was a real doozy. Mainly because it was sneaky. I didn't realize that it really hurt until I went to bed and found it impossible to sleep. I did manage to doze off for a couple hours, but spent most of the night tossing and turning, changing pillows, throwing various pillows over my head, trying to find a position that didn't hurt too much and yet did not cause me to hear my heart flub-flubbing in my neck. Then my alarm went off and I went to school looking and feeling like crap. They oughta give me the rest of the day off just for being a trooper--I taught my only class today with vim and vigor!
This weekend is set to be another great escape--heading to the city for a hippie concert and then back to Kure for the Hachimanguu Taisai. That's the festival where they let drunken Japanese men run the streets at 2 am carrying a big, flaming tree and fighting each other with giant taiko drums. God I love this country!
After some confusion with passwords and such, I am once again online. This time with my own domain and a brand-spanking new site design! I still have much to finish, but please enjoy...
Today is a holiday from school, so I've spent the first day of autumn doing what any other self-respecting gal would do: sitting on my butt, playing on the interweb, eating chocolate-chip cookies, boiling chestnuts and eating them, and being generally self-indulgent. I fully intend to go running after I finish FTPing everything to the server. Really, I do...
Allow me to introduce you to my new hosting provider: Total Choice Hosting. I have yet to really experience the full range of stuff they offer, but they seem like pretty cool people so far. Besides, you can't beat the deal I got--anyone want a Sarcenet.org email?