It's about time I update. This stay in Japan is proving to be very different from study abroad a year ago, mainly in that I am actually bored sometimes now. I actually do have a job and responsibilities, and I get tired. Sometimes I pass out at 10, but I do spend time out and about as well. For anyone who ventures out into Japan, you will find that people are impressed (how genuinely is unsure) by even a basic understanding of the language. My everyday Japanese is constantly improving and hits little plateaus and peaks, but it's hard to know when to feel satisfied. My impression is that I will never know enough; I know enough now to make friends but still struggle with the ability to forge very meaningful bonds. There are moments when it is very desirable to sit at home all the time, and it's a frighteningly available option. So then what are all these pictures? Every weekend is a new opportunity to involve myself in some way with local happenings. Each weekday sees me leaving the office between 6-7, and I usually hit the gym and cook for myself, and the night is pretty much concluded by 10 without much else to do. I joined a Taiko crew (more accurately, Wadaiko, Japanese drumming) that meets on Mondays and Thursdays and have the blisters to prove it. If you are a drummer, notably a left-handed drummer, try Wadaiko and experience the difference. First, I feel like the son of an old Orthodox Jew, as my left-handedness is unacceptable for the hobby. Wadaiko, if you've ever seen it, consists of some small snare-like drums with high-tension, high-pitched hollow notes and a range of larger drums that produce deep notes and resonating bass. Almost everyone uses massive sticks that fill your fist, you strike the drums with incredible force, and most strikes are preceded by raising the stick to the sky emphatically. This means that the sound produced is important, but so is the presentation and the coordination of the group. You can see the accuracy of a group by watching their raised sticks, and if one person is raising his left stick while everyone else raises the right, it's no good. So I essentially must re-learn how to drum. Right, so on the weekends, I've been hitting a number of local festivals. More recently is the local festival. The local area, famous for its wonderful household Buddhist shrines, holds this festival and has a small Buddhist service that runs midday. The morning is kicked off by three runs: a 1km family course, a 3km course, and a 10km course. Given my regular runs of 4 miles or so, the 6.5ish mile course was bearable but not fun. What was fun was seeing my students and all the local people cheering all the runners on, handing us water, and also being incredibly shocked that a foreigner was participating. Later in the day, I ate festival food; the representatives of this are typically yakisoba (fried soba noodles with sauce and veggies, good), udon (soft, thick noodles in broth, good), yakitori (seasoned grilled chicken, good), and takoyaki (fried balls of batter and octopus meat, surprisingly awesome). I should note that the prior sentence made me realize something. Being an English major, it is always my intent to use the most appropriate words to express a given idea. I knew what I wanted to say about typical festival food, but I could only express it on command and in the way I wanted to in Japanese. So I translated it to "representatives", which is not ideal, but it is the translation of what I wanted to say. That's the first time I can definitively point to knowing what I want to say in Japanese but not in English. What does it mean? Probably nothing. So, this festival: the "marathon" ended, I hobbled around with a couple blisters and watched an adult Wadaiko performance, a children's Wadaiko performance, and some children's sumo (kind of bizarre). Pictures for those are above. The week before this, I went to a festival held every year in Kagoshima City, about an hour's moped drive away. It consists of contingents of people from various companies or clubs congregating on the closed streets of the city and performing a few traditional dances. I had a lot of people taking pictures of me, apparently for newspapers, but I am yet to get any info on whether or not the pictures were ever printed. The rest of the five pictures are from that festival and show the group I participated with, some effeminately dressed men, a Doraemon, and me in make-up acting coy. So life here is full of stories if you know how to find them. Luckily, many foreigners living here are approached with curiosity and don't always have to make the first steps for communication. But a constant effort to learn will not only make these experiences more rewarding, it will also allow us to find these opportunities and pursue them. I would have never run in the festival if I did not know how to talk to people, fill out an application, and read directions. I'm living here, and as it turns out, living and existing are two very different things. Enjoy the pictures, I'll try to live more and exist less to bring you more pictures and stories. Bring me some questions and prepare for Hurricane Chris, coming your way December 2008.