June: yep, still working on June

 Where has the summer gone?

Between a visit from Heather and Sue, adopting a sick kitten, a Fire and Violence festival, Minnesota, and a road trip to Hokkaido, this summer has disappeared with alarming speed.  I'm one month into my second (and last) year in Japan and already struggling to silence the parenthetical (and last)'s that my brain is adding on to every moment.  My last rice harvest, my last Uchinada beach welcome party, my last "natsu yasumi" spent trying to look busy for days on end.  That said, all of this (and last)-ing is giving me the necessary motivation to get out and do things.  I'm making my Japan Bucket List, and it's fun.

Last week we checked Hokkaido off the list, and next weekend Katy and Karen and I are planning (well, "planning" may not be the most accurate verb) a trip to Metamorphose, a massive electronic music festival held somewhere near Mt. Fuji... we think.

Before I get caught up in planning future adventures (if I plan them all now, what will I do all day at school tomorrow?), let me try to catch up on the ones that already passed.

So remember the impossibly adorable orphans?  Yep?  Okay, that was Sunday, June 12th, and on our way home we had a little adventure and found a gorgeous campground nestled in the mountains down south.  The photos are from our afternoon.

But to continue on with the epic saga that was June 2010, let's go to Tuesday, June 15th: the arrival of Heather and Suzie.  They arrived having traveled more than halfway around the world for no apparent reason except that O'Hare Airport cannot be trusted.  After some trouble with their flight from Minnesota to Chicago, they eventually got there on a different flight, only to be sent to LA, then paris, and FINALLY to Tokyo where, having missed their night bus, they had to arrange alternate transportation having just arrived in Japan after, what I can only imagine, was precious little decent sleep.

Oy.

Though they were in remarkably high spirits, after showers and present-giving (Christmas in June, anyone?  Thank you, April and Chopper, for raising daughters who were willing to share the crazy-delicious cookies and jerky you sent with them!) they were asleep before their heads hit the pillows.

They spent Wednesday and Thursday exploring the city, and Friday they came to visit my school.  And the new reigning champions in the category of "Most Distracting Visitors" are Heather and Suzie!!!!  Good Lord, I mean, I thought my family with our combined height and Joe's "kakoi mufura" (cool muffler/scarf) was pretty distracting. 

Then Adriana and Evan came to visit.  I had clearly underestimated the distraction factor that a real live couple might have.

But that is all a distant memory as, even now, the H&S related shrieks echo in my ears.  It was all based on the sheer Kawaiiiiiii Factor... until they asked Suzie if she had a boyfriend.  She does.  And does she have a picture of said boyfriend on her uber-kawaii cell phone?  Yes, of course she does.

I still wince a little remembering how the screams bounced back and forth on the cement walls of the hallway.  As we continued to wander the hallways, I heard one girl walk past whining (in Japanese, of course) about how jealous she was of my cute friends.  As we rounded a corner a boy threw himself against a wall and exclaimed, "She's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen!"  Suzie is, quite possibly, the picture of perfection in the eyes of Japanese teenagers.  Blonde hair, blue eyes, small face (a very good thing in Japan and a category in which I consistly fail to impress), ear piercings, and a cellphone with pictures of her boyfriend.  My students were talking about it for the next week.

My apologies to Heather and Sue for 1) not sufficiently warning you about the squeals ad shrieks and pointing, and 2) not sufficiently warning you about the intense awkwardness of standing and waiting for a group of Japanese students to work up the balls to ask you a question. (Dear readers, ask someone to stare silently and intently at your face as though trying to memorize it or convince themself that you aren't a figment of their imagination.  Ask them to do this for a minute or more and perhaps you will begin to understand my day to day existence.)  That has taken me months to get used to, though I credit Macalester College with giving me the skills to wait out even the most awkward of situations.  Bring it on kids.

 from front to back: Katy, Karen, and Adam

In Pictures

Photos courtesy of Heather and Suzie

at Oyama Jinja in Kanazawa

not sure why, but I can see our 6th grade selves in this picture

our new friends at a festival in Takaoka, Toyama

I'm in love with the kid in the front.

total popstardom

 the old man who pulled some curious-looking strangers in off the street and made them tea

The cheapest tea kettle: $300 

The most expensive tea kettle: a good year's salary

Drinking tea with him: priceless

Creighton, me, and Heather in the back of Adam's somewhat petite car. 

Suzie, how on earth did you get shotgun?

random temple in the Noto

To get to it you must first pass through the Stairway of Gloom without disturbing any of the many minions of the High Priestess of the Creepy Crabs.  The Japanese townsfolk seemed surprised to see us return whole.

Impressions of Japan

Heather and Suzie spent a week with me in Kanazawa before heading off to find more adventures in Kyoto and then Tokyo.  I asked Heather to write something about her trip for my blog.

Impressions of Japan
By Heather Albrecht


When I grow up I want to be an old Japanese tea kettle shop owner who pulls curious-looking strangers off the street into the comfort of my cozy tea kettle shop and makes them tea from one of my many kickin’ tea kettles. And since I’ll be an old Japanese man I won’t have to wear any crazy fashionable strappy high heeled shoes.

Well, I guess the man part isn’t so important. I would very happily be a friendly old Japanese woman with lime green highlights who regularly leads lost, curious-looking strangers to the places they are trying to find.


Yes, definitely lime green highlights.

And I’ll be old enough that I can get away with fashionable flats.

Problem solved.


As a friendly old Japanese woman with lime green highlights I will eat soba noodles, ramen, and curry all of my days and drink tea from a kickin’ tea kettle given to me from my tea kettle shop owner friend and not miss rhubarb and apples so much because I wouldn’t know what I was missing. Maybe.

I will also be an active, spritely old woman who regularly runs through thickets of vermilion torii gates (I will never be able to run through them all because they don’t really end—they just continue on past Fushimi Inari shrine into the clouds) and bamboo groves and cool off from my run with thirteen of my favorite zen rocks. I will have to live in Kyoto.

I will divide my days between carving wooden ramen ladles and rice paddles (the ones that fit perfectly in your hand and make you want to sing) which I will sell in a pottery/chopstick store and gardening in one of the top three gardens in my prefecture. My specialty will be tree bending. I will do this with Tiny Tim Cratchet crutches. Tall ones. No tree will be safe. I will shape them all to my will. All of them.

I will be very happy with my life and think fondly on the days when I wasn’t a friendly old Japanese woman with lime green highlights. Indeed, I will have very strong memories of my first trip to Japan and then my return to Minnesota where the corn fields look like lush, overgrown rice paddies minus the paddy and the meadows turn gold and purple as the sun sets and give off a sweet smell that smells interestingly like tatami mats.