Happy St. Patrick's Day! (early)

So yesterday there was an "Irish Day" in Ise, with a parade and Irish music and everything. The parade was probably the most subdued affair I have ever been a part of, and certainly the quietest St. Patty's parade in existence. But after we got done processing down the main streets of the city, we ended up in the square of a covered outdoor mall and finally got a little louder :3

There, among other delights including Power Rangers who subdued a pig-faced demon with the power of Ise-Shima team spirit, a Japanese band from Nagoya played some fantastic reels. One of our lovely organizers on the JET end taught the crowd some easy Irish line dances. I'd tuckered myself out during the first two rounds, thus I sat out the final song and got the shenanigans on film:


Guidance for the J-go deficient: "jyousei" = ladies; "dansei" = mans

In this dance the wimmins are supposed to form one line, and the guys the other. Of course there weren't really even numbers at the event, and getting most Japanese men (cool old dudes excepted) to do anything in a circle with everybody watching is like herding cats. Nevertheless, it was good times :D

On the real St. Patrick's Day, I will be hopping a night-bus to Tokyo in the first leg of my two-week trip to India. I am so stoked, you guys! First three days I am host-famming it up in Delhi, next week is building houses with a volunteer group down in Andhra Pradesh, and if I survive all that hard work in the burning sun, I get to chillax for my last three days with a pre-arranged tour package. And then I get to go back to work the day after I return, haaaaaa ha ha ha oh god (>__>) I still have no idea what I am teaching next term besides the first-year classes.

weekend in the woods

On Friday I caught a train down south to where the JETs in my prefecture gather for an annual "camping" trip. That's in quotes because we rent out fully-furnished, air-conditioned cabins complete with upstairs tatami rooms bigger than mine. Seriously, if I could trade my apartment for one of those babies, I'd do it in a second.

According to some of the second-year peeps, the rainy season was in full swing last year so it was damp and miserable for the whole time. Not so this year! Friday evening was rain-free and the sun was out aaaaall day Saturday, which made it perfect weather for jumping into a freezing mountain river and drying off on the ginormous rocks:
As my cabin was the nerd cabin, we proceeded to watch "The Fifth Element," get pleasantly drunk, and play a couple inebriated rounds of Munchkin, the tabletop-roleplaying card game where the object is to bribe, swindle, and back-stab your way to level 10. I kind of really want to get the Cthonic version of Munchkin. Maybe a Halloween present to myself? We'll see.

Anyway, most of the good pictures are on other peoples' cameras, so I am still waiting to receive them via the webbernets. The best pictures, of course, are all in my brainspace. It was a lovely super-fantastic weekend with awesome people and scenery that could take your breath away. I feel ready to take on the rest of summer in western Japan - it's going to be sticky, and insect-y, and moldy & gross and generally will do all it can to suck the will to live from me, but I will have the wisdom of Dori to keep me afloat.

Janken +2

jan-ken-pon, noun: Japanese rock-paper-scissors, usually shortened to "janken" in conversation

rock-paper-scissors-lizard-Spock, noun: the version I will be making my kids play from this moment forward