Cooler Weather, Crummier Bike.

I've gotta start trying to come up with 'cooler' names for these journal entries. Who cares about the weather?

Well apparently YOU guys do, 'cause I'mma talk about it. :D Particularly, the effect that the cooling weather seems to have on the younger kids who use the same pedestrian/bike path that I do to get to school.

So please understand that in no way at all do I try and aim for these kids with my crappy bike. When, however, two five year olds decide that its time to change sides of the path to walk on and they have to beeline for the right as fast as they can, horrible visions of bowling them over and squishing their little heads under my bike wheels flash before my eyes, and I either swerve maniacally or put on the breaks so hard that dogs start to bark in the next town over from the squealing sound my crappy bike breaks make. If my bike bell worked, I'd probably have worn it out by now, frantically dinging it to alert them that a big gaijin on a big crappy bike is coming their way.

The feeling of ominous doom I get when I see a line of black and red backpacks (mass issued by schools, black for boys, red for girls) bobbing all the way across the path, barricading me and my crappy bike from passing is unparallelled to anything I've felt before. Each morning, when the first kids come into sight and I have to take my first evasive maneuvers, the words "It begins" ring through my brain. Now how does this tie into the weather? I do believe it makes them walk in close-proximity PACKS, instead of sparse little pairs or trios that I can easily bike around. The occurence of me saying "sumimaseeeeen!" (excuse meee!) has definetly increased as the mornings have gotten cooler, and this morning I almost bowled over THREE darters. I might be 22, but that many close-calls is gonna put me into an early grave.

The alternative to the perils of the bike path are also completely tiny compared to those on the road. With the streets being as narrow as they are, there is usually no space for a bike to go. People here also seem to be a little horn-happy, honking at me when I literally have no place to go. "Yes THANK you madame in car, because I really SHOULD be on that narrow sidewalk over there, where the mother is pushing her BABY CARRIAGE and those two senior citizens are hobbling with their CANES. Pardon ME for being a foot into your road, sorry you had to GO AROUND." Or today, when I crossed the street and I suppose I surprised a man in his grey little car approaching the intersection. I hadn't seen him because of the sharp corner I have to pass that totally blocks my view of the adjascent street, and I hadn't heard him because he wasn't very close to me yet. He was at least a good 10 feet away from me when I had just *finished* crossing the street as a matter of fact, nowhere close to having to break to avoid me, and still he honked at me! What the dickens? I try to give drivers the benefit of the doubt and think its my own fault when I get a honking, but honest to goodness, what else can I do?

It doesn't really help that after the typhoon my bike has become harder to pedal than ever. The chain is so old and rusted, it actually sounds like its struggling to grind through the gears. Trying to go up even a teeny hill on the first gear is literally impossible, I actually had a couple of schoolgirls giggle with "hee hee hee she's so cute!"s behind me when I got stuck on the small incline into the school, after I had forgotten to switch gears. If I decide to bike throughout the winter, I might need to look into getting a better one. Either that, or just get really good at making funny faces that somehow incriminate the crappiness of my bike rather than the weakness in my limbs (in reality right now its a little of column A, a little of column B).

So when I'm not taking evasive maneuvers around school children, I've been at work, or more fun, out and about on weekends!! Last Friday was Hitoshi's birthday, so he and Jenny and I got together and I took them to the izakaya that Meg and Gill and I had previously visited (see earlier posts) and we had a good 'ol time!




They'd bought a small cheesecake to stick candles in, and Hitoshi posed during mid-blow.









He also then posed for what he likes to now call "the most embaressing picture in the world."

That night we stayed out too late for me to catch the last bus back home (10 o'clock, cripes!), so I ended up crashing at Hitoshi's to save myself the 3000 yen (about 30 bucks) taxi cab fare. The next morning I woke up, and on the futon he'd lent me was a rather worse-for-wear looking bug. A long, many-legged, gggggross little bug. Generally I'm not scared of them, but when they're as long as my pinky finger I start to get a little squeamish. Not sure if it was alive or not I flicked it off the mattress, and it sailed about a foot before hitting the nearby dressing, squirming for a bit, and then seemingly give up to just lay pathetically on the tatami mat. I had to take a picture. Blehiaglehialeha.

Sunday night I headed downtown to meet Meg and Gill at the infamous "MEXICAN FOOD" place on main street. Its a tiny little place, but it does quite well thanks to the navy base, and we had a waitress who spoke great English. I ordered a drink called 'shochu', which I thought was a sweet drink I'd heard about. As it turns out I had that confused with 'chuhai', and ended up instead ordering a big glass of Japanese whiskey. Woof! It didn't burn, went down smooth, and ended up hitting me like a shovel to the face. Word to the wise: shochu will get you *drunk*. I had one glass and I was half-gone, it was ridiculous. Mom, Dad, I swear it wasn't on purpose.

I didn't take any pictures of the Mexican place, but I'm sure we'll head back. But uh, not for the shochu. >.> <.< Afterwards Gill wanted to go to a place just across the street that served more European style dishes, because she's able to get a fairly good vegetarian selection there, and I did actually take a couple pictures in there. Here were our cute, and very short, owners/chefs/serving staff hard at work.

And the last pic in this batch, one of the girls, with Meg fallen victim to my super-flash.

At school this week, aside from yesterday, there are no classes and the students are all just taking term tests. These are tests which I had nothing to do with, and unlike some ALTs, I haven't been asked to help write them or grade them (yet). This all means that until next week, I have absolutely nothing to do at school, except kill time. I AM planning on using this opportunity to make lessons and prepare for future weeks, but at least today I'm just gonna bask in the fact that I'm getting paid to sit at my desk. Tomorrow I'll get serious. Sure. As serious as the teacher next to me, who has been playing with his stopwatch for the past five minutes.

p.s. After hearing from a friend that the sheer SIZE of this site is causing viewing problems (for me too actually), I've decided to start archiving more frequently. To view previous posts just go to the menu on the right, 'cause from now on only posts from each week will show up on the main page. Hope that helps!

p.p.s. Okay I tried to change the settings to make it archive daily, but it doesn't seem to be working right yet. Hopefully...tomorrow? I'm not sure when/how it takes affect, sorry for the continued slow loading time guys.