wonderful weekend

We had a great anniversary weekend getaway to Amanohashidate.
Full post coming soon.

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In-n-out visitor

We got to see my friend Nicole last weekend. She'd been sent to China for work and finagled a two-day layover in Osaka on her way home. So we went to Osaka Saturday morning to pick her up. We spent the rest of the day exploring around and finding geo-caches (It's a hobby of hers. We went 4-for-4 while she was here!).
On Sunday we hung around Himeji and hit some of the highlights -- the castle, conveyor belt sushi, 100 yen store. Unfortunately, it rained the entire time she was in Himeji. In fact (we didn't know it at the time) there was a severe weather warning for the excessive rain on Monday morning. This actually led to school being canceled -- for the students -- the teachers, of course, still have to go.

Anniversary

So we've been married over a year now, which is pretty good. I'm proud of us. To celebrate our anniversary, we went out to dinner. We had just burned through all our favourite places while showing Nicole around on the weekend, so we decided to try a Thai restaurant we'd never been to before. It turned out to be pretty good - and we ended up with nice atmosphere for an anniversary dinner because we were the only customers in the restaurant the whole time. As I said, though, the food was good so I don't know why there weren't more people.
-Jason

Osaka Grand Prix

Well, I'm behind on the blogging a bit, but that's what happens when I have to finish my final papers for my first term of grad school. A couple of weeks ago, however, I took a day off to go to Osaka for a track meet. Chelsey had to work that day, so she couldn't come. It was the Osaka Grand Prix. It's basically in the second-tier of international track meets, which means the meet organizers usually bring in one big star per event, then fill out the rest of the field with Japanese pros or pros from other nearby countries.
The exception at this meet was the hammer throw, which is part of the "Hammer Challenge", so most of the top men's hammer throwers were there. That included Murofushi Koji, the 2004 Olympic gold medalist from Japan. It was definitely the most competitive event of the competition, but sadly Murofushi couldn't win for the home fans. He ended up third.
I got there in the morning, in time for the shot put, which was won easily by defending world champion Christian Cantwell. I had a long break before any other action, though. There were four throwing events, all with some big names in them, but because the stadium was set up so that only one throwing event could happen at a time, they had to start them well before any of the running events. I killed time by wandering around the stadium, which was used for both the 2002 World Cup and the 2007 World Track Championships. There was a related high school meet before the pro meet, and lots of the kids were crowding the path between the warmup track and the stadium. They got really excited when a blond guy ran through giving them all high-fives. I couldn't see who he was then; I later realized he was a New Zealand runner brought in to rabbit the 1500m. I should probably have guessed that he didn't need to be a big star to elicit such a reaction; I get a similar one when I go to elementary schools.
The big star on the track was two-time Olympic gold medalist Veronica Campbell-Brown in the 100m, taking on the Japanese record holder. Campbell-Brown got a bad start but ultimately pulled away for an easy win. I also saw Perdita Felicien, the last Canadian to win a world championship. She didn't have her best race, though.
Anyways, I enjoyed the meet, and was glad I got the chance to go. Now that my semester is over, I'll try to caption the pictures I took and put them on our site.
-Jason

funny nerdy little kid

On Thursdays we go to elementary schools. It's a nice break from the junior high school kids because the little kids are so crazy and full of energy.
Today I ate lunch with a first-grade class. As always, the kids asked me lots questions (through a teacher who could translate). I got all of the usuals: "How old are you?" When is your birthday?" "What color do you like?" "What Japanese food do you like?" etc etc
But, there was this cute little nerdy kid who asked me "When you came to Japan, what is the name of the airport that you flew out of and in to?" It cracked me up. Too bad that kid isn't one of Jason's students -- he'd appreciate the transportation talk much more than I do.

I can see again

I successfully navigated both a trip to an optometrist and a glasses store this week! Things had been a little fuzzy in my left eye and I figured it was time to up my prescription.
It had been particularly trying at kyudo -- my solution had been to just close my eye, though the teacher kept telling me to keep both open. Strangely, I had my best week when I was shooting half blind.

making plans

I had a pretty quiet Golden Week. I used it to catch up on some projects, clean and make plans for this summer. We've got about a three week period between when Jason's summer term at SJSU ends and the Japanese fall term starts, and we're going to make the most of it. I'm finalizing plans for us to 1. go white-water rafting and canyoning (yes, canyoning, not canoeing), 2. see a spectacular fireworks show over the water and go kayaking in Miyajima (the place with the famous gate in the bay), and 3. climb Mt. Fuji!! What an active summer we'll have!

Golden Week

It's Golden Week here in Japan. This is a week that contains three holidays - this year they fall on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Lots of people take advantage by using some vacation days to get a whole week off. Consequently, it's a big travel time in Japan. Most transportation options are supposed to be crowded, and I read that it is the most difficult week to get baseball tickets.
For us, though, it won't be such a big deal, since I have to finish up some projects for my university classes. So no traveling for us. Hopefully we'll make it up with some weekend trips later in the month, and by planning some good vacations for this summer.