/log

I’m writing this sitting on the toilet. Wait! I’m not doing anything you should feel awkward about. I’m just sitting on the toilet seat with my feet in the bidet. Ah, that sounded better before I said it…

Bear with me, please. I’m now here in Italy enjoying all the pleasures that the Tuscan countryside has to offer; the pleasant atmosphere, good wine and great food. In fact just about the only annoying thing to happen on this entire stay (so far, that is) are the ten or so mosquito bites that I’ve suffered. As a good portion of the people reading this may have heard me mention (several times, probably), my favorite remedy for these is to heat up the skin to drain it of the histamines that cause the itch.

In Japan, I’d start each day with a nice hot shower which would then do me quite nicely until the next morning. Here however — and I’m not sure why — a single daily dose doesn’t seem to suffice. Hoping to go for a quick run this afternoon, I figured I should do something about the five bites on my feet. Thus, my feet soaking in a bidet full of scorching water.

I actually went for a run a couple of days ago. The day earlier, I went with my father and a couple of his friends, Hanna and Reiner from Northern Germany, on a short hike up to the village of Greve. The weather was fine: cloudy, but hot and sunny isn’t necessarily better. Neither is pouring rain — which is what we got when we got to Greve. Perfect timing because we had actually planned to have lunch there. A tomato sauce spaghetti and a plate of salamis, ham and cheese, all with plenty of olive, bread and a few glasses wine. The weather helped out that day because I both eat a lot and slowly but this time there was really nowhere to go with the torrent from the sky so I could eat my fill in relative ease.

Inspired by that fun hike, I figured I should really go for a quick run through the hills around my father’s house. The temperature was mild and light showers on and off: Nice cool weather for a run. There was also a mist over part of the area: not so cool if I’d lose my bearings, but I figured that with ten houses on every hill and everyone knowing everyone, I shouldn’t have too much trouble finding my way back. So off I went heading first to Casanuova di Ama, then turning south along that hill and down into the valley. The well-kept road turned grassy and steeper as I went dashing through raspberry bushes and poison ivy, down slippery gravel where the only grip were knife-sharp edges that hungered to sink their teeth into my flesh.

Arriving at the bottom of the valley I continued along a path that soon turned into a puddle. Thinking it would be nicer not to completely soak my feet I decided to just bypass it and scrambled into the densely forested hillside, sans shirt because of the heat, doing my best not to scratch myself too badly. After a few nice rock-climbing inspired moves I jumped back onto the path, took to a sprint before arriving at a similar puddle — well, pond — ten times the size about a dosen paces in. Back into the woods…

From there it went uphill as I tried to figure out if I was actually on the right hill or the one further over. Gleaning the sun through the thin cloud-cover I saw I was heading pretty much the right way. Sure enough, a little while later I ran through the winery at Castellina de Ama; just across from my father’s house, La Casa.

On my little run, I was reminded of walking home from school with my nieces Klara and Sylvía. Not so much the noise and the smog (of which there is none here), but rather the shot-gun shells strewn around. Not that there are many wild boar hunters in Madison, Wisconsin. No, just that we’d usually pick up rubbish to throw away once we got home.

Today has been great weather; warm with plenty of sunshine. Then about an hour ago I was in the kitchen with my father talking about the nice weather when we heard a roar outside. I reckoned it was a lighting but my father leaned towards a fighter jet (that occasionally dash across the countryside). Indeed, the weather looked beautiful — in all but one direction. To the north was a huge dark cloud that was already starting to sprinkle a few drops on on us.

Funny weather.

This one cloud seems to have passed so I figure I’ll see how my feet feel about going for another run.

Before we went to Mexico, I was fairly well prepared not to see much of the actual country. Granted, it wouldn’t be too difficult to escape the confines of the all-inclusive resort, but still, the main purpose of the trip was to meet the family. We did make plans for a day’s outing, split into two groups. The hard-core culture fans (my father’s partner, Gudrun, and I) went to the ancient city of Coba and then on to the port city of Tulum, while the rest (brother Björn, brother-in-law Ívar, his son Benedikt and Gudruns son Robert) also went to Coba (but on a separate tour) but then on to fly around on ziplines and swim in a cenote.

The last bit I truly envy them of. Most of the Yucatán peninsula is rather poor of natural resources and the ground pretty much just a slab of limestone with surprisingly little topsoil after all this time. Limestone is soluble which probably accounts for how flat the landscape is, since water seeps straight down into the ground until it hits firmer ground and forms long underground rivers. Rather than carve out the surface, these rivers therefore form underground caves which trees must stretch their roots into. These are called cenotes in Mayan language. Fig-trees are not only exceptionally good at finding these cenotes but often crack the top of these caves making them accessible.

The water in the cenotes is so clean that one can see the bottom tens of meters below the surface. In the exposed cenotes, an ecosystem furthermore helps keep them clean. Catfish in these cenotes live of droppings from bats that live in these caves and collect fruit outside. What happens to the fish, I don’t know.

Still, I’m not sure I would have traded traded Victor for that. Victor was our guide for the day. A Mexican who lived in Germany for seven years (and spoke brilliant German; was even cracking jokes all day long), studied Mayan archeology, brought home a German wife who bore him a child in Maya land where they now live. While not a Mayan himself he was extremely passionate about sharing their story, culture … and lessons.

His first point was that the Mayans never disappeared. While their grand cities were deserted and their civilisation of thousands of years largely discontinued, the people are still here. And will be. Long after the multi-ethnic communities that now add to the community of the Yucatán peninsula will be washed away by the tides of time, the Mayans, he assured us, would still remain. That was their nature; to prevail.

Interesting stuff, eh? I was very happy with his guidance. He was fairly level-headed, portrayed the Mayans as normal humans and didn’t waste much (if any) time on academic things like naming architectural styles but rather tried to give us insight into Mayan life. By a large look-out structure built by one of the many great Mayan roads (trade made the Mayans rich, there not being much in th way of natural resources) he broke open a container of seeds revealing inside a dozen or so seeds covered with a fine dark-red substance which the Mayans used for dyeing and their women for colouring their lips. Then from the ground he picked a small flower, asked for a cigarette and with the embers heated the pink petals, turning them blue. These were examples of the scarce resources available to the Mayans, and an example of their great empire that they could gather them in sufficient number to dye clothes and colour their buildings, such as the top of the tower above us.

He also gave us some chewing-gum. Not the derivative of the Japanese synthetic, sweetened latex gum, but the original Mayan gum made from tree sap. It’s mostly tasteless, the consistency pretty much the same as real (i.e. fake) gum, but lasted for hours without becoming stale. Useful too, as I used it to mend the crappy sunglasses I bought in the souveneir shop (where we stopped for a toilet break, “this is not a shopping trip, with me” said Victor) to save my eyes from the sun. Only before dinner when we stopped at this beautiful white beach for lunch did I toss the gum away, happy in the knowledge that it would decompose sooner than the plastic bag in which it went…

On the way from Coba to Tulum, Victor decided to give us a break from his lecture, but urged us to ask if we had any questions. A couple did, and after that he retreated to the front alongside the driver. Curious as I am, but lacking the courage and concrete questions, I asked Gudrun if she reckoned I could just go up to him and ask him a few things. She figured it would be OK, so I did.

We had a nice chat where he explained the rought history of the Mayans, how they migrated along the coast from modern day Guatemala, set up their cities but regularly had to abandon them for various reasons, which often had something to do with failing crops from drought or soil over-use (I’m sure there is a technical term for that).

The ground deplete of metals or hard enough rocks, the Mayans were never a great military nation and the aristocracy gained their power through knowledge and faith, which at the time were one and the same. The shape of the Mayan towers (or “pyramids”) was influenced by the reverence of the time of year when the sun, at noon, stands straight avbove and one can stand on one’s own shadow. At that time, the towers don’t cast a shadow and rain is near.

With this ability to predict the coming of rain, the scientist-priests claimed to speak to, and on behalf of, the gods, demanded a (human) offering to the gods and received rain in return. The Mayans, however, were never tied to a city and often migrated from place to place. When the rain failed to come, they lost faith in their masters’ ability to speak to the gods or concluded that the gods had abandoned the city, and thus sought a new place as well.

As we started discussing the downfall and it’s causes, Victor offered a piece of his own theory; one that has a relevant lesson for our day as well. He figured that while individual cities ran their course and others were built, the ultimate end of that era came when there was a split in the scientist-priest community. The one arm stuck to astronomical observations and math, while the other became convinced of their theology themselves. Ignoring science as a tool for understanding nature they weren’t prepared for changes in climate and vegetation. Large scale deforestation shifted and modified the seasons and no amount of offerings could resist that tide.

Stuck in the framwork of their religion, the ruling class turned to force to discipline the masses, but the Mayan’s weren’t used to loyalty to people or force, and the military had no effective weapons to beat them into submission, so the last great cities of stone were abandoned for villages of huts.

Thus was the end of the ancient Mayan civilisation, but the people still exist today — they are the shorter, rounder Mexicans with almond-shaped eyes, betraying their Asian origin — as do their stories.

After a delayed flight out of Cancun yesterday, I barely made the six o’clock bus from Chicago to Madison. Emma was called out for a birth late last night and again this morning! After Ivar took off to work, the rest of us stayed behind and read a book, played a video game, had
breakfast, played a board game, went outside into the yard to play in the swings and tossed an American football around before heading inside
for lunch (grilled cheese sandwitches and blueberry smoothies) and now we were just doing some crafts before the two girls dashed off.

Tonight there is a talk by Noam Chomsky down town that I’m hoping to find tickets to.

There’s never a dull moment on Blackhawk Avenue. :-)

This morning, Yuri and I headed out to Kansai International Airport, or Kanku as it is regularly known (short for Kansai Kokusei Kuko — 関西国際空港). After breakfast we said our farewells and I headed off to my Cathay Pacific flight to Hong Kong.

After landing in Hong Kong, I took an airport limousine to Shenzhen airport where I’m sitting right now, waiting for my flight to Hangzhou (杭州). I’ve only been in China for half a day, but it’s still a really interesting experience. People are loud, rude, rushed and traffic is chaos.

Feels like Iceland ;-)

Conditions being favourable — notably the weather and no work — we made it out to the beach (thanks to Yumi’s suggesting it and driving). Quite surprisingly, I’ve managed to download the pictures, weed out the poorest ones (down to ninety from over two hundred), and upload them to my website [alt].

This week starts the so-called Golden Week. Named so for it gives most people working in Japan, roughly a week off work. I get about nine consecutive days! Most people use these to travel (often to their home towns) making it hard to get seats on trains and buses.

Not surprisingly, this Golden Week arrived without me making any formal plans. The past few days I’ve been gathering interesting things to do and was actually seriously thinking about just staying in Matsue for the week as there are several interesting things that I’d like to take part in.

I finally called JG up a couple of days ago and he’s already in Toyama (富山, wealth-mountain) along with Adrian — neither of whom I’ve seen for … well, since last Golden Week. A real shame and very much my own fault. Well, mistakes are best when mended, so I decided to head up to Toyama this week.

Cody and I had actually toyed with the idea of going hitch-hiking somewhere. Nothing is currently set in stone but the general idea is to set off tomorrow (Wednesday) afternoon, get to Kyoto that evening and get to Toyama on Thursday. We’ll try hitch-hiking, but I’m going to look into buses and trains along the way to fall back on.

JG is heading over to Tokyo on the Saturday. Adam will actually be there too so I might head up as well for a visit to the big city. I’m still not sure exactly what I want out of it, but I bet it will be an interesting trip in any case.

So, plenty of adventures to come.

Last Friday before classes at Dai-ni Izumo Kita (第二出雲北, e. North-Izumo number two), having measured the width of my skis, I went back to Yama-no-mise?? (山の店??, lit. Mountainering Store ??) and bought climbing skins. These are stuck underneith the skis. The side touching the snow is covered with small hairs (skins were originally made from seal-skin, hence the name) which point backwards. This prevents the ski from sliding backwards, even in a fair amount of incline.

Sunday morning I woke up at 5:20, showered, got ready, hurridly ate some breakfast and then headed out to City hall (市役所, shi-yaku-sho, lit. city-service place) where I was to meet the group at 6:30. It’s a fair walk, even without the gear on one’s back and though I was a little behind schedule leaving the apartment, I managed to be there right on time.

I drove with Mr. Fujita (藤田さん), the store owner, and another one of the hikers (whose name I’ve unfortunately forgotten). We chatted a little bit and I though I did a fair job of understanding and speaking. The other one was a science teacher in a local high-school and was really impressed with me coming from Iceland and knew that we had volcanoes. They found it a bit funny that they were both, at 61 and 62, older than my father.

The weather and scenery were great. The ascent went well as we worked our way up the hills, through sparse woodlands and along ridges. It was fantastic. By no means a difficault hike, but a good work-out.

At the top, everyone quickly donned their best protective gear to insulate themselves against the biting wind, took a few pictures and had a quick bite, waiting for the rest of the group to join us. Then finally the descent. Skins were removed and we headed down. The top bit was certainly by far the best: steep, relatively free of trees and pretty decent snow.

Before heading into the thicker forested parts, we stopped for lunch. I didn’t know we’d be making a second stop and felt sort of silly for having raced to finish my sandwitch during the stop at the top. I was impressed by the amount of stuff some of the other hikers had brought. Portable stoves and water to boil ramen and udon; Mr. Fujita even brought a can of beer which he shared with the group.

The last bit of the hike suffered a bit from the good weather as the powder we’d climbed up had mostly turned to cruft. At the end of the journey, most of us headed to Misasa (三朝; three sun-rises) for a dip in the onsen.

Misasa is apparently a very famous onsen town and has really nice bath-houses. We didn’t go to any of the fancy ones, though. No, this had been a hard-core hike and would be finished with a hard-core bath. No showers and a little pool fitting only six people. It was awesome. This old man came in after us and chatted a bit with my fellow hikers. I really wish I’d have understood it as they seemed very interested in the old man’s story.

Exhausted after a long day, I fell asleep in the car on the way home. They woke me up in Akasaki (赤崎; red peninsula) where we stopped for omiyage (おみやげ; a souvenier). The guys bought seafood, but I just got a box of chocolates which I thought I’d share with my Matsue buddies some time.

Well, it’s cold again. Quite amazingly, in the span of about a week, the temperature dropped from t-shirts-and-shorts-oh-my-god-I’m-sweating-all-day to boy-I-wish-I’d-brought-my-sweater-along. Yes, the weekend before last, I put on pants for the first time since May!

Now, I’ve got a cold. I wish it were only because of the weather, but I must admit that last week I wasn’t eating too well. I bought a lot of food yesterday to force myself to eat more and healthy. Even treated myself to grapes for C-vitamin to combat the grape-sized glands in my throat. Also bought oranges just in case …

Speaking of food, I cooked fish for the first time. Not only in Matsue, but my whole life. I think it was salmon and quite good. I’d asked my mom how to cook fish as I had no idea even where to start. She told me simply to fry it like I would meat.

So, yesterday I boiled a couple of potatoes, seasoned the beast with salt, garlic and a bit of spring onion and fried it when the potatoes were ready. Then added some funny vegetable that I don’t know the name. After finishing this, I finished the left-overs of the beef stir-fry I made the evening before.

Not that my life is utterly empty and boring. Last Sunday, Ryoko had a small birthday gathering which I joined in Yonago, where I met the new Yonago foreign teachers, Bill and Julia Sparrow (awesome last name, by the way). We partied till dawn with a mixture of grilled-meat-buffe, bowling and karaoke. Great evening.

Monday I met up with Team Daisen, a group of eager mountaineers whose plans to conquer Daisen (大山; Big Mountain) had been previously foiled several times by weather. With a favourable forecast Jennifer, Yumi, Sarah, Seiichi and I headed for base camp — a lovely little tourist village serving hikers and nature lovers in the summer and skiiers in the winter.

Pictures of the trip.

The hike was nice, but we set out a bit too late and the group deceided to head back so as to make it down by sunset. Eager not to miss the peak (and perhaps too lacking in dedication for the team spirit) I deceided to press on for fifteen more minutes.

Off I darted up the steps (yes, it’s a pretty civilised bit of nature, that hike) and on the fifteenth minute made it to the top! Stopped briefly to snap a few pictures before heading back down to catch up with the group on their decent.

We were originally supposed to have seperate meetings for the San-in (山陰, shady side of the mountain: Japan Sea coast) and San-yo (山陽, sunny side of the mountain: Pacific Sea coast) teachers, but since Simon and Dusty are leaving Japan next Saturday it was deceided to bring us San-in-ers down to Okayama for a Sunday meeting and party.

I’m just now in the hotel room dropping my luggage off before meeting the gang at a japanese pub-restaurant (居酒屋; izakaya) for drinks and dinner.

I brought my laptop partly for the trips here and back. I recently found Anki, a fact memorizing tool. It’s basically just a flash-card program, but what makes it cool is the “spaced repetition” method it uses. I started playing around with it on the way down, but soon fell asleep.

Probably largely because I had only a few hours sleep last night. Yesterday I was teaching at Izumo Minami school. It’s my longest day of all those in my rotation: six hour-long classes. I have to leave my home at nine in the morning and am usually not back until around eleven.

Anyway. Because I never have any days without classes, I have to get a day off for every meeting that’s not on a workday. So I have the next two days off. I’m contemplating staying on this side for a bit longer, but I guess I’ll deceide that tomorrow.

It’s nice when there’s no pressure.

Another month gone by. Another year gone by.

I bought myself a camera the other day. Finally. I’ve been wanting to buy one for the longest time, but not been sure whether to get a standard camera like my old Canon IXY (IXUS in Good Old Europe, PowerShot in the New World), or go back to the world of SLR.

When I was in Italy earlier this month, my dad lent me his camera to play with and I really loved having a real camera in my hands again. The weight and size of it were, however, considerable drawbacks.

When I got back to Matsue I spent a fair time on the Internet and regularly visiting camera shops feeling out the various options. In the end I settled for the entry-level Nikon D40, mainly for it’s great reviews, compactness and light weight. By no means a professional camera, it does take great pictures and gives me all the control that I will want in the forseeable future.

A big part of why I finally managed to make a decision (and possibly which way it swung) was probably this weekend’s trip to the Oki Islands (隠岐の島, oki-no-shima). A very picturesque place, I figured the extra cost and inconvenience of lugging the cammera around would be worth the great pictures.

The idea for the Oki Island trip came up when I was talking to Michie a little while back. She had some time off and her father had to go on buisiness to the neighbouring Tottori Prefecture (鳥取県, tottori-ken) so we deceided to make a trip out of it. Then, by chance, Ryoko (a Japanese co-worker from the neighbouring town of Sakai-Minato (境港), had independently talked to the Yonago (米子) teachers, Simon and Dusty, about making a trip on Sunday.

..And now I have to be off. My train leaves in 25 minutes.

Monday I went to Yonago (米子, lit. Rice-child) for the farewell-lunch of Fumiko and Eri, two Japanese PKC teachers. Fumiko just won the green card lottery and is moving to the States while Eri is pregnant, taught her last day last week and is due on the 24th!

Though only thirty minutes away, I’d never actually been to Yonago. I hadn’t wrapped up properly after teaching at Koshibara so I woke up early, tried to clobber together a report of my lessons, ran to the school, cleaned and wrote in the communication notebook. Arrived at home sweaty and already having missed the last train to make it on time to Yonago.

So I arrived late in Yonago, a place I’d never been to before and proceeded to follow directions to a place that was reportedly very difficult to find. In the end I called Fumiko and she came to pick me up.

We had a nice lunch and I met the Tottori (the prefecture next to Shimane) teachers I’d not met before. After lunch Ryoko (whom Gabriel and I met in Osaka during Golden week) and Fumiko down to the beach which I said I was longing to see.

There I was, standing before the Japan Sea for the first time. The beach was, as most things in Japan are, landscaped with it’s use by people in mind. It was devided into small coves that were protected from the sea by these massive three-pointed-star shaped concrete blocks. This area can be pretty windy and the fresh breeze send big waves into the coves. I was disappointed that I hadn’t brought my swimming gear as the water wasn’t cold at all (well, not Big Dipper cold) and looked so inviting. Given the price of joinging a gym with a swimmingpool, a return to the beach will be well worth the trip.

Arriving back in Matsue, I deceided to see if I could find the Uniqlo outlet that Fumiko mentioned was, not far from where I lived. And there I found the yukata.

Yukata (浴衣, lit. bathing clothes(?)) are light traditional Japanese summer-wear. I’d seen some in a store we went into in Yonago and, inspired by Fumiko’s light clothing, thought it was exactly what I needed to wear at home. Uniqlo was sellong sets for only 3000 yen so, though I tend to be stingy on non-necessities, I deceided to splurge on one.

As soon as I came home, I put it on and it’s brilliant. It’s light and wide so that it doesn’t restrain one’s movements. Putting on this centuries old design for the first time also gave me a pleasant feeling of camaraderie with all those who have suffered from the climate. If they made it through summer — so will I.