Kanazawa

I have had a cold meaning I have had time to do some art. This is Bigfoot or known by his peers as Samsquanch.


Zoe and I went to the beach yesterday. We bought a pile of lunch and took the train. Then we were hit by a few waves of rain which we mostly avoided by hiding under part of a tsunami wall. The sky was very dark and the sand was blowing by horizontally. 

We were the only visitors at the beach who had not driven their car onto the beach. This is a very new idea for me but it seems popular with the Japanese. In the picture below you can see a few cars have sunk. A bulldozer pulled out two cars while we were eating lunch.

Osaka Aquarium

Today we went to the Osaka Aquarium. Since today is Sunday, it was packed. Screaming children pulling adults around flooded every inch. Strangely, there is no major open space in the entire aquarium, it is one very long hall spiraling down from the top of the building. It was very strange architecture, at times claustrophobic and very load due to the hard walls and endlessly long tunnels we were all channeled through.


I can't say I learned much. I want a pet crab. One of the few pets I can provide a good life for. Well maybe not for the first three crabs but fourth time is the charm you know? Ok, bad idea. Maybe. Anyways, we acomplished are largest goal, to get Zoe in physical contact with her favorite marine animal: Sting-ray! (see below)

We wandered around this mall and had ice cream after the chaotic fish world. It was worth the $23 to get in by the way, there was a twenty meter long whale shark and sea horses. We ate a lot of junk food today but we had a great lunch and dinner. Food is so expensive here and I am really looking forward to constant access to good food for under $10.


We went to the American village after our ice cream. I thought it was going to be packed with Japanese hipsters, moderately sketchy, and some strange depiction of the US. I found none. I saw some US looking shops and restaurants but it was such a rich part of town I think the neighborhood is being choked out. It is literally next to skyscrapers which are basically moving in.


Our couch surfing host is awesome though we have not seen much of him. His name is Akira and he loves soul music, he plays drums among many other instruments and has cut his own album last march which is now available on itunes. We got a great room, a jug of soy milk in the fridge (soy milk is amazing in Japan!), and a box of cereal. Life is complete.

Osaka

For those of you that do not know Zoe and I have decided to end our trip about three weeks sooner due to several reasons. Without going into too much explanation it is due to multiple reasons including we look like bums in Japan, dollar are not worth anything here, we feel it is time to go home, and I personally miss moxie and other Maine stuff. So we will be home in 10 days.


Today we got up at 5:30, ate as much food as we could in two minutes then went to the train station. We took the train into town, got our tickets, had 200 yen left over and no access to an atm because it was 7 in the morning. Luckily McDonalds was open, and for the first time in a very long time I went in a bought a coffee. 


In this picture you can also see my haircut which is crazy. Zoe calls me muffin head. I prefer crooked muffin head. There are parts about a half inch long that I did myself.... accidentally....

Max Zoy? More creative spelling on our names.

The 5 hour bus ride which turned into 6 hours due to traffic was completely uneventful other than seeming long and lots or rain. I managed to write down a good part of a movie script for a horror film that I would love to make at Hartwick next spring. It was partially inspired listening to J.J. Abrams being interviewed on "Fresh Air."


So we get to Osaka and got about 7 hours to kill before we meet up with our couch surfing host. I have yet to see a couch in Japan yet by the way, it is totally cultural and unfair. It should be Futon Surfing. Okay, anyways, first I got lost, then I got pissed off, then we had lunch and I was 100% happy again.


Then we stumbled upon this little gem, no joking here! We went in and got a little homesick. Although this particular store had cooler stuff than the big one in Maine has. Our Couch Surfing host knew of this brand and said it is quite popular here.

Rice

Today I worked the hardest I have this year planting rice. We planted rice for 4 hours, that is after the 4 hour morning shift. Luckily tomorrow we get an extra 2 hours to sleep in.


So here is the picture. Bent over for 4 hours in knee deep mud. It really was not as bad as it sounds and my knees actually hurt the most. There was a machine that did most of the planting but our job was to go through each row and correcting the machine. The results of the machine varied on how soupy the mud was or sometimes it would go a couple of feet without planting anything. We also planted by hand on the corners and perimeter where it could not go.

Rice planting wins the hardest I have worked in 2011 award (which I just invented.) We planted an about a quarter acre which will yield somewhere around 450 kilos of rice or just not quite enough for what the house we are staying in eats.


It was a lot of fun walking around in the deep mud. There were lots of strange insects including one that looked like a turtle but carried its eggs on its back. There were lots of frogs too. When we finished was washed off in the irrigation stream.


Last night I took Rio, the farm dog, on a walk. The sky was amazing. There were clouds high up that were pink and looked like fire. They were laid against a hard dark blue sky. A rain storm came in which was quite a sight. It was strange because the clouds ran towards each other and then crossed over. It was topped off by the sun setting behind the mountains.

When I got back Toa was bowling on the table. This is actually quite normal here. He is 2 years old and obsessed with bowling. Everyday he practices bowling, watches it on youtube, and sometimes ask me to draw him bowling scenes, which I do.

This one is blurred but you can get an idea of how much energy this boy has.

And my favorite mug here. Go ahead, stare at it, the longer you look the scarier it gets.

20th

So here is how my 20th birthday went. I woke up and went to work in the rain. Don't worry it gets better. We cut up a bunch of onions, had lunch, and hit the onsen! You may be asking yourself: "What is an onsen?" Well my friends, an onsen is a Japanese hot spring.

The onsen is perched on a hill about a 5 minutes car ride from here. Akio dropped us off at the front and took off before we could figure out anything. First we switched our shoes at the door for slippers. Then we went downstairs and found a stand where a guy collected our 400 ($4.80) yen tickets. Zoe and I were separated at this point to go into the locker room.

The first thing you do is get naked. You strip everything off and pack it into a locker, then grab the key and put it around your wrist. I had a towel for washing and for drying but unfortunately not one for scampering. The towel you dry with is big and fluffy -- that you keep in your locker. The towel you wash with has a burlap texture and is basically the size of a scarf so you can wash your back. The scampering towel is to be held in front of you when you're scampering and rested on your head or on the side of the bath when you're not. I did not have that.

So I scampered naked over to the washing area. I am sure there were a lot of jokes about a white hairy ghost that day (since I have hair on my legs and arms.) The washing areas is a bunch of stools in a row with soap and shampoo labeled in English at each of the 15 or so stations. I am an expert on these by now. It was funny though because people were shaving and brushing their teeth at these stations too.

After I washed I had three tubs to choose from: a tub about ten by forty feet by the gigantic window overlooking the valley, a small hot tub-like bath, and a bath made of stone outside. I started with the big one. It was hard to sit flat with my legs out in it, but they are all about 2.5 feet deep so when you're on your butt the water is up to your chin. When I could take the heat no longer, I showered off in cold water.

Next I went to the one outside. It is weird walking in the wilderness naked and very.... free. I sat in the tub until most of the blood had definitely drained from my head, then sat on the side for a while and repeated the process a few times.

Finally after I had completely transformed into a rubber-like material, I got out, clothed myself, and met Zoe in the lobby. We returned to the farm and had dinner. After dinner Zoe whipped out an APPLE PIE she had made for me! It was delicious and 'Merican, hell yes. The kids went nuts for it too. It was delicious and I had a Japanese family sing happy birthday to me which is gets weird about 2/3s through.

The pie was amazing and Zoe had to jump through a lot of hoops to make it great. First of all she had to cook it in this sort of microwave contraption and get around the lack of 'Merican ingredients. I loved the pie SO much. Unfortunately, one person loved the pie more than me: Toa, the two year old boy. He ate it, came back, had seconds, asked for more, and when he was refused he asked me to draw him a bowling scene.

Toa is two, keep this in mind. He LOVES bowling, has a plastic set of his own, and watches youtube videos of bowling every day. How much more awesome could Toa be? After I finished drawing Toa the bowling scene he crumpled it up like a bowling ball and stored it in the toaster oven with his baseball that he uses as a bowling ball.

I must say it was a really great birthday. It's a little hard to be away from family but I am grateful to have Zoe around. Also, I am beginning to look forward to my return home on July 21st/22nd. Damn it! 20th birthday in the Japanese alps!