A few pics for a beautiful day.

There we are at the famous Do Jin bar having some snacks after a rigorous evening of badminton.  It's been a long time since we played badminton, but it was a lot of fun.  I think it would be great to play badminton or tennis regularly.  Now that spring is here we will have more fun outdoors...until summer, that is.  Summer summer summer.  it's going to be a long, hot, sweaty time out here, and i'm not especially looking forward to the weather conditions.  the japanese word for hot and humid is  "mushiatsui".  they have one word that means both hot AND humid, which means that it's hot enough and humid enough to want to save one's words.  or something.  right?  how would you understand that?
Obama is a sensation out here.  His books and speeches are bestsellers, and almost every day i hear a student say "Yes We Can" as we try to teach them how to answer in the affirmative.  instead of "yes i can", they say "yes we can" with the appropriate enthusiasm and conviction, just like Obama himself.  it's weird.  i wonder how he is thought of in North America.  is he still the hope of the nation, or what?  i should just read some  newspapers, but i haven't, and in this moment, it seems ok to ask anyone reading this what North America thinks of Obama.  because obviously you know, and obviously you're in North America.
Our town is locally renowned for its onions and carrots.  here is an onion patch, growing tall and green.  Mandy can't understand why nobody picks them.  they've been growing all winter, and still nobody picks them.  do they sweeten the more they stay underground?  obviously, it's a strong temptation to snag a few, but that would upset the delicate culture of trust that still exists in Japan.  we wouldn't want to ruin anything like that.  
Here we are, in Nagoya, and the overhead road there is an expressway.  when the surface of the earth becomes too congested to drive fast, they elevate the roads.  simple.  just lift it up and drive ABOVE the city rather than crawl around down below with all the traffic lights and other rat racers.  seeing all the high expressways around this city and the obvious pains that have been taken in building them, i mean, they seem impossible, especially at major intersections, it's like the Jetsons or something, spaceships going every which way, swooping around curves and up over stuff, i don't mind paying a toll once in a while.  

and yes, that sentence is a dumb.  but this explains why we don't pay tolls in Saskatchewan.  of course, they might start setting up toll booths and collect money to 'someday' maintain the highways.  that sounds very Sask actually.  in Japan, they don't have to deal with all the frost heaves and such.  
it's like a big claw holding it all up.  doesn't it look like it will tip if a heavy truck goes on one side and a mini is going on the other?  or some other combination?  like a tank on one side and a harley on the other... or like Andre the Giant on one side and Webster on the other...or...
 

Springtime

Here are some photos of our cherry blossom party last saturday.  A teacher from our company organized it, and although it rained ALL day, it was fun, and the trees were beautiful against the grey sky.  Our party was the one at the very farthest point along the left side of the river, but when i took this picture, i had no idea of that.  We spent a while trying to find them, and on the way, we got some delicious festival food.
People have been sitting beneath the blossoms like this since they came out last week, and it seems that any time of day, there they are, eating and drinking and chatting.  The trees are often hung with lanterns for night time parties.  It's a beautiful time of year here.
View from under my umbrella.

Here are a few ACC teachers (Mandy among them) and one student (on the right).  
The trees were so full of blossoms that they seemed burdened and weighed down by them.  The one branch is actually dipped into the water i think.  I always like umbrellas in photos too, so i waited until a couple came bobbing along the bridge to catch them.  It didn't take too long, don't worry.
This is our party from a little distance.  The slightly inebriated crew somehow put up a tarp to shelter the people.  The barbeques, however, became flooded and refused to cook anything at all.  

THE PRETTIEST FLOWER OF THEM ALL!  (Mandy)
Here are some of the ACC crew.  Mandy, James, Tilly, Miya, Jacey, and making the face is Rob Lowe, a great man from England who married a Japanese woman and just had a baby!  We got to meet the little man at this party.  He hung out in the tent with his mother.  

Well, there ya go!  I'm slowly realizing that we're well past our half-way point here in Japan.  We only have 4.78 or so months left!  It's going very fast, and now we have to brace ourselves for a long, hot, humid, rainy summer.  I'm not too excited about the extreme heat, but each season has beauty and good things.  

Mandy is diligently watering her balcony garden every day, and her lettuce and carrots are coming up well.  Things grow well here, and now our balcony is full of potted flowers and vegetables.  We even bought a lattice for some sweet peas to climb around on.  They love it.  

A Trip to Kanazawa

The trees in Japan are provided with good support systems when the situation calls for it.  I have noticed that a major factor contributing to Japanese culture is importing ideas and products from other places and then improving drastically upon them and selling them back to the rest of the world.  They have done this with cars, toilets, poetry, electronics, and NATURE!

i never thought of trying to improve upon nature, but Japanese gardens have shown me that no tree or plant is left to its own natural ways.  there is no chance!  chance is for pachinko players to deal with.  the gardens aren't necessarily imported from other places, but the painstaking efforts involved in manipulating all of the life in such a large garden as the one we saw truly is one of the things that makes a trip to Japan worthwhile (among many other things).  some things are so ordered, and other things are so random that it makes one's head spin.   

Jim and Rose Odling at Kenroku-en Garden in Kanazawa. 

the Odlings (my parents in-law) put up with plane rides, long bus rides, long walks, long train rides, long bike rides, and even long boat rides as we toured what places we could during their time here. we had a great time with them, and from what they say, they had fun too.  if they had taken a rickshaw and ridden rollerskates, their collection of transportation modes would have been complete.  ...oh, and don't forget pogo sticks.  
some incredibly well-wrought, lifelike statues we saw in Kanazawa.  they evoke the wisdom of ages, and the advancement of human intellect in Japan and the world.  or SOMEthing. 
this kid is easy to please.  i love Crazy English!
Mandy found fulfillment in life, and i captured it in this photo.  probably the perfect moment for my dear wife.  a cat (that lets her hold it) in one arm, a delicious ice cream cone in the other hand, and the sun warming her face to the perfect temperature.  just looking at her in this state is pure bliss!  a highlight of every trip we take, wherever we are, is the sighting of a cat.  petting a cat is a bonus, and the picking up of a cat is double bonus.  i'm pretty sure we're going to be animal people when we get a place of our own.