Narita-san Park 『成田山公園』

I took today off from work to run to Tokyo and get our visas for China. They cost us 6000 yen each since we're not Japanese citizens, which made me cranky, but we have them. After that I took the train to Chiba City as fast as I could so I could get my re-entry permit from the immigration bureau (one of the hoops they make resident foreigners jump through every time we leave the country). Both the Chinese Embassy and the Tokyo Regional Immigration Bureau have reputations for being somewhat slow, but today I miraculously finished all my errands before noon, so I had some time to kill.

After getting back to Narita around 1:30, I walked through Narita-san Park, which I'd actually never bothered to do. It's a lot like the Japanese Gardens in Portland (yeah, imagine that...), but much bigger, and with grave markers strewn here and there along the edges. It was still pretty wintery-looking, drab and grey, with overcast skies, but the first signs of life were starting to appear in some of the plants. Hopefully things will really be starting to bloom in about a month. Anyway, I took pictures.


A waterfall and a tree. 


Neat bridge. 


The cherry and plum grove. Note the buds already appearing. 


A group of pre-schoolers on a field trip, all in uniform. 

Oh, too bad.

I know this will crush Mommy, but it looks like we're going to miss this year's Festival of the Steel Phallus in Kawasaki. The dates for this year's celebration are March 31st and April 1st, when we'll be in western Japan.

Still here, still alive

In case anyone was wondering where we are and what we've been up to, the answer are: at home, and not much.

Sam and I have both been teetering on the edge of illness for the last couple weeks (stuffy heads, sniffles, getting up in the morning being excruciating as opposed to merely unpleasant), so we stayed home and slept all weekend. Seriously, I slept until 2:30 this afternoon. It's almost like being back in high school.

We were also resting up so we'll have energy next weekend, when Kate will be here. I'm not sure how we're going to feed her, since she doesn't eat meat or seafood, but I'm sure we'll have fun nonetheless.

My Fun Japanese Book

One of the teachers at my school has kindly taken it upon herself to teach my Japanese several times a week, during working hours no less. In return I take the occasional lesson to go over some of the finer points of the English language (hers is quite good), and in general try to fulfill expectations that I work hard. But the book she recommended I use ("Understanding Basic Japanese Grammar", it does sound a bit dry), while very useful, is also quite funny from time to time. It was written by a professor at the Foreign Students Center at Osaka University, so perhaps he geared it towards what he thought foreigners would do all the time.

On page 6, we learn how to say "I often drink", "I usually drink beer", "I don't drink wine or whiskey" and "I drank beer yesterday evening."

On page 15, the book teaches us how to say "My younger sister got married with her professor."

I'll just list a few more sequentially.

Page 21: "Shall we drink this evening?"

Page 57: "My father came home late last night. He was a little drunk." And, just for laughs, "My elder brother used to be very slim. Now he is a fatty."

Page 84: "I talked with my friend while drinking until three o'clock this morning. We had a very good time."

Page 157: "My friend visited me yesterday. And my expensive whiskey was drunk by him."

Page 166: "I was forced to drink sake by my father."

Page 194: "While I was drunk and in bed, she went home." (My personal favorite)

Vice President Elmer Fudd

I've resisted commenting so far, but this was too good. I can't take credit for this. It came from here.


A Lego reconstruction of the VP's hunting accident. 

Fun and Games

We had a friend over last night for beer and video games. Somehow, the evening turned into timed trials for St. Patrick's Day.