I Read the Financial Times

guess the eff what? i was wandering around today and found a bike rental place and national park right across the friggin street from the school! there's a japanese version of croquet, i can't remember what it's called, but some oba-sans were playing it in a field next to the park. the park is densely forested, and has gravel paths that lead back to a clearing on one path, and a pond on another. i havent really gone back in there too far, because i used all my damn energy to go look at a giant sports complex acroos the street on the other side of the school. it's got tennis courts, a track, a baseball field and a gymnasium. there's a national sports meet there next month, i hope i can go.

last night i met the res hall assistant, sakiko-chan, and we walked to the sports complex parking lot last night to watch a lunar eclipse. she's going to go to winona state next year. i told her some whatnot about minnesota, and she told me about really wanting to get out of japan for a year. good stuff.

here's the next day in my journal...
from sun 8-26-07...

thank ever crapping cripes jeebus for takahashi-san. took the shinkansen up to akita station, found the tourist info booth, and they helped me buy a local train ticket at the "midori no madoguchi" or green ticket window. i sat around in the station sweating, rifling through my stuff, deciphering katakana, being stared at, and eating some more of the giant convenience store rice balls ive been subsisting on since i got here. just barely made the local train to wada station because i was standing at the wrong end of the platform, then at wada, where i was supposed to catch a connecting bus to the school and hotel, there was only an empty parking lot. while i was standing next to a rice paddy wondering what to do, a man pulled up to the station to drop off someone who was probably his mom. he saw me walking in circles and waved me over to his car. i put my luggage in the back and then walked over to what i'm accustomed to being the passenger side, which is the drivers side here, so i had to amble back to the other side of the car looking like a dolt. in the car, i spit out all the japanese i could think of, which ammounts to comments about the weather and inviting him to my room for a drink, and he spit out all the english he could think of. he pointed out his house on the way to the school, and i asked him if the music he was listening to was enka, just so i could drop that word in there. we pulled up to the school, which looked more like a summer camp, and he told my story to some administrators. they asked takahashisan if he could drop me off at the hotel, and we rode over. i thanked him 18 or 19 times, and he drove off.

i'm finally here, and if it werent for takahashi-san, i'd still be sitting next to a rice paddy in the dark. now i'm sitting in my room at hotel #2 with some vending machine beer, watching some local tv. it's all working out so far in a broke ass haphazard way. i've been covered in sweat and sore from pulling my bags around all weekend, but now i get to rest.

my room here has a balcony. the mascot for akita city is a sporty cartoon pine tree, so the trees outside my room have big plastic faces hanging in them.