Shorai ni, Ego no Sensei ni Naru Tsumori Desu

it has been another goodly ammount of time since i last posted, and several occurences have transpired in the meanwhile. CARLS QUINN(!!) visited me last week, and i did the best i could with this little backwater burg - we went to the coolest building in town, a 4 storey job with a gallery, fabric shop, book store and cafe stacked on top of eachother, and stared out from the cafe windows at the river that runs through akita city. we also went to kakunodate, the nearby town with a few old samurai houses, by shinkansen. took a tour of some of the places and met the fellow with the giant beard that i mentioned from my first trip out there. the town was still covered in snow, and the houses were protected by giant wooden pallet things, so we couldn't see much, but it was a damn fine day anyhow. i also introduced her to a few folks here who hadn't yet taken off for their spring break plans. cai-shuan, a Taiwanese friend, was pretty jazzed to meet carls, and cooked up a special meal with everything she had left in her room: a packet of Taiwanese instant noodles, a single potato, a few eggs and 2 or three pieces of bread, and we ate it together. tried to take a walk in the woods, but the snow was still two feet deep out there, so we kind of abandoned those plans quickly and just watched people playing video games in the lobby that night. also saw senshu park, site of the old kubota castle, of which only one guard tower remains, which was of course closed for the winter, and went to the two museums in the park, one with an enormous 40 or 50 foot wide by 10 foot tall panoramic painting of famous Akita sites and happenings. we went to the kanto museum, and i tried hoisting one of the giant kanto poles, which didn't work out so well (them things is heavy), and saw a couple other museums, one in an old mid Meiji era bank, and another in an edo period haberdashery. she left in a taxi for the station early in the mornig last wednesday, and now i miss carls quinn very much.

i really have no idea what inna hell i did for the rest of last week...maybe a trip to the mall to wander around and a trip into town to eat and drink many items, after which we met a guy on the train with a mohawk and a pink tie, who claimed his job was "hole digger" and then gave his tie to one of the girls i was with.

then on sunday i went to sendai with a few people and was guided around by a friend who was home in sendai for the spring break. we saw the former site of sendai castle, which has been converted into a litle park and lookout point, because nothing is left but the enormous foundation. we could see the whole city up there, sendai being the largest city in the tohoku region, and the river that snakes around along the border of the business district. the castle was built by a samurai, date masamune, who wore an eye patch because one of his eyes was poisoned somehow. we wandered through a mile long street of shops covered by a domed roof, a kind of tunnel called cliss road, and bought some breaded kamaboko (fish cakes) on a stick, a sendai specialty. the next day, we went out to the pacific ocean to tour around matsushima, an area of hundreds of tiny islands, each with a name, and most having some kind of legend or poem or history of some sort attached to them, and walked out on a long bridge to a larger island with a view of the bay. the boat was swarmed by seagulls for the entire tour, because people feed them shrimp flavored chips from the observation deck, and one of the birds took a big steaming crap on the arm of one of the people i was with.

after the tour, we ate lunch at a place that serves another sendai specialty, "gyutan", or cow tongue. it took the entirety of the trip to work up the gall to try it, but it wasn't all that bad, maybe just a little rubbery and in need of some horseraddish. we bumped into another student on her way home for the break, and checked out some temples at the top of a whole bunch of stairs, and then headed for the bus that took us back to akita city.

a fine few weeks it's been. next week i head to the island of hokkaido to toole around sapporo and a town called hakodate with a giant star shaped castle, and maybe we'll spend some time in aomori, the prefecture to the north with all the apples in it. mother also makes an appearance the week after that, so there will be more guiding and wandering tied to that event.

oh, hey, i forgot that i also spent a day last week teaching 5 year olds some english, singing songs, reading stories, and playing a fruit name game, after which we went to the house of a guy who makes tofu where everyone on the trip made and ate a little bowl full, and walked along a black volcanic ash beach on the sea of japan.