Well, so much for the typhoon and a day off from work. I woke up this morning to party sunny skies, no wind, no rain, and clear train tracks. Last night there was a downpour around 1:00am and some wind. I know cause I had my windows open and was getting wet. So I closed the windows slightly and went back to sleep expecting to wake up to some pretty substantial weather. But when I woke up a little after six there was a bright sun and nothing else. I was pretty disappointed. But like mom always said, you can't count on the weather.
Actually she never said that. She nor dad were ever much for giving me or Rigel advice. At least not in the form of words of wisdom. Nothing like the old reliables: "Don't count your chickens before they're hatched" or "A penny saved is a penny earned" or "Remember to step on the clutch before you turn the key." Nope. Their kind of advice came in the form of "I advise you to do better on your next report card" or "I advise you to stop hitting your brother" or the always popular "If you want that album, I advise you to get a job."
I do, though, remember one piece of advice from my father that amounted to a solid piece of fathering. It was when I was learning to drive and only had that permit which allows you to drive with one of your parents. We came to four way stop and another car driven by a female arrived at the same time from either the right or left. Of course, being a new driver I hesitated and she ended up going first. No big deal to me but I wasn't sure about the protocol for such an occurrence. But dad immediately set me straight. He said, "Son, when you come to a four way stop and you arrive at the same time as another car, look to see if the driver is male or female. If it's a female you can usually go first as they will hesitate." Now, before you ladies out there tell me that my dad is a sexist I must inform you that he was right. I have found his advice to be sound and his words of wisdom to be true at least 97.3% of the time. So that's not sexism, that's just the way it is.
Anyway, no typhoon for me. It is a bit windy this afternoon but the skies are blue and Fuji is crystal clear.

Alright, that's it for this evening. I must do some laundry and just wanted to let you know that I didn't drown.

We've got a typhoon on the way. It was headed for China but seems to have decided that Japan was more to its liking. It is currently to Kofu's southwest and closing in. Should be here in a few hours. The skies are already quite dark and cloudy and there is a light rain falling. CNN is telling me that around the time it gets to me we'll be seeing about 90mph winds. Guess I should stock up on beer for this one.
I was sent home a little early by school today and I found out that they will be off tomorrow. Unfortunatly, I am not at that school tomorrow. I am at the academy tomorrow. Not sure about the status there. But I do have to take a train there and we'll see if those things are running in the morning.
I like bad weather.

Sumo was fun. Introduced about 20 or so people to the sport. Was happy to be able to do that.
As far the basho itself goes, it was a bit different this time. Asashoryu ended up with a 9-6 record. Amazingly bad for him. He looked off form the entire basho. Not sure if anything more is going on with him but we all have our off days (or bashos) I guess.
Kaio won the thing with a 13-2 record and from what I read will be up for yokozuna promotion in November. I hope he does well, wins the basho, beats Asashoryu and gets the promotion. Not that I want Asashoryu to lose but I just really want to see someone get promoted to yokozuna before I leave Japan. This will probably be my last chance as these opportunities don't come around very often.
Kokkai had his first losing record in the makkuchi division going 7-8. But that ain't terrible so he won't fall too far in the rankings. Roho, the Russian, and Kotooshu, the Bulgarian, ended up with winning records and will slightly climb the rankings.
The ozeki (second ranking) Musoyama pulled out with an injury a couple days after Tochiazuma did so both will have to do well in November to retain their ozeki status. Chiyotaikai ended up at a disappointing 8-7 and like I said, Kaio won the whole thing.
Was a very interesting basho.

Amy and I are thinking about going to New Zealand for xmas. Not sure if we will as we have to think about money (like ya' do) but if we do go we'd tag along with a young lady named Michelle who is from there and now lives near Mt. Fuji. She came to Japan about the same time we did and is a fellow JET.
If we don't do that we are talking about heading off for Osaka, Kyoto and possibly Hiroshima. I actually think that this trip would be more expensive than going to New Zealand as we'd have to stay at hotels the entire time. If we went to New Zealand I am sure that we could stay with Michelle's family at least part of the time.
Anyway, we'll see.

Ok, just a quick update so you don't think the typhoon carried me away. Course, it ain't here yet and still could.

Today Amy and I and the rest of Japan were on holiday due to it being the first day of Autumn. They do this in the Spring too. I like it.
Anyway we took a day trip over to Motsumoto which is a small city, probably about the same size as Kofu (200,000), and about an hour's train ride to the northwest. It is in the neighboring prefecture of Nagano (you might have heard this name from the winter olympics a few years ago).
Motsumoto is a nice town. Very clean and everyone seemed friendly. The main attraction there is a castle which we visited and of which you can see pictures below. We also did a little shopping and ate at a British style pub. We both had curry and I, of course, had a pint of beer.
Anyway, check out the pics below. Was a nice day.

This is the castle in Motsumoto. Its history goes back to 1504 when it existed as a smaller fort. It was later, 1593, remodeled into what you see here and has existed as such ever since. In the late 1800s it was nearly demolished for its parts (stupid idiots) but was saved by a few guys and in 1952 the Japanese government declared it a national treasure. 

From inside the moat but outside the castle. Nice grounds. 

Bridge and castle. 

Samurai garb. I know what it's like to wear this kind of stuff. 

Amy and the castle. 

Here's a shot from the top floor. 

This place had six floors and all took a little effort to get up to in the form of steep stairs that at times seemed more like ladders than staircases. And everything was wood. 

Not really sure what is going on here. The owner of this little scene was sitting off to the side and watching people go by. I'm not sure if he was selling rides in the carriage or the paintings he was displaying or both. Dog and horse made for an interesting picture though. 

And this was another happy little duo. 

Motsumoto is a good looking and very clean small city. This is a shot of a river running through the downtown area.  

Some temple in Motsumoto. 

Wish I could keep my place this clean. 

Amy's about to eaten by a FLOWER!!! AHHHH!!! 

No, I'm not drunk, just happy to be drinking a beer on a train in Japan.  

Sumo is now four days into the current basho. Today is day five and in about 3 hours I will be at home watching the fights. Each basho is interesting for different reasons and this one is no exception.
A little about sumo rankings before I begin discussing what it is I aim to discuss.
Sumo is made up of six major levels: makkuchi, juryo, makushita, sandanme, jonidan, and jonokuchi. Within these major levels are smaller levels at which each individual wrestler is ranked. For our purposes we will focus on only the top level, makkuchi. Within this level are about 40 guys, each ranked individually by the organizers of sumo. Starting at the top is the yokozuna rank from which one can never be demoted. After the top rank and in decending order are the ozeki, sekiwake, komusubi, and then the numbered ranks of maegashira. This last ranking usually features about 30 guys who are numbered maegashira #1 all the way down to about maegashira #16 or #17. Each maegashira rank is used twice due to their being east and west representatives (the directions are arbitrary) meaning that two guys will be ranked at, say, the maegashira #8 ranking, one from the east and one from west.
From what I understand (and I am still learning) there can be anywhere from one to three yokozuna at any given time. Right now there is, of course, only one, Asashoryu. The ozeki rank usually sees about four guys at any given time and then the sekiwake and komusubi ranks are usually made up of two each. Below this, of course, are the maegashira ranks as mentioned above.
For most rikishi (sumo wrestlers) that make it to the makuuchi ranks the maegashira is where they'll spend much of their careers, usually moving up a couple spots as a result of a winning record in one basho and then moving down a couple spots as the result of a losing record in the next. A rikishi's record determines everything in this sport. There is a world of difference between finishing a basho at 8-7 than there is at finishing up at 7-8. 8-7 means you are guaranteed not to be demoted, 7-8 means that you are fair game to fall down the rankings. Essentially there is no difference between going 10-5 and 8-7, but I'm not so sure I believe that. Seems to me that 10-5 might mean you get promoted and 8-7 might mean they leave you where you are, generally speaking (but what do I know?). Once you attain the ozeki rank in order to be demoted you must finish two consecutive basho with a losing record. Yokozuna, I think I mentioned before, cannot be demoted...ever. But if a yokozuna starts to lose on a regular basis he is, shall we say, shown the door through which retirement awaits. I think, though, that most of these guys have a sense of honor that tells them to retire before the federation ever has to request it.
So with these rankings in mind let's look at this basho.
There are now three Europeans in the top tier, the makuuchi ranks, of sumo. From what I read or heard, Kokkai was the first Europoean ever to get up into this top level, which is comprised of about 40 rikishi, and he did it only in January of this year. He's been there ever since and now can compare his skin color to two others in the quest for the whitest makuuchi ranked rikishi.
Kokkai, you might remember, hails from the Republic of Georgia and has been steadily moving up the ranks. In January he moved into the makkuchi ranks claiming a maegashira #10 ranking. He finished at 8-7 in that basho and was promptly promoted one step up to an m9 (maegashira #9). In that basho he again finished at 8-7 and was promoted two spots to an m7. He finished 10-5 in May and the powers that be decided, "Ok, let's see what this kid's really got" and promoted him up to an m2 rank. Again, though, Kokkai finished with a winning record, 8-7, and for the current basho is ranked an m1. Unfortunately he is not off to a good start and today is at 1-3. So we'll see how it goes for him.
The two other eastern Europeans are Roho, from Russia, and Kotooshu, from Bulgaria. This is their first basho in the makkuchi ranks and they are ranked at m15 and m14 respectively. I don't know too much about them yet but will be interested to see how they do in this basho. As of today Roho is sitting on a 4-0 record and Kotooshu is 3-1.
The ozeki are the other guys I like to focus on. At the start of this basho there were four, but as of yesterday only three remained. Tochiazuma, who sat out most of the March basho and all of the May basho with a shoulder injury, injured one of his knees on Tuesday and pulled out. This is a real shame because in January of this year he was up for a possible yokozuna promotion. In fact, because he sat out what was effectively two basho, he was demoted to sekiwake for the July basho. But he impressed with a 10-5 record and reclaimed his ozeki ranking for this basho. We'll have to see what happens over the next few months with this guy.
Musoyama, another ozeki, had to fight for his life, or rank, in the July basho after going 6-9 in the May basho. He finished at only 8-7 and was lucky to do so, but he, at least, saved himself from demotion. From the looks of it he has peaked and is on his way down. At 32 he is old man in the sumo world and I've read that he will retire if he loses his form. He is currently 1-3.
Kaio is also a 32 year old ozeki but unlike Musoyama he looks to still have a lot of fight left in him. I, for one, would love to see him get the yokozuna ranking but that road goes through Asashoryu and so far Kaio doesn't seems quite capable of beating him on a regular basis. Kaio has finished the last four basho at 10-5, 13-2, 10-5, and 11-4. Normally a 13-2 record is good enough to win a basho but in that month Asashoryu finished at 15-0. Kaio is now 3-1.
Of the current ozeki Chiyotaikai probably has the most realistic chance of attaining the yokozuna rank. He and Asashoryu fight well against each other and Chiyo is only 28, meaning that he still has a couple years to do it. Course, he'll need to do it soon before he starts losing his form. In March of this year Chiyo had a real chance of winning the basho but lost to Asashoryu and thereby sealed his fate. Really, it was the wrong time to have to face Asashoryu as he won 34 straight fights. But Chiyo is a good fighter and if Asashoryu slips he will certainly be there to claim the prize. Chiyo is now sitting on a 3-1 record.
The Yokozuna, Mr. Asashoryu, comes from Mongolia and is having a historical year. He has won all 4 basho this year, won 34 straight fights from January to May, and is doing all this at the ripe young age of 23/24 (his birthday is the 27th of this month). There isn't too much to say about his guy except that he is awesome. Right now he IS sumo. Unfortunately, he lost yesterday (is 3-1 now) when his foot slipped and he ended up under his opponent. But other than that he looks to be on form in this basho and I expect he will win his fifth straight Emperor's Cup.

Ok, folks, the decision has been made. It was easy to decide to stay here a second year. There was practically no thinking involved in that one. But the decision over a third year has proven a little more difficult to make. On the one hand, we could stay a third year and keep doing what we are doing; it isn't a bad job, the pay is good, the living quarters are nice, I've made many new friends, and I am getting used to not knowing what is going on half the time. On the other hand, my job is not as fun as it used to be and is frustrating sometimes, I've figured out that I'd rather write for a living than teach, I miss certain small things, and I am not sure how much I would get out of a third year. There is a delicate balance between leaving too early and possibly regreting it and staying too long and leaving with a bad taste in my mouth. It is with this in mind that I weigh the pros and cons to staying and leaving.
But like I said, the decision has now been made. We are leaving next summer.
We have decided that we are going to live in LA and Amy will work towards a Master's degree in Education and I will be her house boy, err, I mean, I will try to get some kind of job that will put a foot in the door in the world of writing. Writing what or doing what in that world, I have no idea, but I am sure the plan will come together eventually. Amy said I would probably start as a copy-editor or something like that. I really have no clue as to how I will get into this world but great things always start as nothing more than an idea.
The good thing about all this is that we've made the decision quite early and I feel I can get to work on researching my options before I'm actually there. How much I can (or will) do remains to be seen but at least I have an idea and some time.
So if you are going to come visit us over here you have been warned that we are leaving next summer. I would advise coming from anywhere around the February time to early June. After June we will probably be quite busy packing up and all that kind of stuff.

Today was mildly interesting. I got to the Minobu train station and went out to wait for the bus up to the school. But it never came. I waited for just under and hour with the sense of "Hmmm...." And then I did what anyone who has been forgotten would do...I boarded a train for Kofu. I wasn't sure (and am still not) what happened. Kobayashi-sensei may have screwed up the dates, the bus might have broken down, the driver could have been sick, I have no idea. But I checked my schedule and I was supposed to be there this morning. So I came back and walked into the Kencho and told them what happened. They then called the school and all I heard about was "Okay".
Living in the dark over here.

Sumo started yesterday and as you can imagine I am quite happy. I missed most of the last basho due to some wedding on some remote island on the other side of the planet, but I will get to see all of this one. Asashoryu is once again on a historic run. Only this time it isn't consecutive wins of individual fights, it's consecutive basho wins. He's won four straight as of now and if he wins this one will join two others for the five straight mark. One guy has done six straight but Asashoryu has to get through this one first before we should start discussing that record.
Anyway, I will keep you posted as I know you have come to expect.

In other sporting news, tonight I will be able to watch the first regular season football game over here. I'm not sure who's playing but I don't care. It's FOOTBALL!

Ok, that's all for today.

Oh, one more thing. My father brought it to my attention that the comments appeared to be for members of this journal only (of course that would just be me). My mistake and I have now fixed that. You'll have to post them anonymously and then just write your name in the text itself. We at Notes of Nihon apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you and would like to inform you that we are working diligently to avoid all future oversights.

I've got to get caught up with this thing. The more I fall behind the less likely I am to write about things. Too daunting a task.

Anyway, schools are going ok. After last Tuesday when I couldn't make it to Shizen Gakuen I was, indeed, able to make to Yuda on Wednesday, the academy on Thursday and Yamanashi Gakuen on Friday. All went well and it was nice to see everyone again. I took photos of the St. Kitts trip and basically talked about that, asked them about their summer vacations, etc. Was easy.
This week I had Tokai on Monday. Tokai is the new school, as of April, and requires a lot of patience from me. I'm pretty patient by nature, I think, so it's usually not too hard but this last Monday's morning didn't go so well. My first class consists of 31 students and a teacher who, although very nice, has no ability to disipline the little shits and therefore, I think, gets no respect from her students. They talk, they sleep, they don't answer questions when asked, they don't participate, etc. It really is a crap class. At one point on Monday, while the teacher was telling them something in Japanese, I counted 14 students with their heads down apparently sleeping. 14 out of 31! This is something you never find in the States, at least not where I went to high school. Sure the students may be disrepectful in other ways, but I don't really remember sleeping at all and certainly not the amount of noise that I find with this class. 14 out of 31 leaves 17 students, right? But that does not mean that the other 17 were paying attention. Most of them were gathered in small groups and were talking. I'd say perhaps three students were really listening to what was going on. At one point when I had to say something and they just kept talking I raised my voice and said, "Hey! Shutup!" to which they looked a little surprised and then listened.....for about 10 seconds.
Then my third class also sucked. I won't get into it but it's essentially more of the same. A meek female teacher who gets no respect, a bunch of students who don't speak English and don't care to try, kids who talk to each other and don't pay attention, kids who sleep, etc. It's amazing to me. If some class had tried that on one of my high school teacher I can assure you it wouldn't have lasted long. In America there is a sterotype of Asian students being bookish, smart, respectful, and interested in everything. Well, I am here to tell you that it ain't always true. In fact, it's much more the exception rather than the rule at Tokai.
So by lunchtime on Monday I had made my decision that this would be my last year in Japan. But hell, after good day yesterday at Yuda, I don't know. We'll see.

Tuesday I didn't go to school due to feeling terrible. A cold and headache. Still had it yesterday but felt much better and today, besides the cough, I am doing fine.

Fuji was a no-go. Rain rain and more rain. And lightning too.
We got up to the fifth station where you stop driving and start walking at about 645pm. It was raining but not too hard, and as we had a couple hours to kill until we were to start hiking we figured it might pass and waited.
If you are going to attempt to see the sunrise from atop the mountain you are supposed to start around 10pm. You don't want to get up there too early as there is no where to take shelter from the temperature and any wind you might encounter. Most people aiming to see the sunrise leave the fifth station around 930 to 1030pm, get to the top around 4am, watch the sunrise around 430 to 5am and then head down.
So at 645pm we had plenty of time.
But the rain never stopped. In fact, it got it got much much harder. By 730pm when the building at the station closed it was raining fairly hard. At this point we took refuge in our cars with Peter, the organizer of this event, and me agreeing that we'd meet back up at the building entrance in an hour to decide what to do. There were four cars and 14 of us so we settled in to wait out the hour.
But the rain got harder and harder. And the lightning became even more frequent. I was counting the seconds and came up with everything from 25 seconds to 3 seconds. And there seemed to be no pattern to it. It didn't appear as if the storm was coming and then going. First I'd count 20 seconds, then 10 seconds, then 17, then 5, etc. There was no pattern, which, to me, meant that the storm was just basically all around us. At one point I had to relieve myself and stepped out into the rain to do so. I was out there for possibly two minutes at most and when I got back to the car was soaked. And I don't mean that I was just wet. I could have lathered, rinsed and repeated if I'd had a bottle of shampoo. There was more water pressure out there than I have in my own shower!
It was about this point that I figured it might not happen. I was thinking way back to the time of my glorious and innocent childhood when my father decided that, together with his two sons, he would climb Fuji in similar conditions, minus the lightning. I don't remember details (you tend to block out the tramatic events in your life from what I understand) but we climbed for a long time before Rigel's and my complaining finally made sense to the old man and we turned back for shelter. That had also been a night climb and had also been in the heavy and cold rain and I was not going to do it again on this night. And especially not with Amy (you can figure out the reasons for that on your own).
So at 825pm I stepped back out in the conditions and went to the two other cars near ours and asked them what they thought so that I could have a general consensus for Peter. No one was willing to go at this point but we all agreed that we were willing to wait until about 10pm to see if the storm would blow over.
Then I ran up to the building entrance to find Peter. We had a quick discussion during which I told him of the group's thoughts to which he answered, "Ok, but here's the deal. The gates down the hill close at 9pm and if we don't leave now we are stuck up here till 5am no matter if we ever get to climb or not."
"Ok," I said and he agreed, "Let's leave now then." It didn't look as though the storm was going to blow over anytime soon and I did not want to be stuck in a car for the next eight hours. So I ran back down the hill and told all the cars what was going on. By this time it was 835pm and the drive back to the gate was roughly half an hour. Would be close.
So we took off in the hazardous conditions and made it to the gate as the guards were pulling it shut.
Close one.
And then we drove back to Kofu where it rained for much of the night.
We might try it this coming weekend but if we don't or if the conditions don't allow for it, it will be next summer before we can try it again.
Damn!