The Beach (Picture Heavy)

There's a bike path along the river between where we are and downtown Kanazawa, the Saigawa river, that takes you out to the Sea of Japan. We went along the Saigawa River Cycling Path to check out the beach. It was an amazingly nice day, and only takes a little over an hour from our apartment to get to the ocean. It would take less than an hour if there weren't people on the sidewalks and traffic lights to wait for getting to the river, but once we're on the river, it's pretty clear and open. There are a couple of places on the path that give me the heebie jeebies because there's a drop to the river on one side and a drop into someone's garden on the other, but for the most part, it's a nice wide open path. There was some really nice scenery, and once everything is in bloom it will be amazing. There are some areas with cherry trees, and once it gets to Hanami, or cherry blossom viewing season, the grassy areas along the river will be filled with people out for picnics under the cherry trees. We can't wait to see what they look like in bloom. It should be early April, so we shouldn't be waiting too long!


The beach here is one of the most trash-filled beaches I've ever seen. It's disgusting. I really wanted to walk along the beach barefoot, but that was just not an option with the amount of trash. Near the surf, it was pretty clear, but it's still March and not too warm at that! We'll have to go to another beach or just be more adventurous next time.


There was a very interesting wall made of, well, concrete jacks. Or at least, that's what they looked like to me! It goes off to the horizon, except for a few breaks here and there, allowing the ocean and boats to go in and out. I didn't see any No Swimming signs, so I assume that you can swim at least on the beach side of this wall. It's kind of bizarre to see huge concrete jacks in a line, as if a giant hadn't cleaned up his toys, extending further than you can see.


Once we got to the beach, we found a vending machine that sold Sprite! Apparently, you have to bike an hour to get some Sprite around here! Here is a picture of Japanese vending machines; in the larger one, the top row with the red line underneath is all hot drinks, and the bottom two with the blue lines are cold:


The whole time, we could see the snow-covered mountains off in the distance. Very cool. We took quite a few pictures of them from different areas. As always, more pictures can be seen on Flickr.

Remodeling

My office has gotten remodeled. We used to be in our own separate offices, maybe two teachers to an office, in different workshop style classrooms. The offices were walled off from the classroom space with these movable half glass half metal walls. The Powers That Be decided we should all share an office, to better utilize the space available. We turned half of one classroom into an open office for most of the MechE teachers, and reorganized the rest of the space into a more efficient working area for the students. I don't have any before pictures, sorry. I do have during and after pictures of my office setup.

During the renovations, we were moved into a classroom across the hall. It was exam time, so no students would be needing the classroom for classes. The six MechE teachers that would be moving in together shared the classroom. Behold, my workspace for a couple of weeks:

I don't have as much stuff as some of the other guys. Laptop, printer, some books, not too much. Now, we are in our lovely new digs, with dividers so we can ignore the guy across from us:

I get my very own bookshelf to keep my few books on! Lee and I only brought one set of engineering books with us, thinking it was stupid and wasteful to bring multiples, so we're leaving them at home. You can see my lovely pile of Japanese books, including Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, and the strange hole punch apparatus. The papers here only have two holes instead of three. Madness, I tell you, madness!

So this is where I do my work. When I'm not actively teaching, of course. Wish me luck, the new year starts in two weeks!

Bamboo Forest

We went out for a walk on Sunday. We have these lovely hills filled with bamboo behind our house, so went up to check them out. We learned that there are some interesting things back there, like a little road and some small farms, a valley that was mostly cleared of trees for some reason (landslide? selective cutting?) and that bamboo is very photogenic. There may also be bears. At least, we think that's what this sign meant:


It was very peaceful and refreshing to go walking up in the semi-wilderness. There are supposedly deer and monkeys, but we saw no wildlife. When the wind blows, the bamboo knock against each other and it sounds like they're all falling down. I tried to get a video, but the wind didn't want to blow when I was ready to capture the undulating bamboo. The way in was mostly uphill, so we had some great views of Kanazawa as well. The tall building you can see left of center in the picture of the city below is the library building of KIT.

Go here for more pictures!

Yes, I Fell

Gaijin - gai·jin (gī'jēn', -jĭn')
n. pl. gaijin
A non-Japanese person.

[Japanese : gai, outside, foreign (from Middle Chinese ŋwajh) + jin, person; see jinriksha.]

Trap -trap (trāp)
n.

1. A contrivance used for catching game or other animals, as a mechanical device that springs shut suddenly.
2. Any device, stratagem, trick, or the like for catching a person unawares.

Gaijin Trap: ditches along the side of the road in Japan used for irrigation which tend to befuddle foreigners.


I am now well acquainted with this particular stretch. Or, rather, my bike is. Luckily, I just got some scrapes and bruises. If you look at the picture from the prior post, you can see the bike angled directly at the ditch, and me looking back at the camera. This was a mistake. I looked forward just in time to fall in.

Lee's questions were:

1. Are you okay?
2. Is the bike okay?
3. Did anyone see that?

Yes, my friends, I fell into the ditch. We all knew I would sooner or later, it's just a good thing it was at a low speed and no one was there (except Lee) to make fun of me for it. To further illustrate the size of this thing:


Yes, they really are that deep. Some are deeper. This is why the next time we went out, we bought helmets.

All definitions, except for Gaijin Trap, taken from www.dictionary.com.

New Bikes!

We can now get ourselves around town without walking forever! Ooooh, shiny!


These are pretty good mountain bikes, not top of the line but not Huffys either. We've taken them out a couple of times to go to places we've only been driven to so far. It's good to be more mobile. Now the debate is whether or not to add a basket to the front for easy grocery carrying!

Both bikes are Specialized, Lee's is a Hardrock Sport in Gloss White (the one in the back) and Ana's is a Myka in Cream and Orange, I think (the one in the front). Apparently Japan no longer sells that bike, I could only find it on the US version of the site, which doesn't show the colors I have. I guess I got one of the last in Japan, since it was still on the website as of two weeks ago. I wanted it in the Satin Black/Lavendar you can see on the site, but they didn't have any in the warehouse here in Japan, so I got the cream/orange version you see in the picture. I think I like it better than I would have liked the black one. It's nice.

Here's another picture. When we got back from furniture shopping (we still needed a coffee table, a nice bookshelf for yarn and wine, and kitchen storage stuff) Lee wanted to take a happy picture of me on my bike:


Ten points to anyone who can figure out what happened after this picture was taken!

Hinamatsuri

March 3rd is Hinamatsuri, or Doll's Festival. This is a day for families with girls to put out a display of dolls. The dolls include one representing the Emperor, one for the Empress, and a few musicians and servants.

One of the women I work with gave me a lovely display of amazing origami creations to introduce me to this festival:


The Emperor is the green one and the Empress is the pink one. The two pink cranes are joined at the wing, and were folded that way! Me, I would have folded them separately then used tape or glue. The green ones are kissing, and were joined there before the folding as well. The corner of the paper is another crane connected by its wingtips to the paper. I'm astounded by it!