The story of a teacup that resembled a shot glass and a cheery drunken fisherman that hit on me.

2 Mondays ago (I almost forgot to tell this story!), I hopped a bus to my seaside pottery class (it really is across from the main port of Akita). I had a wonderfully relaxing and tiring time (kneading clay and using the potter's wheel takes a lot of energy) making some flower-type pots/vases and salad bowls (gifts). As I readied to leave my sensei (teacher) loaded me down with 2 grocery bags of some of my finished pieces (mugs for many of you who are reading this, and a couple of tiny handleless cups that were really supposed to be Japanese style teacups for my mom but in reality largely resembled shot glasses) and I went merrily on my way to find something yummy to eat while I was waiting for the bus back. I bought my onigiri (fish, rice, seaweed sandwiches), meandered over to a park alongside the port, and sat down to my lunch and solitude with a contended sigh. A peaceful view overlooking the sea... some time to reflect... a break from the grasping claws of time and schedule... and if I concentrated really hard I could pretend that there wasn't oodles of traffic whizzing past behind my back. My mind wandered, my eyes glazed, and for a while I was not in a busy city nor under the constraint of time and expectations or responsibilities. And then my daydreaming was abruptly interupted by a careening speed boat of grinning fishermen. I hoped in vain that they wouldn't pull their boat in near me and that I could go back to being oblivious to the world, but no such luck. They pulled up right beside me and I couldn't help but look at them and what they were doing. And then the undesireable happened. I was noticed. arg. Please leave me alone. Nope. All but one fisherman were quite happy in leaving me be, munching on my onigiri, but this one was bound and determined to get more out of my attention than a curious side-glance. He waved. I waved back. He motioned for me to come over. With determined body language I declined. He held up a large string of fish. I gave him 2 thumbs up. He must have misinterpreted that to mean an OK to approach and invade my comfortably happy solitude because he jumped out of his boat and grinning, made his way over. What I got from his Japanese was that he wanted to know if I wanted a ride. hmmm This could either be very fun or a very bad idea, but I didn't have much time to think about it because he picked up my bags of pottery and started heading back to his boat. Thankfully, the group of men unloading called his attention away from me, each one handing him some money. I can only assume he was their shouffer for a morning fishing excursion. Most of the fishermen went on their way, not too interested in what else was going on. A couple guys stayed and I was thankful, because as soon as they started talking to him and as soon as I got close enough to inhale him, it was quite obvious he was pretty dang drunk. You might be wondering why I hadn't noticed it before. Well, at this point he was standing between me and the water which meant that the wind was blowing his odour into me instead of away from me. And before he just seemed cheery. Now I understood the reason for his apparent cheeriness. He was still quite determined to give me a ride, and I was mostly definitely determined not to be given one. I imagined myself stranded in the middle of the Japan Sea with a drunk captain and having to swim my way back to Akita because of unwanted advances or whatever and then getting caught in seaweed or the tide or a random abandoned fishing net or a quickly approaching storm and sinking to the bottom of the sea (Hey! What are imaginations for, right?!). So I fibbed. Kind of. I said my bus was coming soon and I didn't have time for a ride. True. It was coming. In 40 minutes. I didn't mention there were other buses I could have caught later. But I stayed and chatted with the 3 of them for a little while. They were pretty nice. Except the drunk sea captain couldn't understand anything I was saying and kept laughing. Which made me laugh because he was being utterly ridiculous. Then they got curious about why I was at the port and what was in my bags. And I explained that my pottery class was there in Tsuchizaki (the port neighborhood) and that my pottery was in the bags. After a slight pause and confused silence one of them exclaimed "YOUR pottery???" And then they wanted to see it. So I carefully unwrapped a few mugs and showed them. They examined them and muttered things that expressed their disbelief (shinjirarenai!, segoui!, iina!) and then wanted to know what the little ones were. I unwrapped the first teeny shotglass-looking teacup and the drunk sea captain exclaimed in a loud cheery voice "asldkfahg;as SAKE akdflks!!!! SAKE DAISKI!!" Which means: 'alksdjfhlaksdfh a JAPANESE WHISKEY ;aalsdjf!!!! JAPANESE WHISKEY IS MY FAVORITE!!' I assumed the first part had something to do with the teacup looking like a shot glass, and my suspicion was confirmed when he all but grabbed it from my hand in exchange for 1000 yen ($10). I laughed. And so did the other 2. I'd never sold any of my pottery before. I'd always given them away as gifts and had whatever was left snatched away by my mom (grins). Kat, I'm saving this story for my kids! And incase anyone ever wonders when and how and to whom I sold my very first piece of pottery. After a while I excused myself and, with a smile on my face, wandered over to my bus stop and caught my bus back. And thus ends my story of a teacup that resembled a shot glass and the cheery drunken fisherman that hit on me.

:)

I hate saying goodbye.

It hurts.

It makes my eyes all puffy and red and my nose stuffed. And it gives me a headache.

And it shreads my heart into little bits.

I'm looking forward to that day far in the future when the word goodbye will no longer exist.

sharing the love

So way back in May when I came back to Japan with henna dancing across my foot, my friend Brooke suggested we get some and do it (she'd never done it before). We labored over what kind to get and checked 453,000 websites (just kidding. it was only 371,000), finally ordered some, and last night was the big night. grins

It was fun.

A lot of fun. :)







And we watched "Where the Heart Is" while hennaing each other. One of my favorite chick flicks.

AND we ate chocolate and drank Irish tea with milk and sugar...

Altogether a delightfully wonderful night. grins

a roof with a view ;)

maybe once a summer I see clouds like these... they always always leave me stunned... transfixed. Standing unmoving, awed.


the mountains, deceivingly inky. grins calling me to leave my roof top and come play. :)

another beautiful sunset. :) i never tire of them.

who would have thought such wonders could grow on a roof :)

me and my beautiful roof-growth. grins

today was a good day. the end of another fun escapade to the roof.

2 random facts about today. no! 3.

random fact #1:
This morning I fed stale rice crackers to a frenzied mob of big-mouth carp on the way to the train station to go to church. 'Twas one of the happiest moments of my morning. :)
Lesson learned: Mottainai (Japanese for: waste not). Save stale rice crackers for hungry frenzied mob of big-mouth carp.

random fact #2:
I took a zillion close-ups of these incredibly gorgeous hydrangea outside my apt window. Wished I could have turned into a very miniature me for a little while and bounded across the puddles of water caught on the colorful petals.
some pictures:




(this one is from this past Monday)

random fact #3:
A very handsome police officer rang my doorbell this afternoon. ;) He was so flustered to see a foreigner answer the door that he didn't quite know what to do (it was cute). He took down my name and birthday and where I worked, and said he was from the local police station and if I ever needed help I should call his cellphone anytime and he'd come.
hahaha
HELP! ;)
grins

every cloud has a silver lining...

and every equation on the GRE has a solution. grins Thanks Steve!! (Dan Holcomb's brother) :)

the current bane of my existence.

I



HATE



MATH.



EVIL MATH.



EVIL MATH.



EVIL MATH.

Sorry for all of you out there who happen to find it stimulating and a joyful way to while away the hours.

ps. Please lend me yours brains for the GRE. And somebody please PLEASE explain to me how applied algebra is supposed to apply to real life situations when I NEVER THINK LIKE THIS IN REAL LIFE. EVER! Who on earth contemplates questions such as this: "Pat invested a total of $3000. Part of the money yields 10% interest per year, and the rest yields 8% interest per year. If the total yearly interest from this investment is $256, how much did Pat invest at 10% and how much at 8%?" huh??? Kill me now. How am I supposed to come up with a functioning equation when I don't even understand how the question translates??? oi. Give me language any day. Anybody hiring out as an applied algebra tutor? seriously. Word math problems have forever eluded me. Words and math just don't mix very well in my head... something like oil and water.