You Win (And So Does Oita!)

Wow! I am overwhelmed by the unprecedented outpouring of comments this week. Good job, everyone! And as promised, here is my concession blog.

Overall, this was a pretty uneventful week. Since last Saturday...it's basically just been a lot of work. I taught a lot of silly classes (including 3 feigned trips and falls off of the teachers' stage...to unified "oooooh"s), wrote some test questions, and listened to about 700 NPR podcasts.

Tori and I also took a couple of long, long bike rides. One ride took us to a book store with tons of foreign books (we stocked up!), and another took us to the big soccer stadium...where...not-so-coincidentally...there was a soccer game being played. We bought a couple of tickets and ended up in the "supporter" section...which turned out to be the section for all the fans that come on a regular basis. There were cheerleaders (teenage guys with bullhorns and drums) who kept the crowd singing and clapping the entire game. Everyone but us seemed to know the chants (even the 3 and 4-year-olds), and they all seemed to have Oita Trinita jerseys. So...we felt a little out of place, but what's new, right? We're white people in Japan...totally awkward is the new comfortable for us. I don't know what we're going to do when we get back to the U.S. and we just blend in. It's weird to think about.

Here are a few photos from the game (courtesy of Tori):

Our view of the field:

I was hoping to catch a foul ball, but...no dice:

We don't think these kids asked to come to the game:

The hometown heroes. They beat a team that's rumored to be #2 in Japan!:

Fans shuffling out after the game:

The roof of the dome (called the Big Eye)...pretty cool, eh?:

More fans from our section of the stadium:


Alrighty...so, that just about wraps up my week. Same deal this week...if 6 people comment...I write another one next Saturday. This time, though...please sign your comments...I have a sneaking suspicion that someone (who shall remain nameless) submitted multiple entries. :)

Thanks for reading.

Is This A New Record??

Almost two months without a blog entry! Incredible, innit?

Tori's been doing a GREAT job keeping y'all updated on our most exciting adventures, but I've had a few developments of my own.

I recently got my bike back from Andy (while we were in Tokyo, there was an Oita-wide charity bike ride, so I lent it out for a while). And...ever since I got it back, the weather has been absolutely gorgeous, so I've been riding to work again. It's nice not to be at the mercy of the busses. It also makes the trip home about 4 times as fast as walking! Tori and I have gotten to take some nice, relaxing rides in the sunshine, too. Today we did about 20 miles to a mall and back (and boy do our tucheses hoit!). The sun was out in full force and our necks and shoulders took the brunt of it. I'm as red as a...uh...a Maraschino cherry. A really old, semi-rotten, lost-most-of-it's-pizazz Maraschino cherry.

SIDE NOTE: We went to said mall in order to check out the kickin' foreign foods...and ended up eating yakisoba. We saw no foreign food...unless, of course, you count the KFC and McDonald's...but they're all over Japan.

What else is new? Oh yes, in keeping with my tradition of procrastination, I recently made a New Year's resolution. Better late than never, right? I've been feeling a little scrawny and out of shape for about 5 years now, so I decided it was time to do something about it. So...on April 1st, I weighed 68 Kg (just under 150 lbs) and I decided to blow myself up to an impossible 75 Kg (165 lbs) by the time we leave in August. I joined a "gym" (an ex-bodybuilder's garage with some weights in it) and have been lifting 5-6 days a week (and eating like a hog)...and things are going well. I'm over 71 Kilo already...so I think I'm going to make it!

To make sure all of the weight I gained wasn't from empty calories, I also decided not to eat any chocolate for 30 days. I went off the cacao on April 1st and abstained in the face of unrelenting temptation (including, but not limited to, a stash of peanutbutter M&Ms and chocolate-covered ice-cream bars) for what I thought was 30 days. Imagine my surprise when (after eating 2 chocolate Krispy Kremes), I was giving a video recap of our day and I relized...it was only April 30th. So...I fell a day short. We decided to count it anyway, 'cause really...29 days is pretty good, yeah?

Phil and I finally started getting serious about recording a CD while in Japan, so we set aside some time to record some new songs and redo the old ones. From a list of over 20 original songs, we whittled it down to 14 essentials and started laying down some guitar tracks. It's always slow going with this kind of stuff, but we got 7 songs worth of guitar tracks done in just one Saturday (that's pretty good, by the way). Hopefully we'll be able to do some more soon. Time's getting short...only 3 months left!

Here are a few pictures of our high-tech studio:







Today, we picked up some baseball gloves and a baseball, too! That may not seem too excited to the untrained ear, but...let me tell you...it's exciting. Exciting like a hamster on your 4th birthday. We've been looking for some cheap gloves for a long time, but the majority of them are well over $100...and we're really not that good at playing catch.

So...that's what's going on in my neck of the woods. What's new with y'all??

THIS WEEK'S CHALLENGE: If more than 6 people comment and/or email me in response to this blog by Friday, I'll promise to write another one by next Saturday. Scout's honor.