Ebi-fry Shodo

I just caught a little blip on some sort of Japanese "on the street" show that featured a guy who dresses in a cape and salmon hat (as in a baseball cap that has a really large salmon fish model attached to the top) and plays the guitar on a building roof, next to which a local commuter train line runs. From what I could gather he does it just to entertain the passengers riding by on the train. He's apparently a fixture, because the show's interviewer caught up with a guy passing by on the street who shouted up greetings to "Salmon Man" and said he always looks forward to Salmon Man's performances.

The second short segment was about a guy who writes Japanese calligraphy on plates with brown sauce and fried shrimp (the long, straight kind), i.e. "Ebi-fry Shodo" (Fried Shrimp Japanese Calligraphy). It was pretty funny, and then the story went on to show his work in newspapers and magazines in Tokyo!

Love it!

3rd Time's a Charm

Oh yeah......by the way, for those of you who don't know, I did indeed re-contract for a 3rd year. :-)

3rd and final?

Actually, the maximum recontracting limit changed from 3 years to 5 years shortly after I arrived in Japan. At this point, I have to admit that staying for at least a 4th year, if not a 5th, seems pretty appealing.

Cliffhanger....

She's Ba-ack!

Whoa! Where did I go?! Well, anyway, I’m back!

First things first, luckily, I'm not anywhere near the area where the 7.0 earthquake hit this morning (8:30-ish AM Japan time on 6/14). I'm down near the Tokyo area. If you hear about a big earthquake near the Tokyo area, then you're allowed to worry. ;-)

Sorry I haven’t posted a blog for so long, but it’s been a very busy first half of the year. From what I’ve heard from most of you, it has been for you too! Busy + computer memory problems that forced me to go shopping for an external hard drive in Tokyo’s electronics district which I put off as long as possible = no blogs. :-) Sorry!

I have a lot to catch you up on, including stuff from last year I recently realized I never wrote about! For example, it’s coming up on the 1-year anniversary of my having to take and pass the Japanese Driving Test (both written and practical, thank you very much). I’m very much remiss for not having all of you experience that little slice of heaven with me. But don’t you worry, your chance will be coming to a blog-near-you soon enough.

I also failed to regale you with the tale of my fabulously long bout with the norovirus during the winter holiday. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg!

With such wonderful stories in the pipeline, I’m sure you’re all sitting on the edge of your seats, waiting anxiously for the next installment (ha ha).

Just to tide you over, here are two recent photos of me doing weird and/or very-Japanese stuff. The first is me taking my cheerleading role at my current junior high school's sports festival as "seriously" as possible. The second photo is from last weekend's stint as a "flower daughter" at my town's annual Iris Flower Festival. Some of you may recall that I served the same capacity last year. :-) I even made the prefectural newspaper this year. More on those events in the soon-to-follow update blogs!