Week 2 - Fog, Classes, and Book Off

Our first week here was deceptive. We were warned time and time again by people who were running the program, other long-term students and Japanese natives that yes, June is the rainy season.We had such a nice run of sunny days and pleasant weather.

Whelp...this week showed us what the rainy season means when you're almost 1000ft up a mountain. This is the sight that greeted me on Monday morning heading to class. Sitting up as high as APU's campus does, while we do indeed get rain, we also get clouds that sit their cottony bums right on top of us, shoving visibility down to as shoddy as 10ft. In an odd contrast to this is our classrooms, which seem to border on 'too bleedin' hot,' despite the cooler weather outside...it's odd.

Classes aren't at all bad, the pace is picking up a bit, and thus, so is the homework. Also, this week, I had my first meeting of my Legal Framework of Tourism class. The 2 previous meetings had been cancelled due to our professor being in Iran at the time for...I don't remember if he said. At any rate, it looks to be an interesting class, he at least is amusing: a New Zealander that spent a number of years working in London...makes for an interesting accent. So I get to have a class about what the framework of law that's behind the scenes when you get screwed by a hotel or airline taught to me by a sarcastic aussie. I love it.

Not every day's been crappy this week, Wednesday was quite delightful on the weather front, as seen here. Weather's clear, we get a really nice long view, sometimes clear across Beppu Bay to Oita City or the north edge of the bay.
The day's classes went by at a reasonable pace; we learn in C that we'll be having other teachers taking Yamamoto-sensei's place for the next ~week since she'll be in Paris for a conference. Unfortunate for her, she'd love to spend at least a month there.

With the weather as fortunately nice as it was, several of us had made plans to go down to town to find the used book/cd/dvd/game/everything else (almost literally) store by the name of Book Off, wander a little bit, and do some grocery shopping. We have our tasty and inexpensive lunch at the cafeteria, head back to the AP Houses, and meet up at the bus stop to head down the mountain.
The bus arrives and takes us down to town, we get off at our right stop and walk a few blocks down towards Book Off, and happen to notice the bakery that's situated out in front...called cram. I still need to go back there and try their offerings...

Book Off...hoo. Take your 'normal' used book/cd/dvd store (Ed McKays for the Raleigh/Greensboro people), and throw a room upstairs that has, well...just about anything else used. Clothing, furniture, appliances, gift sets, toys, jewelry, watches, purses, luggage...the list goes on and on. I found a light green yukata I may go back for...inexpensive, really nice, and apparently the color suits me quite well. Just gotta get a koshihimo and a good obi to go with it.
At any rate, I did find several good CDs by some artists Kevin introduced me to, one of the group CDs, and a few of the guitarist's solo projects. Great stuff.

We leave Book Off and head further south, aiming for the hyaku en shop, the Sega Arcade, and points beyond. Connor's not alone this time in pachinko playing...seems Malia's got the bug too; we ended up a bit delayed trying to get them away from their machines <___<;;

Wandering around near the Takegawara onsen, we went down one of the shopping arcades again, and opt to try a little hole in the wall food joint that looks cheap and tasty. This place was the proper traditional kinda joint, looked straight out of the 50s or 60s with the old movie posters on the walls, the food counter, and raised private seating areas with the tatami mats, low tables, and standing screens to separate table groups. Unfortunately, the menus not only have kanji that Jason and I don't fully recognize, but it's in the calligraphic script, which doesn't help.

Instead, Connor opted to ask the waiter if they had a teshoku (set meal of local specialties of the restaurant) for us to pool our cash and try. The restaurant, alas, did not have one, but agreed to recommend us a set of courses to fit within our group's pooled budget. Best decision ever. What followed was a really tasty 6-course meal consisting of a salad with fried potato strings, tempura chicken, tempura shrimp, an awesome kinda hotpot stew thingie, fresh-cut and seasoned fries (odd to see, but tasty nonetheless), and a pork fried rice course, 2 courses of which I neglected to get on camera. Dangit.

Quite pleased with our great hole-in-the-wall dinner, we depart; Jason splitting off to get back to campus for some ultimate frisbee (had I not needed groceries, I would've gone with), and the other 4 of us continuing to Beppu Station. On the way there, we come across a takoyaki (fried/grilled octopus meatballs, essentially) stand. This place looks like it literally was built up around the alleyway between the adjoining buildings; the back door of the tiny narrow shop opened up to the alley itself. However, we're finding that these little, homegrown, local-owned shops often have the best offerings. Still quite full from the dinner, I do not partake of the takoyaki, but Connor, Jessica, and Malia all hailed the deliciousness of them.

Also, while they were waiting for the takoyaki to grill up, I got a neat picture of the skyline visible looking towards the station and mountains:

Have I said how cool I think the locale is?

There's an upside, and a downside to going to the grocery store as late as we did in their day (it was ~6:30-7ish, most places shut down about 7 or 8 here): on the one hand, all the meats were half off since it was the close of the day, so you could get a great deal on some ridiculously good-looking beef (the marbling is so extensive it's damned near sickening), but at the same time, the produce section of the store was already shut down for the day. Alas. We resolve to find some recipes, some people with pots and pans we can bum, and come back to pick up some stuff for curry or other tasty and inexpensive meal options.

Thursday started off rather...unpleasant with the weather, but cleared up enough later in the day to allow for some frisbee tossing out behind the dorms. I've learned 2 or 3 new throws I'm still trying to iron the kinks out of, one of which is a skip-shot that can get some really good height on the rebound and looks plenty cool.

Today, well...wasn't as nice as Wed. or Thurs. afternoon. The picture at right is about the degree of visibility we got most of the day, barring the midday and late afternoon rainstorms that, while they pushed the fog down, also handily provided their own brand of unpleasant. The walkway stairs from campus to the AP Houses, for example, is certainly not a fun 71 steps (I've counted...they've pissed me off) to ascend/descend when they're soaking wet...at least I haven't fallen yet.

That's about it for this week, not a whole lot of interesting stuff to report as far as classes go. Tomorrow, though, is the start of our 2-day trip to Nagasaki, which promises to provide a lot of material to photograph and talk about. While I'm not thrilled that we meet in front of AP1 at 7:45 in the morning to climb onto a bus for 3½ hours, the walking tour and free wandering we get, along with 3 provided meals and what I hope is a real bed at the hotel, will be far and away well worth me having to drag my carcass out early.

Until Sunday '__' /