When it Rains, it Pours

I'm not feeling too good right now. Something was bugging my ankle last Wednesday night, but I just brushed it off as soreness after a workout. The next day, I was hurting to walk. Again, a little muscle pain is normal so I just figured take a little time off. A week later, not feeling much better. This morning I finally went to the doctor and had it professionally diagnosed. He said I ruptured one of the tendons in my ankle and put it in a cast. Hopefully it'll come off in three weeks and that will be the end of it. Of course, sports injuries never really go away and who knows how long it could take to really heal, if ever. Oppositely, Japanese doctors are notorious for overstating severity and over-dispensing treatment, so it could just be a few days and no problem.

Even the best-case scenario is pretty grim, unfortunately. I'll be out of training for a good month, which sucks everything out of my trip home for the batizado. I've been looking forward to this for months, and have been working hard on a ton of new moves to show off. I was hoping to impress everyone back in Gainesville with my new cord and game, since the last time I went back I had been off a few weeks and played horribly. Now I may well not be able to do anything but watch.


Luckily, work isn't a big deal. I'm still on spring vacation til next week, when I start again at the kindergartens. Teaching kids will mean some playing and moving, but the other teachers will understand that I'll be keeping it easy. I've also got the Kinki University job on Mondays, good thing that doesn't require any movement (really, just sit there for like 6 hours). No sick days used, no money lost.

As for the money, it wasn't that expensive. About $100 for X-rays (totally unnecessary, I think), the diagnosis, and cast. I have some sports insurance from my gym, but only about $15 a day if I go to the hospital more than five days. My mission now is to get in there 5 times in 2 weeks for check-ups. It'll be pretty slow around here with no classes, so I think I can do it.

The lesson I should be learning here is that every cloud has a silver lining. The time off will give me the chance to work on my capoeira music and to try making some flyers for my new classes. I can still stretch, do push-ups and sit-ups, and teach my gym classes orally. Teaching through speach instead of demonstation will improve my Japanese as well.

Looking on the bright side has been my theme for the last two days. Monday I started at Kinki. I had been told to come in at 9:45, but when I got there, the schedule said 9:30. Not a big deal, only 10 minutes late and no one was there anyway.

Tuesday I again suffered from lack of confirmations. I thought I was to be starting at the kindergarten that morning, so I got up bright and early and made my hour plus commute out into the countryside. Upon arrival, I found locked gates and an empty school. There was still the possibility of afternoon classes, so I figured it wouldn't be wise to head home just then. I sent an e-mail to the employment acency asking what the schedule was and decided I would kill a couple hours out in the sticks. The school is near a pretty nice temple, so I figured I'd check it out. About half-way there, I got a call from my employer telling me classes don't start for another week. The weather was good, it was still early, I was awake and dressed, why not make something of the day? I hit the temple, which was beautiful with the spring flowers in bloom, then hung around the nearby park until the afternoon. It was great, had brought lunch with me, so I could sit in the park and do my own little hanami (flower viewing picnic). There were tons of people there; old folks sleeping on the grass, families eating lunch, kids playing in the playground, high schoolers getting drunk. It really shows you the kind of small-town social harmony this country is so proud of, no one was bothering anyone and everyone was having a great time. Even though I was tired and injured, it was still a damn fine day.

Kagoshima

A few weeks ago, I did the overnight bus with a friend out to Kagoshima, a little resort town on the southern tip of Kyushu. The ride out there was about ten hours, but that owes a lot to the Japanese insistence on safe speeds and bus drivers stopping for a break every 4 hours. In any event, it's really far from Osaka and was a welcome change of scenery.

What was the best thing about the city? The volcanoes, of course! I've never seen a real volcano, to my recollection, and I was blown away (not literally). This city not only had a big-ass volcano, it had two big-ass volcanoes. It's amazing to look up and see them dominating the skyline. They're even active too, smoke and steam was always drifting out of the tops. We were going to try climbing one, but the weather turned sour and there wasn't enough time. Never-the-less, it was still killer to think that at any moment, there could be a massive eruption which would wipe out the city with me in it.

Another fun new experience that I would have put in my post-volcano eruption obituary was getting buried in the sand. Kagoshima is home to the Japan-famous sunaburo, which, if I'm not mistaken, means "sand bath." Hot springs are a national pastime, for sure, but sometimes water just gets boring. Apparently, someone happened to find a spot on the beach heated by some geothermal activity and decided it felt really good to get buried in the nearly burning hot sand. It does feel pretty relaxing, but you have to be careful not to cook yourself. Really, you could be slow-roasted in there. There's a few warning signs not to stay in more than 10-15 minutes. They give you a robe and towel to keep the scalding hot sand off your skin.

The food was a bit of a kick. I definitely spent too much eating, but that's what vacation is for, right? We went to a fun little (actually, big) somen shop that has a wierd whirl-pool in the middle of the table. Somen is a kind of noodle that's served cold and dipped into a soup. They put a big bowl of the noodles in the middle of the table, you toss them into the whirlpool to separate and cool (reverse boil?), stick your chopsticks into the swirl and pluck some out, then dip them into the soup and eat. The weather was rather cold for a summer dish, however.

As a technology nerd, I found the local sea-transit vehicles fascinating. Namely, the hydrofoil boat. Thumbing through a travel brochure on the way out, I saw picture of it and knew I had to ride it. Then I saw how much a ride cost and decided perhaps I would be better off to just get a few snapshots. Nothing like a jet-engine strapped to a boat with stilts underneath. That thing literally flies through the water.

Like all major cities in Japan, Kagoshima has an aquarium. I love aquariums, and this one was right on for one reason: whale sharks. It was the first time for me to see a baby/juvenile whale shark. The first time I ever saw any such animal was when I came out here and went to the Osaka aquarium, a life-changing event. So this little one out in Kagoshima got me psyched up pretty good. I hope to be able to see those fish in like 20 or 30 years when they're as big as a school bus.

The last day we were there, we took in some culture and history. Driving in the rental car to the next town over, we checked out the museum dedicated to the conflict with Britian following the end of isolationism and the kamikaze memorial museum. It was really shameful to see European and Ameircan newspapers in the mid-1800's speaking so lowly of Japan, but I guess they did that with every non-Europe-made country. Kagoshima was the base of operations for kamikaze fighters, hence the museum. Not quite as somber and depressing as the A-bomb museum, maybe because it was all in Japanese, but enlightening just the same. Just over a thousand men flew on those missions, and they had pictures, stories, and memorabilia from almost all of them. There's a different feel you get when you go to a musuem dedicated to the losing side of a war. More Americans need to do that.