A Day in the Life

In the middle of a wonderful day, with only a moment to post about it before running off to make a train. My friends Yasu and Kawamura took me hiking up a mountain in the morning with a crazy old karate man who had us do some several thousand crunches at a rest point in the middle of the trail, and I learned new words for the different parts of a tree in Japanese. I totally heart Yasu and Kawamura--I think I can say pretty definitively that they're among the best things I've had in my life since coming here. After mountain climbing, Yasu and his girlfriend and I went to this event by the sea side, where a huge part of the ocean had been netted in and a bunch of fish dumped into it, and they gave you a net and a mesh bag and set you loose to go catch as many fish as you could find and scoop up. It was great! Yasu got the first catch, then Toshimi got one, and right when I started to think oh no, is this going to be one of those days where everyone but me tags something?, I caught two big ones right in a row. I got two more later for a total of four, and Yasu and Toshimi ended up with two each. When you caught a few of them, you brought them to a man in a boat and he STABBED THEM THROUGH THE BRAIN WITH A NAIL for you, and then you could put them in your bag without them flopping out and could go trolling around for more. It was great being out in the sun and fishing and stuff, and it was neat being at this big normal summertime community event--lots of parents and kids, lots of teenagers and old folks too, everyone just having fun. It was like Coney Island in rural Japan. Yasu and I also dug for clams, but all we found were these disgusting mud worms and one skippy mudfish that got away before I could net him (can you eat those guys anyway?). We went out for a great lunch too at a fisherman's sushi place with the biggest sushi slices I've ever seen, and ate more than our fill of deliciosity, and I'm sure I was the only foreigner that will ever enter that place between now and kingdom come. It was a really great afternoon, with people whom I really love, and now I'm going into Matsuyama for aikido and staying over at another friend's place to play all day tomorrow too, since I'm skipping work (don't worry, it's cool...I think), and to top it all off, I think I've got a new girlfriend! What a good day! Wooooo!