Body, Mind and Spirit

Another week is gone...maybe its been two.  The days and weeks are starting to blend toegether and I have lost all sense of reality.  My body mind and spirit are all off in different directions and I find myself floating around Aizu once again.  I am not grounded....this is making my Kyudo practice increasing difficult- a martial art that demands complete balance in body and mind.

 Amongst my daze I am still enjoying everyday life.   On Saturday we attended the Tohoku Free Blades Ice hockey game!  Now hockey isn`t exactly popular in Japan but the bleaches held about 150 people and the place was packed!  They has the music selection down to a tee- with many of those cheese 90 rock hits we all love to here in those ten or twenty minutes intervals between plays, there were horns, drums, numerous other noise makers and of course the chants including- GO....LETS....FREEBLADES!  We tried to start our own chant (lets go Freeblades, lets go) and correct their grammar but the Japanese fans wouldn`t have anything to do with it- hee hee.  In all honestly, it was much funner saying it their way anyways (funner was used intentionally to illustrate the humor).  However, we did manage to successfully execute the wave.  It took the entire game and one drunk Japanese man to befriend us but with only 8 minutes left in the game we managed to have the entire arena complete a `the wave` or in Japan I like to say `Tsunami`!
While at the game I couldnt help but think about my cousins and Grandfather- such avid hockey fans, what i couldnt do to have then join me in Japan, after all the everyday things we take for granted at home seem to have a whole new meaning in this strange land.

 
Then on Sunday night I hopped on a train and joined a few guys for a game of basketball.  There were about sixteen players, and of course I was the only girl.  I don`t think I will every tire of the stunned look men seem to get when they see a girl show up on the basketball court.  I swear was I was running down the court with some sixteen year ninja:s- lightening fast and with some serious basketball skills.  Luckily three of them were on my team.  I would like to think i was once that fast, but i doubt it.  It has been about a year and a half since i had last stepped on the court and I was once reminded of the freedom that it offers;  the complete trust in your instincts with no time to ponder, debate or analyze your every movement...  If only like was more like a
basketball game

Nanaimo Bars

I have turned to Christmas to lighten my mood these days.  Christmas baking and downloading christmas carols are the focus of my attention.  I even dared to download good ol' kennie G and Aaron Neville Albums reminiscent of my adolscents...the sounds I once loathed have now become comforting in this strange land.   Of course, there is still some reggae, hip hop, pop, and funk being thrown into the mix, after all, it's still me we're talking about ;)

This year, while in Japan, is the first year I have successfully created Nanaimo Bars!  Brad claims it is due to his proffessional help...which I won't deny nor do I care, because it worked!
2 hours in the grocery store searching the shelves, trying to decipher the mixture of Hirigana, katakana and kanji symbols of unfamiliar packages, speaking broken Englishese and the help of the most wonderful and patient Japanese women i have met, we  managed to find all the ingredients and head home.  With no measuring devices (oops), crushing graham crackers in a bowl with the bottom of a ladle and and playing macgyver with dishes to create a housing device of  appropriate dimensions- its done! 
There is still something to be desired about moms perfectly cut squares and chocolate that lay so flat on the top you would have thought it has been flat ironed BUT my version is just as tasty and somewhat resembles those delicious squares I look forward to 11 months out of the year.
Mission accomplished.  

Dark days and Random Thoughts

The days are getting shorter and the weather is getting cold.  I leave my school at 4pm each night and the sun has already set and the last of the light fades behind the mountains as I walk up the stairs to my apartment.  The autumn sun shines on the weekends to lighten the mood but the weekdays are overcast with cloud and rain making the weeks drag on.  I lay in bed at night restless, listening to the wind howl as the rice paper shiver in the breeze coming through the walls.  


I feel like my emotions imitate the weather patterns.  When the sun is shining I frolic in the autumn leaves and take in the scenery around me with a smile on my face but when the clouds come down i feel a heavy weight on my shoulders and my thoughts turn darker.   When talking to a friend this week they described me as a relaxed and level headed person.  I snicker at this thought since I am the most emotional person i know.  Yet, this is not the first time someone has perceived me as completely opposite to how I feel inside. Maybe i should become an actress....



This week i have struggled with my emotions.  I feel one way but i know I should feel another for various reasons and have decided to be stubborn and just fight with myself for days.   I have exhausted myself emotionally and after going to Kyudo practice tonight I am now physically and mental exhausted as well.  I have opened a bottle of acidic Japanese wine and cocooned myself into the flannel blankets beside the heater..the hail has just started to fall and I the wine is maybe my cheeks rosy and my head light. 

I have been in Japan for 4 months. 

This is just another part of the adventure i remind myself as I take another sip.  i am not worried.  Just when i think I have had enough Japan always makes me smile.