Chris Paul has a Gold Medal!!!

I have been able to watch a lot of the Olympics because I don't have cable at home (long story). Instead, I've been watching a little at the gym when I go (I caught one day of track and two or three of synchronized diving) and noting some of the headlines on the internet and over the radio. It's been mildly annoying, especially when I find out things like Japan got their first medal in fencing and I couldn't watch it, but not a big deal.
Until today.
I turned on the computer and went to yahoo to check my mail, and who should stare back at me but a former student from the school where I taught in NC, with a gold medal around his neck. It took me about three minutes to process, and then I had to read the caption two or three times to make sure I wasn't making it up. For those of you who don't know, Chris Paul was a senior at the high school where I taught back when I was student teaching. I met him several times and he really is just as nice as all the publicity says. I was a HUGE Wake Forest fan for the time that he played basketball there, and then kind of lost track of him. I'm told he still comes back to his alma mater to give talks to the freshman about how important school is when he has time.
And now that kid has a gold medal and I didn't even know he was on the US team!!!!
How did I miss that? I'm so depressed. I mean, I'm totally excited for him, and in awe of what a terribly small world it is, but I can't believe I didn't see a single game, and that I had no clue that he was even in China. I feel so out of the loop...
So congratulations to Chris Paul... oh and the rest of the team...

My mini-vacation

So this week was actually relatively slow, which was nice for me. Monday and Tuesday I had no classes and one of my Wednesday classes was also canceled for Obon. Obon is a buddist festival held in the summer in Japan celebrating the ancestors. It's vaguely equivalent to Halloween in the States, minus the candy and costumes, plus fireworks and lanterns. The Japanese believe that their ancestors can come back and pay a visit during obon, so they set out lanterns to help them find their way home, and have festivals to celebrate. On the 15th in Sasebo, they parade around with floats in honor of relatives who have passed away, setting off firecrackers. They also buy paper lanterns (biodegradable and not dangerous to water life) on which they write messages to their loved ones in the beyond. These they float down the river and out to the ocean in the evening, which is really a lovely sight. This year, though, I was invited to hang out at the pool all afternoon, and I went because I was promised the opportunity to "test drive" other people's kids. Luckily, it was cloudy and not so hot, but by evening I was ready to sit quietly inside and comfort my dog when the firecrackers went off. So I had a relatively uneventful birthday, with some nice socializing followed by a whole lot of doing nothing. The baby even let me eat a slice of pepperoni pizza.
Zack worked most of the weekend, but after dinner Sunday night expressed interest again in putting together the crib (he's totally nesting and it's really cute). So before I left for my Sunday night class, I helped him get started on the rather tricky task of determining which instructions where already followed by the former owners of the crib (since they didn't totally dismantle every single screw) and which needed to be done still. As I worked, I commented that I thought we should move our rocker into the baby's room eventually and replace it with the futon in front of our TV. Zack also noted that the crib was rather dirty and nasty looking and considered the idea of refinishing it before the baby comes (which assumes that we'll be able to find baby-safe finish somewhere on base). When I left, he was just starting to put all the sides together.
When I got home, the crib was together, the rocker was upstairs and the futon was down. I was super impressed. Zack also had cleaned the crib, and though he didn't mention refinishing it again, I'm not sure he's entirely ruled out the idea. We had been joking about testing the crib using the ultimate pretend baby: Dory. So I asked Zack if he had put her in it. He didn't answer right away, but he shot me a mischevious smile, which told me everything I needed to know. Apparently, Dory did not like the crib. She thought she was in trouble or something. When I tried to repeat the experiment later that evening, she ran away. She still goes into what we not always call the "baby's room" every day though to sniff around. Clearly, she knows that something is up, she just isn't sure what. In the mean time, she's sticking close and investigating cautiously.
And today I had another doctor's appointment. This one was much shorter. It was determined that I'm doing what I should and the baby is too. It has a lovely heartbeat that can, so far, only be seen on ultrasound, not heard with the doppler thingy. Everything's growing just like it should, so we'll just keep plugging along until the next appointment next month. Oddly enough, my doctor will be moving (PSCing as the navy calls it) within the next month, so I will more than likely see a new doctor for the next 1-2 visits before being referred to the Japanese doctor who won't see me until 20 weeks. So this will be a three doctor minimum process.
This week we have the OSC kickoff meeting, which will mostly be an exercise in cheerleading about how great the club is and why everyone should join again this year. So there will probably not be much to report. I am, however, collecting a set of Japanese advice to pregnant women that I will post soon. Then I swear I'll get back to talking about something else... really... may be...

Back to normal...

So life has returned, more or less, to normal (whatever that is). However, there are a few cute pictures to share. These are from my most recent trip to the biopark, also known as "the visit where we discovered that all monkies are dirty little thieves:

There's a baby kangarooin that pouch.


For the record: there was nothing in that cup. Some other tourists gave it to us because the monkies really are curious about what (edible) might be in there. They also were curious about the contents of Alisa's purse, and abducted some tissues to investigate. When the monkey found that the tissues were not food, he proceeded to drop them on us one at a time (tasting each one first, just in case) from the safety of a very tall tree.

So there ends the traveling pictures for this visit. But stay tuned: OSC (Officer's Spoused Club) and ILC (International Ladies Club) start back up next month, and there is definetely a visit to a limestone cave in the plans. (I'm OSC vice president now, which means I know where we're going much earlier in advance.)
Back in the real world, I've been working hard lately on a rather unpleasant assignment for my first ESL course for grad school. It's a timeline of policies relating to educating English Language Learners, or more accurately, two timelines that say more or less the same thing. It involves reading the chapter and then typing the whole thing into a chart the teacher provided, then looking online endlessly for more policies that may not have been mentioned in the book. I can see how knowing some educational policy is good, but this is a bit crazy. Luckily, it's also finished now. I'm worried about it though, because my grade in the class is not as high right now as I'd like it to be. I've been experiencing a strange lack of motivation... can't imagine why...
It's August, so it's HOT HOT HOT. Zack think's it's dryer than it was last year too (water shortages here we come). So I spend a lot of time just hiding in whichever room happens to be air conditioned. The base has been posting "black flag" warnings every single day. Black flag means no outside PT allowed because it's too hot. I don't think it's gotten over 100 yet, but it really is pretty miserable out there. The heat doesn't really seem to phase the Japanese people, who simply put on hats and use parasols and procede to throw all kinds of lovely festivals in August.
Dory especially hates August because August is the month of fireworks and thunderstorms in this country, and she hates the big booms. There were fireworks shows on the second and third, during the annual Sasebo seaside festival (I went last year and it was a lot like a fair in the states minus the rides, so I skipped it this year.) Then there have been a few thunder storms (more thunder than rain), so she's acquired a fear of going outside, and only will go to the park with extreme coaxing. When we get there, she does what she has to do and runs home as if she's certain something terrible is lurking on the other side of the grass. This suits me just fine at the moment because, as I may have mentioned, it really freaking HOT, so I don't want to be outside anyway.
I have invested (finally) in a parasol. I used to scoff at the idea that a flimsy piece of fabric could keep a person cooler. Then I went to China and got heat sick three days in a row. On the fourth day I used an umbrella and still felt super hot, but didn't end up sick, so that convinced me. Now I take my parasol with me even when I'm just going to the park (which is about the only place I go outside lately). One time I went down without it, and a little old lady in the park commented on the heat, then motioned at her head (she had a parasol) and looked worried for me, indicating that it was far to hot to go anywhere with out at least a hat. I was amused. I'm more diligent about the parasol now.
Other than being hot all the time, though, I'm really feeling pretty good. I just can't eat the way I would choose to. The baby is mostly vegetarian. I can eat the occasional meat if it's cleverly hidden in something like a lasagna or Mexican food (the baby loves anything Mexican, just like Zack). But mostly I'm eating carrots, watermelon, and crackers. Cereal is good too, and milk products are okay. Full meals, however, are a no go, and forget cooking, too. Poor Zack hasn't had a decent meal at home for like a month now. I don't know if I feel more sorry for him for the lack of good food or for me since I really do like to cook and it's just not happening now.
Zack, however, has turned into super husband. He's always been great around the house, but he's gone into overdrive lately. This weekend he swept all the floors, did the dishes, did all the laundry, and organized the desk while I worked on school work from the safety of the airconditioning and told him how nice he was repeatedly. Any time he came by, he'd grab my glass of water and refill it. It was really really sweet. He's also learned to cook steak that he assures me is delicious. So that's good.
The biggest challenge digestively so far (other than the fish market) was last night. I taught an 8:00 to 9:00 class, and last week I had told them that my birthday is coming up. One of my bosses, Mike, also has a birthday this week, so one of my students announced that she was going to make a pizza and bring it to class to celebrate. I had intended to not eat much before hand, but I forgot all about it until I arrived at class and Mike reminded me. I was not feeling especially super anyway, but I was determined to eat it, since she was making it by hand, and I just hoped that it was 1) small, so I'd only have to eat a small piece and 2) relatively topping-free. No such luck. The pizza was a 12 x 9 inch (or so) masterpiece with homemade crust topped with corn, onion, mushroom, shrimp, ham, and bacon as well as the usual cheese and sauce. We split it four ways, giving me a rather large piece to pick at. Mike knows I'm pregnant, but I'm holding off on telling my students. Luckily, this girl was very kind and told me that if I didn't like any toppings I should just pick them off, so I did a good bit of "picking off" toppings and ate mostly crust. (The crust was excellent.) I managed to keep it down and teach a lesson, then I came home, drank some ginger ale (my new favorite cure for most tummy issues), watched Zack work for awhile and crashed into bed feeling pretty icky. It was very frustrating.
Other than those occasional frustrations, though, things really are going quite well. We made our first baby purchase about two weeks ago: a crib. We were seriously considering not getting one until our next move, but several expert Moms said we would regret it, and this one was five bucks at the thrift shop on base, so we figure we can use it here then redonate it if we don't especially like it. Also, one of my friends here told me she has the exact same crib and it's excellent. She also volunteered to help us put it together and/or help me check to make sure there weren't any loose screws or anything before we actually put a child in it. She's very nice like that. So it's sitting, dismantled, in our spare room. Zack is talking about putting it together the next time he's home on a weekend.
So we're plugging along. Upcoming events you might see a post about include (but are not limited to) Obon this week, a doctor's appointment and an OSC meeting the week after that.

Nikko

After the fish market and breakfast, we headed off to Nikko, which is a national park just north of Tokyo. Upon arriving, we stopped take in the view of this lovely lake:


It's apparently very deep, and flowing from one end is the lovely water fall (I'm sorry, I've forgotten all the names for these places):


Among the many inhabitants of Nikko are these monkeys (who all seemed to be wearing what we decided must be tracking devices):


Don't be fooled by their adorable appearance: this was a very bad monkey. Upon discovering that a bunch of tourists were interested in her, she jumped the fence and headed towards us. Laurie, our very brave leader from the States, was undaunted and commented on how friendly they were as the monkey carelessly approached. Then it snatched the plastic bad Laurie was carrying and made a break for it! As the monkey was climbing the fence back to safety, the bag broke and Laurie tried to recover the contents of it (a music box), but the monkey noticed and became downright violent. It rushed back down the fence and hissed at Lori before snatching the music box and heading off! Presumably, the monkey associated plastic bags with food, and was highly disappointed when the contents of this one were not edible, but then again, she looked like she could be nursing, so may be she was looking for a good lulaby for her kids. :-)

Apparently the monkeys are rather notorious theives in this area (which is especially odd because humans don't really exhibit this behavior in Japan). One storekeeper, according to the students, kept a gun (presumably a bb gun since any other kind would be illegal) in her candy shop, loaded and on the counter, in case a monkey came along. Anyway, the whole episode was pretty funny when it was all over.

Next stop in Nikko was a shrine created in honor of Tokugawa, the first shogun of Japan. This name has actually become very familiar to me because he is a super important guy in Japanese history. Here's the summed up version (don't try to pass a history test with it): In the time when samaurai ruled their own little mini-kingdoms within Japan, Tokugawa successfully beat all the other samaurai into submission and became the ruler of all of Japan. When he did, he moved the capital to Edo (now Tokyo). Apparently, though, he was very particular about how he should be buried after death. For one year, he wanted to be buried in his home prefecture (I can't remember where that is), and then he wanted to be moved to Nikko because from there he felt he could protect Tokyo from any dangers that might threaten it from the North. So now he's buried in this shrine in Nikko.

The shrine also has several other features worth noticing. One is this stone, which a weather predicting stone. The two colors of the stone are more distinct when it's about to rain and less distinct when it's sunny. Incidentally, it had just started to rain about the time I took this picture. You can decide for yourself if the stone is accurate.

This shrine is also home to several carvings by someone famous. One is a carving that has become famous all over the world. I'm sure you'll recognize it, even if you've never seen the original form:

It's actually one in a series of carvings that are meant as advice to parents about how to raise good children. This one advises parents not to allow their kids to see, hear or speak evil, obviously. The other carving of interest was this one, which shows the artist's idea of what an elephant might look like having never seen one himself. He had read about them and was facinated, so he created this image as guesswork. I've seen similar things in other countries (where artists imagine what something might look like) and I always find them interesting. This one's really quite good.

There was also a room with a dragon painted on the ceiling and when certain sounds echo in it, it's supposed to sound like the dragon roaring. The Americans were not impressed, but we were there with a group of Japanese school kids who thought the effect was really cool. We figure we just didn't know what a dragon's roar was supposed to sound like. To us, it sounded more like a very angry cricket.

And finally, there was Tokugawa's tomb:

This was placed at the top of a TON of stairs. So many stairs that you look up them and wonder, "Is this guy really so important that I want to climb all these stairs to see where they buried him?" So many stairs that it is necessary to take breaks on the way up unless you are at the peak of fitness (or Japanese). So many stairs that you give up the idea of every climbing Mount Fuji because it's just too hard! Here are the stairs:

Or at least some of them. There's a turn above and below this with about the same number of stairs again. It was quite a haul.

By this time we were all pretty toured out. Luckily, the tour was over! The group left the next day for the US and after a day of tooling around the city, Alisa, Amanda and I took the bullet train back to Sasebo. I promised them a whole week without any shrines or temples or castles, and everyone was happy.

One Fish Two Fish...

So at 5 am the morning after Asakusa, we were on our way to the subway to go see the fish market. (Note: If you are pregnant and plan to go to a fish market first thing in the morning, expect to feel sick for the rest of the day.) We wandered through this giant area that looked something like this:




... and finally came to some stalls that had interesting sea creatures in them...

But of course, the primary site of interest was the tuna auctions going on in the back. These guys were up for sale to the highest bidder:

The whole place was bustling with people selling, cutting, and transporting fish. I felt kind of bad for them trying to hurry about their business with all of us tourists meandering through, but I suppose they're used to it. Anyway, we had a nice look around then retreated home for breakfast... I'd also like to give special thanks to my personal photographer for the morning:

He left that afternoon to go back to his normal job, but we had a nice visit for a couple days there. The rest of us had a relaxed breakfast before setting off for Nikko.

A Boat and Asakusa

So here's the boat we took to Asakusa:

The ride itself, though very hot, was also quite lovely. It was nice to just sit for a little while and watch the city go by:

Asakusa is a temple. It looks like this:


But the area is also known for the excelent touristy shopping to be had there. We spent most of the afternoon wandering around looking for lunch and then nice things to take home to friends and families (or keep for ourselves). Having seen a TON of temples already, we actually failed to go inside this one... oops.
Anyway, after shopping we had dinner and then went straight home for an early night because the next morning had an early start scheduled: a trip to the fish market...

Meiji Shrine

Our first stop on our first morning in Tokyo was the Meiji Shrine, a shrine dedicated to the emperor and empress of Japan. Our guide was very knowledgeable about the imperial family, so we had a very interesting ride over hearing about them. Once in the shrine, we saw the "traditional Japanese" way to recognize sponsors: sake barrels.


The pictures on these sake barrels represent companies who donated money to the shrine. More barrels with the same picture means more money from that company.

Next we saw what I'm pretty sure is the largest wooden Tori Gate in Japan.

On our way in, we spotted a couple getting ready for their wedding ceremony and, in the grand tradition of tourists everywhere, snapped a few shots of them posing for the professional photographer.

The shrine itself was very much like most shrines in Japan: namely, very beautiful. Unfortunately, it was also hot, and I've got a lot of pictures of lovely shrines. So the fan beat out the camera, and I only snapped a few shots inside, including this one:

Sorry about that.
After the shrine visit, we spent some time shopping in the near by manga-infested shops (I've forgotten the name of the street), and then it was off to take a boat trip to Asakusa...

Going to Tokyo

After our nice relaxing evening at the Japanese Inn, we took off for Tokyo. On the way we stopped at another town known for it's Giant Budda. This brings my Giant Budda count to three:

The cool thing about this budda was you could go inside of it and see how it was constructed.

From there, we went on to Tokyo, and spent some time in Akihabara, the district known for it's electronics:

And then we went for dinner at a place with a lovely view of Tokyo harbor.

There was a lot of shopping involved in this day, so not so many pictures, hense the strange ones in this post. It was amazing to be in such a big city though, and the next day held more photographic moments...