Day 75 in Japan - On biking and puppies.

I started this morning with a my 25 minutes bike ride to Akashi Shimizu. It's an annoying ride, because it starts nice and flat, then there is a gentle uphill, then a less gentle climb, then my legs gets sore, then there is the MONSTER HILL.The Monster Hill normally marks the exact point that I question the intelligence of riding to work, but it's only about 7 minutes and it's over (and I'm back to gentle uphill all the rest of the way to school).

Artist's rendering of the Monster Hill  (note, hill may be more monster than it appears).

Today's classes at Shimizu were pretty decent, definitely helped by the fact that one of the classes got cancelled, so I only had TWO classes today - the lowest number ever. I was also in a pretty darn good mood, because my cold seems to be on it's way out, and there is a long weekend next weekend, exams start on Thursday and go to the next Tuesday, meaning that it will be a full two weeks before I need to teach classes at Akashi Shimizu again! A nice bit of breathing room to prepare lessons and mark exams and journals. With my two class day, I got lots of exam making done, and even did some preparation for our halloween lesson done. It's weird that I have to teach about Halloween, because I know NOTHING about it! The kids probably know more than I do already.

On my bike ride home (all downhill, so I love it), I took a bit of a detour to take some photos. This is a typical photo of one of the lake/dam things around Okubo. I also went to a pet store, where they had the only chihuahua that I've ever seen that would come anywhere near Gizmo in the cute stakes and something that the sign called gerbils. I don't think that's what we call a gerbil in English, is it? 

Autmn reflected in Okubo.

This dog was about the size of my hand. TINY!

Is this a gerbil? Do I not know what I gerbil is?

The detour also took me along the "alternate highway" between Okubo and Uozumi, which is almost wide enough to let two cars drive past each other. Almost. On the way, I came across a man harvest his rice crop, and stopped to take a photo of the funny little rice harvesting machine. It requires a bit of precision driving - you line up the row of rice in a little crevice on the cart, and then as you drive, it cuts and strips the rice for you really neatly. It's really cool to watch.

Japan is exactly like Harvest Moon. With machines.

Sam decided that he wanted to treat us tonight, and he bought us Baskin Robins icecream sandwiches on his way home. They pack the bags with dry ice to keep stuff frozen here, so it was dinner and a show, because we spent a fun few minutes playing with dry ice in the sink when we finished our icecreams. And the culinary treats continued, because today (74 days in) marks our first real steak in Japan! And it was Tasmanian beef. Ha! We cooked mashed potato, spinach and onions, and the delicious steak. O.I.SHI.I.


Food Highlight of the Day: Tasmanian steaks JUST beat out American icrecreams.