Storm clouds gather. Kelly is planning to come to my island this weekend (a long weekend) so we can see each other and I can also train. But all is not as it should be. There is wind and waves. Two stupid little typhoons of north east of Okinawa have somehow been generating wind on my fair isle. The ferry was cancelled today, and maybe cancelled tommorrow. We didn' t get to see each other last weekend because Kelly had a school do and I stayed island bound to train. I hope whichever god or government agencies control the weather know this is completely unacceptable. If the ferries aren't running tommorrow I will make a point of being in a horrendous bad mood for the whole of the rest of the next week. I shall make all and everything suffer my wrath as I lash out vengefully and malichiously. While I am laughing and dancing and singing for the kiddies inside I will be screaming, howling and railing against the cruel injustice of the world. World (which for me is limited to Izena island right now) you have been warned. On the other hand if the ferry is running tommorrow :) I will bring bring joy to the world.

A couple of little Japanese experiences in the last two days. The first: last night I was coming home from the elementry school and I bump into the old catering lady who used to work at the junior High. She once taught me how to make Goya Champuru, anyway, we had a little chat (she works up at the BOE now and I don't see her often). She asks about my cooking, I say I only cook Udon now (it's true, it only takes a minute or two to cook and therefore suits my lifestyle at the moment) so she starts telling me about some vegetable. She tells me it is easy to fry up and eat with rice or fish and adds lots of flavour. I ask if it is in the SUPA (supermarket) and she says yes, I tell her I will buy some. Later that evening when I return from my bike training I have a missed call on my phone, it is Taika san (the catering lady) but she is speaking in broken english and I cannot work out what she means, I hear `my house` and `your house`. Later as I am putting a load of washing in the machine (outside by the back door) I notice a plastic bag hanging from the door handle. It is a meal of rice, chips and previously mentioned vegetable she has cooked for me. I call her and thank her. It is actions like hers that endeer us outsiders to japanese culture and demonstrate it's peoples incredable hospitability towards guests in their country.
The second happened recently today. Today there were only a few students in each class (5 or 6) as most were at an athletics meet on the main island (Okinawa Honto) so with the ninensei (2nd yrs) I played pictionary. One girl who is usually very inatentive in class and mainly draws anime and manga characters (amazingly well I must add) impressed me. Her word was 'nine' and I was confused when she started drawing circles, maybe she will draw 9 circles I thought, but no she only drew 3. Then one girl guesses correctly! I was bamboozled! It turns out Kyuu means ball and nine in Japanese. Neat. Next for 'win' she draws a bowl of food being eaten. Turns out she drew Katsu don (fried breaded pork on a bowl of rice), Katsu also meaning 'win' in Japanese. I don't think we can quite do this with the english language.

Last night saw my villages 88 something festival. To celebrate the wonderful number 88, they are very fond of 88 here, almost as fond of it as 97. Anyway I performed eisa twice, once at the start of the fest and once at the end so I had to stay throughout the whole thing. I was hoping to get home to do some tidying but no. After it was done and all the kids and almost all the women had left the remaining (mostly men) people did some sort of ritual. We all sat in a circle on the stage around two bowls of fruit and two big bottles of awamori and sang this VERY long song/chant and clapped our hands. Then there were speaches and more drinking, I didn't get back until 12 which is pretty good considering. The pic is of me and two teachers from my school, the lady is Risa Sensei my JTE. This was the first time she had done eisa! She is from mainland okinawa where not EVERYBODY does eisa.

It was raining quite alot yesterday and the blue tarps they put up weren't really upto the job. Luckily the rain eased off by the time we started eisa.

Just as a side note my face got so sunburnt training on the weekend that an elementry kid asked me if I had been drinking :(. I hadn't touched a drop, honest!

PS. I have just read today on www.bbc.co.uk that there has been another school shooting in America. Two in a week! What is the deal with that!!! I would be asking some serious questions about my culture/society if it seemed to regularly produce individuals who wanted to harm the most innocent members of their society. And why does it seem to me at least that nothing it being done about it? Are people that complacent? It is not a unique American problem but (I think) predominantly so. For a contrast: after the Dunblane shooting in the UK the Snowdrop petition (started by those affected by the shooting) caused the then government to effect a ban on all handguns except .22 calibre single shot handguns. The succeeding government (Tony and his motley crew) finished the job leaving only muzzle-loading and historical pieces legal. There are cultural reasons handguns won't be banned in America. Sometimes I think we put too much value in something just because it is cultural though, we are quite happy to tell certain countries to (for example) give women the vote when culturally said culture does not consider women eligable. We should be looking critically at our own cultures too. Anyway I am side tracking and don't want to start a long rant. Just expressing my shock and anger at this hideous facet of humanity.

Well I had a fun weekend......kind of. I spent my weekend training training training. Saturday I did a 1.5k swim followed by 66k bike and lastly a 10k run. I was fine until the run, then my world turned rather painful. Not encouraging, the actually race will be a 20k run. So on sunday I ignored my tired limbs and did a 28k bike and then a 20k run. I did it, but 18 minutes off the pace I would ideally want. Hopefully it was just because my legs were knackered from saturdays training. I think I aught to work on the run more though, I am still slow slow slow! During the swim I had a bit of a scare. I was swimming up and down izena beach, the tide wasn't fully in so the water was only about waist deap. I saw a flash of black and white stripes down to my right, sea snake I think!? No no, I tell myself you are just being paranoid, that's when it swim right under me - I could easily have touched it. I managed to hold it together, not keep looking around and swim to the end of that lap. Then I stop and have a serious think about wether to swim back (sea snakes being a little on the venemous side). In the end I do finish my swim but I kept a sharp eye out for underwater critters, which is perhaps why I saw a cuttlefish, the first one I have seen here. Pretty cool looking creatures. On the sat I also had a meeting with a couple from Okinawa honto and the Izena triathlon organisers. The couple had volenteered to take care of the english language side of the triathlon and baby the international triathletes (27 this year). The man was American and his wife Japanese (from tokyo). It was interesting to note he didn't seem to speak a jot of japanese but that their highschool aged daughter was fluent in both Japanese and English. Lucky girl. This year I am fully in charge of the international friendship meeting, unlike last year when I had no input, was not told anything aside from the fact I had to play the keyboard and when I rocked up was told I had to MC as well....great! but I have no idea what's happening! This year will be different! I just weighted myself today, 67.5 kg, I swear I was 70kg last week. Screw faddy diets, just train for a triathlon (I was 78/9 kg when I first came to Okinawa - although alot of what I lost was muscle weight, I am skinny now :-( ). I must point out this is with eating calory mate bars inbetween meals to keep my energy up. Today I am going to see if I can get triple helpings of Kyushoku (school lunch).
Keep the peace.

Update: I managed my three helpings and re-weighed myself, 68kg, 1.5kg of lunch (ie. rice and fish), nice..... well it would be nice if I wasn't still hungry! Time to go home and find some more food.