Earthquakes

I had never felt an Earthquake before I came to Japan. Now, I have been through more than a dozen small ones. At first I was quite frightened of any Earthquake because I imagined the house falling down having to dive under a table and what not. These types happen sure but much more common are small quakes that leave you going was that a quake or did the door just start rattling. I have become so jaded to them that when they happen at night I wake up for about 5 seconds think about opening the door so that if the house shifts we can leave room. However, I always fall back to sleep without even getting out of bed. When one happens during the day we all just stand still to see how strong its going to be and just wait it out. The only way to describe a quake is bizarre suddenly what has for your whole life been solid is now moving. Things rattle and your drink might spill but mostly everything is fine it just happens to be moving. If there was a big one all bets are off and its going to be so terrifying but till that happens I'll keep being surprised by how normal they are.

Fishing

mean to complain about that in this post. While fishing is not usually my favorite activity it was nice to be out doing something just guys. I caught a fish in the first five minutes we were there. Not to sound like a fish story but at about 6 inches it was the biggest one all day. Today I went fishing in Hachinohe with some of my friends. I was the first time since coming here that I have done something the was just some guy time. It was really nice. With there being so few young people in town having friends close to my age has been tough. Oh well I didn'tYamabi caught a tiny fish next and then we had a dry spell for a few hours so we went to a different place. There were some other tinny fish caught but the real strange thin was the fugu (puffer fish). At the last place we went I caught a puffer. Then another puffer. Then Kawamura caught a puffer. Then I caught another puffer. Yamabi even caught a flat fish today. Before anyone worries we put the puffers back in and didn't even consider eating them. Sorry for the quality of the pictures they were from my cell phone.

The first fish I caught.
Yamabi's fish. A puffed up puffer fish.

Festival

I can safely say that this festival has wrung us out. Here was our basic schedule for this past weekend.


Friday: I help pull the giant cart around town.. for 6 hours. After work, Claire and Caleb joined me.

Saturday: Caleb pulled the cart. Miyuki, Rachael and I went to the salon to get our hair festival ready.
The hairdresser had no trouble with Miyuki's hair, but found my hair to be too thick and Rachael's hair to be too thin. Somewhere between the two of us is perfect hair for Japanese festival hairdos.
In the evening All of us danced the Ichinohe dance about a mile down the main road. (If I can navigate the treacherous youtube upload system there will be a video of this soon.)
The woman who dressed us in the yukata grumbled constantly about the size of my chest and the size of Claire's hips. We were not built for kimono. Racheal and Miyuki were fine though.

After the dance Claire had an after party. JETs came from miles around to attend.
Sunday: We attended a pottery firing at the Goshono Jomon center. (Which I should probably write a post about.) After the pottery firing we helped pull the cart for about 7 hours and attended an after party with the other people who pulled the cart.
We've had a great time but I'm so glad to relax.


This is just a scattering of pictures that other people took. I'm encouraging Caleb to get on soon and post some of the pictures we took with our camera.