hello all.looking back at my last posting, I realize the lapse has spanned almost 3 months. To be honest, today if the first day in a long time I actually felt like writing. I guess I was waiting till the time was right.
More specifically, I wanted to wait until I was done working at my job. I was fired this week. In a nutshell, I was singled out as a sacrificial goat for the receding economy, and then thrown to the wolves. What an unpleasant experience working in a high-profile corporate law firm has been. Some tell me not all law firms are like this, but I am not prepared to find out. I am done with law. Let's leave it at that, I don't want to rant.
It has been a hard busy 3 months, and I didn't want to write any posts about how much I dislike my job, and how unhappy it was making me. Working 12 hours days, and trying to maintain the facade of a life, I didn't have the energy or the heart to paste a smile into my words, so I hope you will forgive me.
That being said, outside of the worst job I suspect I will ever have, the last three months have been eventful and nourishing. In March there was the kite festival in Hakata city, and plum (ume) blossoms, followed closely by the cherry (sakura) blossoms, with traditional cherry-blossom viewing (hanami), and a whirlwind tour of the volcanoes and beachs of Kyushu, southernmost major island of the archipelago. I reckon this will be a long post.
and yeah, its my birthday (authors note: this was written on my birthday, published later)
My friend Hana, a Japanese girl a met a a language exchange, brought to Hakata city to see a kite festival with her. It was an enriching experience. The Japanese appreciate the craft of kites dearly, and I learnt many a trick to flying kites. My especial favourite were the strung-out kites ( I don't know what to call them), involving 20 odd kites on one string, separated at intervals of 10 meters. The resulting kites are very high (i.e. >200m), and visibile from a distance. I got to help a string one of these kites up. The old fellow who made it said he took over a year to make it, namely due to the fact each kite was made from a bread bag, and he can only eat bread so fast! Later, during the general single kite flying event, I was given a kite to fly. I ended up being interviewed by the announcers while fly a kite (being the only white guy there) and ended up getting to take the kite home! For the past three months then I took my kite to OsakaJo (castle) which was very close to my office, and fly kites of the high wall over the moat. I loved my lunch breaks. They kept me going. (going to another kite festival next weekend. count on another post soon!)
Sidenote: One day my kite got stuck halfway down the wall on a bush. So I had to hang dramatically over the edge of the wall and dangle a big stick to free my kite. All this in view of the front gate, where all the Japanese people entering could see the crazy gaijin scale the castle walls. Eric's follies in Japan.
OsakaJo is a really splendid part of Osaka. By far my favorite aspect of my former job was the proximity to the castle, and the lunch break excursions I was able to make. Sakura are an integral component of Japanese culture, and to a similar extent so is Spring. Before I extoll the virtues of Sakura, special mention must be made to Ume, the little sister of Sakura. Plum blossoms flower just prior to Sakura, yet this is overshadowed by the imminent explosion of Cherry blossoms. Still very nice.
I discovered the Ume grove in OsakaJo by noticing from my 15F office a portion of the park had turned pink. More diversity in color than Sakura. nice nice very nice.
Sakura! The unofficial national time in Japan. The winters are damp, and the summers are (reportedly) stiflingly humid. But spring is juuust right. The country explodes in a show of pink and white blossoms. Seriously. These trees are everywhere. Ubiquitous even.
Bicycling through OsakaJo at 5pm on a friday at the peak of the Sakura period, the atmosphere is saturated with happiness and contentment. Not content to merely take a stroll to enjoy the blossoms, the Japanese set up camp underneath the trees, they bring food, drink, grills, music, and even generators to light up the blossoms to extend their viewing pleasure. This is Hanami. Sitting under Cherry tree in a suit without socks or shoes, no tie, quaffing a can of beer, I can say I have tasted the Hanami experience like a true salaryman.
The Sakura, however, are as fleeting as they are explosively beautiful. On average they last only two weeks. Warm weather, wind and rain shortens this even more. Hence to the Japanese, a certain degree of wistful sadness is mixed in with the appreciation of Spring's radiant beauty.Beauty, and the best times of life are fleeting, cut down after a brief blossoming. That being said, blossom showers are spectacular, although my curry lunch did end up full of cherry blossoms (albeit edible). 
Finally, two weeks ago it was Golden Week. The first week of May is a holiday, and the Japanese flock in droves to the country side, the shrines, the beaches, and the mountains. I took this time to travel to Kyushu, the southern most major island of the Archipelago. Those five days were fraught with Onsen (hot springs), trains, Volcanoes and Beaches. Overnight ferry from Osaka to Beppu provided me with a tatami sleeping mat, pillow, blanket, and sento (artificial hot spring). Then buried to the neck in hot sands damp with mineral waters in Beppu, famed Onsen town.
Train to Aso-san, giant extinct volcano crater in the heart of Kyushu. 5 younger volcanoes nested within the ancient caldera. Ascended Naka Dake, the only active crater, and viewed the roiling azzure waters of the active caldera, belching forth Sulphur dioxide, which turns into Sulphuric acid in your lungs. Wind conditions change and you are toast. At one point, the staff opened another roped off area. Once arriving in the newly open area, everyone began to cough violently, and the staff shooed us back to where we were before.
After an eruption in 1979 (one newlywed bride died, along with a few others), the park installed concrete bunkers for tourists to take shelter in even of catastrophe. Would you hunker down in the poison gas, or take off down the slope? tough call... I just have to say: Volcanoes are not people places. But badass. Like you wouldn't believe.
The slopes of the volcanoes however were another story. Fertile rolling fields, covered in green grass, perfect grazing lands for local livestock. Milk straight from the belching volcano. delicious. seriously.
After Aso-san, we proceeded to head to Takachiho gorge, where you can rent a row boat to enjoy the scenic gorge.As the line was a three hour wait for a 30 min row 500 m and back, in a distorted version of inept Japanese bumper boats, we opted to just look from above.
All I wanted to do was swim. But everything was roped off. Welcome to Japan. I must mention the Gorge was apparently formed by a dual volcanic eruption. Hence the crazy honeycombesque walls. 
We then made for the coast of Miyazaki, with white sand beaches and blue waters. Surfers abounded, and we visited Aoshima (Blue island), a subtropical island surrounded by a bizzarre geological formation called the Ogre's Washboard. After that, we rented a car, and toured the coastline of Miyazaki. The coastline was very dramatic, either rugged cliffs or white sand beaches, covered with surfers, after which saw the wild horses of Cape Toi, and then returned home. 
Very Scenic. Just wished I could have seen the other volcanoes (Kyushu has one of the worlds largest active volcanoes on Sakurajima, which dusts the nearby town Kagoshima with ash, the resident carrying umbrellas).
poo.So yes, I have been up to some memorable larks, exploits and follies. Now that I am unemployed, I have more time to explore the countryside, and study both Japanese and Aikido, while looking for a new job. I plan to teach English, while looking for a science-related job. I hope to land a job in a brewery somewhere, as I have a degree in fermentation. How sweet would that be?
These days, I am staying indoors, and hunting for jobs online, as the arrival of swine flu has closed public schools and triggered massive sales of surgical masks. Many masks on the subway freak me out. So I stay at home, as I have nowhere I need to go. I promise to keep more regular updates posted from now on, thanks to my recent emancipation. I would love to hear from any one and everyone, so please let me know how you are!
Love all y'all
<3 OISHIIFACE <3
