Sitting at the hospital, waiting for my mom to come out of heart surgery… In the waiting room, there are 19 other people ranging in age from 17 to 70. The 17 year old kid is the only one in here that could be considered a good normal weight. Everyone else is supersized and overly annoying.. for example..
The 45 to 55 year old women sitting next to me, on skype, chatting with a friend about the latest Britney Spears pictures. Literally, she turned the news down so she could talk to her friend. Even after I asked to be considerate of others she is still being annoying as hell. If she wasn’t using her edge card for access I would be up in her shizznitaz. SO ANNOYING.
Next, there are is a gaggle of fat women here discussing their exercise routine. Which I think really consists of them making laps around the buffet during lunch… and dinner. *sigh*
Where the gun play ring all day nananana…
Coming back to StLouay! Between switching jobs and my mother’s heart surgery, I figured I can spend some time in the hometown.
I will be in town from the 4th to the 25th. Anyone up for meeting up? I will be bringing a guest, so there will be some obligatory tourism; Art Museum, AB Brewery, Zoo, Arch, Delmar, Magic house.. Anything else?
Hit me up.
Which huge corporations own the small organic companies.. HERE.
Well it was a rough weekend. Friday morning I woke up with a sinus headache and the general onset of a headcold. Throughout the day I managed to load up on echinacea, zinc and some cold/vitamin drinks and managed to eliminate the general grogginess.
Saturday morning, up bright and early with a little drainage but feeling good. Off to the station to go to work. (It’s about a 10 minute bike ride from my apartment to the station I transfer at.) I usually take a thoroughfare that isn’t a side road, but is by no means a busy road. Today was no different. At 0830 in the morning on saturday, there are not so many people up in the part of tokyo I live… with that in mind, traffic is almost non-existent. I realized that I am now not the only person to know this.
Coming down a small hill, I had a yellow light, on the verge of green. I normally slow down a tad bit in these cases just to make sure that there are no cyclers or people wanting to do the ole St. Louis stop or rush the red. Today, however, I decided it was early and no need to do it.
Continue reading ‘A lesson learned…’
Last year should have been the year of the rat (it was actually the pig.) Chinese astrology plays a large part in the culture in japan, so the new year brings in the new zodiac sign, the rat. Along with various lame and dumb television shows.
Made it back late saturday night from Akita. We weren’t able to have reserved seats coming back, so we had to hop between open seats until the train was full and then we had to stand (or sit in the changing areas..) Ended up spending about an hour actually standing. Not too bad since the trains were book to 150% capacity..
Anyways. The 7 days I spent on vacation were fabulous. I didn’t do anything except go to onsens (hot springs) everyday, a splendid fish market, play othello, go to 寒風山（ mountain on the coast) and eat way too much really fresh fish. There was plenty of snow outside and the pleasant odor of sandalwood wafting throughout the house.. perfectly refreshing!
-Things learned:
Women take a long time (up to 2 hours) to put on a kimono.. (however, they are easy to get off! giggetygiggety )
In traditional japanese homes, it is expected that if a girl brings a guy home, they are going to announce their engagement.
Akita has a lot of good food, but it is very salty. ( Due to the coldness, pickling of foods is common..)
I can play the shakuhachi.. (it is supposedly extremely difficult to produce sound on it..)
Pictures to come soon.
Merry holidays everyone. Hope you are well and enjoying yourselves.
I had a wonderful Christmas here with a fabulous home cooked meal by the girlfriend. We will be heading off to Akita this friday to celebrate the new year’s in the traditional japanese way with her family. ( visiting the family shrine and following it up with lots of fresh fish and sake!)
On a side note; the line at the KFC near my apartment was nearly 60 people deep with a 2 hour wait. Why you ask? Fried Chicken is the christmas food here, well that and christmas cake. I guess ham is not popular, that is fine by me though!
It is great being in a country with subsidized health care!! Just received my new insurance package for next year and wow, it’s great! It isn’t even the best available in japan, but it is pretty good, dental and eye coverage (except cost of classes) and general health-care related issues. Plus medicine is cheap and co-pays are cheap. Coverage for dependents is even amazing.. why cannot the US do this.. oh yeah, too much corporate interest.
Sometimes this new age hippy crap works and is beneficial, and some times it is just BS. To each their own.
move on already.
Doing a little research on BPAs, while there is no definite proof that nalgenes are harmful, why risk it. Especially since some of the studies say that nalgenes are completely safe if you replace them every 6 months. That kind of defeats the purpose, now doesn’t it.
So what are some alternatives if you don’t want to wait till march 2008, when camlebak releases their no-BPA water bottles? Here are a few..
kleankanteen.com- High quality, durable, stainless steel “kanteens..”
sigg.ch- Aluminum canteens, most with ceramic linings for those worried about the possiblity of aluminum related sicknesses.
As for other plastic bottles, the plain white nalgenes do not have BPA in them. Other things to pay attention to when buying a bottle, look at the plastic indicator on it. All type 7 plastics have BPAs in them, so the idea is to avoid those. Or buy a new one every six months..
Been continuing as before, aikido during the weekend and judo during the week.. My aikido is at a plateau right now, not learning a whole lot, just kind of meandering. As for judo, I am working on 5 of the kodokan dai-ikkyu kihon techniques right now with the addition of some basic ne-waza. With the little bit of jujitsu I have done, the newaza is quite enjoyable.
I find that my cardio is pretty strong. I am doing 5 to 8, 3 minute randori sessions a class in addition to uchigomi and warmups. I keep pushing and pushing, but I need to find some more cardio building activities without running.. I think adding a third day a week to judo would be beneficial.