it's not life that matters but the journey...

Well, its the start of another week.  its amazing that life can go fast even when you are not extremely busy.  at least this weekend we were relatively busy.  After my outing last Monday to meet my former Japanese teacher, not much happened for several days.  Wednesday, the rain started, and it didn't stop until Friday night.  Saturday the sun was out in full force, and I decided, out of restlessness, to take a walk.  good idea, if for the exercise, but bad idea since by the time I got back up the hill, my face was bright red, and my shirt was sticking to my back.  I'm sure I looked a wreck, but luckily I hid under a hat and sunglasses.  it took me at least an hour to cool off with the air conditioning and a cold drink.  it reminded me of my former days as a teacher in Kambara, when I had to walk about 20 minutes to the school, no matter how hot it was, and even at 8:30 in the morning, by the time I got to the teacher's locker room it took me another 20 minutes just to clean up and get my self to looking like a human, rather than a limp french fry.

Saturday night we went out, with Masahiko's friend Onoda-san, to hear a jazz piano player (who Masahiko has been invited to play with next month) in Fujinomiya, the next town towards Mt. Fuji.  For some reason I expected the club to look like something out of the movies, dark and smoky, with little circular tables and candles.  In reality, this place, called "Harmony", was well lit and was about half the size of a small studio apartment, hardly big enough to move around in.  It  consists of two rooms, and literally only two tables.  When we walked into the club, we were in the larger of the two rooms, facing a bar, with several bar stools lined up, taking up most of the space.  There was a table to the right, and beyond that, the bathrooms.  To the left was the smaller room, in which the band was jammed up into one corner, while a large table took up the other corner.  There was a piano player, a stand up bass, and a sax player, and when we got there a woman was singing "All of Me," in a nice voice, but with quite broken English.  the place was pretty much filled to capacity, which is probably only about 15 people.  And more people came as the night went on.  At one point, a guy was playing congo drums right up next to the door;  if anyone wanted to come in, the poor guy had to stop playing, pick up his congos, and move out of the way. My first thought was, what a fire hazard it was.  but its pretty typical of Japan - everything so small, and packed beyond capacity (like trains in rush hour, or the roads, with cars).  Everyone was smoking, so the air was close, and we were stuffed up into a corner, behind the band.  Masahiko played a few songs with the band, but was disappointed with his sound because he didn't have an amp to plug into, only a monitor, and he didn't have much room to move.  but it was an interesting experience, sitting across the table from three strangers, who were very interested when I said I lived in Seattle (these days if you mention Seattle in Japan, you get only one response:  ICHIRO!).  I fooled this poor guy for an instant when I said that Ichiro was a friend of mine - he actually said, ,"Really?"  before I said I was joking.  I hope I didn't insult the guy, but it was pretty funny how gullible he was.  the musicians, as usual in Japan, were very professional, but the experience would never match what Masahiko had playing music in Chicago for about 300 patrons every weekend at Kingston Mines.  but at least it was something.

Sunday we drove to the biggest city near here, about 45 minutes away, Shizuoka.  We wanted to go shopping downtown mostly for CDs.  It was extremely hot and humid, and crowded - like Michigan avenue on a weekend in the summertime.  The Virgin store has been sized down since I lived here before and hardly has any foreign music (as opposed to J-Pops - or Japanese pop, which is the thing here), so we didn't find anything there but walked a bit and found another CD store, then tried to eat at an overcrowded Vietnamese restaurant, decided not to share a table, and drove to a Japanese restaurant that turned out to be too expensive - oh well!  It was still fun to get out and about.

On Saturday, I had two promising emails regarding jobs - I don't want to jinx myself too much, but one of them was from a language school in Shizuoka where I sent my resume - they were impressed and might want to do an interview.  and my friend Bobbie gave me a contact at the university in Mishima, about 40 miles by train from Fuji towards Tokyo (Shizuoka is 40 miles the opposite direction, towards Nagoya).  she said the university might hire someone in the fall if they have any vacancy, so I should send my resume.  so I'm a little anxious, not sure what will happen.  for now i'm just doing domestic chores, and thinking towards the next chapter of my novel . . . wonder if I'll ever finish it!?