Wednesday, November 30, 2005

randoms


ever seen 5 guys and 3 trucks working on one telephone pole?

a few JETs on the lawn of our hotel for the conference this past week. it looks like a really cheesy band picture i think. it was really windy and jsut about to start hailing on us here.

my baseball jersey for the city team, im a little worried because japanese baseball is totally different from american. but it's okay i think, im gonna start to play with the school baseball team after classes to start to get ready. you can also see my new blanket on top of my very very ugly green couch thing in the background, it is really hideous looking.

Tuesday, November 29, 2005

how rainy is kanazawa?



Given that ive heard it rains on average 186 days a year in kanazawa, i decided to look up exactly how much rain we get. This is a chart i made that shows the average rainfall over the last 100 years per month between Seattle Washington(the light blue) and Kanazawa (maroon). this gives you some idea of how wet it is here. In one year, it will have rained on average 2.5 meters of rain in kanazawa, and around 900 centimeters in seattle.

you can look up data for any major city in the world at : http://www.worldclimate.com/

walking to the sea on a crisp fall day


Thursday, November 24, 2005

pre-thanksgiving





some random pictures for you tonight. a couple from the kenrokuen light-up last week, the first one is of one of my 98 yen gyoza package dinners infront of the TV to watch football late at night. they are so good with the right combination of rice vinegar, soy sauce and hot chili oil. then the last one is trying to write text messages to the supervisor in japanese. my kanji i guess is coming tho. but when i think about it i screwed up the particles in that sentence, oh well. tomorrow is thanksgiving, one of my favorite holidays for sure. ill miss the family meal, but at least ill have 120 JETs to entertain me as tomorrow and friday are orientation days in the north of ishikawa, when you sit down to thanksgiving dinner, please send me a positive thanksgiving vibe to get me through the information sessions and group seminars ill be sitting through. happy thanksgiving.

Tuesday, November 22, 2005

the biggest darkest storm in history

these are pictures taken in order of a giant storm coming off the sea of japan and pounding kanazawa with rain. the clouds were so dark i had to adjust my shutter speed to the same settings that i take pictures at night with. as the storm approached, big winds carried rain in from the sea and it was raining with clear skies. the whole time, big flashes of lightining flashed out in the distance over the sea. The storm came in around 4pm and transformed the day to night, all the buildings in kz turned on their lights in the afternoon it was so dark. it was amazing, i have never seen anything like it. im sorry these captions are so poorly written, my english is getting pretty terrible.




Monday, November 21, 2005

japanese treats


sakura and ringos were our goal, mine didnt look this good

while everyone else in the room was totally silent while they were making these things, we were the sterotypical loud westerns.


an entire mountain range out in the distance from my apartment that ive never seen before. too much smog up until now to see them. at least this weather is good for keeping the smog down.

sunday night


i spoke at a gathering of medical students from uchinada's medical school about learning english tonight. this is a shot from my cell phone of only some of the food that was throw down on the tables we soon as i arrived. i didnt have much to say, as i almost never have any idea what these people want to hear. i answered a lot of questions tho, mostly in japanese about my favorite japanese foods, why i came, where im from, etc, i feel like my life is so boring after talking about it almost constantly for the past 4 months as i am asked the same questions by everyone i meet. i think i might start making stuff up just to make it a little more interesting. but everyone was extremly nice, and was very excited to watch me try every different type of food there.


my question is, what happens at 24:03?

Friday, November 18, 2005

kenrokuen light up






Wednesday, November 16, 2005

sunset




Tuesday, November 15, 2005

late monday



kanazawa

Monday, November 14, 2005

a lazy sunday



after taking a wrong turn into the rice fields. way out in the distance you can see the medical center and bridge in uchinada.

i somehow ended up at a horserace on the other side of the lagoon. all this while trying to get a haircut.
i went to the next town over today, and it felt like another planet. i feel like my town has gotten used to me working and living there. i walked into a supermarket trying to see if they sold apples for under $1.50 an apple, and random people start staring and taking pictures of me with their cell phone cameras. i guess they dont get many(or any) foreigners there. it seems to happen a lot, you'd think with TV, and constant bombardment of american pop culture people wouldnt be so stunned to see a white person. i feel like people made less of a deal of me being white in africa than they do in japan. then in the meat department an old lady very sternly declared in japanese "you don't have beef in america" and that "american food is not delicious" i said, "sorry"and made a quick getaway, all this when i just wanted some apples.
i love it here, but it can be really trying sometimes.

Saturday, November 12, 2005

exporing higashiyama in downtown kanazawa





top 10 jumping photos


Santorini greece

island of Lipari off the north coast of Sicily

agrigento sicily

Rome, over Vittoria Emanual monument to the unification of italy

North coast of Sardegna Italy

also on sardenga, in the distance you can see corsica

guggenheim musem in bilbao

overlook of florence italy

EUR complex, south of Rome italy

Kunsthaus in Zurich Switzerland