advice

the voice room at nova is a casual class that any student can join at any time. it is not lesson specific and there is no set curriculum. it is designed to give students a chance to speak freely and casually without being worried about lesson goals and strict grammer.

yesterday we were talking about stress. i asked the students, "how do you relieve stress?" these are there answers. . .

• drink beer (4/5 students gave this response, ages ~25-70)
• watch tv
• drink coffee at the train station
• go to nova
• sleep "like a log"
• break things and throw them
• refresh myself (?)
• dance alone at home to bon jovi

cuddly dominion

so, cuddly dominion is a sort of zoo-circus-petting zoo that could only exist in japan. it is located in the town at the base of aso-san. there are several species of bears, monkeys, dogs, cats, birds and some other assorted animals. the selling point of cuddly dominion - you guessed it - is that you get to touch the animals. sort of. the bears and monkeys and dogs are involved in circus like shows throughout the day.

we got to see a bear play basketball, balance on a cylinder on a box, ride a bicycle and walk on a ball with his trainer. we saw monkeys dressed in matching outfits as their trainers run and jump and look cute. we saw a bull dog dressed as a panda bear. i'm not sure why. we couldn't pet the bears, but we could have pet the monkeys. unfortunately there was a line of about 50 kindergarten children ahead of us so we moved on to the next show.

the grand finale was the cat house. i was of course really excited about this part. we had to pay an additional 300yen to be admitted, but that was fine with me. the 'house' was a single large room and a gekkan (entry/foyer). once you removed your shoes and put on your slippers, you were allowed past the 'gate' to the cats. it sort of had the feel of a daycare. the room was large and sparsely furnished with grossly oversized 'books' and 'toys' that made one feel as though they were in alice's wonderland. the 'books' on the floor were about 5x8x2 feet. there was a small radio on the 'bookshelf' that played painfully slow nursery rhymes.

the room contained about 20+ cats. all had collars and bells. there were three that were actually playing with each other and a ball, but the rest were relaxing. by relaxing i mean drugged, i'm sure. they were laying around in shallow palstic bins. you could pick up a bin and carry a cat around and it wouldn't budge. you could pet a cat and it would completely ignore you. there was one that was compulsively cleaning itself and wouldn't stop when pet or to escape petting for that matter. we spent about twenty minutes here and then realized that we were all getting really sleepy from the nursery rhymes and kind of slap happy from the situation. maybe it was the drugs in the ventilation system. i'm not sure. it was by far one of my most surreal experiences in japan.

after cuddly dominion we were off to kumamoto-jo, one of japan's largest standing castles.

basashi

last 'weekend' john and i saw the mouth of a live volcano, ate raw horse meat, slept in a cabin in the mountains, went to 'cuddly dominion' (a permanent circus/petting zoo that could only exist in japan), and saw one of japan's largest castles. all that in two days. nice.

we had a lovely time with our friends kyoko and syoji. kyoko just moved to kumamoto to live with her parents and to start a new job. she had been living in fukuoka and working for nova, which is of course where we met her. her boyfriend, syoji, lives and works here, just south of the city.

the three of us took the bus to kumamoto, where kyoko picked us up in her car. it was so nice to see some of the country from a car. you get a much different feeling than by train. we drove to the top of aso-san (the volcano) and parked in the parking lot in front of the tourist trap that is its museum, gallery and gift shop. we took a ropeway to the very top where we were allowed less than fifteen minutes to marvel before the winds changed and we were shooed away lest we die of poisonous gases. exciting, eh?

we then drove to a small town supermarket to buy food for dinner. this is where i got a bit confused. something was lost in the translation and i thought that we would be sleeping at kyoko's folks' house or a japanese hotel. i asked where she lived and she said maybe and hour's drive away. the groceries made sense if we were going to her home, but i couldn't understand why we were shopping in this small town instead of near her house.

we then proceeded to drive higher and higher in the mountains and farther away from any towns at all. we came across a small group of farm houses in a valley and kyoko stopped the car. she got out and ran to one of the farmhouses. i was really confused now and decided to let my stupidity known; i asked the boys what was going on. they explained that we were renting a cabin for the night. ohh. it's nice being simple minded and easily amused. i had a good laugh at myself as did everyone else.

the cabin was small, but much bigger than our appartment so that was nice. we had a deck and a barbecue, a rice cooker and a fridge, and hot water to boot. it was so nice to be out of the city. there weren't any guests at the other cabins so the night was filled only with the sound of crickets. we actually got to see stars, too, which was also good for the soul.

we started dinner with the basashi, a famous dish of kumamoto prefecture (yes, it's raw horse meat). i was a little hesitant at first and started to react with the old, "eww, gross. i can't eat a horse," routine before i stopped myself and thought about what i have eaten in my lifetime (e.g. cute little bunnies, bambi, ducks, turtles, raw squid, rotten beans. . .). i then thought, "hell, no reason to cut the list short." it was quite nice. the flavor is very subtle and a little sweet. it is eaten with crushed ginger and shoyu.

we followed that with a barbecue that lasted at least two hours. the japanese have a different idea of barbecue than us westerners. instead of grilling and then eating, everyone sits around the grill and the food is eaten bite by bite with chopsticks off the grill as it is cooked. beer is drank throughout the entire process so in the end you're quite ready for bed.

the next day we were off to cuddly dominion. . .