Spring is here and with it gloomy days..

Hey everyone,

Its been a month so its time for an update. I assume there are still people reading this so I'll try my best to fill you in on last months escapades. I was thinking about it and my time here is really almost up. There is not a lot to do but try and take advantage of every opportunity available and see, taste, experience everything out there. I will of course have to come back down to reality at some point and deal with finding a place to live, a job and paying off all the debt I have accrued over the years. This still hasnt sunk in yet so I wont give it any more thought here.

So I have some bad news and some good news to tell from the whirlwind of last month. I will start with the bad news since most, given the choice, want to hear that first.

The culminating point of last month was during my spring break here. It is actually the end of the school year here. You would think that means there is a big vacation for schools. Of course being Japan that is hardly the case. I barely had 10 days off of work! I decided to take advantage of it though and went to Hiroshima! I have some friends there I met in Nicaragua and we had been planning on and off, for what seems like forever to meet up and have a little reunion. This does not sound like bad news at all I know. The bad news came on my third day while visiting them.
I met Dorinne online at Nick and Kims house as usual and we skyped. After only 20 minutes we had broken up. We were together over a year and half but this just happened to be the moment when it was all over. If you think that is bad timing. The next day I got a message from my mom that my grandma died. Even though she was really sick I was hoping to see her this summer. Needless to say it was a big shock hearing this string of bad news. I was very grateful to be with friends at the time and it made it a lot easier having a new city to explore and fun things to do. I actually stayed for 3 more days and really enjoyed myself. It wasnt until the long train ride back that things started to sink in.

Well on to the good news. First I will go over my Hiroshima trip.
I started off being reluctant to spend any money on my short break since I was planing on visiting Dorinne a couple weeks later. This trip is of course canceled now. But at the time I decided to take the local trains all the way to Hiroshima. To anyone living in Japan for more than a year this sounds completely crazy. The only reason I did it of course was because the only discount offered(only in holiday season) is a thing called the juuhachi kippu, which means 18 year old ticket. This ticket offers 5 days of unlimited train travel for only the equivalent of $25 a day. I know this sounds like a great deal but there are all sorts of restrictions basically limiting travel to only local trains(yeah, the ones that stop in every shithole little town). So needless to say it took me 21 hours and 15 trains to get to Hiroshima. It wasnt non-stop though. On the way down I stopped in Kyoto for the day. It was terrible weather, kind of patchy clouds, misting and cold but I managed to traverse much of the city. I got in in the afternoon and decided to try and see some of the famous temples that I missed last time i was there. I threw my bag in a storage locker and was off. My plan being that I would find a nice onsen as soon as I felt tired. The problem ended up being that I couldnt really find my way around the city. It seemed so much smaller last time when I rented bikes and had a hotel. I did make it to Kinkakuji, the famous gold temple and it was well worth the steap entry. I then walked down the road(what looked on my map like a short distance) to Ryoanji, the beautiful Zen buddhist rock garden. This was much more impressive then the pictures I had seen. The immaculate sand following in perfect lines led the eye to inexpressible solitude. The small garden can only be described as a vast ocean in the middle nowhere that removed the viewer from the packed tourist platform to a peaceful state. I could have stayed there for hours but I was cold, hungry and wet. So as I made my way back I was a little annoyed that i couldn't navigate the city and find an onsen. Then out of nowhere i saw a Sento(a japanese public bath) down a little street and decided to take it as a sign. The sento in japan is basically a small onsen in the city. Most times it doesnt have the mineral water or different heated pools but it gets the job done. This one in particular was really small so the old curmudgen patron lady was right there in the mens changing room! I know this is pretty common in Japan but i still found it very odd that it old lady watches naked men all day as a job. The local sumo compitition was on the tv and the onsen and bath were much needed after so many hours on trains.
I made it to Hiroshima the next evening. I thought I was going to arrive earlier in the afternoon but I made a quick pit stop in Himeji to see the most famous castle in Japan. In only an hour i actually made it all the way inside the castle and back to the train station. It was just one of those crazy days but that is another story.
On my last train into Hiroshima I started a conversation with another foriegner(which almost never happens in Japan) and ended up talking to him for the next two hours. If this wasnt strange enough we bonded over discussing such topics as bad roommates, government corruption and the strange side of japanese culture. If anything I thought this was a great sign that the rest of my trip would be amazing. I ended up meeting Nick and Kim only a couple hours later then expected and they immediatly took me to their favorite Indian restaurant. We were definitly thinking on the same page. It was really nice to see some familar faces since Dorinne has been my only visitor, up until then I hadn't seen any friends in 7 months.
The rest of my time in Hiroshima was relaxing. It wasnt so much of a vacation to a new exotic place as just visiting some friends and crashing on their couch for a few nights. I had met Nick and Kim while volunteering in Nicaragua only a year and a half earlier, they are English teachers too but work for a private company called David English house. We spent our days making huge meals, including a Nica-style gallo pinto and Cuban crab omelet, I played endless games on Nic's new PS3, and went to the bars at night. I had a great time hanging out in Hiroshima especially because there was such a foriegn presence I think. I feel kind of bad saying this but I am sick of being the token white person everywhere I go. Sometimes I crave feeling outside of japan even when in it.

So I am doing alright now. The gloomy days part of this post is mostly because winter is still dragging his heals and won't leave us alone here. Everything isn't all bad as they say. I will make it through this time, hopefully. If there is anything that can come of this time(and I kindof mean my whole time in japan) it is that sometimes we need to go through hard difficult periods in life. For if we didnt pass these bumps in the road how would we ever grow...