Civilization and Pugilism . . . Check

Another week comes to an end. Started experimenting this past week, nothing too exciting there. Friday was entertaining enough. This Friday was a combination of my welcome party and my department's monthly recreational outing. The evening began with a trip to the local bowling center (Friday night and only six lanes out of fifty were being used, and we were using three . . . but at $5 a game not a huge wonder). We threw two games, I threw 173 and 138, and I pulled out the win in both (though only by 2 pins in the second). Everyone seemed very impressed and got a kick out of the way I spun the ball. Next stop was a restaurant not far away. Awaiting us there was a pretty tasty five course meal and a bit of all you can drink . . . I enjoyed the meal, but soundly made up for my bowling victory by getting entirely too drunk (tough to avoid when everyone around you wants to fill your glass and just keeps ordering more an more alcohol). I made it home, likely without incedent, but I don't remember anything past leaving the table. Not the first time I've gotten hammered in the land of the rising sun and likely not the last . . .

Mmmm Breakfast

Saturday I got up and found myself some breakfast, watched a bit of tv and prepaired for my next task. Big thanks go out to Masato for helping me hunt down a boxing gym. It's about 5 miles away from my appartment (about half a block from the hotel I stayed in my first night). That was my target, and so I started walking. En route I found a few places to remember. A $10 barber, a book store, a park to work out in and a couple bicycle repair shops. One more thing that I found along the way was people. The weather was terrible (Thursday was actually the worst rain in almost a decade), but even so the part of the city around the gym was full of people. I got to the gym and hung around there for about 4 hours. I watched a bunch of the guys work out, saw what the instruction was like and chatted with the gym owner. I didn't get to see any sparring, but I did get to see Japan's number 2 bantam weight. I'll start training on Monday, and I'll find out then if it's going to be as expensive as the internet tells me it is. Afterwards I was too hungry to bother walking home, so I jumped on the train. I grabbed some meat on a stick at a restaurant near the station and headed home. Once I got home I decided it would be a good chance to check out the onsen (hot springs/bath house) near my appartment. It was good, a small mom-n-pop operation, but something I missed about Japan.

Sunday I went to check out the park that I passed on the way to the boxing gym. A nice little park with lots of green, a couple lakes and streams, many pieces of playground equipment to workout on and a two mile loop to run around on. While on my way walking through the park I passed by a few older gents sitting on some benches. As I passed one of them called out "Hallo", and I turned and answered back "konnichiwa". They then asked where I was from and invited me to join them for a sit. I joined them and accepted a beer when offered. Two out of the three were a bit on the drunk side of sober, plus the sober one and one other both spoke with extremely thick accents. They all spoke really fast and informally. Did I mention that one of them also spoke with a stutter . . . A hell of a challenge for my ever so lacking language skills, but I managed to answer their questions and infer enough to mostly follow the conversation. After another beer, a hotdog and a little while I took my leave and headed on. I think I now know exactly what it is like for a non native english speaker the first time they meet Frost.

More pictures likely to come . . . weather was pretty poor, so I didn't bother just yet. I'm really looking forward to Monday and starting my boxing career. I think next weekend I will venture out to the possible AIESEC universities I have found, and see if I can find something going on there. One more time, thanks Masato