2011 Lunar Eclipse from Kochi, Japan

Last night my girlfriend and I went to the river to watch the lunar eclipse. The conditions were rather fantastic.  It was happening between 9-11 pm on a Saturday night.  The sky was cloudless, and it was only about 7-9 degrees Celsius out.

Bookshelf, Beer, and a Bed

Lapse in blogging is due to being rather busy towards the end of the year last year, things going really well in my social life, and a two week vacation back in Virginia.  I may pick back up again, I have a wealth of topics to discuss again, I will introduce.

Hiking in Kochi-ken

I have finally begun what I hope to be an extended series of weekends of hiking the trails of Kochi prefecture.  Monday was a holiday and a friend asked if I wanted to join a hike.  The answer was of course yes, and we ended up finding 4 others that wanted to join as well and so hiked up Kajigamori in Otoyo-cho.  It was well signed from the road but the access road to the trailhead and the little hamlets and houses up the mountain was intimidating at best, terrifying at worst.  I’ve seen worse roads but they usually had guard rails. Anyway, pics are on flickr.

Nagasaki and Yakushima

I learned a bit about myself on this trip to Kyushu.

1. I like going at my own pace.  Sometimes fast, sometimes slow.
2. I don’t actually get that bored if I’m moving, even if no one else is around.
3. I think a lot more when I’m alone.
4. I don’t like driving that much.
5. Kochi has just about everything I was looking for from Yakushima, and it’s like a treasure hunt trying to find it!

Damnit!

I’m sick. Hopefully this will be gone by tomorrow. I have class on friday.  I really wanted to hike Ishizuchi-san tomorrow.

Adventures

So I keep telling people that I’ve been having non-stop crazy adventures.  Here’s some of what that has entailed:

• An older JET’s birthday party in Gohoku followed by swimming in and around two waterfalls and a fireworks celebration in Usa,
• Numerous trips to Kochi city for parties, get togethers, two whole weekends, one for the Kochi JET orientation (a.k.a. my birthday celebration), visiting the Sunday market, participating (unexpectedly) in the Yosakoi festival, Karaoke, shopping, etc.
• A stone skipping festival and contest on the Niyodogawa river (
  http://www.flickr.com/photos/mark_mrwizard/sets/72157622154236195/
  ),
• A tug of war festival in Tosa city,
• A fireworks festival and fun exploration trip down the west side of the prefecture to Shimanto city,
• A fun exploration trip to the eastern tip of Kochi prefecture, ending up in Toyo town for a beach party at Shirahama beach (
  http://www.flickr.com/photos/mark_mrwizard/sets/72157622346290038/
  ),
• Three times of going to Tosa city for Yoga class,
• Tons more smaller trips and excursions.

Yo

I’m in Japan.  I should have internets by Friday.  Woot woot.  Japan is gooder than before, so’z me thinks.  I speak the teach of english so good.