Chasing Waterfalls

Ramon, Thanks for the hearty midday laugh. I hope you had a good birthday. It seems that Lourdes and the kids have not been keeping you busy enough with the amount of Japanese you have learned. I would reckon that you’ve learned more than I have with far less time on your hands.

As for yesterday, it was a pretty extraordinary day by any standards I had before of any workday in the States. However, first I would like to share some awkward Japanese moments that I think some of you would find interesting. The office staff here is fascinated by the fact that I drink so much water. Here I drink green tea about 3 or 4 times a day in addition to eating the snacks or treats that are handed to me which usually make me even more thirsty. Therefore, sometimes during lunch I buy a 2 liter bottle of water and come back with about half gone and drink the rest during the course of the day. They all usually stop and gaze at me and ask me if I hate tea or their tea or something like that. In any case, I usually take several trips to the restroom to . . . well, you know. This brings us to yesterday when I was at the urinal minding my business when a man comes to the urinal next me and says “otskare sama deshta” directly translated, “you must be tired”. This is a colloquial phrase that is usually said at the end of the workday when people are leaving work. Some people however also say it when they meet during the workday. Anyway, the point is just that I found it funny that I was peeing when somebody told me “you must be tired”. Tired of what? Peeing perhaps. The man probably found me odd because I just proceeded to finish what I was doing while laughing.

My other comment about daily life in Japan is that there is a lady that comes into our office and sweeps with a big swiffer. However, I do not think that she is really cleaning rather just moving dirt and dust from one crevice to another. She uses the same swiffer everyday rather than replacing or cleaning the cloth. She never actually picks up any dirt with a vacuum or damp cloth. I think it is part of the Japanese mentality of you must look busy despite the fact that there may be no real purpose or need to what you are actually doing. I just thought that you would find it a bit interesting.

Now to what was so fun about yesterday. After work, I met Cristina, Laura and Kaz at Kaz’s in Koyama to go to the ever so famous waterfall you can slide down from. As it turns out, it is on a route that I take to Cristina’s house at about the halfway point. (I think this would be a cool place for Cristina and I to meet sometimes after work during the week.) The waterfall was stunning. First, you park at this small shrine that has several baby bibs tied to it. Not really sure why all the baby bibs, but I took some really good pictures. Then you walk along side this calm river part for about 20 feet till you get to a 15-foot high, 20-foot wide waterfall. We jump into the water before the waterfall just to simply become acclimatized to the cool water. Kaz said that there was much more water coming down the waterfall than Alex and her had seen one week prior because of the rain; therefore, we decided to go up to the top of the waterfall but not actually go down it. We were the only ones there, which made it a bit scarier. Usually there are more people there. Additionally, Laura, Cris and I had never been to the waterfall so we did not know how to go down without seeing someone do it first.

We proceeded to go into this VERY deep lagoon that was at the source of this portion of the waterfall I was describing above. I actually do not know how deep it is, just that I cannot see or touch the bottom and it freaked the s#$% out of me. However, I am proud to say that I was the first one in. This lagoon had another waterfall going into it; the lagoon itself was only a small terrace within the large multi terrace waterfall. To go up to the next terrace, we would have to climb a rope that was there, so we did not go up since we were not going to slide down and it would be a bit more difficult to climb down. However, Kaz did it when the water was calmer, and it was sunnier the week before. She climbed all the terraces till she reached the source of the overall waterfall that comes from a big wall. I look forward to doing this soon. On the other side of these mountains is actually my town, Uchinoura.

The cool swim in the natural water was really refreshing. I would have never thought of taking a dip right after work. However, since it is so close, I hope to make somewhat of a routine out of it. As a matter of fact, there is a waterfall "weekenda" in the works for sometime next month in Tarumizu, the ferry port town by Kinko Bay. After the swim, we returned to Kaz’s for some English tea and some raisin bread with jam. Quite tasty.

Well, not much more to tell. Tonight it’s off to Kanoya for some conveyor belt sushi!