A rainy day fib

For
Clouds
And rain
Bad weather
For more than a week
But change will come - it always does

The weather is really rotten. It is like the rainy season. Masayo, my wife, made some candied orange peels that are supposed to be sun dried - they are still soft even after more than a week of sitting in the window. Also my shoes have not yet dried out from last Saturday. I hope they will be okay in the morning. Ian and I are walking again and I would hate to have to wear my non-waterproof running shoes in the rain.

Ian and I walked 10 km yesterday in a very heavy rain. We both discovered problems with our footwear. Ian's boots got wet all the way through, apparently because the waterproofing on the leather had worn off. My waterproof (to a point just bellow the lacing) walking shoes leaked around the tongue. My stockings got wet and I started to get blisters on my little toes. We got back before they got too bad and today they are fine.

The problem with my shoes is that the water that runs off my Gor-Tex rain suit, falls exactly on the point where the tongue connects to the body of the shoe. The water goes right through, I know because I can feel the drip and then the water soaking into the top of my stocking.

I am going to take the shoes to the repair shop in the shopping center near our apartment and ask them if they can glue the bottom half of the tongue to the shoe itself. That should stop the problem.

Another fib:

Rain
Falls
On me
Wetting all
I feel the wetness
But who is this 'I' who is wet?

This morning I had a single class at Miyagi Gakuin University (MGU). It is a women's university about 6 km from my apartment. The picture is the view from the window of the teachers' room where we part-time teachers have to sign in so that we can get paid and where they have free coffee. The room also contains a table with chairs so that we can work and four soft chairs arranged around a coffee table for relaxing. Best of all, it is no smoking. MGU is more than 100 years old and is a Christian university. However, this does not effect the students too much and from their point of view it is just like every other university. I teach in the English department - first year business English, second year listening and speaking (separate classes with the same students), and academic English in the Grad School.

Today I had second year conversation. The students are very good and well motivated. I really enjoy teaching them. Of course, teaching a room full of thirty 20-year-old women will bring out the best in any male.

Actually I took this picture a few days ago. Today it rained and the clouds came right down to the ground. I walked home anyway.

The Entrance to Shinrin Park

Today Ian and I took our regular Tuesday morning walk around Shinrin Park. (The character pronounced shin means forest or woods, and rin means tree.) We meet at a nearby station and walk to the entrance of the park, from where we do two 3 km counterclockwise trips around the park and then return to the station, where we stop at a Mr Donuts for coffee.

The picture on the right is at the highest point on our route. The station is about 1.5 km off to the left and the park entrance is immediately to the left. Behind me is a subway stop and a center for old people.

The tall building on the right is one of the highest around and it is an apartment building, actually a condo. Can you imagine being on the top floor during an earthquake. I heard that the horizontal movement during the big quake we had a couple of years ago was more than two meters. I get seasick in my apartment, I can not fathom what it would be like up there.

Also off on the left side, there is what looks like a white tower (not the lower white blob to its right which is actually a building). This white tower is a huge statue of the Kannon Bosatsu, an enlightened one just below the rank of Buddha. Kannon has changed his/her sex a number of times during the last 2500 years and is now the Lord of Compassion and Mercy, particularly in relation to childbirth and health. Kannon was one of the Lords who attended on Amida Buddha.

This statue is very interesting because it was put by one of the new Buddhist sects (cult?) and was part of a hotel complex. The problem was that they did not tell the city what it was going to be. Apparently the city thought it was going to be a large tower containing additional hotel rooms. The hotel complex was very cheap and has, I believe, been sold to a non-religious group who are trying to make a financial go of it. The city would like to remove the statue but no one can decide who will pay for the work and for the religious fees that would be necessary for some Buddhist priests to come do the necessary ceremonies to allow the destruction of the statue without everyone around having bad luck for years. It is going to be interesting to see what happens when statue starts to decay and fall apart.

This picture shows the entrance to the park. You can not see but there are about 50 old people exercising in front of the trees. Ian and I walk off to the right and return from the center of the picture. When the old people (many of them were born after me, by the way, but I am not old), finish stretching they go around the same trail that we use. Some go in each direction, so they are all over the place. It is proper etiquette to greet the other walkers, so Ian and I spend much of our time saying konnichiwa, or Good Morning.

So far today I have walked more than 13 km. In about an hour, my wife Masayo will drive me to Tohoku Gakuin U so I can teach two 90-minute classes. When I finish at 5:30, I will walk home, adding another 4 km to my total for the day.