Another adventure into the Big Room yesterday. Someone changed the wallpaper - there were white spots on the walls and all over the ceiling! At least, I certainly hope it was wallpaper - I couldn’t imagine anyone painting that. The last time I painted a room like that (in purple), I developed temporary arthritis for a few days (I could hear my finger joints when I moved my fingers). At any rate, met some new ALTs (Bradford, Brent, Natasha, Kath, and Andy) for some onsen madness.

Turns out in Nishi Yaizu (not a 20 min cycle away) there is some famously popular (like that repetitve redundancy, the double iteration?) onsen. And my god (not that I have one. lest it be electricity) was it heaven (not that there is one, lest it be here). Very very large and relaxing, with all sorts of different pools:

(*) standard hot pool (40C)
(*) milky-white mineral pool (40C)
(*) a shallow pool to lie down in, with a chilled head rest
(*) electric shock pool
(*) bubble pool (40C)
(*) single person-sized basin pools (you feel like you’re in a jar)
(*) a tea pool (that’s right, bathing in hot tea)
(*) a dry sauna
(*) a cold pool (17C)

Marvelously fantastic, and that was only the half of it (uh, the evening). After that, I wanted to show them my favorite Izakaya in Nishi Yaizu (Negiya with the killer tofu caesar salads). So we walked in that direction and arrived only to find that it was closed (the universal Monday = holiday trend for food places, German bakeries included). Uf. So I remembered that way way back I ate at an average izakaya right outside the station. So we head.

Before we get there tho, another place catches our eyes. We duck in and it can’t seat six people together it’s so small. 4 at the table and 2 at the counter (with room for about 3 others, if they were to come). We struggle to decipher the menu for a while before the friendly chef/owner/only guy there points out the most popular menu (the top 5 ordered dishes at his place). So, there being six of us, we take one of each and double up on one that sounded especially good.

The food arrives and it’s utterly amazing (could be the tea-pool doing my head in tho). The chef was really eager to talk to us, and we tried our best to speak Japanese, and he English. What we gathered was that he creates all the food on his menu, full stop. All the recipes are his own, and he changes the menu for every season!

His influences are South East Asian cuisine and does it show. Really great sauces and delicate flavors. Amazing seafood (thanks Yaizu!) and tropical music. He has friends or family in Singapore, so when he visits, he gets new ideas to try. He absolutely loves his work, and it shows. We ate so well.

Definately have to go back. And soon.

A trend of beach parties. Went to Atami this time (half way to Tokyo, still in my prefecture) to meet up with a lot of the new ALTs. This was a mid-day affair, tho. Afternoon swimming and relaxing - I brought some frisbees and ultimate and plain-old tossin’ broke out. Other randoms joined us and we had a good laugh.

In the swimming area, they’ve rigged some floating platforms. You swim out to one, climb on top, and then dive or play king of the hill or whatever. It was pretty fun. Once dark hit, there were fireworks! I’m starting to get my fill, but we were really, really close this time. Practically under them and it was good and scary. There are photos (only 2 additions this time), too.

This week was pretty low-key. Stayed home most of the days and programmed. tovid saw another release (good OSS theory - realease early and often!). I didn’t even leave Yaizu. I started calling outside the Big Room (I mean, it even has a door!). I built Marutomo a new turlte home (or just did some remodeling). He’s got the equivalent (for a palm-sized turtle) of an olympic sized pool now. He loves it and spends all day swimming and relaxing and generally being happy.

In other cool news, my brother is well on his way to being a radio DJ. He had his training session/show tonight, and prolly will have his own slot in a week or two. You can listen online.