I am so embarrassingly behind on posts. I’ve been taking lots of pictures but I just haven’t been posting any of them. It’s too much work! All this code I have to paste in in a very specific way. It’s time consuming and tedious. Zachary! Make it easier somehow! Or tell me I’ve been doing it wrong all this time and that there’s an easier way to do this. Sigh. These photos are from a tiny festival at the “big” “downtown” shrine in Shiroishi. No one told me about it. I just noticed it as I was riding my bike home from work. I rode my bike home, grabbed my camera quick, and rode back in time to take a few photos before the light went. The little girl is Yuka, one of Cassie’s students.

Last photos from Beppu. These are actually from the African Safari, which is a place not unlike Jurassic Park, but with real animals from Africa. We drove through with our own car and watched the zookeepers drive around in zebra colored jeeps dangling meat out the windows to entice lions and tigers and rhinoceroses to do stuff for our entertainment. Speaking of rhinoceroses, one of them almost rammed our car, but a helpful zebra-jeep scared it away. In the walk around and buy hot dogs section of the zoo they had capybaras and goats and a “Cat Salon” which was really just sort of depressing.

It’s Spring Day in Japan which means I don’t have to go to school. Hooray! I plan to celebrate by driving down to the Yūtoku Inari Shrine in Kashima, which I have never been to during the day. Also, I just watched Notes on a Scandal, which was really very, very good.

Still in Beppu! Can you believe it? I can’t. So many of these jigoku were like mini-zoos, as you may have been able to ascertain by this point, and this one had a hippopotamus! This hippo was just hanging out by the edge of his pond with his mouth wide open guzzling potatoes. This first photo is from the perspective of an innocent bystander, watching the hippo-feeding frenzy.

From the perspective of the hippo-feeder.

From the perspective of the potato! Aaarrgh! Nooo!

Shrines were also present at some of the bigger and more famous jigoku.

Everybody likes torii.

There was not, however, a shrine dedicated to me.

I just finished mucking about in Kitagata. I drove over there to take a picture of the train station for Wikipedia (one of the nerdiest things I’ve ever admitted doing) and found a couple of interesting temples nearby. Kitagata is a neat little town (technically it’s part of Takeo) sort of wedged between two mountain ranges, and with all the rice growing now it’s a lovely lush green sort of closed in mountain valley. One of the temples was a Sea Dragon temple!

Apparently hot springs are also good places to keep elephants in small cages. But at least you get to feed it.

I often write the word, no, the sentence “Guh,” in my notebook. It so often expresses just what I’m feeling sitting at my desk. Just go ahead and make that sound, and you’ll know how I feel. I’m tired of Japanese office life. Good thing I only have a year and a half left. Guh.

Disclaimer: This post is entirely about crocodiles.

Big crocodiles

And baby crocodiles!

This was at a jigoku in Beppu. There was a sign (a picture of which I should have posted) that said “The force of the steam is so strong here that about one and a half train cars can be pulled by its pressure, and it creates ideal conditions for breeding crocodiles.” Which I thought was a bit of a non sequitur, plus I doubt that this particular steaming pool of hot water is better for breeding crocodiles than the one next door.

I played for the Habitat for Humanity “open mic” last night in Saga at the excellently named ReBeers. It was, without a doubt, the best live show I’ve ever played. Koala Bears (a song which I hope to post soon) went better than I could have possibly imagined. I don’t play live shows very often. I mostly just sit around writing ridiculous songs about cookies that I’ve just eaten. So it was pretty intense playing (and not messing up really!) and getting such a positive reaction. My brain was (is) having a hard time processing it all. I was famous and loved for one night, which was nice, and I hope to do it again some time.