This and That

At long last I'm having a relatively calm weekend here. The past week saw me begin to get a grip on the new work schedule and my classes, and without the need to run around like mad this weekend, there's some sense of calm in soul.

We had to go into work this afternoon for what was ostensibly a lecture on safety, but what in reality was a 1 hour Power Point presentation of recent disasters in Japan, both natural and man made. Featured calamities included several earthquakes, a flood, and a train crash. It reminded me that despite Japan's small size, it gets more than its fair share of disaster. The fact that people live so close together in many places only compounds the damage when things do happen here.

I was relieved because looking at pictures is better than listening to someone drone on for an hour in language that I can only partially understand. But at the same time, I was wondering what the hell we were there for. When they dragged us out in the rain for our annual safety symposium last year, at least they let us shoot off some fire extinguishers.

I brought my camera with me for my walk into school, and I was glad I did almost from the moment I walked out the door. Do you ever come across a scene that makes you wonder what course of events went down to result in that particular scene? I was certainly running scenarios through my mind when I came across this in front of the little train station next to our apartment:



There aren't many times that I deem it appropriate to take pictures of trash, but this box caught my eye. Beef meat. There's nothing more to say. It reminds me of a picture my friend Andrew sent me a few months ago of a product he saw called 'Pork Ham,' or something to that effect.



After our safety lecture, I took a drive down to the beach. It's been raining every day for the last week, and today was no exception. However, this being Kanazawa, the rain comes in 15 minutes bursts, then it clears up for a little while. The first things I noticed was how green the ocean looked, and the red sky out over the horizon. The rain bands offshore were clearly visible, and very pretty.




I wandered along the seashore for a while, and soon enough the rain came in. I retreated to the car and read for a little while. I was waiting to pick up Chieko from the beauty salon, and I figured when the sun eventually came back out I might be able to snap off a few more pictures. I curse the odd weather here sometimes, but the ever-changing conditions mean that there is almost always really beautiful, dramatic light conditions.




We came home and I zonked out on the couch for a while. Chieko is currently off soaking in spa somewhere with the ladies; what a life she leads. I'm waiting to hear from them regarding the possibility of gorging ourselves on beer and meat on a stick later this evening. Not surprisingly, it's raining again.