Everything changes and nothing stands still

So much has changed since my last post here, and yet so much is exactly the same.

I'm preparing to move to a new place to continue my journey as a teacher - Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

If you had asked me a few months ago where I wanted to live, I would not have said Tanzania. Honestly, I probably would not have mentioned Africa at all. But life, circumstance, and a great school presented me with an intriguing opportunity that ultimately I could not say "no" to.

And so for the next few months I am preparing for this new chapter: moving to Africa.

So far my focus has been on deciding which parts of my past I want to take with me to my new home via photo enlargements and travel wall art. I printed and framed some of my best photos from the last ten years. I'm considering easy to pack posters that represent places I've been and the journey I've been on. Strangely, this is the first time I have really thought about creating a sense of "home" in a new place. I just have a good feeling about this next adventure.

I'm not convinced Tanzania will be where I ultimately "settle down", if a vagabond such as myself can do such a thing. But I do feel ready to create a life and be present in this new experience. My goal is to document some of that here, on this blog.

Join me this July as the journey begins.

Buen momento para contestar correspondencia

so my horoscope today says it's a good time to answer my correspondence.

Géminis (21 mayo - 20 jun.)

Buen momento para contestar correspondencia. Lo mejor es que se deje llevar y no oponga resistencia al amor. Ganancias económicas aseguradas. Un dinero adeudado podrá tardar en llegar.

it also says i'm going to make economic gains and i shouldn't put up any resistance to love.... but i'm going to focus on the correspondence for now.

grading "season" is nearly over. i wasn't fully prepared for what this was going to be like.... as the first quarter wound down i found that there were a few quizzes i hadn't graded yet and i had tests planned for the last two days of the quarter. then there was all the calculating, entering them into the online grading system, writing comments, entering conduct grades, attendance..... it was all a bit much. and because though it doesn't really seem like it i am giving grades for 4 different "classes" (reading, spelling, written expression, and oral language) to all 41 of my students.

needless to say i procrastinated as much as possible.... it's what i do. plus i was kind of distracted. but i finally got everything in, and after one terribly boring meeting to review the grades and the comments, and another batch of "corrections", i think i'm finally finished. the only thing remaining is meeting with all the parents to give them the grades. which, in my opinion, seems like an enormous annoyance. i mean, i know we're a private school, and the parents want their kids to do well. but sometimes they don't! and the thought of having to defend the grades that their lazy children *earned* is exhausting.

*phew*

part of my procrastination plan included the imperial festival, which was awesome. and tons of fun. despite the fact that it took us more than an hour after arriving to actual get a beer. at the imperial festival. imperial = beer. but it's just another one of those charming costa rica things, i guess. i mean, to me, and many other non-ticos, it would have been a good plan to have the age verification booth and the drink ticket booth both located shortly after the entrance. i mean, why not get that out of the way. but nooooooooo. anyhow, we had a great time. smashing pumpkins and incubus were great. we got light up slappy sticks (you know, like those things they have at basketball games sometimes). i had the most delicious churros i've ever had in my entire life. good times.

so yeah. i should have some pics coming soon.

nica saga - part one

getting there

so the plan was to take off around 8 or 9 tuesday morning. it's a 6 hour bus ride to the border, then maybe another hour or so to san juan del sur. we had bought the tickets the day before, but they weren't actually for a specific bus, a specific time, or even a specific day. it said march 2008. san jose to peñas blancas. unfortunately we didn't get going as early as planned and we ended up leaving san jose around 10ish.

without incident we arrive at the border and begin our border crossing process. i had gone to nicaragua last semana santa (but on a border crossing bus) so i sort of had an idea how it was all supposed to work. but we were approached by our unofficial border tour guide and given a little assistance. he got us the forms we were supposed to fill out, even gave us a pen to use. mysteriously he turned up on the nicaraguan side of the border as well. and now he was trying to get us to take a taxi to our destination. so the bus to san juan del sur was going to cost around $2. he wanted us to take a taxi for $30. i told him no, too expensive. we took care of the nicaraguan portion of the border crossing and this guy is *still* hanging around. how about $25, it's un buen precio. listen, captain, $30 is too much. $25 is too much. we don't have it. and if that's all you can offer, then we take the bus. (in spanish, thank you very much. amanda was impressed with my fierceness)

so we exit the border area and enter the real nicaragua. and there's a bus. to managua. which is north about 3 hours. and the guy is telling us that the bus could not drop us where we need to be. which makes no sense what-so-ever. i mean, the bus is essentially going up the main highway towards managua. whatever, though. captain annoying (our unofficial guide) shows up AGAIN. still convinced that we should take a taxi. there are no more buses he tells us. and he says some other stuff which i don't really understand. so he recruits gringo bob (not his real name) to try to translate. turns out i understood completely. gringo bob confirms - he's trying to BS me about buses and taxis. so we tell the guy to piss off and we wait with our new friend. but captain annoying has another plan, sends over another taxi driver friend who will take us part of the way for only $20. then the bus turns up. that's right, the bus that wasn't coming.

so i'm not exactly sure how, as we are at the border and surely one of the first stops, but the bus is packed already. we squeeze on and begin our journey. standing, packed like sardines, next to a man who is holding a parakeet on his hand which is calmly eating a piece of exotic fruit and apparently unaware of the chaos surrounding him.

so our destination involves two buses, one which drops us off at la virgen (which turns out to be no more than a fork in the road with a small pulperia - like a convenience store) and the second takes us to the beach. we're pretty pleased that two women get off the bus with us at la virgen and are also hoping to catch the bus to san juan del sur. so we wait. and wait. and now it's dark. and we wait. and finally the bus turns up. it is unexpectedly posh. (the first bus was essentially a yellow school bus - called "chicken buses" here) it has cushy seats (which we even get to sit in) and is showing a film. which inexplicably keeps switching between english and spanish. but no matter.

it's nearly 8 o'clock when we finally show up in san juan del sur. it's dark. we only know the name of one place to stay. we check there, full. we ask for recommendations, and continue on. on the way we see a woman sitting out in front of a place that says rooms for rent. need a room? she asks. so we stay there. it's been a long day and we're STARVING. so we find this place called jerry's pizza. pizza, beer, and we're so ready to sleep. this random guest house happens to have the most comfortable beds ever. so we had a great nights sleep.

next morning we eat leftover pizza for breakfast and start cruising for cheaper places to stay. we end up back at the one place we actually knew, casa oro. and the adventure continues....

piratas del caribe

so. my big plans for this weekend were to, in honor of my birthday, go to see the new pirates movie, go out for indian food, and maybe go dancing. who knew it would be such a project (well, i should have known, many things turn out to be a project here - such is costa rica, but i love it anyway).

so colleen and i head out around 1:30 for the 2 bus, 15 minute walk to this mall called the terra mall, which we had heard had really lovely, posh, rocking, reclining seats at the movie theatre. we were aiming for the 3 o'clock show. well. that didn't really work out. we were on possibly the slowest bus ever. so we arrived after the movie had already started. we thought maybe *maybe* we could get in before the actual film started (though i do really enjoy the previews). but the ticket guy told us that the show was sold out. our next option would be at 5 o'clock. which might have been okay, if we hadn't been planning on having dinner back in san jose. seeing the 5 o'clock would have put dinner at 8 or 9, and we were supposed to be meeting my friend jasmine.

so we decided to head back to downtown - to the mall san pedro and just see it there, in the non-posh, regular theater. well, naturally we missed the 4 o'clock show there. which was sold out. and again - the 7:20 show really cut into dinner. so i got my haircut (a mini-spanish adventure - i didn't have my vocabulary planned out ahead of time and there was a little confusion, but the girl spoke english. and another girl spent *seriously* about an hour drying and styling my hair. NEVER in my life has anyone spent that much time drying my hair. it was exhausting) and we went to meet jasmine for a drink before dinner.

well, that was the idea anyway. but there weren't really any non-old man bars near the restaurant. so we just went in, sat down, and had some drinks and appetizers for a while before we ordered dinner. the food was really nice, the waiters sang to me in japanese (i had a choice of chinese, thai, or japanese - it was an asian fusion restaurant). then we headed out with some world teach volunteers (my friend steve coordinates the program here) for some dancing. yeah! dancing! so we had a fabulous time dancing at this club called castro's until the wee hours. my merengue is improving tremendously (i didn't actually attempt any salsa).

so the plan was to see the movie on sunday instead. so i met jasmine at the mall at 3:20 to get in for the 4 o'clock. but of course, that didn't happen. instead we bought tickets for the 7:20 show and cruised around the mall for a little while. i bought a new pair of pants for work. we had some coffee and a snack. checked our e-mail. then we went up to get in line for our movie (we had seen some lines outside some other theatres earlier) around 7.

strangely there didn't seem to be many people waiting outside our theatre. until we were directed to the line - which ran nearly the entire length of the mall. so we waited. and waited. and waited. around quarter to 8 we finally got moving into the theatre. and of course there were no seats left that were together. so we sat across the aisle from each other. and the film FINALLY started at 8 o'clock. but it was worth it. :)

que triste! (an unfortunate weekend at the beach)

so the weekend at the beach didn't work out exactly like i had envisioned... jasmine and i caught our bus at 2 and were on our way. there was a little rain - but that's to be expected, rain in the afternoon is sort of how "winter" goes here. we met colleen at the bar/restaurant across from the bus station in quepos as planned. we had a drink and then headed over to manuel antonio to our hotel.

when we found our hotel (we took one wrong turn, but didn't get too lost) it was pretty nice. plenty of space, our own bathroom, as ceiling fan (instead of a floor fan which would have caused some trouble when deciding where to place it so that everyone got some breeze). there was a restaurant attached for no fuss breakfast. we cleaned up from a long day of bus journeying and headed out for dinner by the beach.

had some lovely food and a few drinks (nothing crazy). sat around and enjoyed being near the ocean (though we could see it - because it was so dark - or hear it - because there was loud music coming from a couple of the restaurants nearby). ahhh... the beach.

so the next morning we were up sort of early (around 8:30ish). got our swimsuits on and headed out for some breakfast before hitting the beach. saw a deer (which was kind of weird - not really something i associate with costa rica), a monkey, and a hummingbird while we ate. and as we were finishing it started raining. so new plan, we would drop of some of the beach stuff and head into quepos to get our bus tickets back to san jose on monday. which we did. and then we got the paper and sat in the bus station restaurant for a while, had some more coffee, and read.

tucked inside my tico times were a bunch of little fliers. some for apartments for rent. and a couple for a spa treatment package. interesting... so we decided that since we had gotten rained out of our beach plans, we should get a massage and mud wrap instead. (and did i mention it was jasmine's birthday?). and the spa was called "the raindrop spa". so appropriate. so i had possibly the best massage of my life (but to be fair, i've only had like 4 other massages ever, so it might not have been *that* fantastic) and then we headed back to our hotel to get ready for dinner.

we decided to go to a restaurant called barba roja, which is on the hill above the beach and has amazing views, for some happy hour drinks and a little snack. luckily it had finally stopped raining. (now that it was too late to go to the beach). so we enjoyed some mango margaritas, some nachos, and the view. then we went back into quepos (we seriously rode back and forth between quepos and manuel antonio at least a million times) for dinner at escalofrio, a cute little italian place with brick oven pizzas (so delicious). a couple more drinks at monchado's and then back to the hotel.

next morning jasmine was going to catch a bus back to san jose at 9:30 (she has an afternoon class) and colleen and i were going to hit the beach for an hour or so before i had to catch my bus at noon. we got up and it was kind of sunny. we had breakfast at the hotel restaurant. walked jasmine out to the bus stop. then it started to sprinkle. then it started to rain. ugh. so after a short walk on the actual beach we went back to the hotel, packed up and headed over to quepos to catch our bus.

we did have a cat at the liquor store sighting before our bus arrived, but it wasn't wearing a dress, and i'm not even sure it was the same cat. looked like a new cat. so maybe next time i'm in quepos they'll be letting it wear the other cat's dresses. and i can get a photo. i'm being 100% serious here.

nicaragua wrap-up

so our first relaxing day on ometepe island we decided to go to this natural swimming hole called ojo de agua (new picture at right). we took the bus... despite my disdain at the whole island bus system. after paying a dollar and walking through a cow field (very carefully) we arrived at the place. the water was kind of a greenish-blue and a little chilly. clearly the focal point of the whole place was the rope swing. a stream of young local boys were swinging off it. we just watched for a while then decided to try it before sitting in the sun for a little bit.

WELL. it was pretty awesome. and after sitting in our chairs for a little while longer we decided that we should try to take some pictures using the rapid fire picture mode on my camera. i was endlessly amused by the whole ordeal and we went on the rope swing many times - while perfecting the method of the shooting mode. such a blast. i was smiling about it for the rest of the day.

the rest of the day we just kind of chilled for a while. we chatted with a few other travlers - sara, tom, and barbara - who we ended up hiking the volcano the next day with.

ah, the volcano hike... well, they said it would be an 8 hour hike - four up and four back - which i was a little concerned about, as i'm rather out of shape. and it certainly was 8 hours. at first it was fine. a challenging hike, to be sure. but after about two and half hours i stopped having fun. the trail was, well, not very trail like. we were basically hiking up a narrow ravine with water trickling down and ankle deep mud. it was incredibly rocky and quite steep. on top of all that - when we got to the top, where there was a crater lake (this is an extinct volcano - the other on the island is still active), it was so foggy/cloudy that you couldn't even really see across the lake.

so i was not really thrilled with the hike. and i could barely walk when i got down (for like 2 days afterwards as well) and i was coated in mud. *sigh*

the next day we left the island and headed up to managua where we were going to catch our bus back to costa rica in the morning. managua was, meh, a city, not all that different from san jose. we sprung for a room with AC, TV, and our own private bathroom. ah, luxury. saturday morning we got up bright and early and walked (yes, the other feature of our "luxury" hotel was that it was less than two blocks to the bus station) to the bus station. another long day on the bus (but again - rather luxurious compared to our other bus adventures in nicaragua) and this time only 2 and a half hours at the border - and no standing in the sun.

arriving back in costa rica kind of felt like coming home. i was half expecting to see someone at the bus station holding a sign for us (man, do i love signs at airports/bus stations!). so home again, home again.

spanish adventures - waxing is fun

so "spanish adventures" is the term that colleen came up with for something we do pretty frequently here. basically it's when you go out somewhere to accomplish some task that at home would seem easy and straightforward, but with the different language and culture becomes, well, an adventure. opening a bank account was an adventure. getting something at the pharmacy is an adventure. and yesterday i had a fabulous spanish adventure.

so living somewhere warm where i'm constantly wearing capris, skirts, and my bathing suit it seemed like a good idea to get my legs waxed. so i had that done before i left for costa rica. well, it was time for that to happen again, and so began my adventure. i had seen this sign in front of a salon that my bus drives by everyday that said (among other things) depilacion. which got me thinking. that nair cream stuff - that's called delapilatory cream or something, right? so that's kind of close, maybe they do waxing at this salon.

well, i tried to do some online research as to what the actual phrase might be in spanish (it's always best to know a few key words in any spanish adventure). what i came up with was hace encerar de la pierna? do you do leg waxing? so after procrastinating a little (because my spanish is crap, the adventures always require a little more guts for me than they do for colleen, who speaks pretty well) i set off to the salon. as i approached i saw there were a couple people inside and the gate was open. i walked by. about a block later, i turned back and headed in with my prepared speech: perdona mi espanol! pero, hace encerar de la pierna? (excuse my spanish! but, do you do leg waxing?) the woman replied no. blah blah solamente cabezas blah blah. (only heads - como se dice "blah blah" en espanol?). oh. okay. i had kind of suspected that this might happen. so i said: sabe donde...? (do you know where...?). well, she went on a bit of a run here, but what i got out of it was: derecho... carreterra... dos ceintos... a la derecha... estetica... (straight... the main road... 2 blocks... to or on the right... estetica...) so being the yes person that i am i'm going si, si, esta bien, gracias and off i go.

so up to the main road, i turn right, and i walk, looking for esteticas - which i've seen signs for before. so i walk and walk. about 4 blocks and no estetica. so i start thinking that maybe she had said to go left and it was *on* the right after two blocks. so i turn back and sure enough i eventually come across an estetica. i walk by. and then i walk back, examine the sign out front telling about all their services. i ring the buzzer and a boy comes out, lets me in and asks what service i want. i try to explain leg waxing - using some gestures - and he speaks a little english and understands. so he gets his dad, who also speaks a little english, and he tells me that yes, they do that, i would have to wait 30 minutes or so. no problem, my only other plan for the afternoon was to go to the supermarket. but then comes my favorite part - i ask cuanto cuesta? how much? he wasn't sure, so he had to call his wife. well, she tells him it's....

cinco mil.

5,000 colones. 10 US dollars. what???!!!! i try to act cool. okay, that's fine. inside i feel a little guilty, like i'm stealing. so i sit and attempt to read glamour magazine in spanish. and the dad tells the boy to show me some of the before and after pictures from the services they offer. so he's showing me all these pictures of peoples noses, and wrinkles, and butts... i'm not really sure why and i'm kind of wondering if i've signed myself up for something more than a leg waxing. but after i pretend to care how they've improved these womens butts for a little while he leaves me to struggle through the magazine. eventually the wife/mother shows up, and she speaks even better english. so she is the one that tells me what i should really be saying when i want a leg waxing - depilacion.

so eventually my lady shows up - liliana - and does a pretty good job (although i had a bit more wax residue on my legs than i usually have after a wax at home). so she is trying to learn some english and me a little spanish, so we sort of chat, and she gives me her phone number for next time. and at $10 a pop, i think i'll be a pretty loyal customer. sometimes it's pretty cheap to be a woman in costa rica. and sometimes spanish adventures are fun.

i might get paid maybe someday...

so today i managed to successfully open a bank account. so i might actually get paid someday maybe. which would be exciting. although i have to admit there were two very important things that made my bank adventure successful: a letter from the school i work at that said "please open an account for ann so we can pay her" and the lessons learned from colleen when she opened her account 2 weeks ago. so i went in all prepared with my passport, my letter, and an electric bill to prove my address. i also knew that when she asked me solterra o casada? that i am solterra (single). *and* the most important thing - when she started babbling on about lunes and las dos en la tarde that was when i can come back to pick up my atm card (monday after 2pm). so good things. a successful spanish adventure.

so i am attempting to be more employed. i went to this language institute last saturday to say i was living in san jose and could i leave my resume. well to my surprise the girl asked if i wanted to speak with the director now. well sure. so i chatted with this guy for like an hour about the school and their system and what-not. he asked me to come back on wednesday from 11 to 1 for "training" - though i kind of got the idea it would also partly be like an audition.

so i went on wednesday and there was about 5 other people there too. a few ticos and an american boy. so we all kind of got the demo of how they run their classes and stuff. and then we were all asked to do a little demo of the system in the language we intended to teach (so there was some spanish, some english, and one girl was even going to teach portugeuse). so i was pretty good, i have taught before and i'm not afraid to look a little silly in front of other people, especially not strangers.

BUT. after we ran 30 minutes over the 2 hours (because this one annoying girl was being super nit-picky about some grammar thing - but they were talking in spanish and i actually kind of understood most of what they were saying - yeah me!) i still didn't know if i had a job. and how much i might be paid if i did have a job. they asked me to come back next wednesday for another training session, to talk some more about what they do in the more advanced classes. *sigh* so i'm going, but part of me is a little annoyed - i mean i feel like i'm jumping through all these hoops and they won't even tell me if i'm going to be hired and how much i would get paid. so i can't help but wonder if this is all a waste of my time.

other than that, not much else is going on. i had to conduct midterm interviews this week in my classes (which no one actually told me how to do). basically i was just supposed to ask them a couple of questions and make notes on how they speak in their responses. so i guess it went okay. but i still generally feel like i don't know what i'm doing. i'm grading writing assignments and giving interveiws and conducting classes whatever way i feel like. i know this place has lots of systems in place and ways of doing things.... but no one seems that interested in letting me know what those ways are. so i guess they can just deal with my crappy execution of stuff until they take the time to tell me other wise.

so colleen is kind of excited to do something for the super bowl this weekend (it is this weekend, right?). not that either of us care about football at all. but we just thought it might be fun to hang around with other people and watch something in english. does anyone know what channel the super bowl is on? or what time it's on? i'm sure we'll figure it out...

the mountain of zuma (montezuma)

so the end of the course was a bit of a rush and everything was crazy. people were losing their minds (myself included) trying to get all their lessons planned and approved and making posters and visuals and oy vey. then there was all the paper work we needed to hand in.... but i'm happy to say that i finished the course, i have my certificate and a letter of reccomendation from the school. sigh.

had a bit of a crazy night the last friday. first there was our free graduation dinner - which was really good. mahi mahi and wine and champagne. then the plan was that a small group of us were going to do a little traveling together. actually the original plan was to go down to panama for a few days - boca del toro or something - and do some snorkeling. after that some of our friends were flying to equador and the rest of us were going to work our way back to san jose.

but then they weren't going to be able to fly out of panama, they would have to fly out of san jose. so it didn't really make sense to go all the way down to panama (a very VERY long bus journey) just to have to make the same trip back. so instead we were going to go south from quepos and hang out on the osa peninsula. and so that was the plan. until friday night after dinner about 6 hours before our bus was supposed to leave (at 5:30 am)

then we get to thinking - getting to the osa peninsula is still a lot of bus riding and still a long way back to san jose. so why not just go somewhere a little closer. so the new plan was to go north on the pacific coast to the nicoya peninsula, find some beaches, and do some snorkeling. and that bus didn't leave until 7:30am - so then the great debate, to sleep or not to sleep. it seemed to make a lot of sense not to sleep when the bus was at 5:30, but 7:30 seemed like it merited at least an attempt at a couple of hours. there were mixed opinions. so some of us stayed up and some of us opted for a little shut eye (can you guess which group i was in? the sleeping one).

however. as nice as it was to get a little shuteye we ended up sleeping past the 7:30 bus. oops. so we sent out a spy to find out when the next bus was - 10:30. no problem. a little more sleep, a long bus ride, and a ferry and we actually managed to catch up with the rest of our group. we all rolled into montezuma around 5:30pm and found a place to stay. after dinner we pretty much crashed out after the long travel day.

sunday we did a little (half an hour) hike to this waterfall near here - which was beautiful. we wandered on the beach, worked on our tans, and made ourselves a bonfire in the evening. the hostel we're at is actually right on the beach, so that's pretty much where we all meet up in the morning. today some of the boys are attempting to do some spear fishing. some local guy told them it might be possible to catch lobsters! if that actually happens i would be pretty happy. (i'm not holding my breath)

tomorrow some people are heading to the airport and the ones left will likely move on to some other beach. possibly to the arenal volcano and hot springs.

oh yeah. montezuma. that's where we are. :)

parlez-vous bruncajc?

one part of our course is learning a foreign language using the immersion method (no english in class). and to make it fair for everyone (a lot of the other trainees already speak spanish, some quite fluently) we learned an indiginous langauge of costa rica called bruncaj. i have to admit that having taught using only the target language in class (in japan we used only english - lucky for me since my japanese was rubbish) i had no idea how difficult it was. though to be fair - i never NEVER would have taught so much and such complex vocabulary and sentence structures as we were taught in bruncajc.

but i suppose that was not really the point. we had to write a little essay about the experience (three lessons in all) and how we can apply what we discovered about being a student to being a teacher. but all i could think was - i wouldn't make it so hard! and i would certainly do some review each day of some basics. after 3 days of bruncajc i cannot even say "my name is..." because we never went over it again after the first class. but at least it's over now.

we have another full week of classes next week and then teaching practice for the two following weeks. already it feels like we've been in this course forever, but at the same time one week done seems like a lot.

in non-school news, a bunch of us went dancing at a discotheque last night. i was so excited - as my friends at home (and yes, i love you all dearly, but still) never (or rarely, in some cases) want to go dancing. we had a blast and stayed out dancing until 4:30 in the morning. but the best part of the whole night - the disco is the one place in town that our house is actually close to! so we had a nice short walk to our beds after we exhausted ourselves on the dance floor.

today was a pretty chill day. i had planned to go to the farmer's market and do my laundry. but i slept past the farmer's market (it closes at 1pm, which is when i got up). and after i putzed about my apartment for a little while i didn't get to the laundrymat until 3:30 and the woman said i did not have time to do any laundry. so i washed a couple of things in my sink - which may or may not be dry tomorrow - and will have to drop off my laundry on the way to school on monday.

beach day tomorrow, hopefully i won't burn to a crisp. i intend to use sunblock. but we'll see. also i get my second chance at surfing.

video store adventures

¥100 can buy you many things. notebooks. hats. scarves. dishes. cleaning products. and 3 nights (5 nights? my memory isn't that good) with an english language video.

something we did almost every week was rent some videos. after the initial fascination with and amusement at japanese tv fades, sometimes you really want to hear english on tv. while 100% worth it, a trip to the video store (like many activities in japan) was an adventure.

of course it always starts with a bike ride... which i generally despised as part of my commute, but grew to almost enjoy for other activities - such as shopping, going to the movies, going to izakayas and karaoke, and going to the video store. bikes parked and locked out front (and most likely on the ground, knocked over by the wind, when we come back out) we enter the store. and thus begins the hunt.

it's the pretty standard video store layout: a section of video games, a new release wall, the curtained off porn section, your standard video genres, and the "foreign films" section - that's where the english language films are. usually there are many english films on the new release wall, and not all of them that new - and you check there first. with the front of the video case facing out, it's easiest to tell what movies they are. not all of the movies have the english title on the case (or it's very difficult to find).

on to the "foreign films" section. at the end of the aisles were mini displays of movies. and then there were the aisles themselves - packed solid with videos. slowly you make your way down the aisles, head tilted and eyes squinting, trying to look for side pictures you recognize or english words. this part takes a long time. every time. no matter how carefully you think you may have looked, there's always some videos you missed.

as you make your selections you have to look out for "the yellow sticker". this sticker indicates that the film is dubbed in japanese instead of merely subtitled (or is it the other way around?). we managed to avoid that disappointment by asking the clerk "english?". even when selecting subtitled movies there always remained the chance that you could miss out on something. if, by chance, there are any conversations in non-english languages... these too are subtitled in japanese. very disappointing. and to this day i still have not seen and comprehended all of birthday girl, in which about 40% of the conversations are in russian.

an hour or two later we emerge with a stash of movies - some old favorites, some we haven't seen yet. we pick up our fallen bikes and make our way happily home.