Well, it has been eight days since my last post. I have gone to Japan and back. Quite a beautiful country, although it was difficult to compare it to life in Taipei, since we pretty much live in the city here. Mashiko, the town I went to in Japan, is actually north of Tokyo. I didn't even really SEE Tokyo. I suppose it was out there somewhere. Most of the folks I met there said Tokyo was actually pretty ugly. I wonder if it's uglier than Taipei?

Anyways, where we were in Mashiko was fairly rural. Our town was surrounded by farm fields and low hills. The nights were pretty nippy, but we slept on futons in tatami rooms under pretty heavy blankets. The futons were a good deal thinner than the ones you get in the States - we actually laid down two for each of us in our room. This was a pretty old building we were in, with sliding paper and wood doors between all the rooms, and an irori in the main room we used for cooking and heat. Basically a firepit we burned charcoal in. Beautiful high ceilings with gorgeous timbers, and an occasional flourescent light tackily tacked to a beam or post. I kept turning them off...

The bathrooms were down the hall. You change slippers when you go into the bathroom to a pair of dedicated bathroom slippers. The Japanese are a bit more hygenic than the Americans (can you believe it?). So, you switch slippers back and forth. I found it amusing one night going into the john to notice the bathroom slippers missing; someone obviously padded off in them.

There was only one western toilet, and two squat toilets (I went to Japan, and I'm telling you about the toilets...) But, unlike the States, the bathrooms in Japan are never near the kitchen (my last three apartments had the toilet directly off the kitchen). I'm glad someone is thinking. I didn't really see any of the super high-tech Japanese toilets written up in The NY Times, etc., but a guy there said he had one in his apartment. He says it washes and blow-dries his butt ("Honey! Are you done?" WHRRRRRRRRR "Honey?!")

But, anyways, I suppose I should tell you about the workshop! Lots of folks from all over Japan, one from Hong Kong, a woman from Myanmar, all gathered at this inn and studio to do a clay/metal fusion workshop. We also explored wheel-throwing, and building a wood raku kiln. It was pretty amazing. The workshop was led by Euan Craig and Osni Branco (kinda rhymes with Duffy Franco). Euan makes pots out of his home nearby (or he at least fires them there), and Osni runs a foundry in Brasil. It was a very informative, high-energy workshop, loaded with facts, ideas, glazing concepts, and well-lubricated with beer beginning after dark. Work all day, party into the wee hours each night, and discover who snores the loudest by morning. It was certainly a great deal of fun.

At some point I will learn how to post pictures on this thing. For now you will just have to visualize.

Somehow it got to be 11:15 PM, so I should crash for the night. Another day of Parent/Teacher conferences tomorrow. The weekend will be nice. And busy. Oh well.

Well, this is a new attempt to be more current about what goes on day-to-day as we establish a life in a foreign country. This blog (or web-log) is a journal format, so you can log on and read current postings about what we are doing, and even link to pictures of what we have done. I'm hoping that this will be more active than our static website, which I really really mean to update often. Alas, life does seem to get in the way.

So, I'm up at quarter past one in the morning doing this, all because we stopped at our favorite coffee shop after eating at our favorite sushi place in honor of our four-month anniversary. I drank who knows what coffee concoction, and sleep is nowhere to be found. Tomorrow (today?) I leave for Japan to attend a workshop on raku, kiln building, and clay/metal fusion. I'm very excited about this chance to go to Japan. I'm a bit sad that Megan isn't coming with me. I think half the fun of life is having someone to share it with, and she's a great person to share things with. She just makes them more fun.

Boy, it's hard to imagine ever being tired at the moment. Most mornings, though, when that alarm goes off at five AM, I sure do feel tired. I drag myself out of one bed, walk into our office in the back bedroom on my way to the shower and eye the guest bed. Sure enough, I lay down on that one for a few more minutes before I get up again and get the water running. Good thing we don't have a third bed.

As long as I'm not particularly tired, I'll tell you about my bathroom. Megan has the more conventional one, and I use the one in the back of the apartment. It has sliding glass doors to it, and floor to ceiling tiles. The entire bathroom IS the shower, which is not uncommon here in Taipei. There is a showerhead on a hose attached to the sink, and the floor is slightly graded towards one end, where the drain is located. The showerhead holder is at waist-level, so you can't really use the shower with both hands free - you have to use one hand to hold the showerhead. Therefore I always perform what I knew as a child to be called an army-style shower, where you get wet only intermittently. What entertains me immeasurably is that all of this takes place while you stand in the bathroom. Imagine taking your shower standing in front of your sink, and you'll have a pretty good idea of what it's like. One-stop shopping.

Mental note to NOT drink a mocha expresso before bed.

Our apartment is on the fourth floor just behind Chung Chen Road, otherwise known as Beer House Road. Except most all of the beer houses closed a long time ago. There are a few left, and they are kind of fun. The rest of Beer House Road actually looks a bit like Fifth Avenue in terms of fancy shops. Fila, Hugo Boss, some Burberry-type English store, etc. All punctuated every block or so by convenience stores.

We live in a private neighborhood. You pass one of two guard houses to get in here. There are a lot of apartments back here, and a few offices. The guards know us all, but we really share just a "ni hao, ni hao" as we come and go. Language is tough. Mr Tsue (?) is the only exception. He is outgoing, friendly, and knows just a handful of words in English. I'll come home and he'll say "You wife - shopping!" or "You work - very hard!". He's great, and always has something nice to say.

Our apartment is three bedrooms and two full baths - well, as full as you want to consider the second one. It's a lot of space, but not the biggest apartment among our friends. Still, it's plenty for us. When you first walk into the apartment you are in what used to be a balcony, but has since been glassed in. There is actually a faucet out there to water your plants. You come through two huge sliding glass doors (NOT frosted thankfully - frosted glass is ubuquitous in Taipei apartments) into our living room. Turn around and you see the mountains of Yangminshan National Park rising off in the distance. Our kitchen is one of the only open kitchens I've seen, meaning that there is no door or wall separating it from the living room, which is nice. The sleeping areas are off the living room, one of which is our master bedroom, again with mountain views, and one which acts as our office (where I sit now) with our networked Apple computers and our cable modem. Nice that we can tap away at the same time, keeping in touch with family and friends back home. There is a third bedroom off the kitchen which we refer to as our storage room. Thank goodness, because there are no closets in this apartment. A couple of free-standing wardrobes, but that's it. Out back off the kitchen is the back balcony, with our washer and dryer on it. Don't ask why, but everyone in Taipei has their washer and dryer outside. Our water filter is also outside on the balcony, because it didn't fit the kitchen faucet, so we go outside to get our drinking water.

Caffeine still flowing - don't feel compelled to continue reading.

We live about a mile from school, and we usually walk both ways. Alone in the morning, and usually together coming home. I always walk Chung Shan North Road to school - past a bunch of closed shops (it's only 7:00 AM) and an occasional food vendor open for breakfast. A park, a couple of construction sites, a few dogs hanging out, etc. The walk home is often down what we call The Back Road, only because we don't know the name of it. The Back Road is much more "Asian" in flavor - narrow, lots of scooters and cars, and tons of street-side businesses, tables out front, selling mounds of folded fresh noodles, vegetables, fruits (never both fruit AND veggies), and a few illegal vendors selling ready to eat food like delicious scallion pancakes, fresh orange juice, fried vegetables with five-spice, or, one of my current favorites, stinky tofu. Yes, it's Cho Dofu, which translates as stinky tofu. Smells kind of like wet sneakers that have been left in a closet, then heated. Stinky tofu is fried, then they add pickled cabbage, and one or two other sauces. It's great.

We often stop at the ShiDong Market, an indoor market with flower vendors (gorgeous cut orchids for about two bucks), meat vendors, fishmongers, greengrocers, dried you-name-it vendors, and more. It's pretty interesting to actually have vendors that know you. They give us a free this or that when we shop - it's nice.

Well, I could continue, but now it's 2:00 AM, and my alarm is going to go off in about three hours. Feel free to come back to this site. I'll be posting links to pictures real soon, probably when I get back from Japan. That's all for now!