April 25, 2006

• Japan At Last! Part 11- The Final Installment

  The next morning, we dropped mary off at the train station to return to
  nishitosha, and Ari and I set out to explore some more of Karatsu and
  Fukuoka.

  Now Fukuoka is on Kyushu, which is not the most technologically advanced part of Japan. In fact, it is pretty darn rural
  
  Lovely mountains though…
  
  And wonderful Karatsu castle…an original copy of the one that burned
  down in the mid 1800′s which was itself a replica of the original
  castle yada yada yada
  
  Karatsu from the castle grounds
  
  
  
  
  
  click on the above pic to see me flexing on top of the castle
  
  get off my castle lawn, you crazy kids

  Having thus seen everything Karatsu had to offer, Ari took me to a
  playground. Next to a nuclear power plant. With the steepest scariest
  slide ever
  
  That is a kamikaze style drop yo! He then dare me to slide down it…
  
  I changed my mind at the last minute…but he stepped on my fingers,
  cackled evilly, and went to go join the one armed man for a drink as i
  slid to my doom…and delight…yay slides!
  
  See how steep it is?
  
  I needed some meditation time to recover after that harrowing experience..
  
  Ari and I may grow old, but we will never grow up

  After we got bored of playing at the park, we decided to grab a bite to
  eat, and then drink some beer and do everyone’s favorite beer drinking
  activity…drunken fireworks! yay Karatsu!
  
  look at it go…
  
  goodbye career in politics
  
  
  Then we called it a night and a good one at that

  The next day, we went to see the plum blossoms blooming at
  Fukuoka…not quite as good as sakura (cherry blossoms) but still very
  pretty and uplifiting. And mobbed by the elderly.
  and us
  
  
  .
  The fruits from these flowers will eventually be made into plum
  wine…yum! and other ume-related products, but mostly wine! yay!
  
  
  more photography lessons from Andy before I left tokyo enable me to learn about the macro function on my camera…
  
  and Ari added some tips too, improving my skills even more
  
  
  my current desktop background
  
  
  
  
  And now that you have all been exposed to my sensitive side through my
  many pictures of pretty pretty flowers, allow me to remind all my
  female readers that I can be masculine too
  
  I totally kicked his ass
  
  And here is what I would look like as a mexican wrestler

  To end the evening, Ari Sam and I went to an onsen, a traditional
  Japanese hot spring, which is an activity i enjoy so much, it is the
  only time and or place i will immerse myself in water given my deep
  seated issues with the ocean ad all things swimming related

  but i digress…much hot springs were enjoyed, as was some sauna, which
  was over 140 degrees farenheit…i cooked like a sausage.

  As my final day in Karatsu dawned (and my second to last day on my
  japan trip, I accompanied Ari to work, where I got to play english
  teacher for a day
  
  
  It was soo much of the fun! Ari and I did some of the same exercises
  that were done to us when we were in elementary Japanese…we taught
  the kids some vocabulary, and then got them to come up and do little
  skits/dialogues about their favorite activity and movie

  which with some of the kids was like pulling teeth. I learned a sad
  fact about the japanese eduacational system…it does not encourage
  creatvity or imagination, and in fact actively stifles it, so a lot of
  the kids did not want to volunteer to go, and we had to resort to
  forcing them up there…but i think in the end they all enjoyed the day
  anyway, ad i got to see a glimpse of what my life could have been like
  had i opted to do JET instead of going to med school…
  right down to the school lunches…
  
  I returned to Tokyo that day pretty satisfied with myself and all i had
  accomplished during my trip. Next time I will post some more pics that
  i neglected to mentiion in the other installments, and then pics of
  Ken’s visit to chicago, st patty’s day and greek easter

  I am about a month behind on backlogged photos, but catching up
  -J

  UPDATE:: I just found out I am going back to Japan AGAIN this summer
  for a week after I leave China! When my acupuncture program ends, i fly
  from beijing to toyko, where i have a stopover before heading to the
  us…Since my bro will be in Japan filming a documentary that week, I
  will be meeting up with him and we will return to LA together one week
  later.

  The Brothers dworetzky will be rampaging through Japan! whut whut!

  • 2:55 am
  • Leave a comment