Showing posts with label Spiders. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Spiders. Show all posts

Thursday, October 20, 2011

Hodge and Podge

I feel bad, I don't have anything exciting to say. I have had a few things kicking around in my old brainparts though for a few days. Because of this, I am making a hodge podge post. The following will make no logical connections to each other, so don't try and find the story line. 

First: I am not sure what I am going to do for my life...long term. I have been giving it thought in between teaching classes. I realize that right now I am very impressionable, partially because I feel like the world is (literally) my oyster. I don't really like oysters, but I understand that if I had a great many oysters, I could turn that into some kind of profit. Here is a list of careers that I have seriously considered in the past week or two, and how I came to consider it:

Dairy Farmer (Paul Rusch festival)
Fine vendor of delicious meats (Paul Rusch festival)
Corn Maze owner/operator (Halloween lesson for kids)
Spy (TV Show Chuck)
Mayor of a City (TV Show Parks and Recreation)
Archaeologist/Adventurer (Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark)
Restaurant Owner (Inspired by my fierce desire for first-rate bacon)
Blacksmith (Paul Rusch festival)
Philanthropist (inspired by my everyday desire to have money and give it away)

I am currently taking any suggestions on these areas of study because frankly, I am stumped. I don't know what I want to/should do with my time when I am back in the U.S. 

Second: I have been listening to a lot of music (not that this is a change from any other period in my life) and I have been thinking about how interesting your life is when you choose the soundtrack. I was driving along on the wrong side of the road listening to a song I have been listening to for years. The scenery has changed, but the soundtrack is the same. As I was thinking about this, I looked at my most played songs in my iTunes. I found one song that has been played 3 times as many as the next highest. It is no surprise that this is my go-to song to fix my mood. I have listened to this song hundreds of times in the last 15 months and I never get tired of it. Here is a link. Give yourself a few minutes and take a listen: 


I will let you all know right now that when I die and get to heaven (cross fingers), I expect this to be playing. Awesome.

Third: I know I keep harping on this whole 'bug situation' here in Japan. Luckily, all these suckers are going to die when it snows, and I shall dance on their graves. At the train station I use, they seem to not care about the rampant spider population. If I were to stick my hands above my head and walk, I would (not exaggerating) run my hands into no less than 12 spider webs. The spiders also have no fear of humans, they boldly go about their tasks of building a web and creeping me out. I would gladly carry around a can of spider-cide and show them the fear of the spray, but I feel like that would be frowned upon. 

I took a few pictures for you to grasp how large some of these spiders get when they are without fear and unchecked. 
 NOPE! You have got to be kidding me! I first saw this spider and there wasn't a pane of glass to separate us. This is the largest spider I have seen in this country. It is the second largest spider I have seen in the wild (we have some tarantulas in Cedar sometimes). Those things in the air, those are about the size of potato bugs...This one is monster, and no one cares.
Same type of spider, but about 200 feet from the other one. This spider is in a web hanging from a building 25 feet in the air. Here is a rule: If you can see a spider that is 25 feet in the air, run. Run away.

Happy Halloween (I guess)! The Japanese don't celebrate Halloween, but I bet they wouldn't be that freaked out by a room in a haunted house filled with spiders. Every time I go to church, I have to walk through the Hall of Human Nightmares, but the Japanese remain unfazed. 

Hodge podge complete. Hopefully you enjoyed it! If you didn't enjoy it, I am not really worried, because you already read it (which was my original intent). Joke's on you.

Saturday, October 1, 2011

3 Rounds with the Devil

Today I came toe to toe with the devil. I am somewhat ashamed to say that I had to go three rounds with this, the hellhound of Satan. Though this is not a dog, I could see this thing salivating when it looked at me. I am not one to lose my mind over bugs, no matter what earlier posts may suggest. For some reason, the whole country of Japan seems to be literally crawling with giant bugs that wish to devour my soul. When I saw this spider, I almost lost my mind. I screamed quite loud, and I am glad that I have no neighbors to hear me.
 Doesn't seem super scary right? Just a friendly ol' spider.
 FALSE! This spider is the hellchild of the devil and an octopus. Look at that thing in relation to the size of my rice cooker. I want to know one thing, how long has this spider been living in my house and where are its friends?!
After 3 rounds of fighting, I came off the victor. I first poisoned it with spray where it retreated to behind the refrigerator. He tried to trick me into leaving him alone, but I fought in the legendary spider wars of 2005. I was not fooled by this ruse, and calmly awaited for him to escape into the open (I am not sexist in referring to the spider, I merely believe that there is no way that something so hateful could be a female). 

After he charged me for ground surrounding the garbage cans, I held him off with another bout of poison. Poison is slow to act, and is good for slowing, but not instant death. Luckily, I earned my stripes in the spider wars and can improvise freely. I took my lighter and created a jet of fire that spewed forth and licked all 8 wicked legs of the beast, rendering it dead. 

You can see the coin for comparison in the picture. That coin is a little bigger than a quarter, and that suckers legs were shriveled and charred. 
 Then this happened. My neighbor has left her porch light on for a few days which has attracted moths. Moths are a bit of an understatement because these things have fur. 
 3 together, the unholy trinity.
 There is a sandwich tie for comparison on size. 
Ah...on to something not so horrible. I took a discreet picture of first graders managing the lunch cart to their classroom while wearing their little face masks and covers. They look like tiny little surgeons.  
 Friday lunch. See that little pinapple looking mystery vegetable that I hate so much? Photographic proof. 
 For Friday night, we went to a little cafe in the middle of nowhere. When I say middle of nowhere, I actually mean that it is about 20 minutes from the middle of nowhere. I couldn't get back there if I tried. 
 The inside is very comfortable and homey. 
 The folks that own this had their own pizza oven made. Awesome right? In a country where pizza is rare, this is like striking oil. 
Another view from the inside. Someday I would love to have a rec room that looks significantly like this room. If I someday acquire this room and find a spider in it, I will burn it to the ground. 

Saturday, September 10, 2011

Things That Are Adorable

A man once said recently that it is almost like the Japanese school system saw little Japanese students who are inherently cute and thought to themselves, "How can we make them even cuter?"

The answer: Make them wear matching hats and hold hands as they walk down the street.

 Adorable right? 
 Here they are practicing for sports day (which will come in detail in the next post)
 They do a relay around the cones
Kids are also pretty amazing at origami in the shapes of beloved video game characters
 This is the food from the phenomenal French bakery at the Kofu station. On the left, chocolate croissant, in front, chicken and potato carbonara, and at the back right, a delicious calzone. 
I found a place that sells Diet Dr. Pepper. Delicious and reminiscent.

Sunday, September 4, 2011

Denny's and Camping

So, here again I have a list of items I have yet to expound on, and I am going to do it all at once. Here follows many pictures of the most interesting quality and selection. 
Denny's in Japan. Pretty...ya know. I decided that I should go check it out, probably a mistake. 
 I got the club sandwich. The whole sandwich was pretty good, the rest of the selections were curry.
 Ketchup
The view from my table. It had a very pink feeling about the whole place. It was kind of kitschy (as all good Denny's should be). 
 Little tidbit: Denny's in Japan is owned by the same company that owns 7-11. What goes together better than a convenience store infamous for its greasy food and slurpees, and an American restaurant known for its greasy food and not much else? 
 Speaking of 7-11, they are all over. This is the one near my house. They have corndogs there too, but they call them Big American Dogs. It was good, not great. The taste was a little too heavy on the corn and didn't focus enough on the dog. 
I went to a clothing store, and these are the men's tracksuits. Yeah. Men's. I have yet to run into someone wearing a Hello Kitty tracksuit, but I have a feeling that is is going to happen.  

Also, this thing. Little tidbit...in Japan, tracksuits are considered dressier than jeans. Go figure.  

On to camping:
 The campground we visited last weekend for an opening party, looks nice right? Almost impossible to find, and terrifyingly close to falling off a cliff while driving. 
 The campground alternated between being terrifying and charming. This is a nice sign showing that they are friendly with horse lovers. 
 I found the way to Easy Street in Japan. You can see my car parked there on Easy Street.
 Ah, here is the terrifying part. This is a makeshift aqueduct that flows all the way down to this bathtub which overflows onto the ground. 
Here is a stage where they have DJ's set up for rave parties sometimes. Nothing like a rave in the woods (or so I am told). 
"Are you from Dixie? Well, I'm from Dixie..."  
 Bamboo lanterns made by floating a candle in water inside a bamboo shoot.
 Both charming and creepy. 
 An ominous swingset overlooking some of the camping space and bunkhouses.
Oh yes, the camground had crap all over it. Who doesn't love a fine selection of tires and wood?  
Inside one of the bunkhouses 
Old western-y pictures were up all over making it feel like it is 1904 again in the booming silvertowns. 
The befabled beer corner, where you can go for beer. 
 The campsite vending machine, makes sense right? Nature...vending machine...
 THE TOILET OF 100 YEARS AGO! This thing just screams class and confusion. The spraypainted sign is one good indicator of class, the other...
 ...is this little beauty. Nestled next to the Speed Racer poster is the sign for Sex Drive. And Welcome to our house. Quaint doesn't begin to explain.
The Engrish outside the ladies room. 
Another quaint and confusing sign warning you to remove any buildup of defecation off your shoes before entering the BBQ pit. 
Spiders. These little buggers are everywhere. Giant and freaky, they are all over the train station, as mentioned in a previous post.

Saturday, August 6, 2011

Primer on Japanese Bugs

So...Just in case you didn't catch it before...Japan is mostly a tropical island...that has snow. Confusing? Yes. Most of the time, my house is full of bugs. I have been collecting some of the pictures of the bugs that terrify me on a regular basis. Luckily, there are no mukade. What is a mukade? This is a mukade:

 This is absolutely terrifying. They are poisonous (not lethal) and they like the dark. No thank you. We don't have these though. 
 We do have this large spider that builds webs like a champion.
 This is another, bigger spider that I saw and when I got close to take a picture, it started dropping and I think it said something offensive to me. It is dang scary. We have some spiders that are called Huntsman spiders (that I guess they have in Australia as well). They are big but not poisonous. Evidently all the spiders in Japan are non-lethal and most aren't poisonous. Something about being an island or something...I don't know. 
 On to other annoying and less terrifying bugs. This is a cicada (on the left side of the ladder, you can see the big wings). They amek an awful ruckus that ensures that I don't sleep past 10 am because they and all their buddies are making noise. 
 This is a dead one I found, From nose to tip they are about 3.5 inches long. 
And finally, the super crunchy Japanese Beetle. I saw this at the train station and it is was huge. It is roughly the size of my old cell phone. I am told that the kids gather these and fight them against each other. 

Not appearing are the fruit flies that have invaded my house, gnats that are EVERYWHERE, 7 or 8 different kinds of moths outside my house every day and a terrifying cricket that looked like something from the movie Starship Troopers. I am not a bug person, but I am learning to ignore them. Except mukade, if i ever see one of those, I'm coming home.