Changes not changing...

I like writing about the changing of the seasons in Japan. Coming from northern California where we really only have two seasons (nice and not that nice), living in a place that has four distinct seasons helps to delineate the year. 12 months isn't over until you've gone a full cycle of the seasons and moved the clothes from the back of your closet to the front, only to put them away again when the temperatures change. That's a much better way of measuring the passage of time than tearing pages off a calendar, if you ask me. 

I was all set to talk about how the weather, as usual, turned on a dime, when today's remnants of a typhoon turned that dime back another 180 degrees and brought back the humidity and heat. Ugh. Sweat upon layer of sweat upon layer of sweat. Guess I'm keeping those shorts and tank tops on the frontlines a bit longer after all. 

Interesting business strategy...

The sign is for a Thai massage.

It reads: 20 minutes for 1,000 yen, 30 minutes for 2,000 yen.

I don't get it. Is this some kind of Apple-style strategy of pricing your items against your other items to create a sense of value? If not, who would ever get the 30-minute massage when 2 20-minute massages would be the same price but 33% longer?

Taste Joy...

I've never had an ice cream cone so good that it made me O-face. Have you?

(Seen in Penang)

Colorless San Jose and two years of grad school...

After 8 years of living in Japan, I decided -- more or less on a whim -- that it was time to go home and challenge myself to do something new.

That "something new" turned out to be a masters degree in Education in the town where I grew up.

For two years I was a student. I spent time with my family playing Super Uncle for my many deviously cute nieces and nephews. When I didn't have class, I ran the trails around the bay area, and on weekends I'd get reacquainted with old friends who, surprisingly, remained great friends. I spent every day enjoying the comfortable confines of northern California.

For two years things were really good, really easy. But without me recognizing it, they also became a bit drab, more gray where there used to be blues and yellows. I don't think anything about home actually changed: the weather is still great, the food is mostly delicious with a wide breadth and easy access, and time with the family was as enjoyable as ever. But having spent so much of my life in foreign countries experiencing new things and constantly being surprised by the vagaries of the world, things in the US seemed to lack that splash of vibrant color. My hometown, at 31, looked duller. The reds were somehow less red than I remembered them to be.

So when I was just short of finishing my degree, I -- more or less on a whim -- made arrangements with my professors to finish those last few months of school online, and returned to the school where I used to work in Japan. The timing was perfect, like the world was colluding to help me find that jacket in just the right shade of blue.

Why did I do it? The picture above.

While walking with a friend and my sister and her two kids, who were visiting at the time, we came across a temple built on the side of a mountain surrounded by a bamboo forest. Once inside, we saw endless rows of these beautiful lanterns, set up for a festival to honor the dead. So we made like tourists and took pictures running and jumping and laughing in all those lanterns, in all those wonderful colors I only find in places that aren't home.

Things you don't always find...

Two energy drinks and a wig on the train tracks. Someone either had a really good time or a really bad time. Not sure there's really any in between.

Messages...

I taught the kids how to express different levels of infatuation. One of the phrases was "I'm crazy about ..."

For my birthday, one of the homerooms gave me a bag of snacks. In it was this.

 

Little messages like this make teaching a pretty awesome gig.

 

Summer...

There are a few times in life when a moment can exceed even your greatest expectations -- there aren't many things better than that. Bagan was one of those moments. Out of the places that I've been in the world, these temples rank right up there with the most beautiful, awe-inspiring things I've ever seen.

Ker and I spent the afternoon running through the temples, climbing them, crawling on hands and knees, exploring, admiring. And in the evenings we stood at the highest point and looked for the next temple to explore. With over 3,000 still standing, there was always a next temple.