(no subject)
Ah.....I am so content right now.
<>
I have a week and a half left of paid vacation during which I will visit friends and leave my Skype on so I can talk with family. I'm in a loving no-end-in-sight relationship with a romantic man with whom I just spent 3 days at a sunny beach town.
Yoshiyuki and I decided to go to Shirahama for a weekend, a famous beach resort town in Wakayama Prefecture, 2 hours away by train from Osaka. It was both riotously funny and sublime.
For some reason, when we're together the randomest stuff ends up happening. Like, on our first afternoon in Shirahama, we checked into our out-of-the-way hotel (we had to call a taxi whenever we wanted to go anywhere) and as we were walking through the building, we saw a pair of pants lying on the floor in front of the elevator. We immediately concluded that there was a madman running around the hotel without any pants, and decided it was the manager of the hotel. Later, as we were soaking in our room's outdoor bath (a very Japanese pastime, you should try it) we heard a splash, and realized that Mr. Manager must have jumped into the lake. Without his pants. And then we were off -- the rest of the weekend was spent with very random "sightings" of the crazy Mr. Manager. One night the hotel fire alarm went off, and soon after it stopped we heard a loud BANG. "Mr. Manager couldn't catch the burglar and hit the wall with his fist," I stated knowingly, and Yoshiyuki literally fell off his bed laughing.
We went to Shirarahama beach that evening to eat and walk along the beach at twilight. At a unique restaurant where you can rest your feet in a large warm foot hotspring as you eat, we ordered steak, a local fish called "kue" (which means "EAT IT" in Japanese), and shaved ice (Yoshiyuki thought me very strange indeed for wanting to eat the shaved ice at the same time as the meat -- something about the tastes clashing. I was like, "I eat what I want!!"). As we were walking along the beach later we were surprised to stumble across a strange Shirahama custom -- a nightly(?) fireworks show. Apparently, people buy a large firework and write a short message to their family or friends who were staying with them in Shirahama, and somebody reads the messages over a microphone followed by a professional setting off the firework of the ocean. Very beautiful.
One random thing about our vacation was the timing -- off the coast somewhere a taifun was passing. It was no where near enough to even see, but its influence caused the waves to be gigantic (by my standards...not by a surfer's though, I would think). I played "Chase Me" with the waves and dared them with taunts of "KOCHI NI KOOOOOI" (Loose translation: Come Get Some)...until a nearby group set off some sparklers, and the distraction allowed two waves to crash into each other on the surf, with me between them. >.>;;
On Friday we went back to Shirarahama beach to go swimming in the daylight, and I thought I was well protected by my Shiseido suntan lotion. I. Was. Wrong. I know that Japanese medicines are weak but I had no idea that extended to sunblock. Am now red as the Japanese flag's middle dot. ::sigh:: But man, we had fun in those huge waves.
Next, we walked to a nearby hot spring, which was quite unusual. It was an open-air salt water hot spring, with a lovely view of the ocean right next to the crashing waves. I don't think it was an actual natural hot spring per se as they heated the sea water for the baths. Of course they were split into two areas; one for each gender. I discovered a funny thing though: the wall separating the two baths is not quite sufficient. If a woman sits on a certain rock at the edge of the wall and looks backwards instead of at the waves like she's supposed to, she can see into the men's baths! I saw Yoshiyuki in fact, and jumped with surprise and sprang back into the baths where two Japanese girls saw me and mouthed "Did you see?" and I nodded with wide eyes. If those two hadn't been there I may have gone back to wave at him. :^D When I told him about this, he was rather stunned. "Did you see my penis?" he asked quickly and I said no, that he was sitting down in the bath looking at the ocean at the time. He breathed a sigh of relief and told me that for a few minutes, he'd been by himself and had decided to pose, like a real Japanese man, staring intently at the sea with his hands on his hips and his feet apart, head up high.
...I think I broke something laughing at this image. I'm still sniggering. I wish I'd seen it.
That night we found a bench near a small bay and sat down to watch the sunset. I asked Yoshiyuki, "What's your favorite color in the sunset?" and he said it was orange. I pointed at a cloud pattern and said, "I really like --" and then suddenly a FISH jumped from the water RIGHT WHERE I WAS POINTING. We both paused a moment, and then hurt ourselves laughing. Once we calmed down, he put his arm around my shoulder and watched little crabs skulking on the rock wall and the rest of the sun fade from the sky. Yoshiyuki turned to kiss me and then VROOOOOOOM tiny remote control BOAT of all things flew from our left out into the bay with a huge engine sound. Yoshiyuki turned to me with wide eyes and said, "For just a second I thought it was a tiny boat with a tiny man on it, and I thought 'Erai naaaa!' (That man is worthy of respect! ... or something)."
The next day we went to Adventure World, which is like an amusement park/zoo/safari adventure. The best part is the sign near our hotel, which says "Adventure. 3km." We saw twin pandas and lions and bears and white tigers and a lesser panda (picture the offspring of a racoon and a panda. Terribly cute). And a dolphin show. And a pack of about five tiny penguins, which was brilliant because Yoshiyuki and I made up voices for them. There were stairs leading down into their pool, but a couple penguins approached the far ridge of the pool instead, obviously thinking of diving from that great height rather than use the steps. Yoshiyuki, me, and the other penguins were egging him on with shouts of "DIVE, DIVE!" but the penguin changed his mind and went for the stairs ("Ore, yappari, dame ka, tte" - Yoshiyuki).
And that's about all I can tell you. We held hands a lot. ::gush:: Yoshiyuki bought a hideous straw hat, about which I made endless One Piece references until he gave it to me. :^) Well, that's not really how it went but it sounds funnier that way.
....And now that you know I'm very happy in my relationship I'm gonna tell you that Yoshiyuki's 38, not 30 like I first thought. Make of that what you will.
<>
<>
I have a week and a half left of paid vacation during which I will visit friends and leave my Skype on so I can talk with family. I'm in a loving no-end-in-sight relationship with a romantic man with whom I just spent 3 days at a sunny beach town.
Yoshiyuki and I decided to go to Shirahama for a weekend, a famous beach resort town in Wakayama Prefecture, 2 hours away by train from Osaka. It was both riotously funny and sublime.
For some reason, when we're together the randomest stuff ends up happening. Like, on our first afternoon in Shirahama, we checked into our out-of-the-way hotel (we had to call a taxi whenever we wanted to go anywhere) and as we were walking through the building, we saw a pair of pants lying on the floor in front of the elevator. We immediately concluded that there was a madman running around the hotel without any pants, and decided it was the manager of the hotel. Later, as we were soaking in our room's outdoor bath (a very Japanese pastime, you should try it) we heard a splash, and realized that Mr. Manager must have jumped into the lake. Without his pants. And then we were off -- the rest of the weekend was spent with very random "sightings" of the crazy Mr. Manager. One night the hotel fire alarm went off, and soon after it stopped we heard a loud BANG. "Mr. Manager couldn't catch the burglar and hit the wall with his fist," I stated knowingly, and Yoshiyuki literally fell off his bed laughing.
We went to Shirarahama beach that evening to eat and walk along the beach at twilight. At a unique restaurant where you can rest your feet in a large warm foot hotspring as you eat, we ordered steak, a local fish called "kue" (which means "EAT IT" in Japanese), and shaved ice (Yoshiyuki thought me very strange indeed for wanting to eat the shaved ice at the same time as the meat -- something about the tastes clashing. I was like, "I eat what I want!!"). As we were walking along the beach later we were surprised to stumble across a strange Shirahama custom -- a nightly(?) fireworks show. Apparently, people buy a large firework and write a short message to their family or friends who were staying with them in Shirahama, and somebody reads the messages over a microphone followed by a professional setting off the firework of the ocean. Very beautiful.
One random thing about our vacation was the timing -- off the coast somewhere a taifun was passing. It was no where near enough to even see, but its influence caused the waves to be gigantic (by my standards...not by a surfer's though, I would think). I played "Chase Me" with the waves and dared them with taunts of "KOCHI NI KOOOOOI" (Loose translation: Come Get Some)...until a nearby group set off some sparklers, and the distraction allowed two waves to crash into each other on the surf, with me between them. >.>;;
On Friday we went back to Shirarahama beach to go swimming in the daylight, and I thought I was well protected by my Shiseido suntan lotion. I. Was. Wrong. I know that Japanese medicines are weak but I had no idea that extended to sunblock. Am now red as the Japanese flag's middle dot. ::sigh:: But man, we had fun in those huge waves.
Next, we walked to a nearby hot spring, which was quite unusual. It was an open-air salt water hot spring, with a lovely view of the ocean right next to the crashing waves. I don't think it was an actual natural hot spring per se as they heated the sea water for the baths. Of course they were split into two areas; one for each gender. I discovered a funny thing though: the wall separating the two baths is not quite sufficient. If a woman sits on a certain rock at the edge of the wall and looks backwards instead of at the waves like she's supposed to, she can see into the men's baths! I saw Yoshiyuki in fact, and jumped with surprise and sprang back into the baths where two Japanese girls saw me and mouthed "Did you see?" and I nodded with wide eyes. If those two hadn't been there I may have gone back to wave at him. :^D When I told him about this, he was rather stunned. "Did you see my penis?" he asked quickly and I said no, that he was sitting down in the bath looking at the ocean at the time. He breathed a sigh of relief and told me that for a few minutes, he'd been by himself and had decided to pose, like a real Japanese man, staring intently at the sea with his hands on his hips and his feet apart, head up high.
...I think I broke something laughing at this image. I'm still sniggering. I wish I'd seen it.
That night we found a bench near a small bay and sat down to watch the sunset. I asked Yoshiyuki, "What's your favorite color in the sunset?" and he said it was orange. I pointed at a cloud pattern and said, "I really like --" and then suddenly a FISH jumped from the water RIGHT WHERE I WAS POINTING. We both paused a moment, and then hurt ourselves laughing. Once we calmed down, he put his arm around my shoulder and watched little crabs skulking on the rock wall and the rest of the sun fade from the sky. Yoshiyuki turned to kiss me and then VROOOOOOOM tiny remote control BOAT of all things flew from our left out into the bay with a huge engine sound. Yoshiyuki turned to me with wide eyes and said, "For just a second I thought it was a tiny boat with a tiny man on it, and I thought 'Erai naaaa!' (That man is worthy of respect! ... or something)."
The next day we went to Adventure World, which is like an amusement park/zoo/safari adventure. The best part is the sign near our hotel, which says "Adventure. 3km." We saw twin pandas and lions and bears and white tigers and a lesser panda (picture the offspring of a racoon and a panda. Terribly cute). And a dolphin show. And a pack of about five tiny penguins, which was brilliant because Yoshiyuki and I made up voices for them. There were stairs leading down into their pool, but a couple penguins approached the far ridge of the pool instead, obviously thinking of diving from that great height rather than use the steps. Yoshiyuki, me, and the other penguins were egging him on with shouts of "DIVE, DIVE!" but the penguin changed his mind and went for the stairs ("Ore, yappari, dame ka, tte" - Yoshiyuki).
And that's about all I can tell you. We held hands a lot. ::gush:: Yoshiyuki bought a hideous straw hat, about which I made endless One Piece references until he gave it to me. :^) Well, that's not really how it went but it sounds funnier that way.
....And now that you know I'm very happy in my relationship I'm gonna tell you that Yoshiyuki's 38, not 30 like I first thought. Make of that what you will.
<>