Earthquake...!

So guess what happened today? Give up? We had an earthquake. 5.something; I guess that's relatively big, as it created 50 cm tsunamis along the coast near where I live. Joe (for those of you who don't know here, she's the other ALT in Kameyama) called in to check on me after it happened, to which I responded with "what? We had an earthquake?" I was completely oblivious. I guess that's for the best. At the time, Lisa and I were walking back from the train station, and I guess they're harder to fell when you're in motion.

So, this weekend consisted of Louis and Lisa waking up at 7 in the morning, so we could be ready at 8 am for Soga-san to come pick us up, and take us to a judo contest. I didn't take any pictures from that, because I fogot my camera. It was a local competition with kids from the area, with the oldest ones being maybe 16 or so. There were some pretty good take-downs, and watching this little girl flip over this guy twice her size was pretty neat to see.

After this, we went to go "help" Soga-san harvest rice, though it turns out he didn't really need our help that much. We basically just walked around, until he told us we could go sightseeing. We then found this really cool river, with some of the clearest water I've ever seen, and went wading in it for a while. It was very serene.

Later, we helped pick up the many bags of rice seeds, and put them into the truck (the real reason we were there, as they were heavy, and the average age of everyone else was somewhere around 65). Soga-san and I then went to the place where you do whatever it is you do to rice between cultivation and kind-you-can-eat. Basically, this involved lifting the bags into this machine, and dumping out all the contents to be processed. Along the way, though, I saw some monkeys!!! At first, they were far away, and I thought "wow, those are some really hairy kids". Then we got closer, and I realized that they were moving on all fours. I guess the truck scared them, and they climbed the retaining wall (which are everywhere, because the land is so hilly/montainous), and disappeared into the bamboo forest. No pictures, though, because I couldn't get my camera out fast enough.
When everything was done, we went back to Soga-san's place where he turned to Lisa and said "you take shower now". Hahahaha. Turns out he wanted to have us for dinner, but realized we wouldn't be comfortable in our sweaty clothes. His wife is the best cook ever. Really yummy food. Soga-san got really drunk (which is both completely socially acceptable, and, in general, requires little alcohol for Japanese people), and taught me how to play shojin (Japanese chess) while Lisa relaxed in this from-the-future, robotic-massage-giving chair. Then he brought in his newborn granddaughter, and almost woke her up so we could "play" with her. As we were having dessert, Soga-san turned to Lisa and said "you should brush teeth before going to bed". I guess he's really concerned about her hygiene.

Today consisted of us going to Nagoya to get Japanese textbooks, dictionaries, and kid's books that we can (hopefully) read. If not, at least they have lots of nice pictures in them. Also, you should all be aware that oftentimes in Japan, when it rains, it POURS. We ran from the bookstore to the subway station, which left us outside for less than 30 seconds, and we were drenched by the time we made it.

That's it for now.