:Japan )

Today was supposed to be normal day and it pretty much was up until the very end where it sparked with moments of high adrenaline.

My first incident happened at the end of speed skating practice. The coach had his nephew and me lined up ready to toe the blue start line. He was in the middle of wondering if I could match my 1′10″ out loud when suddenly he yelled “あぶない！”　(abunai — danger, watch out!) Before I could even turn to look, my feet were swept from under me and I was falling backwards. Luckily for my head, past years of karate practice gave me the reflex to put my chin down as I fall. Double lucky when I looked down to see unknown dude’s skates had barely missed poking me in the ribs. It’s very rare for those kind of accidents to happen on this rink especially with high school students who I almost never see fall, which is good because they go super fast. In the end I thought I got out without a scratch, but as I was getting off the ice and putting away my skates I saw 1.5 cm of the very back of my right skate’s blade had been chipped off Coach says it’s not really necessary for skating but I was hoping my $500 investment would last relatively unscathed for a little longer.

To wind down the day I thought I would get some dinner at the local super market, take it home and relax while eating it. Those plans were ruined when I was taking a back alley to get home and slid a little in the curve due to the fact it had become complete ice. Surely you’ve seen in movies and TV shows where cars are able to teeter totter on edge of some steep hill? Well, my car kept sliding until the front left wheel had started down the enbankment and my back right wheel was about 2 feet off the ground. In that moment I didn’t even want to breathe for fear of giving it that last nudge to finish a 3 foot drop into someone’s rice patty. After about 15 minutes of thinking, checking stability, and futilely trying to reverse out, I was able to get out of the car without causing any more trouble. However to make matters worse I hadn’t brought my cell phone with me. So I had to run about 1.5 km to my house, got the phone, and started making calls. Initially I thought maybe there was a chance for two people to get the car out by using one person’s extra weight over the back wheel in the air but after Mehan arrived, we both decided that idea was a little too dangerous.

Luckily about that time my coach friend called me back and after explaining the situation to him in broken Japanese, he was able to get some his friends together with an SUV and tow cable and pulled me out of the ditch. The only thing I can give myself credit for is not over reacting once in the slide and getting my wheels pointed in such a way that I stopped the car from rolling futher down the hill, or worse rolling over laterally down the enbankment. Once pulled back on to solid ground, my car ran fine and it does appear to have any body damage. I’ll have to give a more thorough check once there is light to check it with. Nevertheless tomorrow I will be facing having the piss taken out of me yet again by the office. And now finally at 10:40 pm I get to eat the dinner I initially bought at 8:30

It was probably several months ago that the word アズベスト began being thrown around the office. Next many meetings lasting several hours began about アズベスト (thankfully I didn’t have to attend). When I went home at night, the evening news seemed to have a least one segment on アズベスト for a least a month. All the while I’m sitting here in the office watching these scramble meetings and seeing the attention it’s getting on the news and I can only think two things “They are only figuring this out just now!!??” and “That’s Japan.”

What is アズベスト you ask (at least those of you not in the katakana know)? Asbestos. Apparently there’s been some kind of cover-up on the whole asbestos causing cancer thing since something like 1989. Now I don’t know how they managed to do this, in fact it’s down right unfathomable that they could keep this information away from the public. Or maybe everyone has known but government just turned a blind eye towards fixing things because no one raised a stink, I don’t know. One thing is for certain though: the mess has finally hit the fan and governments are starting to take action.

One day, after one of the アズベスト meetings, the members all came back to the stairwell that I walk up and down every workday. They walked up about half way to the landing between the next floor, just high enough to reach the back of the further ascending stairs. Seeing this rather large gathering I decided to go investigate too. I joined in just in time to see one of them reach up and lightly scrape the back of the ascending stairwell and then see the resulting loose power easily come off onto his finger. アズベスト.

Holy shit. Going through my own family’s “asbestos scare” in the 80’s / 90’s and hearing about it being found and removed at various places, especially the schools, during that time I guess made me extra sensitive to the presence of asbestos. But seeing it in such a way that easily turns into an airborne powder was a little more frightening.

After the frequency of the asbestos meetings greatly subsided, little machines were sat in the stairwell. They had a clear hose running from the machine to a little nozzle at waist height on a stand. Everyone wondered what those machines could possibly be. I thought it was quite obvious they were testing the air for asbestos and when I told my coworkers they gave me the “It could be, but we won’t completely agree yet” response. Finally, at the beginning of this December, each stairwell was closed off for a one week period for asbestos removal.

I guess the fact that they decided to close off the stairwell means they did find asbestos in the air there. I probably won’t see any results of this for many years, assuming I’m even affected, but as I sit here with a slightly mysterious dry cough, I can’t help but think that Japan is going have a lasting impression on me for many years to come.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays one and all! This is my second Christmas in Japan and I don’t really have much plans. Of course I’ll talk to the fam and open presents but otherwise just gonna be hangin out, watch a movie or three, eat unhealthy christmas food of japanese fashion and whatever else hits me on a whim.

Welcome to Charlie Mac version 26.194 or somewhere close thereto!

It’s been a long while yeah? No reason really just never really wanted to sit down and write or upload new pictures. Anyway I guess a bit has happened since last August. At the end of September I went on a long 9 day trek with my friend/ co-worker all the way to Kyuushuu and back, by car. I didn’t realize how long that would be in actual car time nor how much of that car time would be spent in silence despite attempts to get some kind of conversation going. Even though I didn’t get around to blogging it, I did try to write a lot of it down on good ol’ fashion paper which I might try to go back and write up sometime. On October 12th, I turned 26 starting my slow slide down to a possible mid-life crisis that everyone seems to expect once hitting the 30 mark. In November we had our Salmon festival here in Shimoda and I have to say this year’s was a bit gloomy due to the rainy weather. However I did catch a salmon this year! And the little bugger is still waiting to be cooked up in some delicious manner in my freezer. In late November and early December I attempted 2 rather advanced Japanese aptitude tests which I think I did poorly on due to not studying kanji, the Chinese character system, enough. Finally that leads to the now where it’s quite cold and snow is on the ground.

Skating has started again and I’m back on the ice almost every night after work trying to work off all the weight I gained due to the my ankle accident over the summer. It’s quite amazing how much the muscles in my ankle area, both ankles, seem to have atrophied. Just doing warm up 3m diameter circles on the ice sets those muscles on fire with exhaustion. Despite all that it seems I’m making a decent recovery as I’ve already managed to achieve my best time from last season on the 500m of 1:10. The goal now to actually get cornering down. Some might call it the cross-over, either way it’s hard.