Rain, rain - go away...

It's been pouring rain all weekend. Sucks!

Last night was the first time when I really wished I had a car here. I needed to go out. I had to return some movies to the video store by midnight to avoid late fees and I fancied a hamburger for dinner. But it started raining yesterday at about noon and didn't stop all day and night. Plus, some of the local JET community were getting together at my friend Mark's place to watch English premier league football (soccer). So I made the decision to venture out into the night on my scooter and make the 15 minute trek over to Izumo to return the videos and watch some soccer.

One of the pieces of really good advice I got from my predecessor, Sara, was to bring "rain pants." I wasn't sure what rain pants were, but I had these seemingly water-proof workout pants that I brought with me. Turns out that they're more "water-resistant" than water proof, but they help on days when I have to scooter to work and it's only raining a bit. I also have some Adidas sweat pants that are not that comfortable, but they are 100% polyester, so I put those on and then my rain pants on over those. I have a rain jacket with a hood and some water proof gloves that my folks just sent me from England, sol I was decked out and ready to go. Man was it raining though. I have no face shield on my scooter helmet so the rain was pelting my face as I rode along despite the fact that I can only go about 30 kmh.

I arrived at the video store first and took the videos upstairs, still dripping wet from my ride, and turned them in without renting more. I got back on my scooter and rode the last 5 minutes over to Mark's apartment and wasn't too worse for wear. Wet, but not soaked thru and oddly enough it wasn't that cold last night.

I did yell my first obscenity at a Japanese motorist last night. I was cruising down a main street in Izumo toward Mark's place and an oncoming car wanted to make a right across my lane of traffic (we drive on the left here in Japan). I have a decent headlight on my scooter, so I know she saw me coming, but she proceeded to pull into my lane of traffic. Well, I swerved and as I passed I extended my middle finger and yelled the accompanying "F- you!" Have no idea if it was understood, but it was necessary all the same. I'm on a scooter with low visibility in the pouring rain and you just have to go first - I think not!

By the time I left Mark's at about 2am, it had stopped raining so the ride home was uneventful. But the wind was strong all night, making my house and windows creak something awful at times, and it's rained on and off all day today, so kind of a sucky weekend.

I'm gonna have a good old fashioned British Fry Up soon, as I finally bought some eggs to scramble and I have toast and sausage, so that should be nice. Nothing on Japanese TV today that I can watch, except some sports like J-league soccer, so I'll probably read (I'm in the middle of two books right now, with the "Da Vinci Code" winning out recently) and work on writing my article for a Shimane JET publication that they put out here called the Black Taxi. I've been writing a monthly column on movies and pop culture called "The Hitchhiker's Guide..." and it seems to be well received, although it's really hard to tell how many people are actually reading it.

Hope your weekend is going well. Hopefully posts this week about the Speech contests in November and what I did for Thanksgiving and my return to Kendo.

Be Good-
Jason