i got some serious tan lines going on right now.

a few pics from okinawa...
what a beautiful holiday!
thank you janet for putting us up and putting up with us!


overview of the week: matt and i rented bikes and cycled around okinawa during the days and caught up, laughed and ate with the lovely janet in the evenings. in 6 days we hit about 10 beaches, snorkeled as much as possible (matt saw a white tip reef shark!) covered about 200km on our wheels and ate the mysterious dragon fruit, got caught in a few scary thunderstorms, almost struck by lightening again, visited a Chinese garden with pretty views, saw a bunch of rainbows (even a double rainbow!) and some gigantor spiders, got a bit sunburnt (big no-no!) and all of this after placing 2nd (matt) and 3rd (myself) i a triathlon the day before we left! whew. i'm still recovering.

i'm getting really excited because on Sunday, after the tri on base in Iwakuni, we're heading out to okinawa!
sweet... 6 days on the beach and to top it off i get to see Janet again!

In other news, on Tuesday I wore a yukata just for the fun of it.

Well, it was beautiful until this crawled up J's back while our toes were dangling over the water...





In Japan, these centipedes are poisonous and a bite from one will send you to the emergency wing, this particular one was about 20cm long... my man's lucky!

The lantern ceremony in Peace Park on August 6th was beautiful...

most people i know have never heard an air raid siren go off in their neighbourhood. i've heard the same air raid siren go off on the same morning at the same time for four years and it never ceases to scare the shit out of me.
this morning at 8:15 the air raid siren went off in memorial of the first atomic bomb ever dropped on humanity.
my stomach sank as i heard it, trying hard not to imagine what the people were thinking and feeling on this same day 60 years ago. my neighbourhood is actually about 10km from the epicentre and wasn't seriously affected. the range of destruction of today's atomic bombs would probably be much more vast.

having lived in hiroshima for four and a half years i have developed some pretty strong feelings towards nuclear weapons, warheads using depleted uranium, and the sympathy pleas of the Japanese. i don't think i will go into the deluge that i could today.

Respect to the innocent victims. May their nightmares be quelled.

"On 6 August 1945, an atomic bomb was exploded over Hiroshima, and the characteristic mushroom-shaped cloud can be seen in this photograph rising over the devastated Japanese city. At this time, Hiroshima was the headquarters of Japan's 2nd General Army."

The other photo is of hiroshima, leveled.
it is, for the moment, my city. i have a history here. there is a community in which i belong. it constantly shocks me to see this picture and pictures like it because i know where things stand now. i could point out spots on this map where funky shops are tucked away or where the swimming pool i lounge at is. the resilience and determination against odds of the human race is never to be underestimated.

ahhh, the joys of married life.
(goosefraba......)

well, i suppose a lot has happened since my last post but nothing terribly new or exciting...

two weeks ago matt raced his A race, the Kaike triathlon... i went and cheered for him with a bunch of (really fun) hiroshima-ites, we had a great day and matt totally kicked ass :) he finished 15th overall and had his best in-tri marathon to date. i was proud of him!

Then, after the race we went swimming in the Japan Sea and I lost my shades. they were totally cool and my favourite ones ever. they were glow-in-the-dark black flys and i'm looking for some kind of a replacement but am having a hard time shopping for new ones cause i'm still in mourning for those babies.
R.I.P.

A week ago we busted out my pink bike and I hopped on it again for the first time in ages.
I was so slow it was embarrassing.
we went to the beach on miyajima ... there was a huge tropical storm thing that hit and we got caught in it. lightning struck about 2 metres away from where we were standing. it was insane!

my weeks keep flying by at super pace. matt's home from school everyday (which is why i haven't blogged in so long! i tend to do this kind of stuff while he's at school, he's sleeping now though)...

this last weekend we were supposed to have a race but instead it got rained out (bummer) and we all went swimming at this great waterhole in yuki, an onsen town in the mountains behind where we live. it was a pretty sweet spot and we jumped off rocks into clear streams below... it had stopped raining long before. then we took a hot bath and drank some beer and headed home.

for dinner matt and i decided to be simple and just make some guacamole with doritos (they're the only kind of nacho chips you can buy easily in Japan, the rest are hard to find and stamped with the word IMPORT making them very expensive!) ... point of this story is, i'm allergic to doritos. they totally made me pass out! it was uncontrollable too! i passed out on the sofa, then again while making the bed! (we sleep on futons and you're supposed to put futons away daily which means making your bed every evening, i like it, feels fresh). then i got bitten by a mosquito like 10 times and woke up really sick.
MORAL OF THE STORY IS: don't eat doritos.