1) Begin life together. Adopt and raise very cute Akita puppy.
2) Cheer for law-school-in-Washington-applying wife, even though acceptance would mean leaving family, new home, great job, and awesome friends.
3) Move to Washington, bringing Akita dog along. Mourn loss of very cute, but congenitally ill Akita dog. Also, mourn existence of law school. Adopt wise, hard-luck Akita dog because husband loves his photo. Adopt very cute female Akita puppy because wife thinks she belongs in the house and makes other dog happy.
4) Good gravy, is there still more law school? Endure long-distance relationship while wife works in Philadelphia. Once home, frequently take snacks and cocktails down to the basement and layout-building husband.
5) Celebrate end of law school, but make dinner and do all chores during wife's bar study. Perfect repertoire of brunch dishes during series of parties to commemorate end of husband's Japanese class sessions.
6) Apparently enjoy blissful year of marriage during which nothing of note occurred. Seriously. I got nothing.
7) Buy second house together. Discover that prior owners' home improvements are completely random and nothing about house makes sense. Survive monthlong Plague House episode, trading congestion, respiratory distress, pinkeye, and insomnia.
8) Spend thirty nearly consecutive hours in car together during impulsive cross-country road trip from Washington to Cerrillos on Christmas Eve/Day. Then make return trip while both spouses are sick -- one drives, one dispenses drugs on a regular schedule.
9) Go through life-changing events together, then vacation in Japan. Discuss whether vacation was in fact recon trip.
10) Go though life-changing event together. Cheer for teaching-job-in-Japan-applying husband, even though acceptance would mean leaving family, home, great job, and awesome friends. Move to Japan and bring Akita dogs along.

Ten years behind us, a lifetime to go.

Last week, our friend Puller stayed with us for a few days post-dog transport. Because she has an interest in oni, Japanese folklore creatures similar to demons or ogres, we decided to make a trip to Kitakami's Oni Museum. The Museum is located about eight kilometres (yes, we now measure in grams, litres, and kilometres) from our house, a distance necessitating either a) a really long walk; or b) placing our friend at the mercy of one of the sketchy bikes.

So off we went, on an overcast but warm afternoon, Puller on my bike and me on Matthew's. We crossed the river via New Kunenbashi -- no need to make some kind of hazing ritual out of crossing Kunenbashi on a sketchy bike. (Sidebar: "bashi" is the Japanese word for "bridge." I'm not writing "New Kunenbashi Bridge" because it's redundant and redundancy is annoying. Yes, I did it in a prior posting, but I'm not doing it again for the previously stated reason. Which is that it's redundant.) Hundreds of rice paddies and one unprovoked and fear-generating gear change later, we arrived at the museum and parked the bikes outside, under darkening skies. Rainy season has thusfar been a big old wash, so we weren't too concerned about it.

The Oni Museum is very cool. You start in a room set up as a darkened forest, in which a short audio-visual presentation occurs. (P: "What's he saying?" SKD: "Uh . . . something about demons. And mountains. And maybe evil.") Then, you enter the beautifully designed, red and gold halls, where you find the interactive exhibits, demon masks from Japan and other countries, and murals. As you might expect this far north, everything is presented in Japanese, save for a couple of English-language brochures the staff were able to scare up.

P: "What's this guy?"
SKD: (reading plaque) "He's a . . . something . . . Oni . . . and maybe he eats children. That's why kids throw beans at the Oni during the winter festivals -- to scare them away."
P: "Where's he from?"
SKD: "Iwate Prefecture . . . something . . . river . . . something . . . onsen (natural hot spring bath). So maybe he's like the Water Demon. Or the Work-Life Balance Demon, manifesting the dark side of human nature by day, kicking it in an onsen with an Asahi in hand by night."
P: "Oh, these ones are eating people. See, there's a leg on the table."
SKD: "Is there beer?"

After a time, we bade the Oni farewell and got ready for the long ride home. Alas, it wasn't to be. Rainy season had decided to put in a rather fierce appearance, and as we watched the cascades of rain pouring down from the sky, we realized we had two options.

Option 1: Ride home in the cold rain, risking a) pneumonia; b) great bodily harm due to sketchy bike wipeout; or c) drowning.
Option 2: Call for a cab, risking a long, inadvertent trip to Hokkaido as a result of my rudimentary Japanese skills.

We chose Option 2 and crossed our fingers. Much to our relief, a cab arrived, driven by the World's Most Awesome Cabbie. Unfazed by my request to bring the bikes with, he started putting them into the trunk, only to discover that they wouldn't fit. We tried removing the front tire of Matthew's bike, to no avail. Eventually, he just put it mostly in the trunk and began securing it.

SKD: What about the other bike?
Cabbie: We'll put it inside.
SKD: *beat* Are you serious?

As Puller can attest, having ridden home in the doily-covered backseat of the cab, holding the wet front half of Matthew's bike in her lap and wiping up the rusty water running off the chain, he was.

It's a beautiful, sunny summer day here. The four of us just returned from a long Sunday morning walk to Interz for our weekly fix. Interz is a groovy little independent coffee shop where they roast your coffee while you wait. The owners, a husband and wife, greeted us and the dogs enthusiastically, and offered us the outside table while we waited (and drank fantastic iced coffee . . . mmm). The dogs, hot from the walk, lay in the shade and watched the street as people drove or walked by, staring at them. As we were settling up for the coffee, the owners chatted with us and pet the dogs, until Aki wandered away to lie down on the sidewalk. Another visitor to the shop also came outside to meet the dogs, giving Moki lots of pets and a big hug. Moki was in heaven, all swept-back ears and outstretched head, blissed-out look on his fuzzy black face.

We left for home with an invitation to bring the dogs back for a visit on our next coffee run, a bag of freshly roasted Kenya AA, and a pair of tired, happy Akita dogs. Life is good.

If there's one thing Matthew and I love, it's a good road trip. Road tripping in Japan is no exception. Driving on the opposite side of the road did not take as much adjustment as I anticipated, although much like I did last year, Matthew might beg to differ.

Prior to leaving, we sought advice on the best way to get from Kitakami to Narita Airport, located northeast of Tokyo. We were advised that taking expressways all the way would be best -- and would require that we go through Tokyo. The navigation system in the Cube ("Navi") agreed. So, being a mapless people with no further intelligence, we headed down the beautiful Tohoku Expressway toward Tokyo.

Navigating the Tokyo expressway system had sort of a latter-day "Cannonball Run" feel to it, between Navi's pinging and spoken directions, Matthew's translation of said directions, and proffering of snacks. The expressways themselves were narrow, fast-moving, mostly high-walled roads that were surprisingly easy to drive. Well, easy to drive as long as I focused on staying in my lane, and not on the tankers and tour buses passing me (properly) on the right. Or on the bridges. Especially the ones rising up into high, steep, banked curves. Then I felt like I needed to barf. Or have a beer. Or have a beer after I barfed. Overall, though, driving through Tokyo was easier than driving through, say, Nashville. We got onto the Higashi-Kanto Expressway and to Narita Airport without incident.

At the airport, we met up with our friends and tremendously generous hosts, the Ikezawas, and we settled in to wait. And wait we did. Puller appeared about an hour and twenty minutes after the flight landed, followed by Animal Quarantine Service (AQS) staff pushing carts carrying two...giant...crates. Giant crates meant one thing: FUZZY DOGS!

The AQS people were very efficient and helpful, and we were able to get through the paperwork and out of the airport in relatively short order. For Aki and Moki, this meant freedom from their shipping crates (which we will probably never be able to get them to enter again) and the opportunity to walk around the parking lot before returning to the Ikezawas' house for a relaxing evening and good night's sleep before the next day's trip. It also meant their first trip in the Cube, through the narrowest streets I had driven to date, after dark. It was like navigating streets in Georgetown, but even narrower, and on a different side of the road from the one I drove on for the previous eighteen years.

After a lovely visit with the Ikezawas, including the dogs' first walk in Japan, we piled into the Cube and headed north. We chose an alternate route home, up the coast of Ibaraki Prefecture (surfers -- woo!) to the Joban Expressway, and back to the Tohoku Expressway. Because the Joban Expressway runs sort of east-west across Honshu, we were crossing mountain ranges, rather than running alongside them as we did on the Tohoku Expressway. I believe "Joban" means "tunnel, bridge, tunnel, bridge, tunnel, bridge road" in Japanese, but I could be wrong.

Once we were back on the Tohoku Expressway, the familiarity of the road made us giddy. We knew where we were, and we were on our way home with the rest of our family -- sun shining down on us, descending into the valley overlooking the town of Ichinoseki as we crossed into Iwate Prefecture, and Talking Heads singing "Once in a Lifetime" on the CD player.

Here are Moki and Aki at home, taking a well-deserved rest in the washitsu (Japanese-style room) after a long, long journey.

Thanks to a thunderstorm, Washington was a perfectly acceptable 73 degrees on Friday, well below the 85 degree no-fly threshold. Puller and the dogs arrived yesterday afternoon with only minor incident. We and the dogs stayed in Chiba last night and arrived back in Kitakami early this evening. Photos and longer post about our journey tomorrow!

Assuming the weather cooperates, our fuzzy dogs will join us in Japan tomorrow. Yay! I have been studiously avoiding any reports of Washington weather because I don't want to know how likely it is that they and Puller, who's accompanying them over, will get grounded. United won't fly them if it's above 85 degrees at the point of origin. *fingers crossed*

So, we've rented a car (a Nissan Cube -- it's so cuboid!) for the occasion. We plan to hit the Tohoku Expressway bright and early tomorrow morning, en route to Narita via Tokyo. I took a practice (well, sort of) drive this afternoon and had the pleasure of listening to the "Max Wavescape" program on FM-Iwate. It totally sounded like one of the fake radio stations from the "Grand Theft Auto" games, with the hyperactive interviews, hip-hop/dance tunes, and the whole "YOU'RE listening to FM-Iwate. Here's the new song, 'Peace of Mind', by Sakura." Except in Japanese.

My ride home from shopping takes me toward the mountains east of Kitakami. The mountains form a backdrop for the cement plant near us, which sets up this view:



Even on a day during which the sky has turned as stormy as this one, this sight makes me inexplicably happy. It may have something to do with the fact that few things say "I live in Japan" like neon signs in kanji. That's our house on the right, the utilitarian gray-and-white one that sort of looks like it's made of Legos.

In "Let's Sharing!"'s introductory post, I mentioned that there had been riding of bikes while wearing cute shoes and carrying cute handbags. By popular request, here's photographic evidence:



Yes, Mona, it's the MoojooKen bag. Word of caution: heels as bike footwear can lead to catching on your pedals, which in turn can lead to falling over in parking lots. Or so I'm told.

Out and about in Kitakami, we use our textbook Japanese every day. Through the generosity of our neighbors, friends, and co-workers, we are learning the nuances of Tohoku-hogen, or the dialect of the six prefectures of northeastern Honshu. A few weeks ago, over a Chinese dinner with some friends, we spent a goodly amount of time discussing the word "dabe." "Dabe" is frequently used in Tohoku in place of another phrase, "deshou ka," to mean "might be." So, instead of "Nan deshou ka", people here might say "Nan dabe" to mean "What might this be?" They were tickled that a neighbor had taught Matthew "dabe," so we spent the evening making each other laugh by busting it out at every opportunity. Matthew and I continue to entertain ourselves by using it whenever possible.

So it was to my surprise, and another person's amusement, that it came out quite naturally in conversation. We were standing in a group where someone was passing out sheets of paper printed in Japanese. She was handed one, I was not; perhaps it was intended that we share. I looked over at her sheet and asked:

"Nan dabe."

She giggled in surprise, and explained that it was lyrics to the song that was about to be sung. I later overheard her telling her husband about my question. I think we're going to fit in just fine.

Q: What do Arlington, San Francisco, and Kitakami have in common?
A: They all have lovely bridges. Also, I've gotten lost there.

Whatever changes living abroad will bring, being able to orient myself geographically is unlikely to be one of them. Doesn't matter whether I have a map, doesn't matter whether there are recognizable landmarks. As anyone who's ever depended on me for directions knows, I can't find my way out of a paper bag. I blame my brother, who apparently got all the navigation genes.

With this knowledge, I optimistically set out on my bike for a nice long workout ride. I crossed the Waga River via the New Kunenbashi Bridge to check out more of the other side of Kitakami. I rode up hills, past pachinko parlors, gardening stores, and rice paddy upon rice paddy, whizzing by green mountains and Buddhist shrines. As the sun began its descent behind the peaks to the west, I turned for home. Because I was returning via a bridge that Matthew and I had crossed in reverse earlier in the week, I felt comfortable that I knew my way home. After passing a recognizable landmark, I decided that I would turn earlier and explore a new, but parallel, route home.

Oh, if only.

Pleased with my expeditionary streak, I pedaled past more rice paddies, small houses, and convenience stores until I came to...the shinkansen tracks.

Huh? I shouldn't reach the tracks before I reach home. Actually, I shouldn't reach them at all. Confused, I turned in the direction that I thought would lead home, which turned out to be a small farm road between rice paddies. However, the elevation of the road allowed me to see the Hotel City Plaza Kitakami and the neon kanji of the cement plant beyond the shinkansen tracks. Ah! Home was that way. I just needed to get to the other side of the tracks.

I rode back out to the main road, turned right under the tracks, and down a major road with almost no shoulder. It was late enough in the afternoon that rush hour was well underway, and even though Japanese drivers are respectful of cyclists, I was still pretty uncomfortable riding on this road. At the earliest possible time, I turned, hoping to find a less busy road home.

Instead, I was soon surrounded by rice paddies, which were bordered by what appeared to be a high embankment. Yes! If this were the embankment of the Waga River, I could simply follow the road home. Because it was not the embankment of the Waga River, I could simply follow the road between the two vast expanses of rice paddies and greet the chatty neighborhood rice farmers with a fast bow and a reasonably controlled "konnichiwa." Until it ended, at which point I would have to go back to the busy road and back under the tracks.

Up to this point, I had managed to keep my innate skepticism in check by reasoning that I knew where the sun was, which at that point in the day marked west. Also, I had managed to orient to the shinkansen tracks, so if I could just guide from them, I could get home. I would solve this problem.

Assistance came in the form of the first sign I saw. The sign, in Japanese, pointed the way to the Sakurano shopping center in Central Kitakami. Ahh...direction. Home was not far. I could live with the cars flying by on my right as I rode with traffic, watching the tall pink top of the Sakurano draw nearer. The shoulder narrowed further, the road wound through a more populated area, and a bridge loomed ahead (?), marked by a slightly rusty, faded sign announcing its name.

Kunenbashi.

As I stood with my bike in the five-foot-tall weeds growing along the side of the road waiting for the rush hour traffic to clear enough for me to cross to the side of the bridge with the clank-clanky deathtrap bike path, I realized that I had never crossed back over the river. I incorrectly remembered the location of the landmark. And now, my contentedness at successfully bringing my inadvertent adventure to a close was tarnished by two things: the realization that although I'd achieved my goal of finding a "parallel way home", I'd had no effing clue where I was; and the specter of Kunenbashi ahead.

Damn you, Kunenbashi.