A sketchy-looking Russian man stopped Alan and me while I was picking him up from the train station.

“Are you needing a translator? Or do you want to learn Japanese?”
“Eh, my ship, I want make more money. Eh, Japanese.”

There are quite a few Russian sailors in Japan, especially in the port cities (and Sendai is a fairly large port city). In some places I’ve seen (like in Otaru), signs appear only in Japanese and Russian – not Japanese and English. I hadn’t met any Russian sailors, but it didn’t surprise me to see one.

“I’m not exactly sure where you can learn Japanese.”
“Girls.”
“Excuse me?”
“Alcohol. I want meet girls.”

I point towards 国分町 (Kokubunchou), the big night-life scene. He thanks us and is on his way. Crazy Russians.

This has been an interesting semester, and I’ve certainly learned a lot about myself and Japanese. Also, about the Japanese.

Last night I began studying for my last final (Kanji), by trying to learn about 100 kanji that were going to be on the test. It is virtually impossible to learn that many kanji in that amount of time (trying to double my kanji vocabulary overnight), but I had to try.

Test today, went alright.

Got a shirt I ordered in the mail:

Lastly, heading to Sapporo in a few days for the Snow Festival. When I feel more energetic/alive, I will say more. In the mean time, please enjoy this wonderful show called “Duders.” It’s a little rough, but I think it could be/will be good.

This holiday season was my first away from family, but it proved enjoyable. I was able to talk to almost all my family back home, and even got my stocking from home. I found a couple of good friends who were also staying in Sendai for the break, and that’s with whom I celebrated Christmas and New Years.

For Christmas, Collin (a friend from University of Wyoming) and I went downtown and saw all the lights and got dinner. We started off by going to one of at least a few of Sendai’s Irish pubs. Well, I suppose they’re only Irish in the sense that they’re run by Japanese. Japanese who have made it Ireland-themed. They even serve both kinds of beer – Guinness and stout. Then we found a nice little hole in the wall at which to try 牛たん (cow’s tongue), for which this region is apparently famous.

The time between Christmas and New Years has been spent trying to get back into a more normal sleeping arrangement. Instead of waking up at 5 PM, I tried to switch over to waking up around 7 AM, but to no avail. My chance actually came with New Years.

For New Years I bought a bottle of Champagne and Collin, Zhou Peng (from University of Beijing) and I cooked dinner and then waited for the new year on the roof listening to the Shinto shrines ringing their bells. (Every new year, all the Shinto shrines ring the bells 108 times. I’ve heard it’s to get rid of 108 bad spirits, but I have not verified this in any way.) Since Japan is all in the same time zone, all of the Shrines across Japan are relatively synchronized, and in a city like Sendai with so many shrines, it was really a wonderful sound.

Collin and I agreed to meet up again around 6:20 to see the sunrise at a nearby shrine that sits on top of a hill. We took a time lapse of the sunrise, which didn’t turn out super-great, but it’s still nice to have.

Sunrise 1/1/07