This is dedicated to my friend Eric

Create Your Own!


This past weekend was so much fun. On Friday night, I went out with Etsuko. She is a Japanese girl that I met through another JET. She studied English in America, so her English is fairly good. We went to a bar that we've been to a few times where the bartender speaks a little English. It's a very trendy, but quiet place so we were able to all talk alot. It was great to spend some time with Japanese friends.

On Saturday, we all went out to celebrate Kristine's birthday. We ate at my favorite Italian place in town. People from Ise and Nabari came out so we had lots of people there. We then went out to Karaoke (yeah, we do it alot). As always, we had a great time singing and cutting up together. For those of you who are coming to visit me, start practicing your favorite songs now. We will definitely be doing karaoke.

In Ise, there was a huge festival this weekend. There was dancing, music, parades, etc. I was invited by my Japanese class to participate in one of the parades by helping to pull a float. This is very similar to the matsuri I went to in Osaka, except people aren't standing on top of the floats and you don't run at full speed. About 100 to 150 people pull the float. My float was this giant cube which had been hand painted by local artist. There were these men walking in between the ropes who were doing this traditional Japanese chanting, but I can't remember what it is called. We pulled the float down several of the main roads in town. We would stop every little bit for this insane ritual. Everyone would start moving the rope up and down so hard I thought I would fall. Then, one of the men in the middle would yell something and both sides of the rope would run full speed at one another and try to push the other line back while squishing the men in the middle. It was hysterical. The first time it happened, I didn't know what was going on and it scared me to death, haha. I only have a couple of pictures of the festival on here, because I wasn't able to take many pictures. Kristine and many of my other friends were there watching and took lots of pictures. So, next week I will add more pictures from the parade.

After the parade, we walked around and I saw so many of my students. They would scream and run up to me. I felt like a celebrity and of course loved every second of it. At the end of the festival, they had these men holding huge hand held fireworks. It was an incredible sight. I hope that there will be some nearby festivals in town when you all come to visit because it is defintely something you have to experience for yourself.

Ok, now to address the title of my blog. Several weeks ago, Eric posted a blog about an incident with a giant spider and how much it scared him. I laughed out loud when I read it and thought of how silly he was being. I think I even sent a comment to him making fun of him for it. Well, when I was getting ready to go out Saturday night, I was in my room getting dressed. I had one pant leg on when I looked up and saw a creature, yes a creature, on my balcony curtain just 3 feet away. I literally almost broke my ankle trying to get out of that room. If there was a 3 meter race, I would be world champion. I stood in my living room panting for about 3 seconds before I decided I had better turn around so I wouldn't lose it. When I turned around (from the couch I was standing on), it was gone. By it, I mean the biggest spider you've ever seen in your life. Although, I've stopped calling it a spider. It's more like a small, furry animal shaped like a spider. It's much to big to be an insect. I called Kristine immediately and whined into the phone for 10 minutes as I looked for the spider. I couldn't find it anywhere. I was running late now, so I got ready as quickly as I could and left the apartment. When I finally got home that night, it was really late and I had almost forgotten about the spider. As I turned on the living room light, I saw the spider at head level now on my living room balcony curtain. This time, I was determined to kill it. With my high heels still on, I ran across the apartment and grabbed a big umbrella. I then proceeded to chase the spider all around my place. I was batting at it as it scurried across the floor. I was screaming and stomping and hitting the floor everywhere...which I'm sure thrilled my downstairs neighbor at 4am. I knocked over the bookcase when it ran behind there and then pushed the dresser away from the wall when it hid there. I threw clothes on the floor that were on my bed and basically ran around destroying my apartment like a maniac for several minutes. So, what happened? Nothing, the spider disappeared into my closet and I haven't seen it since...except in my nightmares. Eric mentioned in his blog that the spider was more scared of him, but in my case this is not possible. Funny thing is, I'm not even really scared of bugs. As I said though, this is more like some kind of mutant creature. So, now everytime I enter my apartment, I scan the room for several minutes looking for that dumb spider. Sorry daddy, but if I ever get ahold of it, it's dead. And Eric, sorry I made fun of you.