It's now t minus eleven and a half hours until I start on my big snowboard adventure, which I have affectionately dubbed My Big Snowboard Adventure. The general plan is that I will go to Himeji tomorrow a little early and get to see the castle again, then meet up with Andrew and catch the night bus to Nagano, after which we will start a massive day of snowboarding on what little snatches of sleep we can get on the bus. This may not seem like a good idea, but to us precious few enlightened ones, the brilliance of the plan shines through like a very bright thing under something very transparent. I really can't wait, if for nothing else than a great chance to play in the snow for four days. Considering it's been fairly chilly and even a little snowy here of late, there should be some pretty gianormous drifts over in Nagano.
"The Sea and Poison" is continuing to be just great. I'm about three-quarters done at this point and still like it just as well as when I started, so that's a pretty good sign. I still expect it to fall apart in last few pages, but just maybe it'll actually stay good. Endo seems to be in love with switching viewpoint in the middle of the story, and takes just about any opportunity to do so - as a result, this book has changed personas four times in the first 125 pages, and will probably change at least twice more before the end. The effect in this book works quite well - he leads up to a major, shocking scene, then before it actually occurs switches to three or four different people who tell their individual stories and what led them to the place where they would be willing to do what they are about to do.
Ice skating yesterday was a great deal of fun, and went a lot better than I would have expected. I had visions of careening off walls and people like a massively beared foreign pinball and at least several dozen broken bones, but as it turns out the very mild ability I aquired at rollerblading transfers fairly well to ice skating, and I could slide around with some amount of speed and freedom.
Oh boy, I think that's it. I'll be rolling back into town a broken and battered shell of my former self on the evening of the eighth, so if I have the energy I'll post then, and if not you'll just have to pretend, which may end up being more interesting than a real post anyway.
- Gyaa! I'm give up
Naka-ku, Hiroshima
730-0803
JAPAN
