The Weekend Review and an EARLY Monday!

I was up and actually out of bed early this morning to join my neighbor, Tu, on his daily morning bike ride around the man-made island by our apartments. Tu’s been going for about an hour on weekdays and I thought tagging along would be a good excuse to hang out (yes, even at 6:30am) and get back into moving around now that my foot is pretty much better (and before the humidity!).

Today was a pretty simple trip (just did a shorter, less rigorous route down some of the paved streets and through the park) but I might start biking to school to get more pedal-time in. It’s about 50 minutes each way, but when it takes me 35 minutes by train anyways... meh, why not? I also think I’m going to try to start running this week. It felt so good to get outside (last of the cherry blossoms are dropping & the weather is beautiful).

If this keeps up, I might actually consider converting to being a morning person.

But anyways... on to the weekend:

Friday
I was supposed to get a haircut with the girls at Zokka on Friday, but don’t really need one yet, so I ended up canceling the trim and just meeting up with everyone afterwards (my girlfriends and I get our hair cut together at the same place so we do a make-shift girl's night or something after). There were only three of us this time around, so we grabbed dinner at the nearby SATY food court (almost went for the bottomless fries but endec up with pizza... yuuuum) and just talked until Kristine had to get going to meet some friends at the gym. The original plan was to see a movie after that, but of the two we really wanted to see, I had already seen one and the other one was already on DVD in America (if you can order it off Amazon, why pay $20 a seat?!) so we walked around and then met up with two other friends when they finished at the gym. As you can possibly tell, quite a few of my friends have now gotten gym memberships, and because a lot of them are evening memberships (it's cheaper from 9-12), working out has become a more popular activity on the weekends than it used to be. I think summer and returning home soon (gotta be lookin' good) has something to do with it, but it's sort of funny. Friday nights definitely signify dedication.

Saturday

I didn't do much on Saturday morning, just errands and a few loads of laundry. Saturday night, on the other hand, was one of my friend Shag's famous BBQ parties. Shag (nickname for Sagur) is from Chicago and does advertising work here. I'm not sure if it's the Chicago roots (and, OK, there might not be an actual grill involved), but the man's ribs are out-of-control delicious and I covet these dinner events. There were actually a lot of people in attendance this week, so we had a lot of fun watching old comedy sketches, hanging out and then going dancing later on (at a bar with a DJ where we were basically the only ones there, let alone dancing). I spent the night at Shag's with about 6 other people (surprise on me to wake up on a completely flat blow-up mattress... on a hardwood floor) and then watched movies the next morning. It was a lot of fun!

Sunday
Robyn, Adela, Art, Shag and I said our goodbyes to the rest of the folks that had spent the night in Motomatchi and made our way to Osaka to attend the Amnesty International human rights event that Adela had coordinated. The plan was to visit Liberty Osaka, the Osaka Jinken Hakubutsu-ka (Osaka Human Rights Museum), and then go for lunch in the park. Robyn, Shag and I had already committed to going to a fundraising dinner (near where I live) later in the evening, so I knew we probably wouldn't make the picnic part, but I have been wanting to see the Human Rights museum for a really long time and was happy for the opportunity to join the group.

The museum itself wasn't hard to find. We met other members of the Chapter 95 Amnesty Intl group outside of Ashiharabashi station and walked past phonebooths, benches, statues shaped like taiko drums (and a whole park dedicated to honoring the art of taiko-drum manufacturing). The area is apparently famous for it's master taiko drum-makers, but it was probably the most elaborate display of recognition for local artists that I have seen (unless you count the giant Peanuts characters all over the Twin Cities...).


The Human Rights museum itself is tucked away behind some large apartment buildings, but it was easy to find with signs marking the path (note: note English). Founded in 1985, the museum was originally an old high school building, which was renovated by the city in '95. We didn't get a group discount for the outing (needed 20...), but it only cost about ￥250 to get in and we were given a free audio guide (and volunteer guide with OK English).

I am going to be honest and say that I was a little underwhelmed by the museum experience. It was interesting to see a history of gender roles and I think I can use information from an exhibit about how/why we form stereotypes with my classes (and I enjoyed it), but there wasn't a lot of English in general and I expected to learn more about the history of the struggle of mis/under-represented gorups in Japan (not just that they exist). Then again, the language barrier could have had something to do with the problem and I am sure I would have gotten more out of it had I been able to actually sit down and discuss in-depth with the group afterwards.

That being said, the Osaka Human Rights museum is the first general museum concerning human rights in Japan (so props to them for making the effort and hopefully starting a trend), and one visiting the country as a tourist (so not here long enough to really dive deep enough into the culture or some of these issues) could gain something from the permanent exhibitions on themes like the women's movement in Japan (again, they admit that it's - sorta - here, but was VERY surface-level), physically challenged people, racial issues (like Ainu and Okinawans) and even burakumin, or discriminated-against groups, such as leather workers.

After the museum, I made the trip back out to the Bunshu neighborhood (my area) for Tamatha's pasta tabehodai extraveganza (basically all-you-can-eat spaghetti and bread for ten bucks...to raise funds for a charity bike ride she is doing). Good times.

The next several weeks are starting to book up like crazy (work party Friday and then gone next weekend in Shiga, hiking in Yakushima the next weekend, Tokyo the next weekend and maybe girls weekend in Awaji the weekend after that... off the top of my head), so I'm starting to appreciate the spontaneous and low-key time with friends around here. Good times... but then again, pretty pumped for some of these trips.