Outside

Had a thoroughly enjoyable weekend. Woke up at dawn Saturday morning (4a.m.) for golf at my local course with fellow JET Ken and another teacher from my school. After a late Southern breakfast of cheese grits, fried eggs and toast, I met other friends Mike and Iku-chan for an early lunch (perhaps the best "katsu-don", a fried pork cutlet served with onions and egg over rice, in all Japan) and a tour of Yubikan, the site of the former samurai school of the Date Masamune clan. The buildings date back some 350 years, and the grounds/gardens are quite stunning. Unfortunately I was without my camera, so no photos to post.

After the tour, the three of us spent the afternoon playing 54 holes of Park Golf. Park Golf, for the uninitiated, is a game somewhere between golf and putt-putt. It is played on real turf, complete with greens, fairways, rough, and bunkers, but using only one club and a hard ball a little smaller than a tennis ball. The holes are anywhere from 30-100 meters long, with a 9-hole course not exceeding 500 meters. It is not nearly as challenging as golf, and thus much less frustrating and much more relaxing. It is immensely popular with 50 and up crowd in Japan as well as an increasing number of JETs in Miyagi prefecture.

Sunday I was up early again at 4a.m. to meet my Japanese buddy Matsumoto for a morning of fly-fishing, my first time out this year. We had some brilliant weather in the early morning, cool and clear and still, and there were several different insect hatches coming off the water, but I was unable to take any fish. We tried three different spots on the Naruse river, but the fish were seemingly just not hungry. I saw only a handful feeding in 5 hours of fishing, and none of them wanted what I was presenting. Matsumoto caught 3 small char (5 inches?) on spinning tackle, and released them promptly. It was a fantastic morning, despite going fishless...