Boing boing boing ... oops!

That promise to come back in a couple of days . . . unfortunately life has slowed down somewhat.

Going up and down is especially difficult. Im not sure if my anke let me down, or if I let my ankle down, but I got to see the inside of a Japanese hospital last week. Nothing serious, just boinging around on crutches again after spraining my ankle after karate. Not even during karate, how lame is that? Ive been telling all my kids this really scary big guy was chasing me and I fell over, which is somewhere near the truth but we were joking around so it doesnt really count. Ive been boinging around the classroom and they all think its hilarious, which i guess it is!

I am scoring lots of sympathy though, and my neighbour brought around a six pack of Haagen Daaz aisu kuriimo, which is almost worth having a football instead of an ankle! I wanted to get some crutches, but had to see a doctor first, which was kinda expensive not having med insurance organised yet. The doctor who livesa couple of doors down came over and had a look and said if i went to the hospital the next day hed sort me out. We did x-rays and apparently ive broken the cartilage, which i didnt know was possible, but hey! Then he put a five minute cast on my leg, and so it would be cooler, sawed half the cast off.

Truly! Attacked my leg with this scary circular saw and cut away the front part of the cast, meanwhile asking me in very broken English if I trusted him. I went white and sweated a coupleof litres as he was doing it. It got really hot, and i could feel the heat near my skin, freaking out about what would happen to my leg if he went too deep. Then, when he had scared the pants off me he said it was vibration only and touched it with his hand. B#$%&@d!

So with the front bit cut away, I can take it on and off, which is pretty cool. The down side is that it stays on by wrapping a bandage all around it. I was sooo excited about having my first cast ever, and getting heaps of people to sign it in Japanese, but it doesnt really work.

Other than that, its been raining lots. Raining wolves and tigers in fact. We had the most amazing storm last friday. Ive seen monsoon rain before but I figure we must have caught the edge of a tyfoo. So much water. All the rice that was planted a couple of weeks ago has shot up over the past couple of days and everything is pretty beautiful and lush now. The temperature thankfully dropped a few degrees too which is nice.

I havent been doing much else really. I went to karaoke on Sunday with all the karate guys and drank my first warm sake in Japan. Thats the third time ive been to karaoke since i got here, and im getting into it, which is bizarre, since i was way too embarrassed in Korea. Everyone here is soo friendly it blows me away. Im more content than i have been in a while. Ive been studying a fair bit too and my Japanese is coming along. Word for the week is suberashi which means excellent, or some such.