On Sunday, I decided that I was tired of spending my weekends drinking with other foreigners, so I went mountain climbing instead.

It’s okay, you know? For the first six months. I was having fun getting to know the other foreigners, drinking, pretending I was popular. I guess I sort of felt like I could relive my time in Kyoto a bit, even if the people who made Kyoto special are not here. And like, this time I work in a Japanese office with Japanese people speaking Japanese all day, so on the weekends it’s nice to spend time with other foreigners. I don’t feel bad about it, like I did in Kyoto - I don’t feel annoyed by big rowdy foreigners this time around because there’s so few of us that it’s like a gift to see someone who has a similar background to your own. I was a snob in Kyoto, always thinking, “who is that gaijin? why are they here? this is MY Japan!!!” when I saw another foreigner, mainly because I was afraid that they were better at Japanese or had more Japanese friends. I think I’ve grown out of that competitiveness, a bit.

But! (and this going to sound super snotty) hanging out with the Iwate gaijin ain’t doing anything for me anymore. This is not because I think of the Iwate Minions, as our yahoogroups is called, as bad, boring, or stupid people! On the contrary, Iwate is blessed with some really interesting, engaging, and ambitious people. It’s me that is the problem. We’re in our twenties, now, right? So why did I approach this as a popularity contest? A part of me wanted to just get to know everybody, and that part grew more and more insecure because I wanted everyone to like me, and then haughty and self-righteous at the people who didn’t. I’m a grownup now (ok!), and I kinda want to stop feeling such a desperate desire to please everyone and be liked.

I was just always feeling bad about myself after I hung out at these huge group events, so I decided to just do something else for a change. After all, I’m here, in Japan - I keep whining about not having Japanese friends, but the deal is I’m never invite anyone anywhere either. I want my Japanese to be better, because I’m frustrated with being the office retard. So instead of complaining some more, I decided to do something about it! I’ve quit Perez Hilton (for nowww), I’ve been reading manga and watching more tv, and I’ve been hanging out with Japanese people. My qualm before was that I couldn’t find Japanese people to hang out with - turns out, it’s just the young people that are the problem for me. Older people seem to enjoy my company just fine! I didn’t imagine I’d be besties with a bunch of 40+ year olds, but life rarely turns out the way we imagined it to.

So Sunday, I climbed a (tiny) mountain with Go-san (the Chinese CIR), and two older gentlemen from elsewhere in the prefectural office. Go-san loves hiking so apparently they’ve created a little 山登り会 Mountain Climbin’ Club amongst themselves, and she invited me. Kurakakeyama is a tiny mountain, affectionately called Mount Iwate’s child, and it only took about an hour and a half to climb it, even in the snow.

We could see all of Mount Iwate from the top, with only a few clouds blocking the summit. It was gorgeous. I’ve never climbed a mountain during the winter before. It’s good that I did it now, just before the first signs of spring start to melt that beautiful white blanket of snow. We brought a burner and cooked some sausages and soup, and then we started jumping around in the snow and built a snowman. We even held our own Olympic Snow Jump, and Japan won since he dived face first into the snow.

On the way back, we used plastic bags as sleds and slid down the mountain path. I never really expected two proper middle-aged Japanese men to suggest something like that, but the two of them had a real ball, and were jumping around and playing in the snow more than me or Go-san. Just goes to show that I still hold a lot of stereotypes about this place too. I’m finding more and more, as the years pass, that “old” people are just the same as me and my friends, and like having fun (what!?) and playing around just as much as we do. I don’t think we really change all that much, just get grayer and fatter.

We drove by the 一本桜 The Single Sakura Tree on the way home. This sakura tree is pretty dear to the heart of Iwate - it’s a lone sakura tree, out in the middle of a huge field in plain view of Mount Iwate. It stands for those idealized farmers (that maybe never existed) that built Iwate in the wilderness by their lonesomes, blooming every year with nothing else to support it. The Single Sakura Tree is the first image I saw of Iwate, on the cover of the handbook they sent me half a year ago, and as I looked at it for the first time in person, I saw that the clouds had lifted off Mount Iwate, the sky a clear, deep blue. And I remembered, again, that this is place that I’m supposed to be.

I just want to give as much back to Iwate as it has given to me.