Dartboard

When the sun breaks through the clouds to shine on the distant ocean, it’s brilliant.

Finally here to post pictures from the triathlon. These first ones are from the party we had in Fukuoka the night before the race. They all think they’re faster if they drink beer the night before.

Silly kids.

This is Kawazoe-san.

We slept 雑魚寝　(pronounced “zakone”) in Mr. Kawazoe’s tiny Fukuoka apartment. Because our group of about eight people had eight bikes, we took three SUVs everywhere we went. I rode with Kawazoe almost everywhere and we had some great conversations together. I even started looking forward to our car rides because I learned so much and had such a great time.

Sometimes I meet someone that I really wish could be my host father or mother, and he was definitely one of them. He didn’t speak English, but spoke Japanese that I could understand. When I didn’t understand a word, he would explain it to me clearly until I understood. He used the word 雑魚寝　actually, and when I didn’t understand, he wrote out the kanji for me so I knew it had something to do with fish and sleeping, then he drew a little picture of a bunch of people sleeping side-by-side until I realized it meant a many people sleeping in a small room. “Packed like sushi” is a similar expression.

We had the same camera so the picture above and this one are us taking pictures of each others cameras.

This is the woman that called me fat.

All of us outside the restaurant.

Walking home with one of the group members. These guys are really strong triathletes—they often win first place for their age group. Imagine if they didn’t drink so much the night before the race—how much faster would they be?

I know this isn't even from the day of the triathlon, but I had to post SOMETHING because I was sick of having that other post on my front page.

Goodnight, Sierra