The Wondrous World of Hikimi

I have a confession to make: sometimes, things happen and I neglect to tell you anything about it. For example, I saw a badger at school today. Wait, that’s a terrible example. After all, I’m telling you about it, aren’t I? It was pretty cool, though. I don’t remember ever seeing a badger up close before, which means I never have, or I have a really bad memory. I’m honestly not sure which is the case.

Anyway, the reason I’m telling you about the badger is that seeing it reminded me of something else I saw, was amazed by, and then promptly forgot to write about.

About a month ago, I was driving along in the mountains on my way to Hikimi. I don’t know if I’ve ever told you about these mountain roads: crazy. Every Friday I wake up extra early because I have an hour-long commute to work. Of that hour, about 45 minutes is spent navigating treacherous mountain passes; narrow, winding roads filled with blind turns and surrounded by deep gutters, inviting your car’s wheel s to just slip in for a moment.

The tradeoff for enduring great peril is some incredible scenery. In fact, even though these roads will undoubtedly be the cause of my own fiery death, driving through them is made rather enjoyable by the fact that it’s essentially like driving through a huge Bob Ross painting. Happy little trees and all.

On occasion, I’m treated to a view of wildlife even more intriguing than the rare and exotic badger, which brings me back around to what I was trying to tell you in the first place. Man, no wonder I didn’t write about this. Anyway, about a month ago I was driving along in the mountains on my way to Hikimi. As I came around one of several blind turns, I saw a form standing in the middle of the road. At first, I thought some irresponsible parents had abandoned their hairy, ugly child in the mountains to either die or grow up wild and become the subject of campfire stories.

However, as it turned to look at me—its piercing gaze chilling me to the bone—and walked into the forest, I realized that magnificent, hairy, ugly child was actually a monkey. Sweet.

Oh, also on the list of things I forgot to mention, I went to Hamada last weekend to celebrate Thanksgiving with a bunch of other ALTs. I made sweet potato casserole. Check it out!