November 14, 2006

Run-In with the Law

I like climbing things: mountains, rocks, walls, trees, whatever. Today we took the preschool children on an outing to a big park near the school. We climbed some "novice level" trees together. At one point when the children were busy with something else and other teachers were watching them, a bigger tree beckoned and I excused myself to climb. I climbed and must have lost myself in the experience because when I came down and jumped the last six or eight feet to the ground, I landed right at the feet of two police officers. Evidently, they hadn't seen me in the tree because one of them yelled out "Bikkurishita" which translates to "I was surprised" but really means something more like AAAAAHHH!!! This could have been a mess because police in Japan are occasionally known to hassle foreigners and I had definitely given them an excuse.They asked me what I was doing.

"Climbing."
"Climbing trees?"
"Yes. Just climbing trees."
"Hmmmm . . . OK. Good bye.
"Good bye. Thank you. (sigh of relief)"

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