How to Propose 101 and some other things...

Orrrrlightee then. Here's another tardy bloggy from the Ryster. Heir Griff, now bethrothed to his beloved partner in crime, will hereby embark on some enlightened kind of rant...

Time has zipped on by so quickly. Especially since returning to Osaka and the generally grand experience of marimba and boom-whacker jams with raucous rugrats. Our Christmas and New Year was exactly what we needed. Some time to ourselves, a chance to be tourists and the perfect scenario for a proposal, the story of which is now a much-told tale here in Osaka.

We spent some time over New Year's WOOFing n a little Edo period town called Takehara near Hiroshima. The Iwakawa family with whom we stayed were nothing but wonderful; a family of jolly gourmandes who shared their busy wholesome lives with us for a week. Youji-san runs an organic soba noodle restaurant and his wife Noriko-san is a potter and at the time we were stayting with them was in the process of opening a little cafe and pottery gallery across the road from the soba place. We spent our days shuffling back and forth between both shops, munching on soba delights here and selling pottery to the rare Japanese tourist there and although we were theoretically working, we spent more time digging their home-nosh and gulping sake than we did breaking our backs.

Just a little way up the stone alley there is a wonderful traditional sake house called an osakekure which dates back to the 1700's. The old fellow who ran the place, Taketsuru-san, has the glow of someone who has spent a large portion of their days supping on the fumes of fermenting rice. All in all a top guy; he gave us some sake and some engorged scallops for tempura and sent us on our way - two Grimbas grinning.

But of course it goes without saying that this interlude was not by any shade of the imagination the highlight of the trip. It was amidst the flake-laden winter breeze atop a holy mountain that I finally got around to doing the thing that planted itself in my thoughts ever since I arrived here in Japan. It really blows me away when I think about how much my feelings around the topic of marriage and notions of 'the rest of your life' have changed since arriving. I know why of course - putting ourselves in this new situation, havng to use some 'don't wait, just go for it' vibes to get ourselves setup and find jobs has definetely instilled a confidence to take chances and go with my ticker.

The story goes as follows:
We had finished our stint in Takehara and headed by bus to Hiroshima and then on from there to Miyajima. After a short detour in which we temporarily lost our new camera (thank God for Japanese honesty), we found ourselves on the ferry heading out across the Seto Inland sea for Miyajima and the floating gates. As we passed the ancient temple gates poking out of a receding tide, Kimba said to me that she was feeling shabby and that she didn't think she could do the climb that day. As she said this I fingered the immense rock on the ring in my pocket and steeled my resolve. I said that she had no choice, that we were going to climb the mountain today no matter what...Oookay then... she said and that was that. As we alighted the icy steps, Kimba groaned and moaned and sniffed and coughed. Perhaps it was sadistic of me to make her climb when she was feeling so average but I was a man on a mission. I urged her on from behind with snowballs aimed at her rear and tried to get an idea of what I would do when we got to the top.

When we did eventually arrive at the summit I gave a perfunctory glance at the scenery and set about finding a perfect place for the big moment. I draggeed Kimba over to this big rock and tried to get her to climb ontop but she wouldn't do it so I drageged her over to the side of the lookout and lo and behold there it was...a perfectly round snowball the size of a rockmelon placed there by the Gods for my solemn purpose. And so as Kimba was breathing in the waves and the beauty I poked the ring into the snowball. I assumed a baseball pitcher stance and then with a steely gaze I gestured to throw it.
"You better not throw that bloody thing at me Ry", said Kimba.
"Nah, just kidding," I replied and dropped it onto the rocks next to us.
"Hey," I said, "what's that?"
"What?"
"That thing there," I said as I leaned down and picked up the ring.
"Did you put that there?" I winked at her.
"Where did you get that?" Kimba asked cheekily.
"Don't you worry about that, let's see if it fits..."
It fit.
And then I promptly asked her to marry me. Well in actual fact I didn't really ask, I kind of told her to marry me...

Ah it's so romantic...hehehe. This story was floating around for weeks at my various schools and I was so chuffed that I had been so original and quirky until someone told me that the main character in Japan's equivalent of Neighbours, Winter Sonata, proposed exactly the same way. Snowball, mountaintop. Damn plagerists. Anyway, my Japanese co-workers were impressed because they thought that I watched the show and they asked me whether or not I quoted Pei Yong Jun in the big question. Er...

And so we were engaged. The next day we got blessings and hoorahs of parents and friends and over the next week or so we received so many beautiful emails congratulating us. Thank you all for your brilliant and kind words, we can't wait for you all to join us at Grimba Fest in about a year from now.

Stay tuned for more...

ryryry