Dr. Jones, I presume? No, uh, Sugiyama?

So, the other day I got an email from Lisa's supervisor at City Hall. He said that he might have some part time work for me, and that he wants me to come down to City Hall after I finish at Higashi Elementary School to talk about it. So, Wednesday, I finished early at school and walked the 500 feet from Higashi Elementary to City Hall. When I arrived, Toshi had me wait for a moment while he went to look for the people who needed to talk to me. About 5 minutes later, he came back to where I was sitting and said, "Ok, they are ready."

We walked into the lounge that overlooks the park outside Ito City Hall, and Toshi Introduced me to Sugiyama-San, who, it turns out, is an archaeologist. Sugiyama-San is doing research on the Edo period. Apparently, Ito played a large part in the power struggles that went on during the Edo period.

Back in those days, the Emperor of Japan was more of a figurehead who represented the Spirit of the Country. The real seat of political power was the Shogun's throne (pronounced Show-goon). One of the most Famous, and first Shogun to hold major power from Edo (modern-day Tokyo) was Tokugawa Ieasu. Tokugawa is the Shogun that befriended Anjin-San in James Clavell's Shogun, a book about the Edo Period, adapted from actual events surrounding the lives of Tokugawa and William Adams, who is quite famous in Ito, as it is where he docked his ship when he arrived in Japan for the first time. Apart from making Englishmen into Samurai, Tokugawa was extremely busy during his day. He militarily conquered many of the feudal lords of Japan and united them under one Shogun, himself.

In order to maintain their loyalty, Tokugawa set the Daimyo ("dime-yo"--Japanese Feudal lords, who controlled the Samurai) to a task. He commissioned the construction of a castle in Shizuoka called Sumpu Castle. Each Daimyo was bound by honor and threat of death to supply equipment and manpower for the construction of the castle and its grounds.

As it turns out, one of the Daimyo lived on the Izu Peninsula. This area has an abundance of strong stone, so the Daimyo set his craftsmen to the task of carving out stones for building. Another advantage to this area was its close proximity to the sea, so that the rocks could be loaded onto ships and sent to Edo (Tokyo) or Shizuoka, wherever the building materials were needed.

Apparently, each stone cut by the Daimyo's craftsmen was marked with a symbol, either of the craftsman or the Daimyo's family crest. These rocks are strewn all over the countryside in Ito and the surrounding areas.

So, starting in January, it will be my job to hike up into the woods in search of these marked stones. When I find them, I will have to note their location on a map and report my findings to Sugiyama-San, who will compile the locations for his research.

As they were telling me all of this, my jaw kept wanting to fall open on the floor, but I kept a fairly calm poker face. I will be working two days a week for about $60 a day doing something I have dreamed of doing since I was a kid. The whole time I was sitting there, the music you are now hearing was flowing through my mind! I was glad that there were no Nazis involved, and I already married my Marion Ravenwood (except her name is Lisa Hudak, but she's just as full of fire, and, dare I say, Spunk? HAR!)

So, that's the news. I am going to go play Indiana Jones--hopefully I won't be gored by any of the Inoshishi (wild boars) that are fairly common in the woods around Ito. Hopefully, I will have something to talk about in updates to this story. Wish me luck!