Probability That We Are Dead

So. It's been, what, 18 days since you've heard from us? Wondering if we are still alive? We can answer that question.

The probability that we were dead, just before you read this post, was 0.0049%, or 49/10,000ths of a percent.

Wondering how we got that number?

Fairly simple.

Swivel.com has a data set of the yearly mortality rate for every age. The average mortality rate for our age group (18-25) is 25 per 100,000.

25/100,000 = .00025

Divide by 365 to get the daily mortality rate.

.00025/365 = .0000006849

Add 1 and raise to the power of the number of days we have been out of contact.

1.0000006849^18 = 1.000012328 - 1 = 0.000012328

Multiply by four of us, and you get (approx):

.000049 or 0.0049%

Pretty good odds that we are still alive.



Anyway. What have we done since October 2nd? Here goes.

We went back up to Utsunomiya to visit the nurses' school. They asked us to come to their school festival, and what could we do but accept?

Friday night we arrived in Utsunomiya, went to Mike's place and crashed. Thanks a ton to Mike for letting us use his apartment, and thanks to Joey for providing sleeping bags and pads.

Saturday morning, we woke up at 9:30, figuring that it would take us a little over a half an hour to get to the school. Google maps had provided us with a path, and at 10:30, we set out, hoofing it in the general direction of the eisei-fukushi-daigakkou, or the Hygiene Welfare College. In Japanese, that's 衛生福祉大学校, which you may not be able to read. Don't worry, I can't either.

Anyway, 30 minute walk, right? WRONG. Two and a half hours later, and two hours late, we arrived at what we thought Google maps was pointing to. A middle school. Crying inside, we went to a Denny's (yes, a Denny's) and ate lunch, and then hobbled our way back to Mike's apartment, where I promptly fell asleep. We decided that, in the interests of not offending the girls too badly, we should take a taxi the next day. Thankfully it was a two day festival.

Sunday dawned bright, and we were up by 9:00 and out of the house. Several of the nurses we know were performing a dance at 10:00, or so we thought. We walked down the street, flagged a taxi, and I showed him the address of the school. He paused for a moment, and then with much miming managed to ask me what the name of the place was. I said eisei-fukushi-daigakku, and he grinned and nodded, and we were off.

After a few minutes of silence, he suddenly asked me a question, and when I motioned that I spoke no Japanese, he repeated one word several times.

"Noburu, noburu, noburu. "

What is noburu...?
Then he said:

"Obama."

Bing! Light bulb! The Japanese have no "l" sound, so noburu meant Nobel! I said "Hai, hai!" (Yes, yes!). Awesome taxi driver.

Then the bottom of my stomach dropped out. We were following the same route that we walked the day before. Oh no! My mind went crazy, thinking that perhaps we had the wrong directions... Augh! Lesson to be learned, if you ever travel in Japan:

TRUST THE TAXI DRIVERS.

They know what they are doing. Turns out, so does Google maps. I had misinterpreted the map and the middle school we thought Google maps was pointing to? Just a few blocks away from the Nursing school.

Damn it.

Anyway, the festival was awesome. A band played a few numbers, and quite well. Then the girls got on stage and did three choreographed dance numbers, set to pop music, all of which were really well done.

After the dance numbers, the girls showed us around the school a little, and then we sat and talked for a few hours. One of the friends of the girls had brought her son, who must have been 2 or so. I believe his name was Coco (Coco-chan, in Japanese, the chan essentially means little). Soooo cute. The girls got several pictures, which may or may not be arriving by email eventually.

After a couple of hours of talking, we finally ran out of conversation, and made our way back. Turns out it's about a 45 minute walk. Bleh.

That night, after Ian and Shan napped for a good four hours, we went to Joey's place, where he hosted a Dungeons and Dragons campaign. We were joined by Joel, a friend of Joey's who is also into D&D.

EIGHT HOURS LATER, we had slain several harpies, some skeletons, a succubus and her summoned Vroc (giant bird), and a Lich with wicked amounts of health, and an insanely irritating spell called Disintegrate that hits for 2d6/level. Joey was rolling 22 six sided dice to figure out the damage. Ian nearly died.

Anyway, at about 3:30am we headed back to Mike's apartment and crashed.


That's pretty much the extent of our adventures in Utsunomiya. Next post will cover Yokohama, and the tallest building in Japan!


Until next time,

Dane