You'll Never Believe This Story...

Read first, and after, for the immediate post-hawk reaction, check my video blog. The Hawk even got some AIR time at the end. (haha, get it, "Air Time")


A past time, exercise, an outing; hiking is all of these. But what it shouldn't be is a death-by-bird incident.

This is what almost happened to me and my company Easter Sunday. We wanted to show Gino's friend visiting from New York the natural side of Japan, so we took her hiking to Shijikiyama, a mountain tucked in the south-western corner of Hirado Island.





Amid the rolling rice fields and Japan's dense forest, we hiked a short but steep 45 minutes to our goal: a picnic atop a crowning mountain.

With our feet swinging freely over daggering cliffs we gobbled down our half-sandwiches, soaking in the 360 view of the sea beyond.

With one half of a sandwich left, Gino reached across the rock he was sitting on, his feet touching nothing but air.

He went to hand me the half sandwich. The half-second in which it took that half sandwich to travel in his hand across his body, almost to my hand, is the time in
which the highlights of this posting unfolded.

SWOOOOOOOOSH, is what I hear as I reached for the sandwich. Out of nowhere a Hawk-- yes I said HAWK-- barrels down from the sky, bowling between our heads, while nabbing the sandwich from Gino's hand.

Luckily, he still has a hand.

I scream as I am jabbed in the face by a right wing.

Fortunately, the hawks prowess was believed to have saved us from falling hundreds of meters to our painful death.

For I know, if I saw that thing coming towards me beforehand, I surely would have kept my scream, and probably would have added a scoot forward to avoid his talons, consequently causing me to fall into the abyss below.

don...dondon..don...don, THE END.