Link Adam, 21, goes on a weekend adventure surfing with friends. When he arrives, he sees things are not as they should be. He finds a city populated by demanding and slightly crazy restaurant owners, and by Jamaican Hawaiian Japanese surfer dudes. It’s a place where OMLGP has no effect. A city where currency… has no meaning! Link boarded the K-Limited Express Train… to the Twilight Zone!
Doo dee doo doo doo dee doo doo….
I’m writing this well after the actual events have occurred, and I don’t have any pics to remember it by, so here’s hoping my memory serves me correctly.
Two Saturdays ago I had work. It’s a lot of fun to work on Saturday. I’d highly recommend it. In the evening I went to Anton’s place, bring my effects, but not my hat. After dinner we went to see Pirates of the Caribbean in Nara. It was in English, hurrah, with Japanese subtitles (Me and Anton still don’t know how they managed to translate "Savvy?"). The theatre was small and very level compared to Canadian theatres. Seats are reserved, so no looking about trying to commandeer the best seats. As for the movie, not as good as the first, but still very good, with some excellent scenes, to be sure! However, it was probably not the most opportune moment to go; most trains stopped before the movie ended, so we only made it to Saidaiji station and had to take a cab the rest of the way.
The next day we got up early and went down to Wakayama to meet Keith. Taking advantage of the Everything’s Free in Wakayama train station policy to get to Keith’s station nearly free of charge. We went for breakfast #2 at the station, I had kekko desu ("I’m fine as I am thanks"), which has been the subject of many jokes directed at me since. Thank you Anton and Keith, my revenge will be swift and painful.
Then we headed to Isonura beach to rent some surfboards. The two rental shops, however, were both sold out! So we passed by a reggae bar, basically an old bus transformed into a… bar… painted in yellow and green with a Jamaican flag and reggae playing. The young dudes running the bar agree to rent us their surfboards, 4h for 2600 yen each, not too shabby, apparently we got 400 yen off the normal price cause we were so cool and hip and rad and stuff.
Surfing was a lot of fun, the water wasn’t too cold, and there were hundreds of surfers out there. To be fair, I sucked. It’s hard just getting out far enough, with the waves pulling you back towards the shore, especially for someone with no mass like me. Once out there though, it’s good, I was able to catch a wave quite easily, standing up was another matter. But still managed to a few times, for a few seconds, woohoo!
After a few hours I got cold and hungry and tired, (and I was a little bit wet) so I decided to head back and get changed. While waiting for Anton and Keith I hung with the Jamaicans, one guy knew a little bit of English… The conversation started out good, but eventually, without getting into too much detail, got a bit interesting, and some of the questions I got asked were… lacking good grammar and perhaps decency.
Anton and Keith arrived back, showered, changed, etc, then we went back to Wakayama. Where we had an crazy older lady, who ran a restaurant, pressuring us to come in. Anton and Keith wanted ramen, so they were reluctant at first. I was reluctant because there was a crazy older lady pressuring me into her store. But we finally broke down (pwned as Anton called it) and went in. We got the special I think? Pasta with ham and shrimp, and the lady talking to us the whole time we were eating. Eventually she went to a nearby restaurant and bought a plate of sushi, brought it to our table, and sat down and started sharing it with us. Which is very odd… But she didn’t charge us for it, and even gave us a bit of a discount on our meal. We eventually left (in my case, escaped) because I had to make it home for shower curfew.
And that was the exciting weekend. On Tuesday we went to Osaka to see the fireworks for Tenjin Matsuri. Unfortunately, with me being the only one on time, we missed them. But not totally a waste, had to meet Keith anyway, and we went for dinner for okonomiyaki and kekko desu. Anton and Keith bought beer off some attractive girls in bathing suits. And then I went home.
More to come on my Tokyo adventure, but that’s later, cause I’m too tired to write it tonight, and the cicadas will inevitably wake me up too early tomorrow.
And pics of Tokyo are up on my web album. picasaweb.google.com/keidan.link
Monday, July 31, 2006
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
Dear IRS, Please Remove Me From Your Mailing List.
Sorry all, a bit behind on posts, I have to tell you all about my adventures from last weekend. But unfortunately, no time to post cause I'm heading to Tokyo... which should make for a decent blog all by itself. So expect a double helping when I return sometime on the weekend!
Wednesday, July 19, 2006
Questions of Science… Science and Progress…
Do not speak as loud as my heart
Nobody said it was easy,
No one ever said it would be this hard…
I’m going back to the start.
Hoooo boy, another blog, I’m sorry. I’ll try and keep this condensed as possible. And I’ll put the most important stuff first, since I imagine you CJPers are bored (or will be) of reading all the other Gion blogs.
So first of all, I Saw Azrael!!! He was on a train, I recognized him from his picture online. I asked if it was him for sure, and said that me and my friends all liked his blog. He was with friends so I felt a bit bad interrupting though. And I’m sorry to my friends who thought it would be a good idea for me to shout "Breasts!" at him and teleport away.
Oh yeah, if you don’t know, Azrael (or Jeff, his real name) is a 6’6" black guy who lives in Kyoto teaching English to junior high students. He’s been chronicling his adventures on his blog for many years now, and is one of the funniest things on the web. You can find his editorials on www.gaijinsmash.net, or it’s the first link if you type "Japanese school teacher" into Google.
Another interesting thing that only one other person will blog about… I saw Coldplay!!! Woohoo!!! Took 5 trains and an hour trip to make it down to Intex-Osaka Saturday night, where Coldplay was playing. After spending a fortune on a ticket at the door (unfortunately far to the back), and waiting in line to go in, I got to see the concert. No opening band, which was disappointing, in 2003 they had the awesome Brit band "The Music" open for them. But the concert was quite impressive, opening with Square One and Politik, and playing some of the most important songs, Don’t Panic, Swallowed in the Sea, and the best song ever, The Scientist (which was extremely well done, much better than their 2003 version). Very cool stage though, they showed video of the band playing on the background, and had some laser effects too.
And I could write it down
Or spread it all around
Get lost and then get found
And you'll come back to me
Not swallowed in the sea
I was kinda hoping they would play some new or some less popular songs though. I would have loved to hear Sparks, or A Message, or For You.
But anyway, back to chronologicalness… What a fun weekend! Basically the first large scale CJP reunion, as many people came down to Kansai (Kyoto/Osaka/Nara/Kobe) from Kanto (Tokyo). Oh crap, (was gonna say another word but Bush already said it), forgot about Thursday. Anton and I went to pick up my very sexy Yukata from Kinsho near his house. I chose the light brown one, which meant I stood out a bit compared to everyone else in their blue/gray/black ones. Then we stopped at Mister Donut, I got a double chocolate donut, expecting it to be tasty and sweet. It was neither… like 0 sugar at all, bleh… on a double chocolate donut! Gosh!! Then we met up with Uncle Masa and went to an Isakaya. Wasn’t too bad, only stayed for an hour and a half, and Anton did most of the talking since I’m maybe shy (sorry Anton). And then I went home just in time to miss shower curfew.
Accordion Friday, then I met up with Anton and then Billy at Kyoto Station. We went for dinner at the nearby isakaya (the one with the supercool owner and the two nice waitresses). Good meal, and we talked for quite a while. The owner remembered us, and Billy signed his gaikokujin book. Then we went back to Anton’s flat in Nara.
Saturday morning we met Clement, Neil, and Victor at Kyoto Station and went Yukata shopping. Along the way we were stopped by our obligatory old man, who gave us directions, even though we weren’t lost and didn’t need em. Not the most interesting old man experience, but with Uncle Masa on Thursday, I think we filled our quota for the week. I left the group around 2 to go to the concert.
Went back to the dorm first to figure out how to get to the concert, with a complex route involving 5 trains, and tried to buy a ticket from Lawson using my very limited language skills. That failed, mostly because Lawson stopped selling the tickets, since the show was starting in 3 hours, but at least I failed at speaking all by myself! So yeah, got to Intex-Osaka, ran around looking for the ticket selling place (veery hard to find), and saw an awesome concert, woot!
So I head back to Kyoto, and call Anton from Tambabashi station, to see if they’re still out at Gion Matsuri. We arrange to meet at Yasaka Shrine (basically the most important part of the festival, and about the easiest temple to find in all of Kyoto). When I get there… nobody. I call back, they say they’ll meet me between Yasaka and the train station… after running back and forth 3 times (and meeting Clarissa and her friends along the way, Random Encounter #1), we decide just to meet back at Anton’s… Turns out they were lost and nowhere near where I was… they needed my GPS abilities (but that’s later).
On the first train home I was standing beside someone who I swear was my arch nemesis from grade 7. Well, one of them at least… I had many. Stupid junior high. Anyway, if it wasn’t him, he looked identical. Then on the second train home, I was standing right near Mr. Azrael of OutpostNine! Three random encounters in under an hour, that’s a new record methinks.
Anyway, get back to Anton’s, and there’s about 11 of us total now… going to sleep in 3 rooms… with 2 futons… Yeah, not overly comfortable. Still better than camping last summer where it rained heavily for 3 days, man that was cold. What was I thinking… anyway… we had the door open between the two rooms, since there was only one AC… and Billy gets cold in the night, so he closes the door, leaving the other people to freeze. Clement wakes up and instead of turning the AC down (the obvious idea), goes to sleep and snore next to Billy! Interesting night.
Sunday we split up, and try to check out downtown, but we got caught in quite a storm. After me, Billy and Neil sacrificed ourselves to buy umbrellas for the group, we sheltered in a dessert place for dessert. Mmm large chocolate shake. Then we met with the others back at Kyoto Station for dinner at an Italian place. Our group now numbered 15, since the Osakans had arrived. After a lengthy changing process (some people wanted to wear their Yukatas), we headed downtown for the festival. Quite cool to see, massive crowds all over the place. We wandered around for a while, takin pictures, then using my mad GPS skillz I led everyone back to Kyoto Station for another lengthy changing process.
Another fun night, I gave up sleeping on the floor and slept with my head resting on the kitchen table. Oddly enough, it was an improvement. We got up too early and headed back to Kyoto to see the parade. Unfortunately it was still pouring, and we couldn’t get very close to the parade to see much, so we headed back to Tambabashi Station, met up with the Osakans for lunch, and headed back to Nara to change out of Yukata and to head home…
Ideas that you'll never find
All the inventors could never design
The buildings that you put up
Osaka, Japan... all lit up
The sign that I couldn't read
Or a light, that I couldn't see
Some things you have to believe
While others are puzzles, puzzling me
Gion Matsuri was a ton of fun, not really for the festival itself (which we were barely at), but mostly just spending time with so many of the CJPers again… Thanks to everyone who came down from Kanto and other areas, and especially to Anton and Tongxin for providing accomodations.
Looking forward to Pirates and surfin this weekend, too bad I have to work Saturday. And MIDI Wednesdays are almost as brutal as Accordion Fridays… I wonder what they play on Saturdays /cry.
And pictures will now be posted on my web album at http://picasaweb.google.com/keidan.link You can see me in a dress on there now!
Oh, weighed myself today, i've gained about 3-4 pounds since I've arrived here! Go me!
Until we meet again…
Nobody said it was easy,
No one ever said it would be this hard…
I’m going back to the start.
Hoooo boy, another blog, I’m sorry. I’ll try and keep this condensed as possible. And I’ll put the most important stuff first, since I imagine you CJPers are bored (or will be) of reading all the other Gion blogs.
So first of all, I Saw Azrael!!! He was on a train, I recognized him from his picture online. I asked if it was him for sure, and said that me and my friends all liked his blog. He was with friends so I felt a bit bad interrupting though. And I’m sorry to my friends who thought it would be a good idea for me to shout "Breasts!" at him and teleport away.
Oh yeah, if you don’t know, Azrael (or Jeff, his real name) is a 6’6" black guy who lives in Kyoto teaching English to junior high students. He’s been chronicling his adventures on his blog for many years now, and is one of the funniest things on the web. You can find his editorials on www.gaijinsmash.net, or it’s the first link if you type "Japanese school teacher" into Google.
Another interesting thing that only one other person will blog about… I saw Coldplay!!! Woohoo!!! Took 5 trains and an hour trip to make it down to Intex-Osaka Saturday night, where Coldplay was playing. After spending a fortune on a ticket at the door (unfortunately far to the back), and waiting in line to go in, I got to see the concert. No opening band, which was disappointing, in 2003 they had the awesome Brit band "The Music" open for them. But the concert was quite impressive, opening with Square One and Politik, and playing some of the most important songs, Don’t Panic, Swallowed in the Sea, and the best song ever, The Scientist (which was extremely well done, much better than their 2003 version). Very cool stage though, they showed video of the band playing on the background, and had some laser effects too.
And I could write it down
Or spread it all around
Get lost and then get found
And you'll come back to me
Not swallowed in the sea
I was kinda hoping they would play some new or some less popular songs though. I would have loved to hear Sparks, or A Message, or For You.
But anyway, back to chronologicalness… What a fun weekend! Basically the first large scale CJP reunion, as many people came down to Kansai (Kyoto/Osaka/Nara/Kobe) from Kanto (Tokyo). Oh crap, (was gonna say another word but Bush already said it), forgot about Thursday. Anton and I went to pick up my very sexy Yukata from Kinsho near his house. I chose the light brown one, which meant I stood out a bit compared to everyone else in their blue/gray/black ones. Then we stopped at Mister Donut, I got a double chocolate donut, expecting it to be tasty and sweet. It was neither… like 0 sugar at all, bleh… on a double chocolate donut! Gosh!! Then we met up with Uncle Masa and went to an Isakaya. Wasn’t too bad, only stayed for an hour and a half, and Anton did most of the talking since I’m maybe shy (sorry Anton). And then I went home just in time to miss shower curfew.
Accordion Friday, then I met up with Anton and then Billy at Kyoto Station. We went for dinner at the nearby isakaya (the one with the supercool owner and the two nice waitresses). Good meal, and we talked for quite a while. The owner remembered us, and Billy signed his gaikokujin book. Then we went back to Anton’s flat in Nara.
Saturday morning we met Clement, Neil, and Victor at Kyoto Station and went Yukata shopping. Along the way we were stopped by our obligatory old man, who gave us directions, even though we weren’t lost and didn’t need em. Not the most interesting old man experience, but with Uncle Masa on Thursday, I think we filled our quota for the week. I left the group around 2 to go to the concert.
Went back to the dorm first to figure out how to get to the concert, with a complex route involving 5 trains, and tried to buy a ticket from Lawson using my very limited language skills. That failed, mostly because Lawson stopped selling the tickets, since the show was starting in 3 hours, but at least I failed at speaking all by myself! So yeah, got to Intex-Osaka, ran around looking for the ticket selling place (veery hard to find), and saw an awesome concert, woot!
So I head back to Kyoto, and call Anton from Tambabashi station, to see if they’re still out at Gion Matsuri. We arrange to meet at Yasaka Shrine (basically the most important part of the festival, and about the easiest temple to find in all of Kyoto). When I get there… nobody. I call back, they say they’ll meet me between Yasaka and the train station… after running back and forth 3 times (and meeting Clarissa and her friends along the way, Random Encounter #1), we decide just to meet back at Anton’s… Turns out they were lost and nowhere near where I was… they needed my GPS abilities (but that’s later).
On the first train home I was standing beside someone who I swear was my arch nemesis from grade 7. Well, one of them at least… I had many. Stupid junior high. Anyway, if it wasn’t him, he looked identical. Then on the second train home, I was standing right near Mr. Azrael of OutpostNine! Three random encounters in under an hour, that’s a new record methinks.
Anyway, get back to Anton’s, and there’s about 11 of us total now… going to sleep in 3 rooms… with 2 futons… Yeah, not overly comfortable. Still better than camping last summer where it rained heavily for 3 days, man that was cold. What was I thinking… anyway… we had the door open between the two rooms, since there was only one AC… and Billy gets cold in the night, so he closes the door, leaving the other people to freeze. Clement wakes up and instead of turning the AC down (the obvious idea), goes to sleep and snore next to Billy! Interesting night.
Sunday we split up, and try to check out downtown, but we got caught in quite a storm. After me, Billy and Neil sacrificed ourselves to buy umbrellas for the group, we sheltered in a dessert place for dessert. Mmm large chocolate shake. Then we met with the others back at Kyoto Station for dinner at an Italian place. Our group now numbered 15, since the Osakans had arrived. After a lengthy changing process (some people wanted to wear their Yukatas), we headed downtown for the festival. Quite cool to see, massive crowds all over the place. We wandered around for a while, takin pictures, then using my mad GPS skillz I led everyone back to Kyoto Station for another lengthy changing process.
Another fun night, I gave up sleeping on the floor and slept with my head resting on the kitchen table. Oddly enough, it was an improvement. We got up too early and headed back to Kyoto to see the parade. Unfortunately it was still pouring, and we couldn’t get very close to the parade to see much, so we headed back to Tambabashi Station, met up with the Osakans for lunch, and headed back to Nara to change out of Yukata and to head home…
Ideas that you'll never find
All the inventors could never design
The buildings that you put up
Osaka, Japan... all lit up
The sign that I couldn't read
Or a light, that I couldn't see
Some things you have to believe
While others are puzzles, puzzling me
Gion Matsuri was a ton of fun, not really for the festival itself (which we were barely at), but mostly just spending time with so many of the CJPers again… Thanks to everyone who came down from Kanto and other areas, and especially to Anton and Tongxin for providing accomodations.
Looking forward to Pirates and surfin this weekend, too bad I have to work Saturday. And MIDI Wednesdays are almost as brutal as Accordion Fridays… I wonder what they play on Saturdays /cry.
And pictures will now be posted on my web album at http://picasaweb.google.com/keidan.link You can see me in a dress on there now!
Oh, weighed myself today, i've gained about 3-4 pounds since I've arrived here! Go me!
Until we meet again…
Friday, July 14, 2006
May the Forces of Evil Become Confused on the Way to Your House
Still and quiet feline form,
In the sun, asleep and warm.
His tail is limp his
Whiskers drooped.
Man, what could make
This cat so pooped?
Wow, gotta start writing earlier so I don’t forget stuff… It has been a busy week since the last time I blogged. And yes, once again I filled my quota for meeting random older men this week. But that’s later on!
Friday was a bit uneventful, I stayed in and relaxed. It was nice. I played video games and chatted on MSN… mmm Playstation emulators. Early to rise Saturday morning, I was off to have fun and excitement in Osaka! I met with Keith and Tyson (a fellow CJP member) at Tennoji station, and we decided to check out the Umeda Sky Building. Very cool looking building, you can go up a great glass elevator 35 floors, then take an escalator (which has nothing beneath it) up another 4 floors. Not a bad view from up there, unfortunately the view from the roof is a bit obstructed (you’re not allowed at the very edge). Got some ok photos though. We ate in the basement… udon and sashimi and other stuff.
Next we were off to meet Tongxin and Boon-hau. After a quick stop at Daiso (100Yen Shop (Dollar Store)), which has the super annoying MIDI music I hear in my office on Thursday afternoons, we went to Tongxin’s flat to wait for Boon-hau. Tongxin has quite a nice place, with her own bathroom! Plus a little loft area above her livin room. I’m jealous.
After Boon-hau arrived we went to the shrine right near Tongxin’s place. She’s been here a month and hadn’t been there yet. There was quite the path behind the temple, we decided to hike it up there. Took us about two hours and 15 bug bites for me to get up, boy was I hurting the next day! Allergic to mosquitoes sucks, I just hope I never get stung by a bee. And it was hot too, we were really hoping for a vending machine on the top… since they have vending machines everywhere. On a side note, climbing up Fushimi Inari shrine is quite the hike… and yet they have cigarette vending machines halfway up. So if you’re out of breath and really need a smoke :P. Anyway, we were outta luck, but we got a good view of Osaka from the top.
It took us way less time down… maybe 30 minutes max. After a quick stop for popsicles at Tongxin’s we went to an isakaya for dinner. The outside was quite interesting, it was shaped like a pirate ship (niiice). Inside, we got the top floor entirely to ourselves, it was pretty early, and the owner/waiter person was quite nice, helping us with the menu. We order drinks, and he explains some of the stuff on the menu. We end up getting… let me think. A Pirate Salad which is mostly various sashimi, yakisoba, okonomiyaki, yakitori, and Tyson decides it’s a fine time to order a plate of horse sashimi. Yes, that’s right… I had to try some just to say I had. Very interesting texture and flavor, I don’t know how to describe it. Not bad tho, but expensive.
Anyway, the owner guy saw that I was very quiet and polite, and wanted to be specifically my friend. I shook his hand and said Ok! He was also impressed that I sat in seiza position for the entire meal. Not many people can pull that off apparently (least without hurting themselves), but I have no problems with it. But you all know I’m not exactly normal anyways. So yeah, obviously my friends wanted me to get my picture taken with him. Yes, I know I’m not looking at the camera, but there were 4 cameras going off at once and I had no idea who was going when. We get a group picture too, but not on my camera, sorry. After I head back to my place in Kyoto, and made shower curfew by literally a minute! Which was very lucky, after the sweating and the bugs and the sweating.
- - -- --- ----- -------- ------------- ---------------------
Onto Sunday I guess… after spending half the morning deciding whether I should bother goin out or not, I decide I might as well… so I get to the grocery store and decide to get food and go home. It was very hot, and I figured studying my Japanese would be the most useful way to spend the day.
That was until I talked to Anton, who wanted to go exploring and practice his mad Photography Skillz in Kyoto. So I headed down to Takanohara first, so we could go Yukata shopping. Unfortunately for me, they only had one style left for guys’ yukatas, so Anton got his, and I’m going back to get mine tomorrow (Got it! Picture up later!) when they get more stock in. So after we head to downtown Kyoto.
So we get off at Shijo station and walk through one of the back streets looking for a place to eat. Not finding anywhere cheap we settle for (yes Erin, it’s true) Wendy’s. It was not bad, got a bacon cheeseburger, nice to have something familiar. And mmm bacon. So then we check out the Gion area, against my better judgement (still scared of the English prof). Not too lively for a Saturday night, I imagine it’ll change this weekend though! Mmm, Gion Matsuri! But I’ll discuss that later.
Heading back to downtown we saw the ultimo in cool. What the hell, my Word 97 has the word Ultimo (which is apparently a suburb in Sydney!) but not popsicles, or terraform, or Wendy’s! Anyway, Ultimo in Cool! Yeah, we see a large old American car (sorry, don’t know my cars, couldn’t tell you what kind). Anton stops to take a picture, and the driver, a young Japanese guy, sees us, and turns on the hydraulics! Didn’t expect to see that in Japan! A few minutes later we see another guy that had pimped his ride, with lights all around, and a laptop mounted on the front playin some American hiphop (sorry, don’t know my American hiphop, couldn’t tell you what artist). He was wearing a red jacket with a leopard print on It I think? Oh yeah, his ride was a bicycle!
So we decide to check out the river. There’s an area right beside the river, and at the time an amateur jazz band was playing. We take a few pictures and walk down a bit further, where there’s girls in yukata and guys not in yukata lighting off some fireworks! They start talking to us. And by us I mean Anton, since I’m inarticulate in the ways of Japanese. Oddly enough I can understand waaaay more than I can speak, while Anton claims the opposite for him. Anyway, after talkin for a bit, we part ways, and we head back up to downtown, passing by a Jamaican guy playing the drums.
We got drinks at a vending machine. Anton got a fruity rainbow drink outside a place that sells… Canadian whiskey, among other things. And then we went in search of pizza. Not having any clue, we ask a guy at a convenience store if there’s a pizza place nearby, and he says the closest one is a 30 minute walk. Then I start thinking… I kinda know where we are, and I thought there was a pizza place maybe 15 minutes away max. So I start leading the way, only to get to the exact store I was thinkin of 2 minutes later ><. Dunno what the guy at the convenience store was thinking. Anyway, it sure wasn’t Pizza Hut, thin crust, no grease, I was kinda disappointed. Oh well.We head back home, I’m always a fan of making shower curfew, so people don’t have to smell me.
- - -- --- ----- -------- ------------- ---------------------
Muuuuuchos other stuff new. Work is going much better recently, I’ve got a lot more to do. Monday was brutal, with the meeting lasting nearly 3 hours. But afterwards I actually got some work done! I’ve actually been fairly busy since Friday, measuring tooth impedance and graphing the data. I actually find it fairly interesting.
Wake Up Neo. The Matrix Has You.
So I finally downloaded Skype yesterday. I’ve been talking to my parents a bit on MSN, and I have a webcam, but unfortunately their microphone isn’t working. Doing my research on USB connections I think I know why that is, but anyway. So I figured I’d phone em. I was talking to my mom on MSN before I called, then as I called I typed "Ring Ring"… assuming she’d get the point and answer the phone. But nooooo… so the answering machine picks up, and I say "Ring Ring"… still nothing! My mommy is funny. Was nice to call home though, talked for 45 minutes, and it cost me a whole 75 pence! I expect compensation when I return.
Hmm, future plans… Gion Matsuri on the weekend, sounds like Anton’s place is gonna be absolutely squished to the max. The festival should be quite fun. I’m thinking of going to a concert on Saturday though… mmm Coldplay. Just gotta figure out how to buy a ticket. Going to get my Yukata tomorrow, then me and Anton are going to an isakaya with Uncle Masa (which we did, was alright, nothin interesting to tell really).
Pirates comes out a week from Saturday, definitely gonna see it the first day! I hear it broke some major records, rather impressive. Then that Sunday we’re thinking of goin surfing in Wakayama.The following weekend is a five day weekend for me, company holiday! I’m thinking of going down to Tokyo for a few days, since I haven’t been yet. So if anyone is able to put me up for a few days, let me know, that’d be excellent!
Then the next weekend is Byron’s first week in Japan! Then the next weekend is Obon week, with a potential Okinawa trip in the works, or a super massive rock concert if that falls through. Then the next weekend is Fuji-san!!! Wow, that’s a month and a half of fully booked weekends ahead!
I’ll probably post this in the morning, got pics to upload first, and links to add, and other stuff. Like pie. And my online photo album will be up soon I hope. Depends on the lack of sleep this weekend!
In the sun, asleep and warm.
His tail is limp his
Whiskers drooped.
Man, what could make
This cat so pooped?
Wow, gotta start writing earlier so I don’t forget stuff… It has been a busy week since the last time I blogged. And yes, once again I filled my quota for meeting random older men this week. But that’s later on!
Friday was a bit uneventful, I stayed in and relaxed. It was nice. I played video games and chatted on MSN… mmm Playstation emulators. Early to rise Saturday morning, I was off to have fun and excitement in Osaka! I met with Keith and Tyson (a fellow CJP member) at Tennoji station, and we decided to check out the Umeda Sky Building. Very cool looking building, you can go up a great glass elevator 35 floors, then take an escalator (which has nothing beneath it) up another 4 floors. Not a bad view from up there, unfortunately the view from the roof is a bit obstructed (you’re not allowed at the very edge). Got some ok photos though. We ate in the basement… udon and sashimi and other stuff.
Next we were off to meet Tongxin and Boon-hau. After a quick stop at Daiso (100Yen Shop (Dollar Store)), which has the super annoying MIDI music I hear in my office on Thursday afternoons, we went to Tongxin’s flat to wait for Boon-hau. Tongxin has quite a nice place, with her own bathroom! Plus a little loft area above her livin room. I’m jealous.
After Boon-hau arrived we went to the shrine right near Tongxin’s place. She’s been here a month and hadn’t been there yet. There was quite the path behind the temple, we decided to hike it up there. Took us about two hours and 15 bug bites for me to get up, boy was I hurting the next day! Allergic to mosquitoes sucks, I just hope I never get stung by a bee. And it was hot too, we were really hoping for a vending machine on the top… since they have vending machines everywhere. On a side note, climbing up Fushimi Inari shrine is quite the hike… and yet they have cigarette vending machines halfway up. So if you’re out of breath and really need a smoke :P. Anyway, we were outta luck, but we got a good view of Osaka from the top.
It took us way less time down… maybe 30 minutes max. After a quick stop for popsicles at Tongxin’s we went to an isakaya for dinner. The outside was quite interesting, it was shaped like a pirate ship (niiice). Inside, we got the top floor entirely to ourselves, it was pretty early, and the owner/waiter person was quite nice, helping us with the menu. We order drinks, and he explains some of the stuff on the menu. We end up getting… let me think. A Pirate Salad which is mostly various sashimi, yakisoba, okonomiyaki, yakitori, and Tyson decides it’s a fine time to order a plate of horse sashimi. Yes, that’s right… I had to try some just to say I had. Very interesting texture and flavor, I don’t know how to describe it. Not bad tho, but expensive.
Anyway, the owner guy saw that I was very quiet and polite, and wanted to be specifically my friend. I shook his hand and said Ok! He was also impressed that I sat in seiza position for the entire meal. Not many people can pull that off apparently (least without hurting themselves), but I have no problems with it. But you all know I’m not exactly normal anyways. So yeah, obviously my friends wanted me to get my picture taken with him. Yes, I know I’m not looking at the camera, but there were 4 cameras going off at once and I had no idea who was going when. We get a group picture too, but not on my camera, sorry. After I head back to my place in Kyoto, and made shower curfew by literally a minute! Which was very lucky, after the sweating and the bugs and the sweating.
- - -- --- ----- -------- ------------- ---------------------
Onto Sunday I guess… after spending half the morning deciding whether I should bother goin out or not, I decide I might as well… so I get to the grocery store and decide to get food and go home. It was very hot, and I figured studying my Japanese would be the most useful way to spend the day.
That was until I talked to Anton, who wanted to go exploring and practice his mad Photography Skillz in Kyoto. So I headed down to Takanohara first, so we could go Yukata shopping. Unfortunately for me, they only had one style left for guys’ yukatas, so Anton got his, and I’m going back to get mine tomorrow (Got it! Picture up later!) when they get more stock in. So after we head to downtown Kyoto.
So we get off at Shijo station and walk through one of the back streets looking for a place to eat. Not finding anywhere cheap we settle for (yes Erin, it’s true) Wendy’s. It was not bad, got a bacon cheeseburger, nice to have something familiar. And mmm bacon. So then we check out the Gion area, against my better judgement (still scared of the English prof). Not too lively for a Saturday night, I imagine it’ll change this weekend though! Mmm, Gion Matsuri! But I’ll discuss that later.
Heading back to downtown we saw the ultimo in cool. What the hell, my Word 97 has the word Ultimo (which is apparently a suburb in Sydney!) but not popsicles, or terraform, or Wendy’s! Anyway, Ultimo in Cool! Yeah, we see a large old American car (sorry, don’t know my cars, couldn’t tell you what kind). Anton stops to take a picture, and the driver, a young Japanese guy, sees us, and turns on the hydraulics! Didn’t expect to see that in Japan! A few minutes later we see another guy that had pimped his ride, with lights all around, and a laptop mounted on the front playin some American hiphop (sorry, don’t know my American hiphop, couldn’t tell you what artist). He was wearing a red jacket with a leopard print on It I think? Oh yeah, his ride was a bicycle!
So we decide to check out the river. There’s an area right beside the river, and at the time an amateur jazz band was playing. We take a few pictures and walk down a bit further, where there’s girls in yukata and guys not in yukata lighting off some fireworks! They start talking to us. And by us I mean Anton, since I’m inarticulate in the ways of Japanese. Oddly enough I can understand waaaay more than I can speak, while Anton claims the opposite for him. Anyway, after talkin for a bit, we part ways, and we head back up to downtown, passing by a Jamaican guy playing the drums.
We got drinks at a vending machine. Anton got a fruity rainbow drink outside a place that sells… Canadian whiskey, among other things. And then we went in search of pizza. Not having any clue, we ask a guy at a convenience store if there’s a pizza place nearby, and he says the closest one is a 30 minute walk. Then I start thinking… I kinda know where we are, and I thought there was a pizza place maybe 15 minutes away max. So I start leading the way, only to get to the exact store I was thinkin of 2 minutes later ><. Dunno what the guy at the convenience store was thinking. Anyway, it sure wasn’t Pizza Hut, thin crust, no grease, I was kinda disappointed. Oh well.We head back home, I’m always a fan of making shower curfew, so people don’t have to smell me.
- - -- --- ----- -------- ------------- ---------------------
Muuuuuchos other stuff new. Work is going much better recently, I’ve got a lot more to do. Monday was brutal, with the meeting lasting nearly 3 hours. But afterwards I actually got some work done! I’ve actually been fairly busy since Friday, measuring tooth impedance and graphing the data. I actually find it fairly interesting.
Wake Up Neo. The Matrix Has You.
So I finally downloaded Skype yesterday. I’ve been talking to my parents a bit on MSN, and I have a webcam, but unfortunately their microphone isn’t working. Doing my research on USB connections I think I know why that is, but anyway. So I figured I’d phone em. I was talking to my mom on MSN before I called, then as I called I typed "Ring Ring"… assuming she’d get the point and answer the phone. But nooooo… so the answering machine picks up, and I say "Ring Ring"… still nothing! My mommy is funny. Was nice to call home though, talked for 45 minutes, and it cost me a whole 75 pence! I expect compensation when I return.
Hmm, future plans… Gion Matsuri on the weekend, sounds like Anton’s place is gonna be absolutely squished to the max. The festival should be quite fun. I’m thinking of going to a concert on Saturday though… mmm Coldplay. Just gotta figure out how to buy a ticket. Going to get my Yukata tomorrow, then me and Anton are going to an isakaya with Uncle Masa (which we did, was alright, nothin interesting to tell really).
Pirates comes out a week from Saturday, definitely gonna see it the first day! I hear it broke some major records, rather impressive. Then that Sunday we’re thinking of goin surfing in Wakayama.The following weekend is a five day weekend for me, company holiday! I’m thinking of going down to Tokyo for a few days, since I haven’t been yet. So if anyone is able to put me up for a few days, let me know, that’d be excellent!
Then the next weekend is Byron’s first week in Japan! Then the next weekend is Obon week, with a potential Okinawa trip in the works, or a super massive rock concert if that falls through. Then the next weekend is Fuji-san!!! Wow, that’s a month and a half of fully booked weekends ahead!
I’ll probably post this in the morning, got pics to upload first, and links to add, and other stuff. Like pie. And my online photo album will be up soon I hope. Depends on the lack of sleep this weekend!
Wednesday, July 05, 2006
As You Gain Experience, You'll Realize That All Logical Questions are Considered Insubordination
So you don't know where you're going but you want to talk
And you feel like you're going where you've been before
You'll tell anyone who will listen but you feel ignored
Nothing's really making any sense at all…
Mondays are difficult. Let me explain:
Imagine you’re 8 years old and your parents are having a dinner party… everyone’s dressed fancy and talking with big complex words and you can’t understand anything. After standing around bored for 2 hours, someone asks you a question, and everyone goes silent and turns to look at you, expecting an intelligent answer…
Or perhaps another example… Imagine being handcuffed to a chair, being forced to watch Ultraviolet in Portuguese, followed immediately by The Horse Whisperer in French.
Anyway, it’s not fun, but unavoidable I guess. 2+ hour meetings, all in Japanese. But it’s better than Friday afternoons… I still can’t tune out that evil evil accordion music.
I’ve been studying lots for Japanese, but while I know the rules, it’s hard to actually put em to use. I’m thinkin a good idea is to get some Japanese Manga (graphic novels) and practice that way, learning sentence structure, etc. I need to work on vocab too. I’ll get better eventually I hope, I still got 9 months to practice.
Work’s been going a bit better though. They have me working with tooth impedance and I feel semi useful. It didn’t take me long to do the work, so I killed some time by making a fancy excel spreadsheet, which got mad at me when I tried to input a formula that was waaay too big for it. I don’t blame it, the formula looked like the Horrendous Space Kablooie. And then I showed my supervisor who thought the numbers it generated were too low, even though I explained to him that I chose example numbers at random since nobody gave me actual values yet. Maybe tomorrow…
Edit: Got the data myself after confusing the guy next to me, and it seems to work in my table. My supervisor thinks there may be a problem with the calculations/data, some of the numbers weren’t what he expected. But they do match my calculations, and I’ve quadruple checked my calculations, so… I was supposed to meet with him to discuss the data, but we all know what happened there.
Oh yeah, apparently the guy who’s been directing my main project quit over a week and a half ago. Which explains why I’ve seen him once in the past three weeks. But it doesn’t explain why I still haven’t been told he quit! What the heck do I do now? Gah!
Hmm… have I described my office yet? There’s lots of buildings at my work, including a sales office, the R&D building (where I am), and various factory buildings where the manufacturing takes place. The cafeteria/main factory building looks kinda like an old firehouse, all red brick. Like a normal Japanese office, everything is quite wide open, no cubicles or anything. Which actually makes it seem way more cluttered; you are able to see papers and binders and files piling up everywhere. I’m in the project area, off to the side a bit, which is nice. But it does mean I can be easily forgotten about. And I’ve already discussed the music in my office o.O.
Pirates are cool.
You lucky bums get to see Dead Man’s Chest two weeks before I do. I’m jealous. The Kraken looks awesome.
I guess I should talk about my weekend at some point… On Friday I had my welcoming party. My section at work went out for Okonomiyaki, it was quite good. Afterwards the younger ones in our party went to a nearby bar where we met up with the some of the other guys from the company. Quite a nice little bar, we had a room at the back to ourselves, where we sat on the floor by a low table of course. I couldn’t understand much of what was going on, but it was still pretty fun. Nice to see my coworkers outside of work, makes me feel I can relate to them a bit more. And I’m very glad about the lack of Karaoke!
Saturday was supposed to be a sleep day, but Vincent, Boon-hau and Tongxin came down to Kyoto for the day, along with Boon-hau’s friend. We went for lunch at Kyoto Station. The actual train station seems to be a tertiary function of the station. The primary function, is of course, shopping. The escalator goes up 11 floors, with nearly everything you could imagine… tons and tons of clothes, a floor just for sweets and gifts, a supermarket in one of the two basements... The top floor is all restaurants. The secondary function is as a tourist attraction. From the top of the station you can see the entire southern half of Kyoto, perhaps the northern half too, I didn’t explore enough, but it’s pretty cool. Next time I’m there I’ll take photos. And then, I guess, it’s also a train station… A fair number of foreigners around Kyoto Station too, but I guess that can be expected.
After lunch we took the bus to the Golden Temple. Quite pretty, but long bus ride. Slow too… for the first half hour we coulda walked faster than the bus. The temple itself is covered in gold leaf, so it’s quite neat. The area around the temple was nice too, lots of trees and a little lake. But the area felt too much like a tourist trap I think, there were nearly more foreigners than Japanese there. I enjoyed Fushimi Inari much more.
We headed towards Silver Temple after that, but unfortunately it was closed when we got there. Tongxin bought 2 cheap flute thingys from a vendor and we toured down Philosopher’s Walk for a little bit. After we went to Gion, and I left the group just before dinner. I was going to meet David at the pub where he hangs out, but I was a bit delayed…
Two minutes after I left the group, an older man (yes, apparently it’s not just Anton with the OMLGP) starts talking to me. He asks where I’m from, how long I’ve been in Japan, then says he’s an English professor, and he’s writing a Japanese-English dictionary. He then gives me a handful of pages of his dictionary and asks me to proofread them… on the street… on a busy street… on a Saturday night… I’m too polite for my own good, I read a few pages, gave him a suggestion or two, then said I had to go, I was running late.
Now, you’re probably thinking this is rather odd (almost on par with some of my other experiences), but I was completely prepared for this, and the coincidence of it nearly made me burst out laughing. Dave had told me earlier that he had had two encounters with the same guy years earlier, who asked him to proofread pages both times. And another past intern at my company has met him too! So Byron, be prepared! He’ll be lurking, waiting for you.
Last night I had the strangest dream…
Where everything was exactly how it seemed…
Before I forget, why not turn my blog into a dream diary! And by that I mean, let’s annoy you all with the insanity that goes on in my head every night. So I was sleeping outside (in my dream), I forgot why, maybe I missed curfew and got locked out. When I woke up I was being eaten by tick beetles (an imaginary bug, think tiny beetles that dig under your skin and give you lime disease). Then I was outside a bar in England battling against O-ren Iishi from Kill Bill. And then I was concerned about the batteries I was chewing on. I thought maybe it wasn’t such a good idea. Then I realized, well, when you eat electronic devices you’re eating the batteries inside them too, and that works fine! So eating the batteries separately should work too, they’ll just join with the electronics in your stomach! That was the justification I remember in my dream.
Ok, take the blue pill and return to the Real World, Link. Don’t worry everyone, I’m ok now… until I go to sleep tonight. Dreams as weird as these are rather common for me, it makes sleeping rather interesting. But some nights the craziness is a bit overwhelming.
I’m surprised how normal it is to me that everyone (including my friends) calls me Link here. I mean, it’s a cool name and all, but the concept of being referred to by your last name takes a little adjusting. Though some of my friends forget that Link is not my first name… " ‘Link Brett Adam’… Adam? That’s a weird last name!" ><.
Oh yeah, Sunday I met up with Vincent and Anton at Kyoto Station. We were gonna go back to the dining bar nearby that I wrote about before, but unfortunately it was closed. So we went to a little ramen shop nearby. It was quite good, a little weird with the music from the 50’s playing…(once again, I was expecting to hear this kinda music in Japan. I really did my research before coming here). We went for dessert at a café, it was quite good as well, mmm aisu kokoa and chocolate cake. Explored Kyoto Station, and then Vincent had to take the bus home… Anton and I returned home as well.
What else can I write about? Hmm, bought a fancy new camera. It is half the width of my old one, and lighter too. Plus the screen is four times bigger and picture quality is much better. So now I have incentive to take more pictures, and Anton will be happy cause I won’t be stealing his all the time. I will also be setting up an album on Picasa, I'll let you know when it's up. So you'll get to see all the pics instead of just the ones on my blog.
My Alien Registration Card is ready, but the ward office closes before I get off work at night, so I gotta find a way to pick it up. Maybe I can make a mad dash during lunch.
I finished phase IV of the kitchen cleanup project. Phase I was the fridge, which had a healthy layer of grime on the inside. II was the garbage can, which we could smell from our dorm rooms. III was the dish drying rack. You’d assume that since clean dishes are going there, that it would be clean, and not have a nasty black coating on the bottom. You’d be wrong. IV was getting rid of the year of grease and miscellaneous foodstuffs on the stove, wall, pipes, shield for the pipes, and everywhere else. Byron owes me one. Maybe he can bring me candy from Canada. Maybe yes…
Reading the news this morning has made me a little bit uneasy. Missile test-fires very close to where I’m living can never be a good thing… I guess we will just have to wait and see what happens.
Anyway, another long blog so I should probably wrap it up…Further blog posts as events warrant. Farewell!
And you feel like you're going where you've been before
You'll tell anyone who will listen but you feel ignored
Nothing's really making any sense at all…
Mondays are difficult. Let me explain:
Imagine you’re 8 years old and your parents are having a dinner party… everyone’s dressed fancy and talking with big complex words and you can’t understand anything. After standing around bored for 2 hours, someone asks you a question, and everyone goes silent and turns to look at you, expecting an intelligent answer…
Or perhaps another example… Imagine being handcuffed to a chair, being forced to watch Ultraviolet in Portuguese, followed immediately by The Horse Whisperer in French.
Anyway, it’s not fun, but unavoidable I guess. 2+ hour meetings, all in Japanese. But it’s better than Friday afternoons… I still can’t tune out that evil evil accordion music.
I’ve been studying lots for Japanese, but while I know the rules, it’s hard to actually put em to use. I’m thinkin a good idea is to get some Japanese Manga (graphic novels) and practice that way, learning sentence structure, etc. I need to work on vocab too. I’ll get better eventually I hope, I still got 9 months to practice.
Work’s been going a bit better though. They have me working with tooth impedance and I feel semi useful. It didn’t take me long to do the work, so I killed some time by making a fancy excel spreadsheet, which got mad at me when I tried to input a formula that was waaay too big for it. I don’t blame it, the formula looked like the Horrendous Space Kablooie. And then I showed my supervisor who thought the numbers it generated were too low, even though I explained to him that I chose example numbers at random since nobody gave me actual values yet. Maybe tomorrow…
Edit: Got the data myself after confusing the guy next to me, and it seems to work in my table. My supervisor thinks there may be a problem with the calculations/data, some of the numbers weren’t what he expected. But they do match my calculations, and I’ve quadruple checked my calculations, so… I was supposed to meet with him to discuss the data, but we all know what happened there.
Oh yeah, apparently the guy who’s been directing my main project quit over a week and a half ago. Which explains why I’ve seen him once in the past three weeks. But it doesn’t explain why I still haven’t been told he quit! What the heck do I do now? Gah!
Hmm… have I described my office yet? There’s lots of buildings at my work, including a sales office, the R&D building (where I am), and various factory buildings where the manufacturing takes place. The cafeteria/main factory building looks kinda like an old firehouse, all red brick. Like a normal Japanese office, everything is quite wide open, no cubicles or anything. Which actually makes it seem way more cluttered; you are able to see papers and binders and files piling up everywhere. I’m in the project area, off to the side a bit, which is nice. But it does mean I can be easily forgotten about. And I’ve already discussed the music in my office o.O.
Pirates are cool.
You lucky bums get to see Dead Man’s Chest two weeks before I do. I’m jealous. The Kraken looks awesome.
I guess I should talk about my weekend at some point… On Friday I had my welcoming party. My section at work went out for Okonomiyaki, it was quite good. Afterwards the younger ones in our party went to a nearby bar where we met up with the some of the other guys from the company. Quite a nice little bar, we had a room at the back to ourselves, where we sat on the floor by a low table of course. I couldn’t understand much of what was going on, but it was still pretty fun. Nice to see my coworkers outside of work, makes me feel I can relate to them a bit more. And I’m very glad about the lack of Karaoke!
Saturday was supposed to be a sleep day, but Vincent, Boon-hau and Tongxin came down to Kyoto for the day, along with Boon-hau’s friend. We went for lunch at Kyoto Station. The actual train station seems to be a tertiary function of the station. The primary function, is of course, shopping. The escalator goes up 11 floors, with nearly everything you could imagine… tons and tons of clothes, a floor just for sweets and gifts, a supermarket in one of the two basements... The top floor is all restaurants. The secondary function is as a tourist attraction. From the top of the station you can see the entire southern half of Kyoto, perhaps the northern half too, I didn’t explore enough, but it’s pretty cool. Next time I’m there I’ll take photos. And then, I guess, it’s also a train station… A fair number of foreigners around Kyoto Station too, but I guess that can be expected.
After lunch we took the bus to the Golden Temple. Quite pretty, but long bus ride. Slow too… for the first half hour we coulda walked faster than the bus. The temple itself is covered in gold leaf, so it’s quite neat. The area around the temple was nice too, lots of trees and a little lake. But the area felt too much like a tourist trap I think, there were nearly more foreigners than Japanese there. I enjoyed Fushimi Inari much more.
We headed towards Silver Temple after that, but unfortunately it was closed when we got there. Tongxin bought 2 cheap flute thingys from a vendor and we toured down Philosopher’s Walk for a little bit. After we went to Gion, and I left the group just before dinner. I was going to meet David at the pub where he hangs out, but I was a bit delayed…
Two minutes after I left the group, an older man (yes, apparently it’s not just Anton with the OMLGP) starts talking to me. He asks where I’m from, how long I’ve been in Japan, then says he’s an English professor, and he’s writing a Japanese-English dictionary. He then gives me a handful of pages of his dictionary and asks me to proofread them… on the street… on a busy street… on a Saturday night… I’m too polite for my own good, I read a few pages, gave him a suggestion or two, then said I had to go, I was running late.
Now, you’re probably thinking this is rather odd (almost on par with some of my other experiences), but I was completely prepared for this, and the coincidence of it nearly made me burst out laughing. Dave had told me earlier that he had had two encounters with the same guy years earlier, who asked him to proofread pages both times. And another past intern at my company has met him too! So Byron, be prepared! He’ll be lurking, waiting for you.
Last night I had the strangest dream…
Where everything was exactly how it seemed…
Before I forget, why not turn my blog into a dream diary! And by that I mean, let’s annoy you all with the insanity that goes on in my head every night. So I was sleeping outside (in my dream), I forgot why, maybe I missed curfew and got locked out. When I woke up I was being eaten by tick beetles (an imaginary bug, think tiny beetles that dig under your skin and give you lime disease). Then I was outside a bar in England battling against O-ren Iishi from Kill Bill. And then I was concerned about the batteries I was chewing on. I thought maybe it wasn’t such a good idea. Then I realized, well, when you eat electronic devices you’re eating the batteries inside them too, and that works fine! So eating the batteries separately should work too, they’ll just join with the electronics in your stomach! That was the justification I remember in my dream.
Ok, take the blue pill and return to the Real World, Link. Don’t worry everyone, I’m ok now… until I go to sleep tonight. Dreams as weird as these are rather common for me, it makes sleeping rather interesting. But some nights the craziness is a bit overwhelming.
I’m surprised how normal it is to me that everyone (including my friends) calls me Link here. I mean, it’s a cool name and all, but the concept of being referred to by your last name takes a little adjusting. Though some of my friends forget that Link is not my first name… " ‘Link Brett Adam’… Adam? That’s a weird last name!" ><.
Oh yeah, Sunday I met up with Vincent and Anton at Kyoto Station. We were gonna go back to the dining bar nearby that I wrote about before, but unfortunately it was closed. So we went to a little ramen shop nearby. It was quite good, a little weird with the music from the 50’s playing…(once again, I was expecting to hear this kinda music in Japan. I really did my research before coming here). We went for dessert at a café, it was quite good as well, mmm aisu kokoa and chocolate cake. Explored Kyoto Station, and then Vincent had to take the bus home… Anton and I returned home as well.
What else can I write about? Hmm, bought a fancy new camera. It is half the width of my old one, and lighter too. Plus the screen is four times bigger and picture quality is much better. So now I have incentive to take more pictures, and Anton will be happy cause I won’t be stealing his all the time. I will also be setting up an album on Picasa, I'll let you know when it's up. So you'll get to see all the pics instead of just the ones on my blog.
My Alien Registration Card is ready, but the ward office closes before I get off work at night, so I gotta find a way to pick it up. Maybe I can make a mad dash during lunch.
I finished phase IV of the kitchen cleanup project. Phase I was the fridge, which had a healthy layer of grime on the inside. II was the garbage can, which we could smell from our dorm rooms. III was the dish drying rack. You’d assume that since clean dishes are going there, that it would be clean, and not have a nasty black coating on the bottom. You’d be wrong. IV was getting rid of the year of grease and miscellaneous foodstuffs on the stove, wall, pipes, shield for the pipes, and everywhere else. Byron owes me one. Maybe he can bring me candy from Canada. Maybe yes…
Reading the news this morning has made me a little bit uneasy. Missile test-fires very close to where I’m living can never be a good thing… I guess we will just have to wait and see what happens.
Anyway, another long blog so I should probably wrap it up…Further blog posts as events warrant. Farewell!
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