Not a lot of new news here, so here’s a short post.

I have just been exploring Koriyama when I can find someone to show me something new. I have seen a couple of the new parks, and a new shopping center. They also apparently have a mall within about a 15 minute bike ride. I will have to find that when I have the time.

My holiday was fun, but slow. My new friends’ girlfriend left town to go back to her home town for the rest of the year. He seems a bit bummed (because by train and plane, it’s about a 4 hour trip), but is optimistic. He always finds the bright side. So, we have been keeping each other company. We have played Halo with a few of his other friends, and League of Legends.

One of the things I am finding out about Koriyama is that it like Tulsa in a lot of ways, both good and bad. It’s pretty small. While being the biggest city in Fukushima, it only has about 350k people. There are a lot of young people that get married young, and teenage pregnancy seems to be pretty high (I’m not too sure how the statistics hold up against Tulsa though).

One nice thing about Koriyama is that everything is pretty much packed together. I live very close to the entertainment district. That includes entertainment of every kind. There are quite a few restaurants, karaoke bars, bars, etc, but also prostitutes (yes, I got propositioned when I was exploring the other night) and hostess clubs. No, a hostess club is not where you go to get a prostitute. A hostess club is a place where you pay a pretty hefty cover charge, and buy girls drinks all night so that they will talk to you. My guess is that the girls get a percentage of the cover and drink costs. It was a shock to me, as I would never pay for a woman’s company like that…

Koriyama also has some beautiful parks. I was lucky enough to get a guide in someone that I met at one of the festivals. She is a Japanese girl that used to be a student of a couple of my co-workers, but since she has been speaking English now for 5 or so years, she teaches small children the English basics. She took me to a couple parks in exchange for a lesson on the guitar. It was fun, but it started raining, so it cut the lesson short.

I’m still getting used to the food. Very few things in the super-market have English writing, so I have to guess from the pictures. Sometimes I’m right, sometimes… well sometimes I’m surprised. Nothing too bad though =)

I’m also meeting my neighbors. It seems that the majority of my apartment complex is occupied by foreign English teachers. There is also a small English school on the second level. I think I have only seen one or two Japanese families living in the building. It’s nice to meet people who know a little more about Koriyama than I do who can speak English.

Wow, my short post has become a long post.

So, I think that’s it for the night. I’m off to bed now. I have to go back to work tomorrow, so I need to be well rested!!!

~O~