I’ve got quite a lot to talk about for this post, but I’ll try to keep it short, instead of just rambling on and on.

The first bit, and perhaps what everyone wants to hear is when I’ll be visiting. I’ll be coming for Christmas and New Year’s Eve this year. I’ll arrive on December 15, and I’ll be flying out on New Year’s Day. So it is just a little over two weeks. It will be nice to be able to spend Christmas with everyone again. If you have any requests for gifts, or just want to let me know when you’ll be free, please let me know. I’d be more than happy to pick something up here for you.

Next, I’m driving now. Yep, I got my Japanese driver’s license. It’s really nice to be able to drive. I forgot how much I loved driving. It was a pain to get (I’ll probably be devoting an entire post to just that when I get some time to sit down and think about it), but luckily, I’ll never have to go through that process in Japan again.

Work has been tough. We are still short on teachers, and one of our teachers is on vacation, so that leaves 3 teachers to do the job of 5. Needless to say, I’ve been getting a lot of overtime. We even got a couple new part time teachers to fill the classes that would have been impossible to fill with just the regular teachers. That brings me to my next point.

I have a roommate now. At least for the rest of October, and the first part of November. He’s from Germany, but has an expert level of English. I met him through Couch Surfing, as he’s backpacking through Japan. When he heard that my office might need some help he offered to stick around for a month in Koriyama. We tried to find a cheap place for him to stay, but the cheapest he could get for one month only was over $1200. I offered him a place for the normal cost of renting a room. It’s been a little crazy living in such tight quarters with someone again. Reminds me a lot of university. No privacy, but at least there’s always someone to talk to.

Finally, I’ll be adding photos of my autumn sightseeing to my gallery. I went to 五色沼 (pronounced Go Shinki Numa), or the five colored ponds, on October 19, and yesterday, or October 26, we went to 那須塩原市 (Nasushiobara) in the prefecture south of Fukushima. Both were beautiful, so I thought it would be nice to add them to my gallery.

That’s it for now. Pics should be up within the next hour or so, so don’t forget to check out my Gallery!

This is just to let everyone know that I’m okay. The volcano that erupted was in Nagano. It’s roughly 400 km (that’s about 250 miles) away.

I haven’t seen any signs of ash or anything else for that matter. Granted, I may. It’s only been one day since the eruption, but I doubt it will have much affect on me here.

So, if you were worrying, you can stop. I’m still safe. Although, despite being in one of the safest countries in the world for crime, I sure did pick a nice place to experience natural disasters.

Anyway, off to bed.

Toodles

Ahhh, Autumn. It’s the time of the year when everything starts to cool off, the trees start to change colors, and my nose wreaks havoc on my body.

I’m not sure what it is, but it seems that every year when fall comes around, the air starts to dry out, and my nose just goes into rebel mode. I guess I’m lucky though. I don’t have to worry about allergies any other time of the year. It’s just in fall.

So, how have I been?

Pretty good actually. Aside from work, life is going pretty well. I’ve been spending time with friends on the weekends. I even joined a table top rpg that my friend started up. It’s been a while.

There is a little bit of news though. I’m working on getting my driver’s license. You wouldn’t believe the hoops that you have to jump through just to drive in this country if your American or Japanese. People from other countries have it easy, though. Japanese people have to spend something like $3,000 just to get a license. Luckily, I don’t. I just have to do a lot of tests, and prove that I actually live where I do, which means multiple trips to city hall. Then, I have to go about an hour and a half away to test, since Koriyama doesn’t have a gaijin friendly testing center. From what I’ve been reading, foreigners rarely pass on the first shot, so we’ll see if I can be that 1% who does. Wish me luck.

I posted before about my summer vacations, and thought that I’d give a little update. Here’s what I had originally written:

• 8/10 – Go to a BBQ at the lake Go to a game center and go bowling, then take a night bus to Shizuoka (To the southwest of Tokyo, two prefectures away).
• 8/11-12 – SCUBA Training (Thank you Linda!) I’m finally doing it. I’m cashing in on my graduation gift to finally get my SCUBA certificate. I’ve already taken the written test. Now all I need to do are the dive tests.
• 8/13 – Surfing. I haven’t decided if I will do this in Shizuoka, Kanagawa, or Chiba, but there will definitely be ocean involved. It was raining, so I took the train home and relaxed and slept a little.
• 8/14 – Back to Koriyama for a summer festival with some friends.
• 8/15-17 – More travelling. Maybe to Niigata or Yamagata. They’re close to Fukushima, so it won’t be all that much travelling, but at this point I will have traveled over a quarter of Japan in less than a week. Bad weather killed these plans, so I couldn’t do any of the travelling I had originally planned.
• 8/18 – Rest before I have to go back to work? I hope so. Extend my visa for another year.

So many of my plans were bust, but not all of them.

I did get to go SCUBA diving, and got my license (well, technically, it will come in a couple weeks). While the weather wasn’t great, it was really fun. I went to Osezaki Beach in Shizuoka. On clear days, you can see Mt. Fuji across Suruga Bay, but since it was very cloudy the whole time I was there, I couldn’t get a good look. I’m hoping to go back on a clear day. I’d really like to see that view.

My friend loaned me his GoPro camera for the dive, and I made a little video for your viewing pleasure:

The quality is pretty bad because of the weather, so sorry about not being able to see anything. I could only see a little more than you can. But I must say, being able to hold an octopus was pretty cool.

I went diving for two days, and then came back to Koriyama on Wednesday where I relaxed at home and did a little bit of cleaning and packing for my summer festival in a very small town.

On Thursday, I went to a tiny town called Domeki to visit a small town festival. They were very happy to see me, as I don’t think they see many gaijin (foreigners) there, and even invited me to drum with them on their traditional drums. Pictures in the Gallery.

And here’s a video of me drumming:

On Friday, I went to Iwaki, and ate sushi and walked around by the ocean.

Yesterday and today (8/17) were just days to relax. Not doing much.

Tomorrow, I’m going to go to the immigration office in Koriyama, so I can extend my stay for another year.

Overall, this vacation was fun. I was a little disappointed at the weather, but I did get to do a lot, and I had a lot of fun.

Hope everyone enjoys. I’ll see you soon.