Category: Japan (Page 2 of 11)

I figured now would be as good a time as any to send an update. A lot has happened, and since I tend to keep my life off of Facebook as much as possible, I thought I should send a brief update.

To start off, I have a new girlfriend. I talked a bit about her while I was in the states, but I didn’t say a lot. She’s an amazing girl! I met her on a night of bar hopping. She’s from a small town just outside of Koriyama, but she lives near Tokyo, so I don’t get to see her a lot, but when I do, everything is just perfect. She’s very friendly, and doesn’t have the traditional quiet Japanese personality. She’s a little crazy, like myself, and we click perfectly. A few weeks ago, we went to Tokyo Disneyland together, and despite my concern for having thousands of screaming children running around me at all times, we had a blast. The child inside came out, and I ended up singing a bunch of Disney songs. I would upload pics, but since her job is in the public eye, we’ve been very careful about being too public with pictures. Weather permitting, I’ll be spending Valentine’s Day with her in Koriyama. I’m pretty excited about that.

While I don’t usually make New Year’s resolutions, I decided to do so this year. I’ve decided to write a book. I haven’t decided whether to publish or not, but I’m now about 25% through it, and I hope to finish the first draft by the end of the year. I don’t know if it’s any good, but I needed a challenge, and while I’m a very good talker and tend to be a decent story teller, I’ve never really been able to translate the spoken word to paper. If anyone is interested, and without giving too much away, it’s a post-apocalyptic survival story. Once I decide if it’s worth letting others read, I’ll be more open about sending excerpts or asking for help in editing.

More recently, I’ve started getting into lyrics writing. I’ve never been much of a poet, but with all the writing I’ve been doing lately combined with a good conversation with a musician friend of mine, I’ve decided to give it a try. He sent me some background music last week, and I’ve already got half the lyrics written. Again, I’m not sure it’s so good, but it’s keeping me busy.

I’m really enjoying exploring my creative side. Since university, I’ve had real problems tapping into my creativity. I haven’t had much confidence in that area, and because of that, I feel like other aspects of my life have suffered. So, here’s to exploration. If anything comes of it, you will be the first that I let know. Perhaps I’ll even post an excerpt of my story or samples of music on my site. We’ll see as things develop!

Thanks for reading. See you next time!

Okay, I know it’s a bit late, but I just wanted to say it.

The holidays were great! I was so happy to be able to see everyone, and as always, I didn’t get to spend enough time with anyone.

One of the questions that came up a lot is, “When are you coming back?” I always answer that with, “Maybe next year.” But it seems like that answer never changes. It’s always the same answer.

I never really know how to answer that, so I stick with my canned answer. The easy, yet ultimately unsatisfying, answer is that I just don’t know. I think one of the main issues is that I have no idea what I would do if I came back. I’ve been out of the states for a while, and even when I come back to visit, I feel a little lost. Almost everything is as it was when I lived there, but there’s this burning feeling that something is different, and I just can’t put my finger on it. And I just can’t get really comfortable until I figure it out. It’s probably just me though.

Secondly, I’m really enjoying myself here. Japan is an amazing place, and I’m never at a loss for something to do. The size of this country is one of the things that makes it so convenient. I still don’t have a car, because I just don’t need one. I can take trains or buses almost anywhere. I have beaches and mountains all around me. I can go snowboarding in the winter, swimming, surfing, and scuba diving in the summer, and hiking in the spring and winter all within a few hours from my home.

In short, I’m loving it.

Don’t get me wrong. I still plan to come home. I just don’t have any date hard set.

Anyway, you’re all in my heart and thoughts. No matter what distance separates us, I’ll always be here for you, and that will never change.

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.