Ok, so its been a while, for that I am sorry. I did however, finally get my laptop, so I am back online! Here is one picture of a temple me, Ronn and Tawnya went to near my house. I am gonna have to post my pics on another site I think and then just have a link to them so you guys can look at all of them. Anyway... I got a memory card for my phone, so I can put my pictures on my comp now as well.
Where to start... ok, so Ronn, Tawnya and I have met up a couple of times for various shenanigans since we all have wednesday off. We met eric and john once in shibuya and went to an outback steakhouse there. It was good! The girls (Azu and Tawnya) were getting their hair cut, so the 4 of us wandered around in the rain looking for outback with erics leadership being our only source of guidance. We made it, so that was good. We also found a restaurant near my house that specializes in American food, so i go there occasionally. The crazy thing is.... they have good mexican food. I know, the very notion is rediculous, but i did it, i found a place with good mexican food here. Its not the best i'v ever had or anything, but it is damn good, and its certainly the best iv found in Japan. Real salsa... good quesadillas and burritos, and taquitos, and chile con carne... however you spell that. Anyway, they have alot, and i havent had any that werent awesome. The quesadillas rock. My only gripe is it needs to be spicier. They arent big on spicy here.
Enough on that, so my newer roomate, Alex, we'll call him Alex S to avoid confusion with Alex W, has his girlfriend visiting him from Canada right now. They seem to be having fun so far. I think we might be going out for Yaki Niku tomorrow night with Azu. I am moving down with Azu next month if anyone didnt know. Its going to be a significantly longer commute for me to work, but i guess its just a standard japanese commute, so my students just kinda nod when i tell them how long it is. It will be about an hour and 15, but i figure i can just read or study on the trian, so it wont be a big deal. I have a few students who commute 2 hours into various parts of Tokyo, so they dont really seem to be surprised at the time. One of my students today... while doing a lesson on daily routines, revealed how she wakes up at 5 am everyday, and goes to bed at 1 am. I scolded her after i got done looking shocked, then told her how i feel bad if i get less than 6 hours a night. Another of my students, a high school girl, has a self imposed hour commute to HS (she chose this school) because the uniforms are cuter.
My work branch is sorta secluded. Kurihama is basically in the sticks, its 20 mins from my place, which is 20 minutes from Yokohama proper. My place is still technically yokohama, but Kurihama is another city technically i think... anyway, my students all say its in the coutryside. I am told that a few stops away in Miurakaigan, there are in fact cows and farms and junk, so i guess i cant argue with them. its not really that far away geographically though from Yokohama. My train line, keikyu, gets pretty intense in the mornings. Fortunately i never have to use it at its worst, except when iv returned from yokohama during the evening rush hour. It sucks then. Azu used it once in the morning going to Tokyo and sorta refused to ever do it again, so i guess its bad. My school is small, but you get to know alot of the students, so thats kinda nice, if they are cool. Sucks if they arent. Kids classes are nuts.... i am coping with Juniors ok, but i had a kinders class a few days ago that made me want to end my life. They just ran around screaming, climbing on the counter, no joke, trying to throw eachother off, while screaming at the top of their lungs, while i got to sit there and try to paint a smile on my face for the parents. They did nothing but be unruly. Trying to get them to not be unruly just encouraged them i think. The advice i received: smile more.
So, the most recent thing i did was last sunday. I stayed at Azus house sunday night and we went to a hot spring that night. I find them to be very nice despite having to be naked with a bunch of other dudes. But really, you are the only one who cares at all, so as soon as you realize you are just being stupid, they're great. I was trying to get some japanese practice, but its surprisingly hard to get people to talk to you. Most people simply wont speak to you ever, unless you address them directly. So, in this pool that had red water ( a good conversation starter) i found some younger guys, and managed to strike up a conversation, it was cool.. We talked for about 40 minutes or so about various things. They were college students in the area. One of them was very shy and only listened mostly, but the others were happy to give me some practice, and wanted to hear some english here and there as well.
Ok, thats all for now. I will be more regular about things now that i have a computer. I will try to figure out how to show all my pictures from kamakura, cherry blossoms, etc as well. Peace!
