Been a few

So, its been a busy couple weeks, and i apologize for the lateness. I will attempt to pin some of the blame on Azu and her lack of internet, however. I am currently pirating a very weak signal from her neighbors. As you may have guessed from my previous sentence, i moved in with Azu this week. Its been nice, except for carrying 2 really heavy suitcases, my laptop, and an extra bag through train ticket takers, smashing into keikyu during rush hour, and carrying my suitcases 50 miles to the end of azu's station train platform. I am pretty sure i killed a few people getting onto the train to Yokohama during rush hour... ah well. Moving sucks. I am going to see if i can get a video going of her house and what not to show you guys. For the next couple weeks i have a much longer commute. It hasnt been so bad, except the time i almost fell asleep and missed my connection in Ofuna, that coulda been bad. I also took a video from the train that i would like to show you folks.

So this week it was mostly moving and unpacking. I managed to meet up with Ronn, Tawnya, and her friend on wednesday, and we hung out in Harajuku and Shibuya. It took all day, but i managed to find a man bag that was only 1380!, thats about 12 bucks or so for those of you not familiar with Yen. Considering i saw a T-shirt that day that was over $200, yes a T-shirt (not even that cool), i think i did pretty well for a bag. It was hidden between a couple bags that ran bout $60. I know what most of you are thinking. "A man bag?! its not acceptable for men to carry a purse-like object on their shoulder!" WRONG. In Japan, its perfectly acceptable, and there is an entire man bag industry, so there. Also, its just handy when you need to carry a few extra things, BACK OFF.

The week before Ash was here. Eric covered most of their trip, so click on his link cause i am feeling lazy. We had fun, we did the Kawagoe Area the first day, Tokyo the next, and had some mexican later that week. When i stop being lazy and post some pics, i will include the few pictures i took from the top of the sunshine 60 building. Its pretty weird being that high up. Buildings you thought were high before dont seem so high when you are at 60 stories. The Tokyo metropolis, which is the largest in the world it turns out, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_Tokyo_Area), is pretty amazing from above.

Well, i am going to post this before my internet cuts out again and i get angry. I am going to Disney Sea next wednesday with Azu, Ronn, and Tawnya, so that will be fun, i will write again after that. Oh, i also got my first real paycheck, and lemme tell ya... payday is sweet!

Big News!

Well, not so much time has passed, but some new stuff has come to light, man. So last week, on wednesday, my boss so to speak, calls me up and informs me that something has come up, and that I can transfer to Hiratsuka effective at the beginning of June, if i want it. I only had about 3 hours to think it over though, and it involved my schedule changing to all early shifts, and my days off changing to thurs/fri. The place is however, about 15 minutes by train from Azu's, towards tokyo, saving some time if i meet up with R&T or E&E after work. Well, I accepted, so starting in June, i'll be at a new location! Early Shifts also make it easier to meet up with eric and emily, so i may actually see them more than once a year. Early shifts are.... well, early. Its not really that early, i'll probably have to wake up at 8 am, which I am not a big fan of, but other people would say that's late, so I guess I can't complain. Wait, yes I can, and I probably will.

Well, aside from that, on my day off wednesday, I went to the beach. This past week was "Golden Week". Golden Week is a series of unrelated Japanese national holidays that happened to be right next to eachother. I think they are unrelated... my students were terrible at explaining golden week, and I forgot to ask Azu, so thats my story. Anyway, since there were already like 3 or 4 national holidays, companies are usually nice, and just say "what the hell, take the whole week off". Golden Week is business as usual if you work at Nova, so the only thing golden I enjoyed was the Golden increased business on the trains, and the Golden fact that all my shifts started early that week because thats what my Nova does on holidays, or the Golden closed banks, atms, etc. Well, that aside, the weather was fantastic this week where I live. Not too hot, not cold, no rain, perfect days really... so I guess that was golden. I'm rambling now... anyway, I went to the beach, it was sweet, and we went to a shrine near here, and climbed a billion steps to the top of a little foresty hill, and got to enjoy a rather nice view of the area. The landscape is really beautiful here, and you'll get to see that some day when I stop being lazy and put up some pictures. From the beach, we could see Hakkejima sea paradise, which is an amusement park on an island or something.

In other news, yesterday I went to Azus again, and we saw Spiderman 3. Aside from being alot more expensive, and getting specific reserved seats, Japanese movie theaters are pretty much the same as ours. Atleast the one in Azus town is, it was equally large, and had seats like most new cinemark/regal theaters. One odd little quirk: their discount times are at night, and are expensive during the day, unlike ours. I am told this is because japanese people typically do other stuff at night, and most people use trains to get around. If a movie lets out late, after trains have stopped for the day, people are boned and cant go home, so i guess thats why fewer people go at night (btw Lark, trains do stop here around 12:30ish, so you either go home, take a cab later, or sleep on the cold hard floor of the train station, which involves spooning with hobos if its in Shinjuku) . Our "discount" price was 1200 yen... maybe 11 bucks or so. Usually its 1500 yen or up to 2000 at times i guess. On the first of every month though, all movies are 1000 yen, its some sort of special premier day. Also, wednesday is ladies day, and they get in for 1000 yen, horseshit! Azu told me this is good, so when I get to pay for her tickets in the future I will be paying less! I failed to see how it was a win situation for me.

Thats all for now! Ashley is arriving in Japan soon, and I am heading up to erics tuesday night after work for some good times, so i'll blog about that next. Peace!

Happy Birthday Mike!

P.S. that is the main sign for a hair salon near my apartment.. i encourage you to click on the pic and read it. Later i will post a pic of the main label.