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.