Rockin and rollin

Hello again from Japan everyone. Well, atleast to the people that read this. i have no idea how many people do really... only mike and lark ever comment, but anyway! So its been a pretty long time since i posted. Laziness is the reason, sadly. Work has been going pretty well. Recently my company has been in the news a bit for some mishaps with promising students things they couldnt fulfill... which landed them with some restrictions on student contract durations. Anyway, last week was payday, and i was planning to buy a new TV... a 32' flat panel LCD to be exact. At the same time this contract restriction business was in the news, that payday there was some kind of holdups with banks, and our paycheck deposits were late everywhere. So that morning, the TV guys called to confirm the delivery (i was paying upon delivery). i confirmed it, and went to the ATM to get my cash..... only there was no cash. So.... long story short, the delivery guys came with my TV, and i couldnt buy it.... so they took it back, and i got no TV because their lateness boned me! I was also a little worried... comapany in the news... no pay... started to wonder if i still had a job. But anyway, it wasnt a big deal, and i got payed, not soon enough to save my TV, alas, but everything was fine.

I was also informed that my little sister brittany is in Okinawa now! I havent heard from her yet, but i hope to soon, so i can go visit her down there. Maybe she can visit me too, who knows. The marines decided to send her to paradise instead of hell, so that worked out well for her. I havent done much new lately. Eric, Jon, and Emily are all back in America right now on vacations, and Ronn is working overtime like a sucker, so iv had my days off to myself. Last week Azu and i went to the DaVinci museum exhibit thing they have had in Ueno, and we got to see an original piece of his work there, being borrowed from Italy i guess. Its the one with the arcangel Gabriel and the pregnant virgin mary and stuff.... i forget the name and i am too lazy to go look it up. I also read a book! You should all be proud, it doesnt happen often. I read Kafka on the Shore, by Haruki Murakami. It was good. He is a pretty popular japanese novelist, and many, if not all of his books get translated into english. if any of you are readers you have undoubtedly heard of him. Next month, azu and i are hopefully going to climb mount Fuji, if we can get the days off coordinated and all that. Ronn and Tawnya might do it with us as well. Eric and Emily expressed interest also. I'll let you guys know! I am told its a hellish experience, but worth doing.

So, a few days ago i left my cellphone on a train. It couldnt have been worse timing. i was going to meet Azu and Tawnya in Yokohama, we were gonna go have some fun.... anyway, it fell outta my stupid dress pants pocket, and the train sped away before i realized it. So... i didnt know azus number, or ANYONEs number for that matter... so i had no way of getting a hold of them. And despite azu saying we would meet at the train station, without my confirmation neither her or Tawnya ever came to check. So... i ended up waiting 2 hours in a train station, sweating, instead of going and having fun. 2 hours later, i talked to a guy at the station, who told me it had been found, and was in lost and found in Hachioji....... which was about an hour in some random direction i'v never been. SO, i went there, and got it... killed another 2 hours, and then met azu back in yokohama around 7:30 for dinner, instead of 3:00.... then went home. Moral of the story: dress pants are fin lame.

Oh, if you havent already, go look at the sick origami video on mikes blog.

Peace! Daniel

Yo

Well, its time again for a new update! So last week i went to Disney Sea with Azu, Ronn, and Tawnya. It was alot of fun. Somehow, the weather was almost perfect (it got kinda windy at night) and there were no lines! It wasnt even all that crowded, so we lucked out i guess. I was told the lines can be heinous, but we didnt wait more than 15 minutes for anything the whole day, it was pretty nice, especially for anything Disney related. Disney Sea is alot like Disney Land, only it sorta has a waterish theme, and is more geared towards adults, or atleast young adults. You can buy beer at just about all the restaurants there, so you can get ripped if ya feel like it! The show was pretty impressive. It was this big illuminated water show in the big lake/bay thing in the middle of the park. There was this fire dragon that rose outta the water to spew fire also, and the volcano erupted! So i thought it was pretty sweet. Ronn missed the first part of it because he was getting another churro. I didnt blame him though, we looked for damn churros ALL DAY. We kept getting false leads from people. One girl we asked didnt know, but decided that telling us a place where there were in fact NO churros would be better than admitting that she didnt know. By the end of the day we were hell bent on eating some churros, and by god we did. I was double fisting churros when we found them finally. We were gonna eat at the swank disney restaurant there, but when our jaws dropped as we saw the price, we decided to hold off. I spent more on food than my ticket... but i did eat alot, and i enjoyed myself so i have no regrets. The tower of terror and Indiana Jones rides were pretty cool.

This week, i went up to Kawagoe and hung out with eric, emily, jon, ayumi, and ayumi's parents. It was a good time, we got some dinner and had a merry time. Azu was slaving away in the coal mines, so she didnt get to come, alas. It was sorta funny in the horrible sort of way, recently. So, i went to work at about... 7:30 last saturday. That day, Azu left for work before me... i got home around 7:00.... and she got home about 4.5 hours after me, haha. I was telling her how i had a glorious lunch of rice and Shabu Shabu, (this big delicious pot of boiled meat and vegetables and what not), as she was getting ready for bed after her 15 hour work day (that doesnt include travel time). And she goes "wow.... sounds great! i had a 30 minute lunch, and i ate a can of tuna, like a cat!" It was pretty funny... atleast for me, haha. Thats pretty much been par for Azus course the last couple of weeks with her hotel opening. She doesnt really get days off regularly... crazy. But, apparently its not that out of the ordinary here. Azu said atleast she doesnt work in the restaurant, i guess they've been so busy, that the staff has been working basically the entire day, and sleeping at the restaurant, only to wake up and work some more.

Anway, i had a 3 day weekend this week because i was moving to my new branch, and i enjoyed the majority of it at Jon's house, playing xbox and reading his comic books. I was reading Y, The Last Man. Its a sweet comic series about how every creature on the planet with a Y chromosome basically dies of some kind of plague instantly. So yeah, men everywhere all die simultaneously almost. Only one man is unaffected, him and his pet monkey, who is also a male monkey (making the pair doubly amazing). Anyway, its interesting to think about. The world is in a pretty messed up state at the moment, as would be expected i suppose if half the earth's population suddenly died. Also theres the whole fact that the current generation is more or less the last one as well. There is a crazy group of fanatical chicks that have been going around and burning down sperm banks and what not also, because they dont want there to ever be men on the planet again. They are also trying to kill the main character, as you might expect. I think the comics have taught me that being the last man alive would basically suck.

Anyway, we also went shopping, and i bought some japanese comic books that i am going to try and read. They are supposed to be a little easier to read, and have furigana (that says what the kanji are), so maybe i can hack it.

Living at Azu's has been good, a few cultural differences aside, everything has been going well. Tomorrow i start at my new branch, so i will have all new students and coworkers. Anyway, bye for now! My internet is still not reliable, so i will do more once it is.