yay for trips

Well, alot has happened recently, where to start... Ok, well i'll start with work. So, Nova imploded, declared a type of bankrupcy that protects them from creditors and lets them search for a sponsor to help them rehabilitate. If no sponsor is found, the company will be liquidated and cease to exist. Today they were supposed to announce which was going to happen... and so far i'v heard that they've found a sponsor, and are going to announce who it will be in 3 days. The down shot of it, is it looks like we will all get laid off and possibly rehired, so the company doesnt have to pay our unpaid salary. So... it looks like we will have to go through the whole system of trying to claim our salary from the government, which will give us 80% it looks like, surely after a long, drawn-out beurocratic procedure of some sort. That being said, i'v been looking for a new job... and i interviewed for something that possibly starts in January, so we'll see how that goes. Onward to cooler things.

So a few weeks ago, Azu, Eric and I went to South Korea. That was good fun. It is pretty different from Japan, but similar in some ways too. It sorta reminded me of America and Japan, but had its own unique Korean style as well. The people acted very differently. Not shy and all, and alot more... pushy i guess i would say, in the physical sense. School boys on the train in Seoul seemed to be locked in eternal combat with one another. Girls at the palace we visited pretty much swarmed me and started asking questions in English, and shouting at me that i was handsome, lol... Japanese school girls will sometimes look at me and giggle, but they would definately never talk to me, heh. On the escalator, people would just push right by you, taxis would drive away if they didnt like where you wanted to go... many big differences. We saw alot of Seoul, and ate alot of good spicy korean food/barbecue. Eric and i also watched some sweet Starcraft matches on TV. They have a channel sorta like G4, but mostly dedicated to starcraft and some warcraft3 matches, it rocked. I imagine thats how normal dudes feel when they watch sports. We also went to the National Museum of Korea where my friend Sook works, which is a pretty huge museum, and saw alot of cool history stuff. After that we got boozed up and tried to get into a night club by ourselves, with 0% Korean.... that didnt go so well, so after that we got boozed up back at our guest house with some sweedish girls who were also staying there, and we passed out watching starcraft. The guest house was great by the way, really cheap... like 30 bones a night, and we had our own rooms, nice bathroom, a kitchen, a computer with internet, and could even do laundry if we wanted. Prices in general were cool, a 20 minute taxi ride was like 4 bucks, i was floored. Food was the only thing that was about normal price. Clothes were somewhat normally priced as well, a little on the cheaper side. But admission to all the places we went was really cheap compared to similar places in Japan. It was a good trip, and Sook made most of it possible.

I also went to Saga, in Japan a few days ago. Saga is on the island of Kyushu, which is the southwestern island out of the 4 biggest islands. Since its more south, which is usually warmer in Japan, i expected it to be just that, but because Saga is on the west coast of Kyushu, it was actually colder, because the west coast faces the Japan sea, which gets its coldness from Russia and the like... so it was a little colder actually. We saw a cool festival, and a castle in the area. We stayed and Azu's friend Juri's house, which is sorta in the countryside one night, and a ryoukan the next night. A ryoukan is a japanese style lodging place. They usually outfit you with a nice yukata to wear, and a nice open room where everyone sleeps on Tatami mats and futons, and you shower in the public bath or hotspring. It was really nice, we had our own hotspring outside our room, and the big public one as well. They served a pretty fantastic breakfast of fresh cut fruit, Sandwiches, bread, milk, coffee, etc. We saw alot of the countryside, various islands, and lookout points, it was very pretty.

Oh, also..... we ate live squid. Yep, it was nuts. We went to this restaurant on the ocean, with tanks as you walk in with all the live animals that will soon be on your plate. Its famous for squid... so we got 4 squids, one for Azu, Juri, Azu's mom, and Juri's mom. I ordered tempura.... So, the squids came.. and there they were, they had their backs sliced up so you could pull the meat off them, so they werent exactly.... lively, but they were alive allright. when you poked em or took some meat, their teantacles would move! I had a few pieces, it was pretty good. Eventually Juri's mom chopped the tentacles, and i had one of those too, lol... it sucked to my plate! i had to pull it off forcefully. the tentacle was pretty chewy, and the suckers were sorta... crunchy. Not as good as the "meat" on the back. Anyway... squid doesnt get any more fresh than that. I took a video, so if ya wanna see, email me, and i'll send it to you. After that we stayed at the Ryoukan and went to Fukuoka the next day, before we caught a plane back home to Kanagawa. A good trip!

Well, I'll try to post again a little earlier about developments with the work situation. Happy Birthday Eric!

Peace.