Thinking Outside the Box

Hi everyone, Or at least the three people who have maybe not forgotten this page exists. I really haven't posted anything up here. Not for lack of things going on, or lack of available time. I have no useful excuse. Just deal with it. I have. :) Anyway, here's a quick recap: September 9th, 2006 was my last day of work in Japan. After saying goodbye to all the great friends I made (a very difficult parting), I headed to Tokyo for a few days. It was rainy and still a little hot, but started to get cool by the last day. In Tokyo I went to the a bunch of new places like Ueno Park and Zoo, the National Science Museum and several others whose names I can't recall. It was a little lonely those last few days. No phone, not much in the way of internet...so no email, and no one to hang out with. Siteseeing is fine and good, but tough when you're feeling displaced like that. When I got back I felt like an outsider for a month, easily. Getting back into touch with old f...

I'm back in Canada, as some or all of you may know but I'm not going to talk about that just yet. I'm gonna talk about Japan again. More specifically my trip to Tokyo last month. We arrived at the Shinjuku highway bus terminal EARLY on Friday morning. At 5:30 there are people out and about, but not a whole lot is open except convenience stores and the bus station. We asked around a bit and found the station we were to catch our bus to the amusement park from with a minimal amount of trouble. There was a bit of time to waste until then so we grabbed some food from a local conbini and sat to rest a bit. We arrived at Fuji Q Highland somewhere around 9:30 if I remember right. A little tired, but looking forward to the day. We hit several rides, the most exciting being FujiYama rollercoaster! The track was so long that there are three sets of cars on it at any given time. The haunted hospital was really great too. Three stories of creepily-decorated rooms and VERY in-charac...

We interrupt our irregularly unscheduled programming with this brief segue into um...strange vocabulary. So this week has been a little odd. I packed up most of my stuff and mailed it off yesterday. On the plus side, it cost quite a bit less than I was budgeting it to. On the negative side, I had to fill out tons of flipping forms just to send them! I can understand the postal service wanting to be sure they aren't going to lose your stuff, customs wanting to know what they're transporting and the government salivating to slap taxes on everything when it arrives, but this was bloody ridiculous. The night before I spent a goodly while carefully taping and labelling everything with clear TO and FROM addresses. So when I get to the post office the lady kindly informs me that I have to fill out another form for EACH BOX with exactly that information, plus the contents and value of each. Also, I had to fill out a second address in the event the package couldn't be delivere...

Well, I got to see the inside of a Japanese ambulance on Thursday. It's pretty much just like Canadian ones, except for the guys ask you all the questions in Japanese. Imagine that! Answering questions in another language is bloody difficult when you're in a lot of pain and I really don't recommend it. Sitting on the floor of my apartment watching TV before breakfast then suddenly going from a stiff back to wracked with pain and unable to move would be scary at home. Add in the fact that I don't know where the nearest hospital is and that it took me four calls to get a friend on the phone who could help me and I fully admit to being terrified. A trip to the hospital and a short stay later I found out that Japanese hospital charges are lower than ours and I should be fine. BUT! I wouldn't wish kidney stones on anyone I didn't have a serious hate-on for. Seriously not recommended. For those of you who don't already think I'm crazy, I didn't canc...

Now don't go thinking anything sordid you perverted readers! Over the weekend here Fukui held it's annual "Phoenix festival". The symbol of Fukui prefecture is a phoenix, because the city has been destroyed several times due to war, fire, and earthquakes. The festival is great fun. For three days they set up tons of kiosks with food, drink and some games. There is a huge yosakoi dance festival on Saturday night and it's just a great time. Oh yeah, it's not illegal here to walk on the street with a drink either, so you can imagine there were a lot of folks out who'd had a fair share to drink. Some of the students and teachers from school spent a few hours having dinner then headed down to check out the festival. It was tons of fun and there should be some good pictures coming. I was with friends who actually had digital ones, so hopefully I'll be able to post some soon. I didn't stay out at late as a lot of my friends because I had to be up ...

Well I bought my ticket home on Monday, paid for it Tuesday. Started telling friends and co-workers about the when/where on Wednesday. It's a little strange. I don't really feel like I'm going anywhere yet, even though I've been trying to pack and all that kinda stuff for quite a while now. I still have a fair bit to sort through and try to stuff into boxes that are going to cost a fortune to mail home. As much as I may complain about my apartment and the annoyances of my job I'm going to be really sad to leave. I like Japan a lot, and the people here (ok, most of them) are great. If I had a job in my chosen field and a house / living space bigger than a postage stamp I would consider making this home. However, that's not really an option right now, and I am certainly looking forward to coming home mid-September. Now if only I had a new job waiting...

Most excellent greetings my friends and anonymous readers. The weather has been all over the map lately, but we were blessed with absolutely fabulous weather on Sunday. Project Luck had planned a huge beach party for Sunday and we were worried the weather forecast (cloudy skies and rain) would come true. Maki's friend Kayo was to pick me up WAY early at 7am, at which point I was still sleeping. I was able to get dressed, pack my junk and run the 8 blocks to the pickup spot in just over ten minutes! Not bad for someone who'd only gotten around 3 hours of actual sleep I think. To top it off we ended up being somewhere around 25 minutes early to where we needed to be. Talk about irony! Anyway, the setup they had at Takasu beach was really great. There was a full square of open tents, and they even had a food and beer tent set up! We spent the whole day doing various activities. The first thing I tried was making some bead accessories. My bracelet was a mess, but one of the girls l...