Thinking Outside the Box

I'd been planning to post this one two days ago, but things/people just keep dropping in. So I finally got some time and thought I'd write up something of interest. Once again I'm light on the pictures, but at least this time they're on the way. I made sure to buy a disposable camera, they're being developed as I type. Won't have time to pick them up until Thursday though. Friday night proved more interesting than planned. I ended up being invited out for drinks by some folks on their way home from a PTA meeting if you can believe it! One of the guys was hilarious, and is apparently a maker of some fairly famous soy sauce around the region. I should go check out his shop one day. I don't know how they make that stuff, do you!? Ok, so Saturday was my 29th birthday. Getting far too close to that number starting with thi- but what can you do right? My lovely sister was the first to call me with birthday wishes from back home. I got some emails too, thanks folks...

Saturday morning dawned wet a rainy, holding on par with my weekend-ruining weather conspiracy. I was supposed to meet an Australian friend at 10 for coffee then we were going to head to a festival in Mikuni. He and his girlfriend picked me up a little late, but we made it to the festival on time. Truth be told I'm not exactly sure what the purpose of this festival is, but the little town was packed with people. Greg and I had been asked to help pull one of the many carts through the town. The carts were big enough to hold around 6~8 people inside who were playing drums, shamisen and flutes doing some kind of song/chant. On top were two more people to make sure we didn't run into any people or buildings as well as push the multitude of low-hanging phone and power lines out of the way. Granted this may sound rather boring, but it gets interesting when you take into account the fact that each cart had a 5+ meter tall samurai um...puppet thing on top and that the streets in...

I likely won't be posting much during the week because there isn't much to tell. Monday thru Friday I work 12-9. Wednesdays and Fridays I commute to work on the local train, which adds approximately 3.5 hours to my day. BUT! On Thursdays my schedule is a schmoov 2 classes, one kids class at 5pm and my brightest highschool student at 7pm. One nice thing about my job is that when I'm not teaching, preparing lessons or doing paperwork I'm not supposed to be in the school. So on Thursday I roll in to school, punch in, chat with the manager to see what needs to be done (if anything), prep my classes if I need to and then LEAVE. That's right, I only work for about two hours on Thursdays. I usually just hang out at home or do my errands like going to the post office and buying groceries, washing the dishes and doing the laundry. Not the most fun I admit, but it sure beats working. Today I already did all my errands and thought I'd post a picture of my uber-tiny living...

Saturday dawned rainy wet and had no signs of letting up. I know it's simply my pessimistic nature peaking through but sometimes it seems that the tenki-no-kami-sama (weather gods) conspire to ruin at least one half if not all of my weekend by raining or snowing. Since I had things to do though I grabbed my latest umbrella and headed out to perform my errands. I returned a few hours later several thousand yen poorer, and more damp than I'd bargained. On the plus side I was actually able to get all the errands I had planned completed. Boo-ya. Being the glutton for punishment I am I decided around 8pm that I had had enough sitting on the floor of my apartment staring out the window, so I grabbed a dry pair of jeans and headed to the only bar likely to have regular people in it: Bear's Bar . All told Bear's isn't a bad place to grab a drink. Cocktails and anything in a bottle is a cool 500 yen and the staff are friendly. The two downsides to it are that a) it's app...

It's been suggested, several times I might add, that I should have started one of these things when I first came over to Japan. That would have required me actually putting an effort into typing things up as they came. As well, I'll admit I'm still not too sure how comfortable about writing up all my personal thoughts and experiences on a website for the world to see. Granted, there aren't likely to be millions of people reading this thing, but you know what I mean. For a first post we might as well start with a little background then. I'm a Canadian guy (pushing 30 but not quite there just yet) living in Japan since December of 2004. I teach English at one of the big Eikaiwa joints. Basically I think of myself as a kind of fast food employee serving English happy-meals to the Japanese population. I'm good at what I do, but I don't consider it a career by any stretch. My students are improving and enjoy my classes. Hell if you really want me to sing my pra...