The Summer
8:49am September 4, 2007
So ya ya ya….here I am again after a long long time. I’m at Adachi right now, one of my visit schools and so I don’t have internet. But I managed to score Mo’s comp for the day (mine is broken…even after I sent it back to Canada, it came back broken, so I sent it to Toshiba international to be fixed) and seeing as I don’t have class until 6th period I figured hey…why not write a blog. So…where to start…hold on I’m going to go check where my last blog left off…k net is being used…forget that. How a school can exist with only one comp that has access to the internet I will never understand. Anyway, I think I left off posting pics of the Minica…my first car. K, a word about the pics, for some reason bubbleshare HATES me and whenever my upload gets to 99% it shuts off. I have been uploading pics to facebook but for the older generation…MOM…this means that you haven’t seen them. I will link you to recent albums at the end of this.
So, I bought the Minica…everything was great…and then I was driving back from Aizu-Wakamatsu about 80km from Fukushima on the expressway and the next thing I know the oil light comes on. I was like hmmm….good thing we’re just outside of Fukushima (at this point I was 10 km away). Well, next thing I know….I don’t know how to write this…imagine the sound of an engine shutting down at 120km/h. Apparently the oil light means….THERE IS NO FRICKEN OIL IN THIS CAR! Now, I was under the impression that you know…it came on when you still had some left, much like the gas light in any car. Apparently, this is not so when it comes to old Mitsubishi Minicas. Anyway, after being stranded on the expressway for awhile Moody came and brought me oil. Which we poured too much in and the engine kept flooding. Getting the car off of the expressway was intense. It would only go about 35km/h and was making the loudest sound. I know, should have had it towed, but that is extremely pricey in Japan . So, as I pull off the expressway and stop to pay, it stalls and I have to push it through the expressway gates after paying. I call my car guy, he comes and takes me home and that is the last I saw of the Mini. They don’t repair major engine components of tiny little yellow plates in Japan , they just replace the motor. It would have cost me 140,000 yen, I paid 70,000 for the car…so no fricken way. The Mini died just after a month. This was in early July. After that I was without a car for about 2 weeks. I managed to get a departing JET’s 1993 Subaru Vivio with only 53,000 kms for 50,000 yen (500 bux). This car is really zippy and in great shape, I’ll probably fuck it up soon enough. The only thing is that this particular model doesn’t have the roomiest back seat. It actually doesn’t have a back seat. The 2 front seats actually touch the back seat so the Viv is basically a 3 seater with the person in the back having to sit sideways. I’ll take pics later today and then upload them so you can see what I mean
It is a decent little car though and has done a good job, I just hate that I can’t take anyone other than Mo anywhere, so many noobs (mom translation: new people, ie new jets) have sat in the back and hated the moment they agreed to get a ride with me. But like I said, alright car and I’ll be able to fit both Mo’s and my snowboarding gear in the back. So that’s really all that matters.
So, the weekend I got the Viv, I also climbed Mt. Fuji . Uhh…this was the 2nd last weekend in July, the 21st or something like that. I feel like I already wrote something about this and that leads me to believe that my last little section has also been covered but whatever. Anyway, we took a bus, that left on the Saturday at 8am from Fukushima, then to Koriyama to pick up other people and then to Iwaki to pick up more people. From there we drove to Fuji . Arrived at around 4, got off the bus and began our hike. We started at the 5th station and stayed at the 7th. By far the easiest section of the climb, it took Katie (a friend of mine who I climbed with all the way to the top) and I about an hour and a half to do it. So, we arrived, had a beer and curry rice dinner. Then we crashed out around 7pm. The altitude was a bitch. At first I felt like I was gonna die, it took a long while to get used to it and I really don’t think I ever did. Although some of my bigger and fitter friends had an even more difficult time going up then I did. People that we all thought were going to get to the top first ended up lagging waaay back behind us. Anyway, Kate and I were like the 5th and 6th people in our group of 25 or so to the 7th station. So after going to bed at 7 most of us got up around 10 and began the hard part of the ascent in the dark. The view from the 7th station was amazing when we got up, the clouds that we had climbed with all day were gone and you could see all the way out to the ocean. Amazing, I tried to get a pic, but the extreme light in the background from the place we stayed at messed up the whole, in the dark picture. So, for the ascent, head lamps are a must. Between the 7th and 8th station it is a bunch of crude stairs carved into rocks and you literally have to climb on your hands and knees. Kate and I left with a group of about 5 others and the lines were RIDICULOUS!! People were EVERYWHERE! So, instead of sticking to the prescribed course which was pretty much, take 2 steps, stand in place for 5 seconds, take 2 steps, stand in place for 5 seconds, rinse and repeat. We decided to take the road less traveled and scaled the sides of the path. We pretty much just climbed straight up rocks that were not making it an easy go. This part definitely took it’s toll on our bodies because we had to pretty much sprint up the rocks then get to a flat section, walk a bit, and then scurry up more rocks, past groups of people. It was by far the most fun though. Waiting for holes in a line and then like 7 of us go scurrying past all these Japanese people who are politely waiting in line. When we reached the 8th station, we took a break, but not for too long as we had passed the huge mass of people and looking down the hill all you could see was a line of headlamps all the way down. When the big group began to catch up we booked it cuz we didn’t want to have to deal with them again. The sheer amount of people was amazing. I really don’t have that many pictures from the night cuz hey, I was climbing fricken Mt. Fuji , my mind was in other places then…hey I should document this for the world to see. It was more like….KILL ME NOW…WHY DID I DO THIS??
The 8th station to the 9th station was by far the hardest and longest and made me the closest to suicide I have ever been. First of all the path is not a well worn path despite the thousands of people that climb Fuji every year. It is all little pieces of volcanic rock that slide and move and are a bitch to walk on. On top of that, we began to get lovely rain and intense wind…by lovely I mean, rain that makes you hate weather in general. It wasn’t too bad in all honesty but I wasn’t the greatest either. Kate and I tried to keep up with the other 4 that were with us by this time (one guy had to stop and was left behind…pirate code, you lag behind, we leave you behind) but their pace was too much for me and I had to drop back. Kate did as well and I can’t tell if it’s cuz she didn’t want me to be alone or if she couldn’t take it either. Anyway, this part was STEEP and my legs were crying for the entire part. The weirdest part is that there were Japanese people just laid out on the path sleeping or just chilling. Like wrapped in rain gear sleeping…strange. Oh and this part of the path was wider, like you would expect a path to be for the top of Fuji . The people we did run into were easy enough to pass. I had to stop a few times for this section, plus it was only like 12:30 and we were aiming to get to the top for sunrise (4:30am). So, I knew we had plenty of time, but obviously the testosterone had been flying about on the bus and I couldn’t be passed by anyone in our group…I would be less of a man then…wouldn’t I? So we powered on and got to the top at about 1:30 or 1:45am. Uhh…it wasn’t that amazing at this point, rain, hard wind, darkness, although there were vending machines and shops but the shops were closed. We all changed into warmer gear at the top cuz all we were doing was standing around. We took turns standing in the middle of a little circle that we made and eventually around 3 a shop opened. There were quite a few people by this point but we piled in. Ate some overly expensive ramen and then eventually went back outside, slightly warmer. By this point, I had had it. I just wanted the sun to rise so I could get the hell off that mountain. I was not looking forward to the climb down and I did not want to walk around the rim at the top. I did hear that the highest part was still covered in snow and you actually couldn’t get there. So, whatever, I saw the crater took pics of a torii, took a vid or two of the sunrise (I will post all these at the bottom of this fuji rant) and then I peaced out. The sunrise was AMAZING though. Directly above the clouds the sun came over them, it was warm, FINALLY and it did feel pretty good. I went down with Will and Kate, but soon after Will left us for his girlfriend Phil. The walk down, although shorter than the walk up still sucked. My feet were killing me by the end, it was just so steep and the footing was crappy, but I did get a ton of pics all the way down cuz there was light and it was amazing, the rain stopped, sun was shining. It took us about 2 and a half hours to get down or something like that. So we were at the bottom by roughly 8am. The weirdest thing of all time though…there’s a guy who came over with me on JET last year, he went to Mac and although we never had really met, we dated the same girl right after each other. We only figured this out through talking at the Toronto Orientation stuff. Anyway, I have run into this guy randomly in Tokyo twice. Like neither of us knows that the other one is even there and we end up in the same bar. So, Kate and I are about 30 minutes from the end of the hike and I’m ranting about some random thing and the next thing I know, Tom turns around in front of us and goes…Brent? Now what are the chances of that? Strange eh? So I hung out with him for the rest of the hike and then he left. He was supposed to climb with his friend but the guy had decided against it at the last minute so Tom did it all by himself. So ya, we got back to the main area and stretched out waiting for the bus to come…it came at 11 and we had to just shuffle the last of our people off the mountain. Oh, a lot of people bought wooden hiking sticks and had them branded all the way up the mountain, each station has a branding section. I did not want a stick cuz…what am I gonna do with a stick…ship it home and display it on my wall?? Uhh…NO. So, I got a little plaque thing and had the back of it branded with one brand from every station. Good enough for me. It should be in the pics. Here are my 3 fuji albums.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2118302&l=dd8e6&id=72602319
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2118306&l=3698a&id=72602319
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2118308&l=c168d&id=72602319
Oh and I should add that this was the first FuJET event that Shaun Moody and I organized. A complete success I must add. After the climb we drove about 45 minutes to a really really nice onsen and all of us finally got the Fuji stink off of us. My legs killed me for about 4 days after the climb and it’s definitely something I’ll never do again, but at least I did it. (I really hope I didn’t write about the climb already…even if I did I’m leaving this part).
The week after Fuji , I had to have a meeting with the lovely man who lives across the hall from me. Apparently he heard a noise at some point and felt the need to call Kenchou about it (everyone knows what Kenchou is right). So I had to have this meeting with my supervisor, him and the 2 guys that set up housing for all of the JETs in Fukushima Prefecture . WICKED! The meeting went for 2 hours and it was him telling blatant lies, the same as always, I’m stealing bicycles, I’m banging on doors, leaving garbage outside with a few new ones that were interesting to say the least. What I found funny about the whole thing was that in the meeting before hand with just the Kenchou guys I came out and was like, look this guy is just straight up racist. He doesn’t want me living in his building cuz I’m a gaijin. And the Kenchou guy’s response, yup he is a racist…but you know, you’ll just have to get along with him. WHAT??? How is that their response?? This guy has harassed me all year, then I find out that he actually teaches in a school that is a 2 hour drive from Fukushima ….fricken MOOOVE man! So, these guys tried to move me into another apartment and I was like…uhh…I don’t want to move, if this guy has the problem why can’t he move. To which the reply was…uhh…he just can’t move….uhh…HA JEEZ! So ya, this guy has apparently given me ONE MORE CHANCE, but if he complains again then I’m gone. How in the hell does that work??? I even said, so pretty much if he wants, I’m gone. It was ridiculous. The best things that came out of the meeting were. His daughters are now afraid of the English language because they hear me talking. I HAVE TO shave my beard because I am scary with a beard and he also accused me of smoking in the stairwell and how he was worried about his children’s health this turned into an interesting situation. I obviously said that I had never smoked in the stairwell, cuz I haven’t. He then said he saw me, multiple times. I got a bit pissed at this cuz he was blatantly lying to my face. So I just went, SERIOUSLY! C’MON NOW! Then he proceeded to tell me how he also smokes. He smokes in his car, he smokes in his apartment, he smokes everywhere! Except in the stairwell. At this I turned to my super and said….if he’s worried about his kids inhaling smoke, why does he smoke in his apartment and his car where they spend most of their time…this doesn’t make any sense. He kinda avoided the comment somehow by bringing up the fact that I am always loud and how he is sympathetic to foreigners but after about January he got fed up because every weekend after that I was loud. I then said, well, I go snowboarding EVERY WEEKEND in the winter, so how could I have possibly been loud. I even had my season pass to ALTs (a ski resort) on me. Also when I brought up the fact that NO ONE ELSE had complained and wasn’t that odd because if I was as loud as he claims you would figure that someone else would have complained he tacked on that in actuality he was speaking for the entire building. Well now! When I asked who these other people were that shared his views he said he didn’t want to say because they had asked not to be named. HA JEEZ!!!! So, ya, that sucked, but he has definitely calmed down. I had to go and give omiyage to the whole building announcing that Mo was coming and that I hope we could all have a good friendship with one another. Such BULLSHIT!
The weekend after Fuji was the Group A Tokyo Orientation. This was a bitch to get time off for. The FuJET President and Vice-President (in my eyes, VP = way more important) are guests of Kenchou (government offices). We aren’t there in an official TOA (Tokyo Orientation Assistant) type of capacity. But we are guests of Kenchou. So, Shaun, cuz his BOE (Board of Education) doesn’t suck, got all 3 days, Mon, Tues, Wed of both Orientations off no problem, not having to use Nenkyu (vacation) because we were in a way, working. I on the other hand got the Tues, Wed for Group A and the Tues for Group B. WTF?????? So, I used nenkyu for the Monday of Group A and the Wednesday of Group B (I had 2 days left). What I don’t get is why I got 2 days off for the first group and only one for the second. Who knows. The other thing was that I had NOTHING to do at school. No one was ever there!! But I’ll get to that. So, the Friday night before Group A came, we went out in Koriyama as a send off to the part of our little crew that was leaving. Good, drunken times were had by all. Sunday we headed down to Tokyo . We had Paul and Will, two good friends of mine, who were leaving with us and we met up with Matt Harris. He’s still here but his BoE just gave him the time off for the hell of it. He lives in the sticks and his BoE gives them all like an extra 5 days off if they re-contract plus extra days for summer vacation. 2 other people from his area went to Hawaii for 2 weeks and then did a road trip in the US for 2 weeks….WTF?? Where is my month off?? Anyway, Sunday we chilled around the Keio and picked up some of the noobs that we had been in touch with over the internet and we went for dinner. Mo EVENTUALLY got there. People that got off her plane were arriving at the Keio at like 6 and she didn’t get there until like 8…obviously I know this cuz I was running around like an idiot being like…are you from Ottawa? Are you from Ottawa ? So, ya, we went out for dinner…can’t remember where. Wasn’t too crazy of a night from what I remember. Shaun and I were on the ball on Monday, we had to be at the Keio by 8am in order to meet and greet all our noobs and tell them about the night out. We had little flyers made up and gave them to everyone that sat in the Fukushima section in this big huge hall. After that it was selling Kanji Survival Guide time. The way the FuJET makes money is by selling these little books. They pretty much give you the Kanji, Hiragana and English translation for everything that you are going to come across in your daily life. Great little books. Washing machines, ATMs, how to answer your phone at school, how to use the photocopier at work, etc etc etc. They’re great and they’re a FuJET publication, so we make roughly 60 or 40% on everyone we sell in Tokyo (not sure exactly how much we get, it’s still being debated with AJET (the national body that FuJET is a chapter of). Anyway, we had tons of flyers made up and we went around pitching this book to tons of new JETs. We didn’t do extremely well, probably sold like 150 in total at the conference. After a day of that, we then took our noobs out to Takadanobaba, the same place that we were taken as noobs last year. Now, I do have something to gripe about, but seeing as I’ve already heard that noobs have found my blog, I’m going to be PC about it. Although, if they have found this blog, there is no way that they have read to this point. So, after giving out our little flyers to a nomi-tabe-houdai (all you can eat and drink) for 3000 yen (about 30 bux, probably about 26 bux) people told us straight up right away…I’m not going to make it. We got a range of excuses mostly the same in both groups. Well, 3000 yen is expensive, I’m not going to drink so I’m not going, and we even got I have too many welcome parties coming up when I get to my actual placement so I’m not going to go to this one. WHAT??? K, how is 3000 yen too expensive for all you can eat and all you can drink for 2 hours!! This paired with the fact that you have the possibility to meet all of the people that you are going to be closest to in the next year, 2 years or 3 years….HA JEEZ…you gotta be kidding me. And we obviously got the…well, if I’m not gonna drink, do I have to pay the full 3000?? YES YOU DO!! It’s 1000 extra yen for all you can drink, 2 cokes are gonna cost you 1000 yen. Like C’MON NOW!!! I just don’t get these people. You’re in Tokyo…on JET so you’re gonna be making decent money…WHY NOT SPLURGE AND TREAT YOURSELF TO A 3000 YEN DINNER AND DRINKS??? HA JEEZ. K, that’s all I’m gonna say about that. We did get a decent turn out for Group A. Although, Mo was sick and she couldn’t make the first night out. Which kinda sucked, I had to be all Vice-President and at the same time, be the boyfriend. So, ya, the night went alright. We met everyone in the lobby and Shaun had made a 2 meter long sign that said, FUKUSHIMA, so we held that up and obviously I screamed all through the lobby and berated other kens for their dinky little signs. At one point, I was left on my own ot wait for people that were straggling behind, so I did a lap of the lobby with this huge sign on my shoulders flapping it like wings and telling people they wished they were going to Fukushima (we had had a little bit to drink before we got to the Keio). Finally the stragglers came and I took them on the train to Takadanobaba, which was easy considering I had a group of 5. Shaun on the other hand had a group of like 30! HA HA. After Nomi-tabe-houdai we went to Karaoke, where Shaun stupidly split the group in 2. His room ended up dead and my room ended up BUMPING. So that was decent enough. After that we tried to hit a bar, but everything was closed and it was pouring rain. So we sent the noobs back and went back to our hotel to crash. On the Tuesday Paul left early in the morning (like 6am) to return to Scotland, so it was kind of fitting that he finished in Japan the same way he came in. We on the other hand slept in. We got up around noon and shot over to the Keio. We then had to sit through the Fukushima-ken meeting which was ok. Everyone had to introduce themselves, which for some reason I get intensely nervous for, everyone else that was up there with us went on about where they’re from, where they’re placed in the ken, how long they’ve been here, etc etc. I was like, hi, I’m Brent, I’m your FuJET V.P. and that was it. All the noobs had to introduce themselves and give one sentence. Mo stands up 3rd and says, I’m Mo from Ottawa, Canada annnddd….I’m Brent’s girlfriend. Great work! We didn’t have CIR’s (coordinators of international relations) so they had the prefectural translator doing their work. It was kinda funny when she was like…take your luggage to the room Hana not the Hana room…before 8pm, or when she referred to Shaun as THE SHAUN. Shaun, myself and two of the Fukushima FOA’s then fielded questions that to the noobs were deathly important and we were all thinking, ha jeez, you’re so new. But to be fair, I was doing the exact same thing last year. Oh and special note, Shaun and I met up with the Kenchou guys before hand and the entire conversation was conducted in Japanese. Now, Shaun’s Japanese is rocking, so he was talking back to them and everything and I on he other hand had to just stand there like…uhh….what? But I was kinda pleased that I didn understand most of the conversation. Now, I’m not at a point where my speaking skills are amazing or anything but my listening comprehension is actually getting to the point that I can pick out words and if I know the context I can kinda get a handle on what’s going on.
That night was the embassy night so, everyone except for the Americans went to their embassy. We met in the lobby, again with the huge sign. Took about 20 people out for dinner then took them back. After that we met up with the club group and went to Shibuya to go clubbing. Well, some girls weren’t wearing proper foot attire and one girl even forgot her ID. So we ended up at Gas Panic. This is a small gaijin club. They actually have a huge sign above the bar that says YOU MUST HAVE A DRINK AT ALL TIMES TO STAY IN GAS PANIC. So you can imagine what this place was like. Anyway, we were out until like 3 or so. I went back to the hotel and Moody stayed to wrangle up the rest of the people. One of the 2nd years (a female who will remain nameless) ended up puking all over Shaun outside of the bar, that’s what funneling beers will do to you EMILY. Whoops! Anyway, Wednesday was a bitch. We had to be at the hotel by 8am again to get people together for the bus back to Fukushima . Soo hungover, but Shaun and I got through it. We were split on to either bus and had to make a couple announcements about FuJET stuff, list serve, forums etc etc etc. And try to help answer questions about the “meeting the supervisor ceremony” we were driving to. Trying to remember how it went down just from last year was kinda difficult. So, they got through it, Shaun and I sat in the back and just watched. Then during talking time, Shaun got to translate for BoE’s that couldn’t speak English along with another TOA that has really good Japanese while the other TOA with less decent Japanese and I, the grunts, had to unload all of the bags from both buses into the main room of the hall that we were at. HA JEEZ. After that, I went with Mo to her school and then back to the apartment and was asleep by 7:30pm.
So, nothing really happened that week. Mo and I ordered a bed and a shelf. Blah blah blah, nothing going on at school, I left like every day at about 10 or 11am cuz there were literally 2 people there. Went to the beach a lot and just chilled out. I did have a meeting with the principal about my goals and aims for the coming year. I wrote out a 3 page single spaced report discussing my past year and how crappy Higashi was and that I would have left had it not been for my new super and Mo coming. He was intensely apologetic and was very interested in one of my goals to teach global issues and have students use English as a language to discuss global issues. He really wants to use it in the school. Too bad when my super and I brought it up to the teachers they shot it down as they are too busy to add in something like that. HA JEEZ.
Group B was pretty much the same deal as Group A. We planned the same thing but this time at least we knew what the hell was going on. I got out of work at around 11 on the Monday and took the Shinkansen down. We stayed in a nice hotel this time, which was sweet. We also got a booth in a room that had a bunch of different companies in it so we could push the K.S.G. Which did really well with this group. We think that we sold somewhere near 400, which should give us a decent chunk of change to play with for the next year and pay for all of our Tokyo costs…cuz hey, we’re FuJET representatives, so FuJET should be paying for us. Past precedent my friends, past precedent. Group B was a bit crazier. After Karaoke about 10 of us ended up at a hostess bar, it was the only thing open. The funny thing was we had like 6 girls with us. We told them we just wanted to drink so the girls in the bar stayed away but it was still kinda weird. If we hadn’t been as drunk as we were it probably would have felt stranger. Highlights from this night are: a noobie licking another noob’s face and one guy jumping out of his cab at a red light and then sleeping on the street. There are more, but you know, it’s the internet. The second day, same thing, except this time we had CIR’s and knew what was going on. Then off to the club to try and get in, this time we told people bring ID and proper shoes (no flip flops) but yup, someone forgot their ID again. So it was back to Gas Panic. I did far too many tequila shots which made the morning…SO MUCH WORSE…oh and we got a double room in our hotel for 3 of us. Matt Harris was also present for this Orientation, so who slept with Shaun Moody…I DID I DID!! It was sexy. Anyway, the bus back sucked. I hated my life almost as much as I did climbing up Fuji . I gave some announcements you know, helped at rest stops, etc etc. We got back to Fuku, this time they dropped us off in Minami Fukushima (near where I live). Oh and yes, we were still riding the bus, they just stopped and were like, K, see you later. It was kinda strange. (I feel like I’ve said strange too many times, but then again, I did just hit page 7). So, the week that followed, once again, no one at work cuz it was summer vaca, so I went to the beach etc. The next week I went to Goshiki-numa (literally translated 5 colour ponds). So these ponds are 5 different colours, one is supposed to be red but it wasn’t at all. The others though were intense colours that I have never seen in a body of water before. So cool!
Goshikinuma pics
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2131436&l=43ed0&id=72602319
That day my supervisor decides to call and ask where I am…whoops!! But I did get myself out of that jam unscathed…what can I say, the new super loves me.
So, the 16th and 17th of August were the Fukushima Orientation. I was obviously an FOA with a presentation on Telecommunications. I did a ton of research into this and my presentation was a flawless piece of art. I actually emailed the guy that did it last year and then just changed a few sentences from his…hahaha! The night before the orientation, I had all the FOA’s over for a night of poker.
Class time 11:40am oh and I just realized I missed putting some stuff in, but you’ll never know what it is, cuz you already read it….hahaha!
Anyway, poker went well, I lost for the first time in Japan . Sad, but true. The next day, orientation day one. FOA’s really didn’t have to do much. Moderate a discussion group or two, take a group for lunch, etc etc. Not too bad. That night we had the orientation party. Group A meets Group B and vice versa. Again the same old thing! I don’t want to pay 3000 yen for 5 hour nomi-houdai…HA JEEZ. Ya, you know what you should do, not meet the people that live around the ken so that even when you want to go and see something cultural, not just a party, in the area, you won’t have a place to stay cuz everyone will be like…who the hell is that? So, ya, it was a pretty crazy night. If you remember last year, this was the night that made me late the next day for the 2nd day of orientation. This year, I was not late. I did the same presentation 6 times in a row. The first one was horrible as it was the first time I had read through the presentation in over a month. But after that I knew my stuff and it was easy. Lunch again and then a culture presentation done by all of the FOA’s. Shaun and I split Sports. He did a survey of his kids to find the top 3 most popular people in each sport. I got videos of them off of youtube and then we somehow easily talked Mo into putting them into a slide show presentation while we played FIFA on PS2, oh and I bought a North American PS2 from a guy that was leaving, so Japanese games don’t work on it, but feel free to send me any you like. LOL. Presentation went well and for once I wasn’t nervous standing in front of a bunch of people because I had presented to all of them in small groups in the morning. With that, the F.O came to a close.
Friday night was rest night. I had 5 people stay at my place because Saturday was the beach bomb. In 2 cars, 7 people drove to Iwaki . This year the aizu homestay was on a different weekend so we had a decent turn out of JETs, but because the forecast said it was going to rain all night a lot of them pulled out. Good thing is that it didn’t rain at all. It was a sweet party on the beach, played football Frisbee, went swimming, got drunk, crashed out in a tent and then got up in the morning, went swimming and drove the 2 and a half hours home. UGGGHHHH!!!!
So, now I feel like we’re up to last weekend. I did miss some stuff like taking noobs out to the Waraji festival in Fukushima , then the 2nd noob night out. Going to lake inawashiro with a few people and crashing the aizu noob party, etc etc. Last weekend we had a Ministers of Fun meeting in Koriyama . A bunch of the 2nd years went out and talked about upcoming events throughout the ken. The Ministers of Fun are just people that want to plan things in each area and in general have fun. So, that we did. I do have to say that the group was a bit different with the few people that left missing from it. So ya, we pretty much planned something for every weekend well into October. And then we got drunk, obviously.
This last weekend, was Coop’s last night out in Fukushima, he’s going back to the US this Saturday coming and went to be with his wife (oh he married a Japanese girl over the summer) in Akita this week. So, we obviously…go drunk and he went into a pachinko parlor naked and sat down between a few Japanese guys. I got pics of it too!
Coop’s last night pics
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2131438&l=05572&id=72602319
Saturday was a big party in Aizu-Wakamatsu, so we went down, just Scott, Mo and I represented the Fukushima city area people as most were still recovering from Friday night. It was a good time, but the whole 2 nights getting drunk in a row is too much for me. Anyway, I have class again.
What’s coming up? International Festival in Aizu, Nagano soccer tournament (shaun is running it), Canyoning to Gunma (I’m running that one, it’s crazy, 32 people) and Mo and I want to try to go to South Korea in 2 or 3 weeks if we can get a good price on a flight. Long weekends coming up like crazy! After that, who knows….oh, Nihonmatsu lantern festival too. Tons of stuff going on. Oh and I’m averaging about 3 classes a day even at my base school, so things are looking up. I’ve also been video taping my classes and just about everything I do the last 2 days. I had a friend make a video of his year here splicing together different clips, so I’m going to try my hand at it as I thought it was pretty cool. I’ll post all the crappy vids I make up on here. Here is his video
Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/wat
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/wat
As a side bar, just had a kid mutter some stuff in Japanese about Japanese people and Foreigners and then give me the finger…first time that’s happened…Anyway, hopefully this appeases those who actually still check it.
Ttyl
B
