In case I never did it before...

Here is a link to my flickr in case anyone wants to keep track of my photography endeavors or lack thereof...

Got a new dgitial camera! Semi pro one too!

Brand new Canon Digital Kiss X dSLR camera!

Camera
2 lenses with filters
2GB flash card
extra battery
case
10,000 yen back
chance to win a Canon photo printer.
124,800 yen.

Woulda been much more had I got the same things in the states.

Bout to go walk around and take some more pics, but here are some samples.

Farewell/Welcome Party.

I am too tired/exhausted to type about today's events in details, so I will let the pictures do the talking. I drank a bit much today and need to go rest (3 Coronas, 3 Guiness', some Spanish wine, American wine, and 2 Smirnoff Ices).

Look at the pictures!

Enough new shirts for a year in Japan!

Thanks to my mom for mailing me a package recently, I now have 5 new shirts I thought I would be picking up during the now defunct trip to California.

It is hard (near impossible) to find shirts in my size here. Then if I find it in my size, I have to actually LIKE it! So I ordered some shirts thinking I can pick em up when I go home during Golden Week, but since that was a bust, I had my mom ship it over, along with my LOTR Special Edition trilogy DVDs, Indiana Jones trilogy DVDs, and my camcorder. She sent over a few other surprises too.

Anyways this post is about the new shirts and also a special shout out of "I LOVE YOU!" to my mom for helping her son out, in a fashion challenged location of the world. Thanks mama!

ON TO THE SHIRTS!!!

These aren't lame... THESE ARE RVCAAAAAAA!!! (watch 300 to understand)







Not RVCA (pronounced Rew-kah), but still nice!

I get my first terminal illness in Japan... influenza!

The flu, influenza, whatever you want to call it, I got it. Started feeling sick Monday, and was hit hard by it yesterday. It was so bad, my manager sent me home and told me to go to the doctor this morning, which I did.

Now a flu in America means take some pills, drink some liquids, be ready in a few days or by the end of a week. Not in Japan. When I got there, I had to put a thermometer in my armpit for 2 minutes, to confirm I did have this fever of mine. Then the doctor felt by neck and jaws, looked in my throat with a light, and use the stethoscope to check my breathing. All normal stuff right? Until what happens next...

So he told me what he had to do, that I would get something up my nose, and he kept pointing to the bottom of his eye, which freaked me out, but knowing there was no way getting out of it, I manned up. So he gets this long thin qtip and just keeps going up my nose, further than I thought anything could go up it (those days as a child never prepared me for this. OK days as a teenager....last week?).

Then he said I need to do an IV for an hour which freaked me out, because it would be my first IV since getting one to put me to sleep during my wisdom tooth extraction. I could not stop my stomach from wanting to throw up, but maintained my composure and got the needle in my arm and relaxed for just 20 minutes, since I thought I would be starting work in 40 mins. The first 2 mins or so, the needle was SOOO cold, then it felt like nothing. There was a few minutes of burning and itching, but that went away and I was done as soon as it started. They diagnosed me with influenza, gave me some pills (including one that has made children in Japan, dive on the ground or start yelling randomly, AWESOME!) and told me to stay home until Wednesday.

Which leads me to right here with nothing to do outside, because I can't be around other people, nor be outside. Regardless, I felt you would get a rise out of seeing me on my "deathbed".

The doctor was even nice enough to take these pics with my cell phone!

School Bowling Tournament 2007!!!

Several months ago I took a bunch of students out bowling, and everyone seemed to have a great time, regardless of skill level. When asked what should we do for a good social event, the management asked me (the OFFICIAL party/event planner for my school) what should we do. The first thing that came to mind was bowling, and no one seemed to disagree, so the plan was set. Which leads us to this past Sunday...

I began my day by going to my school to prepare for Tuesday's class, shocking our new assistant manager, that I am not as huge as my suit makes me appear to be (I need to get new suits...), and having my head teacher be amazed at all of the blue camo Bape stuff I had on (I still need more!).

Made a quick run to the soon-to-be new office for this company I am cofounding and helped hoist some wood to the third floor. I was on the third floor, someone else on the second, and the other co founder on floor one, just transferring the wood from the truck, to the second floor, then to me. When I saw the amount of wood I thought it would take an hour or so, but we knocked it out in 20 minutes or so.

I headed to Fit House to check on this Casio G Shock Titanium watch I really want, so I could kill a few minutes before the event, until I saw a group of students walk by. As I walked out I saw my manager in plain clothes, which is always a shock, and he was again shocked at me in plain clothes. We both headed up to the 8th floor to the bowling alley to see a few students have already made it, and we had to wait no more than 5 minutes for 100% of the attending group to make it.

We had our first teams made and had a few throws for practice before game 1. My team, being 2 girls, insisted I go first for the practice run, so I grab my favorite 10 lber and knock down 9 pins, then pick up the spare. Then the good ole Tommy Curse set in. When the lane tried to set the next pins for the next bowler, they kept falling as soon as the gate would lift. This happened about 20 times, killing time for my team to practice, and forcing us to move to a new lane for game 1.

Game 1

I didn't do too well. I think I got about 111 or so, which is pretty sad for me (well when you are inconsistent all of the time, it is hard to keep a good average up) and my other teammates did much better than they expected, which I was proud of. I was especially proud of one of my students who was so adamant she was horrible and she got her score in the 70s, which was all she wanted that game. After this game, they lined everyone up from best to worst, and took people from opposite ends and moved them onto teams. Each team had to draw a team leader, being one of the staff members. I got set on a team that seemed unfair from what I saw. The 2 guys were consistently good, and the girl, said her best score ever was 35, and she bowled a 90 in game 1, so she was on a roll. So game 2 began.











Game 2

I swear it isn't my day... I bowled a 98, the 2 other guys did 160 something and 170 something, and the girl, yeah, a 119. Regardless, it was enough for my team to be declared winner of the whole thing! We won 1000 yen Starbucks cards that I got to present to the team. Afterwards, every person who came got a folder signed by every teacher, which some students were REALLY happy to get, to my surprise. So tournament done, what do we do now? What anyone does in Japan after a group event...IZAKAYA!!!

We lose about 3 people and everyone else pretty much makes it to the night of eating and drinking. It was a fun night filled with drinking, laughing and loads of pictures (on my part). One of my students actually came around 10:30 or so after she got off of work, but I was just leaving so didn't get to hang with her too much, I felt bad.

Overall another fun event with the school and I am glad everyone enjoyed themselves. Found out everyone pretty much left before last train, and didn't get much sleep that night, but I know they had fun!







Check out the pictures, to see how much fun bowling is in Japan!

OMG Japan's weather is confused!

So the other day I shot these...





The next day was the same, if not clearer and more SPRING like, but the last 2 days have been dreary and cloudy. Now I don't mind dreary, or cloudy, but after that tease, I am a little upset. Plus it was actually warm! I was able to sleep without cover or a heater, and woke up sweating, compared to needing 2 layers of cover to feel, warm...

Gotta love it!

We had as pretty decent earthquake this morning.

Rocked and rolled for about 2 minutes straight. My room was definitely swaying here on the 4th floor, but all is well. I give it a 3/10 on a Californian earthquake scale (tm).

Ishii sensei comes to visit Nagoya!!!

So my Japanese teacher from California, notified me a while back that she would be coming to Japan and making a stop in Nagoya and wanted to hang out with her 2 kids. Well the time has come and gone and I wanted to post up a pic of the night.

I took them to one of my favorite izakayas and showed them the wonderfullness that is tebasaki and pineapple cassis. Her and her 2 kids LOVED it (I believe her daughter is 31, and son 26, so don't take the term kids like THAT), and we shared a few laughs and some good stories about life in Cali and Nagoya.

What is this? Warmth? Sun? WHAT!?!?!

Well almost...

I am one who always prided myself on loving the cold and so forth, but that was in comparison to the warmth of California. Now I hate it! Luckily it is almost time for the sun to be out and make my life better, so I had to capture a nice morning yesterday.

Here ya go!