SO... Dr.J came over. He checked out my place and then we went over to the vacant apartment in my building and looked at it as well. (It has a lot of stuff built-in that I had to pay for, like light fixtures and a gas range for example. Lucky f-er.) Anyway, he's pretty much sold on the idea of living here. We can hang out and stuff outside of work, so that'll be cool.

Unfortunately, the yakitori joint was closed tonight. Oh well. We'll hit it up one of these days. We ended up just splitting a 6-pack & a liter of sake and some snacks. It was still a good time.

Work was awesome today. The kids were totally into the lessons. Hell, even if the salary isn't that great here (compared to other uni positions), I don't want to take working with kids like this for granted. They were SO good today. With days like this, I can see how some instructors have stayed on for longer, even with this crap salary. I'd definitely rather work for this much with these kids vs. working for more money with worse kids.

my sore throat had started to return towards the end of the period so I let the class out a few minutes early. I had them in discussion groups, and they started off doing the task in English. However, it's the last class on Friday and sure enough the discussion drifted over into Japanese and then about weekend plans & gossip. I would have had them then just talk about their weekend plans in English but that actually was a lesson a few weeks ago. oh well.

In a few minutes my colleague is going to come get me so we can go drown his about-to-get-divorced sorrows.

And my trip (did I mention I was taking a little trip?) was a bust this past weekend, but I'm actually in a pretty good mood.

To recap:
Friday - classes were better than expected. (The text was an especially boring unit imo, but the kids had a lot of fun with it, go figure.) After work, I went with a colleague for a quick round of drinks and a bite to eat at an izakaya. Then I went downtown and picked up a new blazer and pair or pants. Finally went to the foreigner bar for a couple more drinks, chatted up the waitresses for a bit and then went home.

Saturday - I was supposed to go to Osaka/Kyoto to meet a Japanese friend who has just returned to Japan after living in the USA for a while. However, she e-mailed to say that she felt sick, possibly the flu, and couldn't make it. It was raining all day here as well so I just stayed in and watched some videos. Among them, I watched The Godfather again. Pretty good flick, but I don't know if it is the #2 movie of all time (according to the IMDB).

Sunday - Did some laundry, oh and Tootsie was on one of the HD movie channels so I watched it. Great performances from Hoffman and Murray. That movie is A LOT better than I remembered. Then again, the last time I saw it, I was in junior high school and it was the edited-for-TV version. Still didn't quite dig the ending though. Anyway, then CV came over and we hung out for a bit. We had dinner at an izakaya downtown and then went to a party. It was pretty cool but with work the next day, didn't really want to get too crazy.

So now I'm in the office about to go look over my stuff for today. But first...

Riding the bus in the rain today, I thought about the car once again. Today the commute wasn't too bad. However, doing that during the rainy season was not my idea of fun. I'm planning on being at this university for another 2 years. After that, I dunno. If I can find some sort of tenured instructor position somewhere, I might consider staying in Japan. Otherwise I'm probably going to head home and try to find work at a community college/Intensive English Program, that is, if the economy isn't still in the gutter. Anyway, back to the car. If I'm here for 2 more years, I would get enough use out of a car to make it a worthwhile purchase. Nothing fancy, just a cheap used car that's easy on the gas. Then my other friend was like "You should get a wagon or even a mini-van. That way, if you stay in Japan but move somewhere else, you can use it to haul some of your junk over there." Interesting idea, I think I'll check into it.

Alright, enough procrastinating time to do a little work.

After work last night, I went downtown to meet CV. She asked me to print out some music for her. On the way there, I bumped into a friend who was somewhat shocked to see me in my work clothes. Prior to, we've only seen each other at BBQs and the like so I was always in shorts & t-shirts. She and I shot the breeze for a bit then I headed off to the Starbucks downtown where CV was there with a couple of her friends. There was one Japanese girl who works at a language school and is studying physical therapy, and a girl from Sweden who is a volunteer at a church. I am somewhat leery of these missionary-types here in Japan, but she seemed ok - didn't come at me with that missionary zeal to come into the fold (but an invite to visit her church was extended). After chatting for a while, CV and I went out for dinner. We started off at the wine bar and had an excellent combo of wine and plate of appetizers. That got me in the mood for some really good Italian. Unfortunately the place we went to was more of a "Japanese taste" Italian joint and wasn't quite what I was looking for. Oh well.

Then I got home, fiddled around on the internet and went to bed at a reasonable hour. Then I woke up at 4 am for no good reason at all. I couldn't go back to bed so I stayed up. I'm at work now and feeling it, ugh.

Alright well I need to go shake this off somehow. Complaining about it on LJ isn't getting it done. *sigh*

Got up early, dragged my feet through my morning routine. Remembered that my class today isn't until this afternoon, went even slower. Eventually showed up for work. Met some other teachers in the lab, shot the breeze with them for a bit. Went up with them to another lab to check out some new computer software. On the way there, I found 2 USB keyboards in the rubbish bin, one with a built-in USB hub. I took them as I would like to use one with my PS3. I'm using the one with the built-in HUB right now. It was a bit of a pain to get it to work with this computer. It is a Japanese keyboard and Windows kept thinking it was an English keyboard. I did all the IME stuff and still nothing (for example, on a Japanese keyboard, the @ is the key next to the P where on an English keyboard it's [shift]+2). I had to install a driver, now it's ok. Well not 100% ok, the built-in hub is a bit wonky - maybe that's why it was in the rubbish bin. At least the keyboard layout is reading correctly now. It is also more comfortable than the one that came with this PC. So yeah, doing all that did give me a bit of a headache. I downed a couple Tylenol and had a cup of coffee.

This past weekend was pretty crazy. Went out drinking with a co-worker Friday night. We hit it pretty hard. In addition to the beers, we also split a bottle of shochu between us. Still, we managed to make it downtown and met up with CV and her friend. We went to the wine bar for a little taste then went to a foreigner bar. The foreigner bar was quite dead though. That was pretty disappointing. To top it all off, I got really sleepy. After a couple hours of that, we left.

Saturday I woke up late, did housework all day and then there was a little get together for CV. Her birthday is today actually. Oh I also bought her a little cashmere sweater-dress at the GAP for her birthday. We had a little karaoke party. That was fun. I killed my voice though.

Sunday was spent recuperating from Friday and Saturday.

In other news, my last few sax practices have been decent. I am not quite satisfied with the sound of the set-up on this horn though. It just sounds so... generic. I definitely need to get some new mouthpieces, at least 2: one for classical and one for jazz. My fingers are still out of sync too, I just feel so clumsy. Despite my gripes, I am having a lot of fun with it though. I need to get into an ensemble. Maybe the university's wind orchestra wouldn't mind if I sat in with them from time to time. I'd also like to get some people together to play in a quartet. Speaking of sax, I thought more about bringing my baritone saxophone from home - while it needs an overhaul, it is a Yamaha and what better place to get it overhauled than right here in Yamaha-land?

Oh and speaking of bringing stuff over, I also looked into bringing over my car. I wasn't too concerned with the whole driver's side being reversed thing, I've seen a number of cars with the same layout here. However, it's SO expensive. Nevermind. It would basically cost more than the car is actually worth. I do want to get a car though. I was just thinking about how cool it would be to go fishing! The beach really isn't that far away. It's just a pain in the ass to bring even a tiny amount of gear on a bicycle. So yeah, I'm also leaning towards just paying half of my loans off during winter break and getting a head start on the car.

Turns out I don't have quite enough for the BluRay burner + NetBook after all. That and I need to use some of my funding to pay for registration at the JALT conference in November. So I figure I'll just buy one item with my funding and get the other item out of pocket. It will be a sort of belated birthday present for myself.

Classes are going well. Today I had a class that I've nicknamed "the robots", but they were actually quite lively. Last week's classes while not exactly the best ever were pretty good considering the 2-month break. They all basically just wanted to catch up with each other and talk about what they did over the summer break - which I incorporated into the lesson, they just had to talk about it in English.

( Oh and finally, some pics from Silver Week 2009. )

Saturday - CV and I met up with Mochan (Japanese friend who always hosts travelers) and his latest batch. My friend from Germany was in the batch. First we went to Mariko village - once a stop on the old Tokaido line from Osaka to Tokyo. Then we went to a tea ceremony place in Okabe. The green tea ice cream there is awesome, real bits of green tea mixed into the ice cream with dried green tea sprinkles. After that, we hit up an onsen in Kawane. That was pretty nice. Then there was a party in Shimizu at Mochan's place. We all got f-ing hammered. I got sleepy though and passed out for a few hours. Fortunately, there was a lady (Aki) who didn't drink that drove and she agreed to take some of us home at the end.

Sunday - Went back to Mochan's place for more. First up was a sake brewery in Fujinomiya. This place is great. It's really interesting to learn about the sake making process. There's also free samples at the end of the tour and they give out a pack of sake flavored candy - which is awesome. After that we went to Lake Tanuki to view Mt. Fuji and have a picnic. Finally Mt. Fuji was visible from this vantage point! This was probably my 6th time to Lake Tanuki and I had never seen it from there prior to that day. The view was fantastic. (I'll have to post those pics later as I'm away from my pics atm.) Next up was the Shiraito Waterfall. This is always a nice view too. After that we hit the road and went back to Mochan's place for another dinner party. As usual the party involved copious amounts of alcohol. After a while we all drifted off to sleep one by one.

( This is where the Yakuza story comes in. )

Monday - Chris (my German friend) and I stayed here in Shizuoka while Mochan took the travelers down to Nara and Kyoto for the rest of "Silver Week". During the day Chris and I just looked around Shizuoka City. We stopped by my university and ran into a few students. Then I had my birthday dinner with CC and left Chris to his own devices. After dinner, met back up with Chris, went back to my place and called it a night.

Tuesday - more looking around Shizuoka City and returned back to my place. CV came over and the 3 of us had yakitori for dinner, that was delish. Then we headed back into the city for the karaoke madness. It was a bit early so we hit up a foreigner bar for some drinks but the place was dead. We stuck it out there for a little bit then hit up a Spanish bar a few blocks down. By "Spanish bar" I mean that the owners are Japanese but the music, food and drinks are all Spanish/Latin themed. They were playing Salsa music and some people were even doing Salsa dance - pretty neat place. Finally it was about time for the karaoke so we headed down to the downtown Shidax and waited for others to show up. Aki showed up after a little bit and we got word that the other girl (Mino) was going to be late so we should start without her. We got a room and started up some karaoke. Mino showed up and we made the most of the all-you-can-drink special. Whew. Mino shall now be known as "Mino Musume" as she sang/danced a whole block of Morning Musume songs. Chris and I freaked some people out by singing a couple songs from Detroit Metal City - those songs are just SO over the top. 3 am rolled around and we had finally had enough. Again, Aki didn't drink this evening as she drove, so she drove all of us back to my place where we continued drinking and eventually turned it into a slumber party. Whew.

What a (long) weekend. Hell, it's making me tired just thinking about it.

Or should I say the "Cute Violinist" (CV)?

For the past couple of days we've been sending each other messages on facebook, so I thought it would be nice to meet again. We met today at the Starbucks where we first met. I found out then that she and that dude were pulling my leg about the whole father/daughter business. He just happens to be 20+ years older than her so that's their little joke. So yeah, she's just his friend and that's it, lol.

Anyway, we had a little chat about life and stuff. While she is a violinist in the symphony, her full-time gig is that of university student. She's studying English, but someday she'd like to be a teacher of Japanese as a foreign/second language. We talked about how we came to know our mutual friends and that got us talking about who we hang out with in our free time and what we do. She mentioned that she used to go to karaoke, but hadn't been in a long time. So I was like "Well, if you have some time now, do you want to go?" She was like "OK, sure!" and so we went.

There's a Shidax karaoke place a few blocks away from the Starbucks. We got a little room and started singing. She's a very good singer. Not only was her pitch excellent (which I usually don't notice, but hers was so good I couldn't help it) but her singing pronunciation was spot on. Also, she sang mostly English songs. I was quite impressed. I did my usual set, and she thought I was "bloody brilliant", lol.

After the karaoke we took a little stroll around downtown. We hit up an arcade and took some purikura. I'll scan those in sometime tomorrow. Then we went to a music store. We wanted to hear each other play our respective instruments. So we thought we could go and "evaluate" some. Unfortunately, the evaluation rooms were booked so that didn't happen. Maybe next time.

Finally we went back to the Starbucks for some coffee. We would have had dinner, but she had to go to her part-time job. At the Starbucks, that dude was there again. So we all had another little chat. He was messing around with his laptop though and it was just about time for her to go to work, so after a few minutes we left. I walked her to her bicycle and we made plans to meet again for drinks this Saturday.

My thoughts - she's a very cool girl. I mean hell, she's a violinist in the symphony and rocks the mic at karaoke. She is a bit of a dreamer. (What is it with me and dreamers lately anyway? Miyuki and CC were both dreamers as well.) She's currently trying to decide if she should study abroad or not, the UK being her first choice and the USA second. Last but not least, she's very cute (of course). She is quite young though, she'll be 21 next month. She seems to be cool with the age difference - I told her I am going to be 38 this month and she was like "Wow! You're so young!" Although I'm pretty sure she meant that within the context of me being a university instructor. At any rate, I'm still approaching this as just friends. I don't even know if she's seeing anyone. If she's not, I'll ask her out on an official date this Saturday.

This must be the summer of meeting cool girls. First there was CC, then the motorcycle chick, now her. (^o^)

-----

ETA: She just emailed to invite me to a party tomorrow night. This is 'just friends' of course.
*repeats 'just friends' over and over and over...*

Oh yeah, I forgot about this one... a few weeks (months?) ago, I toyed with the idea of getting a Japanese Driver's License. The process to change over an American license is a pain in the ass, but it can be done. However, the more I thought about the red tape and expenses involved with actually buying and keeping a car here in Japan the less keen I became on the idea.

Then this weekend, I met one of the coolest girls ever. She's really into motorcycles. She's from Tokyo and rode down to Shizuoka to come hang out with us at the Abekawa Fireworks Festival. She has a Kawasaki, I don't know the model, but it is a cruising type, has a 650 cc engine - and she looks like a total bad ass on it. So then I thought, dang a motorcycle would be pretty f-ing cool. So today I started looking at motorcycle school options. It's pretty intimidating. *sigh* They're all damn expensive. Moreover, my Japanese is crap and since I know nothing about motorcycles, I'd really need to understand everything they say. There are schools that give instruction in English, but none around here - I'd have to go to Tokyo or Osaka. And of course, these schools are even more expensive than the Japanese ones.

I can't get over how expensive these courses are. Hell, it would be cheaper for me to FLY home to Florida and take a motorcycle course there instead! (Of course, Japan has already thought of that and one of the caveats of the foreign-to-Japanese license conversion process is that you must have had your license for at least 3 months in that country before entering Japan.)

So I don't know. The motorcycle would be mostly for recreational purposes. A car would be more practical.

hmmmm....

I think that if I decide to do anything, I will convert my American driver's license, jump through those hoops and then eventually get a car. Do I really want a car in Japan though? Well, if nothing else the license would be good to have "just in case". Yeah, I should just convert my license and worry about the car issue later.

Oh, and in other news there was the Abekawa Fireworks Festival on Saturday night. That was fun. Then some of us went swimming in the Okitsu River, up in the hills which was a lot of fun too. I'm feeling a little lazy so here's a link to my Picasa album. (oh and there are lots of pics of the motorcycle chick - there are more pics of her than anyone else in this album, lol.)

2009-08-30

(Yes, it's been a while since I've had to do one of these.)

You may be thinking, "What the hell would he have to rant about in Shangri-la?"

The English department is wanting to to an overhaul of the curriculum. They say it's broken and needs to be fixed. In my opinion, while there are things that could be improved, some of the changes they're suggesting are not going to improve things. In fact they may make things worse. As the junior instructor (in both time served and age, the second factor carrying a lot of weight in Japan) however, basically what I say don't mean sh*t. Admittedly, I've only been here for 4 months. I still don't know all of the ins and outs of this system. So yeah, they can come up with a plan and I can follow it. Maybe that's just what I need to do. After all, the last time I voiced my opinion at my job about English education wasn't exactly a success. *sigh*

In other news, I saw G.I. Joe last night. That was a fun movie! It went a little heavy on the flashbacks and explosions, but was generally quite entertaining. Oh and The Baroness and Scarlett - wow. (^_^) I'm glad at least someone was able to make a good movie based on toys from my childhood. (the Transformers movies are a mess, sadly. ;_;)

Oh and I've been watching the Women's World Vollyball Grand Prix. Japan did surprisingly well in the previous round. I was really surprised to see that they had beaten Germany and Russia, as those teams are significantly taller. They were able to win with their technique and teamwork. This round however, they lost to both teams. It seems like the previous round was just a warm-up and now they brought their "A" games. I was happy to see that Japan beat Holland decisively last night. That means that even though they have the same record as Germany in this round (1-2), they're ahead due to the points ratio. Tonight's match is against China and tomorrow night's is against Brazil. China is winless, but not a team to be taken lightly. Brazil, well... they're like the Juggernaut of women's volleyball this year. "Don't you know who I AM? I'm the Juggernaut bitch!"

Dinner tonight with CC (the Cute Counselor). I'm pretty excited, nervous even. I haven't felt like this about meeting someone for dinner for a long time. Oh, and I found out why she never speaks Japanese to me. Yesterday at the university thing, I paid her department a visit. In her department are some nurses, older ladies, who I've met before for basic things like having my blood pressure checked. They don't speak any English so we always have our chats in Japanese. So when I saw them, they started up with one of our chats, and CC was like "What? You speak Japanese? All this time, I've never heard you speak Japanese!" It's true, whenever she sees me I'm usually talking with other English teachers or my students, always in English. Back to the nervousness, I find that I'm worried about what I should wear and where we should go, what should we do after dinner, etc.... I'll just play it by ear like I usually do, but I surprised myself that I was thinking so much about it.

My Japanese friend who's always hosting travelers has a really big group this weekend - about 20 people are staying at his place. I went over there earlier today to have lunch and then check out the Yaizu fireworks festival with them. I don't know how he does it. I mean really, having to basically babysit that many people - it was giving me a headache, and I was merely an observer.

The fireworks festival was ok. Unfortunately, it started to rain a bit at the end there, and that kind of put a damper on things. The bad part however was the clusterfu*k getting everyone from the fireworks venue back to the bus. For one thing, the crowd leaving was significantly larger than the crowd on the way there. (On the way there, most people had already staked out their positions and were waiting for the fireworks. On the way back, since it was over everyone was leaving at the same time.) Since all the people in our group were travelers, they wanted to take pics of people in yukata. That would be ok except we were in the middle of a mob trying to go home - stopping every other batch of people dressed in yukata was really starting to get on my nerves.

Anyway, we finally made it back to the bus and then drove home. Back at his place, there was another drinking party, but I had had enough. I took a nap and then a couple hours later I got on my bike and rode home. They're going out tomorrow for a waterfall viewing and Mt. Fuji viewing picnic. However, I think I'll just stay home this time around. They were nice people, just too many of them.

And I just about need a new red pen! lol.

In other news, I am climbing Mt. Fuji.

TONIGHT! (OoO)

Here's what happened. I was hanging out with my Japanese friend who likes hosting travelers and showing them around Shizuoka and had dinner with the latest batch Sunday night in lieu of the (rained out) fireworks festival. A dude from Italy and a girl from Colombia. The dude is actually a doctor, doing some physics post-grad work in Yokohama. The girl is doing an internship in Kobe. Anyway, they wanted to climb Fuji either Monday or Tuesday night and asked me to join them. I voted for Tuesday night as I have a meeting Tuesday afternoon. If I tried to climb Monday, I wouldn't be any good for my meeting.

However, I just got word that there's another meeting Wednesday afternoon as well. DOH! (O_O) Well, I've already committed to it so I'm just going to give it my best. I don't quite know how this is going to work out actually. I'm meeting up with everyone at Shimizu station for the climb at 6 pm tonight. We'll drive out the the 5th station, then climb the mountain and back down again. Hopefully I can go home for a quick shower, then straight to work. Yikes!

This is crazy.

In other other news, last night was a karaoke session of epic proportions. 4 guys, 4 gals, non-stop karaoke madness. It was my Japanese friend, the 2 travelers and some other Japanese locals. I didn't bring my camera, so I'll try to get the pics off of my friend's camera. After the karaoke, we took some purikura. I need to get those off of someone's cell phone too. I think a couple of videos were taken as well. lol.

Last but not least, I thought about Miyuki last night when I got home. I started to feel a little worried about her. Thinking back, I believe that she was more upset than she let on. So this morning I asked myself "What would I do if she wanted to get back together?" Good question. The fact that I'm having so much trouble answering this question shows that I'm not ready to move on just yet. If there is a possibility of reconciling our differences and restoring what we had, I might just take that chance.

Anyway, back to grading finals. Then meeting this afternoon, then meeting up for the Fuji climb.

Did I mention that this is crazy?

For example, saxophone is going well. I'm still learning the new horn and the mouthpiece, not to mention breaking in new reeds. Additionally, I'm months removed from the last time I played a sax, so I was expecting it to be pretty rough. It wasn't too bad actually. So far I've just been playing scales and etudes. That's about all I can handle as by the time I'm done with that, my lips are shot. I can barely make a seal around the mouthpiece. Finger speed for the most part is there. There's a bit of an adjustment, trying to get a feel for where all the keys are. That's not a big deal though. The challenges I'm having are with my chops as mentioned above, and breathing. Tone is surprisingly good actually, but vibrato is weak. Oh I did a little sight reading, and that needs to get back up to speed too.

In other news, Thursday and Friday are the last of the speaking tests. Then I gotta grade everything and this term is in the books. The speaking tests on Tuesday were much better than Monday's. That was a relief. I thought that maybe the tests I made were crap or something.

There's more partying going on this weekend, but I kinda just want to take it easy. Sunday is a fireworks festival in another part of town. I can't do the Fuji climb this Monday because I have a meeting on Tuesday. Maybe the weekend of the 8th. I also need to get some Japanese books and study.

The party Saturday night was a lot of fun. The house party got too big for the house, so we loaded up the drunk bus and went to a seaside park. We were going to light up some fireworks, but there was a bit of rain. Fortunately we were under a gazebo. Eventually we ran out of drinks so we loaded the bus back up and took it back to the house. Hung out there for a couple more hours then called it a night.

Sunday I woke up and rode my bike to my friend's house. We went on a little road trip. The same drill as last week, sake brewery tour, Mt. Fuji viewing picnic, waterfall viewing. The sake brewery was great except at the end when we got to the gift shop I wanted to buy something but my bag was in the bus. Oh well. Then we stopped by a 7-11 to buy some stuff for the picnic. However, my wallet wasn't in my bag. Uh-oh. Did I leave it at my apartment? Hmmm.... Fortunately I had a handful of change in my bag and I was able to get a bento and drink for the picnic. The Mt. Fuji viewing didn't go so well as it was raining and the mountain was covered in clouds. Then we went to the waterfall, which was way more intense than usual due to all the rain. That was cool. Then after the waterfall we went to the Mt. Fuji 5th climbing station. Some of the group went to go climb Mt. Fuji. Even at the 5th station it was quite chilly! It must be cold at the top. I think I'll climb it next weekend or the weekend after. We went back to the house, had dinner and I rode my bike home. Went inside my apartment, put my bag down and my wallet was right where I left it this morning when I suddenly remembered to grab my phone and iPod. Unfortunately, I just forgot to pick my wallet back up and put it in my bag. Argh!

So now I'm at work. 5 more days until summer vacation! Aside from a few committee meetings I'll be off until OCTOBER! YEAH!! (^O^)

Well, due to the excessive rain we've been having, the fireworks festival has been postponed. It's not because they're afraid it would be rained out. It's because the venue is underwater. The venue is the Abekawa riverbed, which normally is a dry flat empty plain. Because of all the rain it's actually underwater now, therefore nowhere for firework viewers to hang out. That's ok with me though, as of this evening I still wasn't all that excited about it.

In other news, ( I saw The Half-Blood Prince )

So tomorrow, instead of the fireworks festival there's going to be another house party. It'll be later in the evening, so during the day I'm going to try and get some stuff done around the apartment.

Ah man, I'm sleepy. More tomorrow.

Friday is Wednesday. That is, for whatever reason the university said that on Friday we will be using Wednesday's class schedule. So it's another research day for me. I need to prep the materials for the speaking exam finals. At least I already hammered out how each activity is going to take place.

It's raining pretty hard right now. It's going to be like this all day today. Saturday's forecast calls for rain from mid-afternoon to late evening. This is important because Saturday is also the Abekawa Fireworks Festival. That's where I met Miyuki. The crew I was with last weekend is having another get together. They were like "Yeah, you should come out and forget about her. Maybe you can find a replacement!" As if I were going to the department store to replace a flat tire, lol. I suppose I could I go, talk up some girls, get some contact info, and then go on a few dates. Eventually perhaps I could even find a "replacement" or at least a summer fling. Weird how I don't sound all that enthused about it, kinda 'meh'. People I know are like "Dude, this is exactly what you need!" I guess I'm just not in a partying mood right now. As the day gets closer, I'll probably start getting more excited about it.

I didn't get to play the sax yesterday. I was actually kind of busy. Everything just came together at the end of the day. Oh well. Once I get the speaking test materials done I think I can give it a shot.

I think I'll try to take a quick nap before getting up again to go to work.

Today is Monday, isn't it? Time flies when you're having fun...

After a big breakfast, we hit the road. First we went to a Mt. Fuji shrine. People wanting good luck on their Fuji climb stop by this shrine and give a little offering. I think it was actually a temple though because there were Buddhist nuns and priests all over the joint. Then we stopped by a sake brewery, and that was really cool. They let us see how sake is made and then there were free samples at the end of the tour. I bought a bottle of a very clear and dry sake, one of the best I've had in Japan, maybe the best I've had originating from Shizuoka. (The saleslady was really cute too ^_^)

After the brewery, we went for our little picnic. Unfortunately, it was really cloudy. Fortunately, it was really cool and refreshing. Combined with the breeze and low humidity, it could have easily been a day in mid-autumn. Next we went to see a waterfall, the same one I saw last year. It's a nice waterfall, so I was glad to see it again. Then we decided to call it a day. We got stuck in a pretty bad traffic jam on the way home though. We finally made it back to his place and we made yakisoba for dinner. That was quite delicious. After dinner we had a few drinks and chatted for a bit, then when one of the Japanese dudes was leaving I hitched a ride back to my place with him. Nice enough guy, but I think he sees me as a "rival". He's pretty shy to begin with, but he was even more guarded when talking to me. I asked him "So, what did you do last weekend?"
"Why do you want to know?"
Yeah dude, I want to know exactly which bars you go to and when, so I can then show up and steal all of your thunder. lol.

Work this week is deceptively busy. Giving out the last of the listening/writing tests, which then have to be graded. Then I need to whip up their speaking tests.

So yeah, the air conditioner guys did their thing in record time. I cleaned up the place a bit then went downtown to try to find some sheet music. I got to the store and dang, everything was so expensive. Some etude books/solo pieces went for about twice what they go for back home. I might have to ask my folks to send me a little care package.

Anyway, after that I went and met with the house party folks, very international get together. The host is a Japanese dude, and there were also guys from Switzerland, Finland and Israel, girls from Taiwan and France. The party was good, we all had somen, drank copius amounts of alcohol and passed out in his living room.

Yesterday was a neat little roadtrip.　（I'll whip up a google roadmap when I have more time.) First we went to Mariko, to see a historic hotel village on the old Tokaido line. After that we went to Okabe to watch a tea ceremony. They also had the BEST green tea ice cream. Then we went to an onsen in Kawane. Getting there was most of the fun. In honor of Michael Jackson, we were rocking out to the Thriller CD, all the while navigating these twisty, narrow mountain roads. The onsen itself was pretty relaxing, however it was really hot outside, so getting in a hot spring wasn't exactly all that. After the onsen, we went to Nihondaira - an elevated plateau where you can get a nice view of Suruga Bay and Shizuoka City. This can also include a view of Mt. Fuji, but it was too cloudy. Finally we came back to his place, made dinner and had another party. This one Japanese dude came by with 2 Japanese girls. The girls were nice (and cute ^_^) but didn't speak much English. I seemed to hit it off with one quite nicely. I gave her my card, I don't know if she's gonna contact me. Usually I'm the one to get their contact info and initiate, but I decided to try something different this time. If nothing else, she told me where she works and said I should stop by sometime.

Today has another road trip on the agenda. A picnic and viewing of Mt. Fuji. Depending on the weather, we may even go for a dip in the Okitsu River.

Saturday - got an e-mail in the morning that my friend's schedule had changed. He could only meet on Saturday. So I hopped on the bullet train out of Shizuoka into Tokyo. Found his hotel and we met in the lobby. First we did a little walking around the Imperial Palace and Gardens. That was nice. Then we went to Shinjuku and Shibuya to see more "urban" stuff. (The only thing he's seen so far is the route he takes to work, which is fairly nondescript.) After that, we took the bullet train back to Shizuoka where we had dinner and then walked around downtown. Admittedly, it wasn't much to see compared to Shinjuku/Shibuya, but really he just wanted a chance to say he rode the bullet train. I saw him off and then went home. I was really tired and achy after that. Oh, and his job - his company is working with Tsutaya, helping them develop a DVD rental kiosk. Basically something like this. Coming soon to a konbini near you?

Sunday - Did some laundry, aired out my futon and re-did my computer. Well, I still need to re-install Office, Photoshop and a few other programs. I wanted to go for a bike ride, but I'm not feeling all that great today. I might even have the flu. I'm still achy and my stomach is kind of weird. :( Fortunately, I don't have to do much else today. I need to buy some groceries, but that's pretty much it.