sick and tired

So I got my tickets to the YG family show in Osaka and am super excited!!! I'm going to pay the bit extra and fly there instead of taking the ferry due to my motion sickness issues. This ticket and my trip to Korea in December are all that are motivating me at the moment. My English club is currently involved with creating a play for a large and important event, and its slowly killing me. It looks TERRIBLE. No amount of English learning will undo the horror that is this play. My co-workers and I have created elaborate backdrops(this took months to make), at least 20 hand made props, and hours of script writing and dancing training. When finally it came time to put it all together, the students could say their lines perfectly, but changes to the script were frequent and have ruined any chance of it being good. Too many people that should have no say are being allowed to run the show and the blame inevitably will land on my friends and I, and the people who worked hardest to make this the best it can be. The students are also ruining it by looking bored and joking around. They seem to think messing around and not doing what they should in front of the head(mayor) of the city I work for is tons of fun.......The worst part is there is nothing we can do anymore. The students have been reprimanded, praised, warned, and threatened to no avail. They have gone to that magical place where Japanese students go when asked a question they have no answer for. They just stare blankly back at me and the worst part is, it is them, who will look ridiculous on stage, and it is my friends and I who will take the blame at the end of all this. But worst of all, it is the head of juku who will be crucified for the budget, student failures, and overall horror that the students have made. All the blame will be where it shouldn't and could possibly end the best thing going for my city: Juku.

cat of doom

But enough of my ranting onto bigger and better things. I have felt like crap for about two weeks now(possibly stress from the play) but I have been having some fun. Like going to ji-chan's house for some catching up and ridiculous stories. Got to drink fanta out of bamboo cups and enjoy awesome company and food. I made the fabulous choice to head out for some drinking after the event. Lola tried to steal my shoes, but I talked her and Muqing out of walking from Nango back to Nichinan at night. I dropped them off for a great night. Squeezed my ass into a friend's tiny car and headed to karaoke for two hours. Nomihodai for the win and some epic singing. First time seeing heavy metal sung at Karaoke and ate tons of french fries. After two hours of singing with a slightly sore throat, I headed home at 2:30am and finally went to bed at 3:30.....Woke up at 6am got ready for a trip to mt. aso. One of Lola's English students took on a fabulous high speed drive on the highway that got us to mt. aso in 3 hours(let it be known it took me 6 hours on backroads to do the same thing). I got seriously car sick. I should have known, but I felt terrible for inconviencing this poor guy. He even pulled over so I could barf on the side of the road.(also let it be known I bought him a $30 bottle of sho-chu as an apology) good times, I think I scared him a bit. First stop was the cuddly dominion, basically a glorified petting zoo. Saw tons of animals that are wild in America but are novelty to people in Japan. Such as the giant guinea pig petting area and cat and dog areas. At least I got to play with animals. Next was mt. aso and an amazing soba restaurant. Everything was soba, ice cream, teas, noodles, even salads. I have never enjoyed ice as much as that place, who would have guessed soba ice cream could be so damn delicious. We then drove through the expensive onsen district where people pay upwards of $200 to bathe in black salt, and mineral waters. We went to an onsen for $8 and enjoyed the lovely rotten egg smell all onsens have. I even dared to go into the freezing pond that literally gave me pins and needles it was so cold. Finally we drove back and stopped in Miyakonojo for kaiten sushi and ate tons of sushi. I like these places because you can pay per plate and there's nothing better than seeing a giant stack of plates that only cost you $5. Finally head back to nichinan where I got the best sleep of my life. The next day(sunday) was spent on a dress rehearsal for the play from hell. All of my superiors were there and could witness the horror for themselves, and thus began the debate of too many cooks in the kitchen. Too many ideas and authorities clashed. In the end I have no say and will still be at fault at the end.
Final not: Aoshima camp is this weekend and I plan to de-stress and work with children. I will also help make curry and nan. Come on Korea time!!!! I need clubbing, eating, and shopping stat. At least I'll have lots of money for the trip because I'm too busy and stressed to spend money right now

making wasabi

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We are Family!

More concerts to be had this time of year as it winds down. Decemer I'm gonna hop on over to korea via ferry and enjoy the snow and coldness for a bit. Perhaps a little skiiing and shopping. So much concert info has been pouring into my inbox its unbelievable. Shinee's new japanese is set to hit by the end of the year. Super excited but a bit peeved seeing as I bought all of the Japaneses singles individually. Tohoshinki's concert is in February, and I will try to get tickets in decemeber. Just announced is the YG family concert in both Japan and Korea. D-lite's comback after his car accident is great news, but it might also mean G-dragon won't attend due to postponing his activities. 2NE1, Se7en, bigbang, and gummy will all be there for an epic concert in January. I hope they can all make it!! I've already put in my reservation with my membership the minute I heard about it. Another note, their dvd/cd combo pack and Japanese single have been postponed until a later date due to Japan's negative views about drug usage. The korea family concert will be held in December. Finally in February there is the possibility of Bigshow. Every year they hold a giant concert with only bigbang but due to all of the recent new involving them who knows whats going to happen.

dancing and drawing

Minho!

Not much to write about but must keep writing weekly to keep the blog going. Went to sports day at Yowara and had a great time. I got to participate in the giant ball rolling event, although the ball was paper-mache and really hard to push(with no help from muqing). Snagged some lunch and headed back for some epic house cleaning. I find that if I don't clean the house once a week by week two the house looks like hell. It's finally colder out and I can break out the hoodies!! Well, not really seeing as I can't wear them to work.....So....Let's break out more suit tops!! Still working on my drawings. Seeing as I keep drawing k-pop pictures I bought a new sketchbook and am going to try to draw more serious things in a more original way. Thumbnails commence! I have over 20 pages of miniature drawings that I plan to turn into large scale drawings, but I have been super busy with work...boo...I am now obsessed with supernatural. I first watched the animated series which covered the first two seasons and I'm hooked. Season two finale will be watched tonight and then I'm gonna take a break so I don't die from watching too much tv. Tonight is dancing, traditional dancing that is so repetitive that you can space out. Finally finishing out the week with the obi festival where said dancing should be done in front of a large crowd and cameras.Good times.....now to finish the last k-pop drawing for a while. Here's a pic from the second to last drawing.

It's been a while!

So I decided to return to the blogging world with a bang. There's so many things that have happened since the last blog I don't even know where to begin. Ok..I'll start with summer vacation. I travelled back to America for 20 days in August for a bit of family bonding. After 3 days we flew into Florida for universal studios. Granted the first day I thought we were all gonna kill each other, the second day was much better and once we got into the park all was good. Harry Potter land was awesome. I may be an adult but the castle ride was really well done although the second time I rode it the ride actually stopped in the middle and the lights turned on. Two days at cocoa beach laying there and swimming in the ridiculously warm water. Headed back and spent the rest of my vacation in Chicago with friends and family catching up. Two of my friends from Udo Junior High came to visit me in Chicago. It was fabulous and I had a great time. I resturned to Japan the most messed up I've ever been from jet lag. The flights home were unbearable.

Sooooo,, back in Japan I chillaxed until school started again. We are currently preparing for a massive play with dancing and singing involving our juku students. I've been painting murals non-stop for a month and there's still one left. Juku is a bit stressful because they are loud and obnoxious. They are really testing my patience. Maybe I'll scare them with some Japanese yelling/scolding I have learned.
I got to judge the Miyazaki High school speech contest at the prefectural library. It was difficult but I don't regret how I placed the students. There were native speakers there and that made it difficult to place them. One student gave a ridiculous speech about love & war that had me containing my laughter, but there was no way I would forget his speech and it helped him get third place. Oh yeah and I had to take the train, I love you boe......

I went swimming in the local dam we went swimming in last year, I've attended only one of my Undokai's but will visit two more this weekend, and just finished another junior high speech contest where two of my students placed.

While Muqing and Lola were still gone I attended the cape toi fire festival for some camping, fire, and drinking. All of which were accomplished. It was a beautiful day, although everyone was getting sunburnt.

We found this awesome cliff with typhoon waves and took this epic picture. After the festival we booked it down to a different camp site. The typhoon was coming so we moved off the beach to higher ground. There was an abandoned camp ground and I roomed with some friends in their tent. It was pitch black and no one could see anything and it took 8 years to get the fire started. The booze run returned too late as I had already abandoned chu-hai's and switched to whisky. The next morning was roungh but you could see the gorgeous view that was blocked the night before.

Portrait a week had turned into portrait when I feel like it. I can draw pretty fast, but I have been sooooo busy its unbelievable. My love of portraits has also turned into I love K-pop. Each paycheck I specifically set aside money for cd purchases. I NEVER bought cd's in America and now that I'm in Japan I didn't think that would change. But! lo-and-behold I now have over 40 CD's with songs I really like even though they are not in English. Right now there are so many cd's coming out!! Bigbang concert dvd and cd, Shinee lucifer japan ed, Tohoshinki Tone, GD&TOP japan vs. , and finally the best: Tohoshinki is having a concert in fukuoka. But here's the kicker the fan club is closed and we can't join(yet). This fanclub is the ticket(literally) to getting tickets first and getting the best seats. We have no priority so we will be out in the boonies if we can even get tickets. Bigshow 2012 is still on the ropes so we have no idea if we can make going to korea a reality in February. We are going to try to go to Korea during christmas this year and for new years. I can't wait and I know muqing's budget money will go straight to new character socks and lola's will go to facials and massages with weird names.
Ps. dont steal my artwork!! I found it on some japanese sites.

SHINee is the new k-pop obsession right now. Their dancing in their lucifer video is to die for. I am going to start learning dance to try to burn off these last few pounds. In other news I am one size away from women's pants in japan. Uniqlo's womens wear only goes up to a size 6 max and the mens picks up where the womens left off. Ahhh the small joys in life. Back to shinee they are hilarious and are having concerts soon, but due to work we can not go. I feel like I could see them easier than bigbang so I'm not too sad.

Last in news was the giant cabin party in Kitago that tested the limit of my drinking abilities. The results I can drink alot with questionable results. After a few round of red or black my fate was sealed. Half the party is a blur. I do remember LMFAO dancing, people drinking sho-chu out of a bucket, all of us having champagne poured on us, throwing a bouncy ball that lit up, and the next morning looking for my keys. It was too successful as a party, terrible the next day. I have never been so sick. I blame it on the jagermeister shots. FML......AND I was back at those same cabin's with my co-workers a week later!! We had a tennis tournament that I failed at, ate cake, and generally had a great time. Co-workers got super drunk and tried to make us yakisoba. good times.

Currently I am just spending time getting together my halloween costume and wanting Tohoshinki's new cd. Life is good.

Ba-Ba-Big-Bang

So after the Golden week festivities I had a week of work then it was off to Chiba. Chiba is a city located close to the water near Tokyo. South east of the main city was my destination for the best concert I have ever been to. It took months of waiting and hoping but even after the earthquakes and tsunami's the concert was still on. With a change of name from love & pain to Love & Hope the concert was going to give tons of money to earthquake victims. The concert featured BigBang and was held at makuhari messe.This is BigBang.
This is a photo from the concert we were at. I went with 3 friends and 2 teachers who were the ones who introduced BigBang to me in the first place. We arrived in Tokyo snagged lunch and ran over to the tower records in Shibuya where there was a giant poster and a huge display of clothing they have worn and I picked up their new CD which is the first Korean CD to top Japanese music charts at number 1.
We ran into a forever 21 and shopped for almost 2 hours. There was a random Canada restaurant where I ate nachos for the first time in one year. The next plan was goods!!! It means merchandise/swag related to the concert. They were sold out that night but said at 12 the next day the would re-open so we made plans to head back the next day. We stayed at the maple hotel.
Goods line....Thats all I can say...I underestimated true fans ability to line up at the buttcrack of dawn waiting for stuff. In japan if you like a band it is difficult to just buy stuff relating to a group other than waiting in goods lines. When we got in line(we were an hour early) it was already 2 hours long. So we waited... and waited and waited. Luckily everyone was very calm and orderly. We had no water and chairs so we just stood there in line. As the line moved things began to sell out.(another problem with japan concerts) The worst was you had to wait for people leaving the line finished with their shopping to walk past you while you waited in line. There were plenty of sighs of いな！！(the sound of jealousy) By the time I got my stuff I thought I was going to die...
But swag was accomplished
I headed to the hotel and we got ready for the concert. We took the bus back to the concert hall and lined up in another orderly line. Once in we realized our seats were sweet and we just sat back and relax watching BigBang music videos. Security was a joke, conversation about camera:
Security man: Do you have a camera?
Me: Yeah
Security man: no use.
Me: Okay
Security man: ticket please.
Fair enough....
The concert started pretty abruptly and was awesome from start to finish. VI and Sol did most of the talking because they are the only ones who can speak conversational Japanese. Everyone was screaming and jumping and they sang every one of their best songs. I can't express how awesome it was. The fans were going crazy and BigBang was riding around on scooters and segways.
Here's the whole gang afterwards. We were exhausted because the concert lasted 2 hours. Highlight of the concert was :
VI: Amazing singer live, not sure how he sounds better live.
SOL: Being damn sexy and giving away his clothes at every turn.
TOP: He doesn't even dance anymore, he just stands there looking smexy.
G dragon: Leaping around like a crazy man even though he was injured and his awesome songs with Top.
D-lite: His solo song baby don't cry. Amazing!!! He is by far the best singer in the group.
Thus we headed back to Nichinan after the best concert ever!
more to come

Golden Week

Well golden week ended in a blur of events. I drove our whole Kyushu trip and about died doing it. Hours upon hours of navigation into mountains with the boxy mobile. The car was a bit too small and we didn't get too lost except in Kumamoto. First up was Yuifuin and Beppu where we hit up the hot spring town with plenty of sulfurous smelling water. It was cool to see blood red and bright blue pools of water. We also ate eggs that claimed to add 2 years to your life it you ate them. We spend the night in yufuin was was vastly different that Beppu. Where Beppu was large and busy, Yufuin was serene and quite. It was definately inaka, but our Ryokan was gorgeous with a gorgeous view. We had access to private onsens and had an amazing Japanese style dinner and breakfast. We headed out that rainy morning to Mt. Aso(a volcano) and arrived around lunch time. We were going to hike but the rain proved too much so we took a cable car to the top.
It was an awesome view point at the top and afterwards I had the local delicacy of Kumamoto Beef curry. That night we stayed in a cabin at the base of the mountain and slept on the flattest futon known to human kind. Although that place was very clean and neat. We hit up a random restaurant we I ate some omu-rice. The next day was the longest drive consisting of at least 8 hours of driving. On the way out we hit up a place called farm land in the middle of no-where. It had these pod like houses and pools where small fish could clean your feet


Once in Nagasaki we headed out for some shopping. We didn't make it very far because we were exhausted . We snagged some okonomiyaki for dinner and went to bed at the worst hotel I have been to in Japan. It was just old, but not dirty so I didn't mind too bad. We hit up the local spots the next day because we had two days in Nagasaki. First was a shrine where I got omikuge , its like a fortune from a shrine and this one happened to be in English. Note the top of the picture is cut off it says BAD LUCK!!
It was devastating but at least I could tie it up and dispel the bad luck. Next was glover garden established by a man of Scottish decent. It was beautiful and was packed. Except we went straight to the tea house because we were starving. We got a parfait and some delicious tea.

After Glover we got tons of castella cake. No joke we bought at least 10 boxes of castella between the three of us and then we proceeded to eat it. Its like a dense cake soaked in sugar and baked. Its the staple food of nagasaki along with champon ramen which I also ate. We headed to the peace park which was incredibly sad but very informative especially with the recent threat of nuclear problems. We ended the day in china town eating delicious foods and shopping . The restaurant we went too was highly recommended. The next day we headed to shimabara and took the ferry across the water to Kumamoto city.
Here there was a giant castle and it was a gorgeous day. This guy posed with us and I couldn't stop laughing because he looked like a host samurai.... We spent the rest of the day shopping and hanging out and spent the night in a super hotel. The drive back was terrible to say the least. We took a ''short cut'' sending us into the mountains for around 2 hours with little gas for the car. It was horrifying and I will post a video of it shortly. I was almost hit by an old man flying past us on a one lane road that was meant to two way traffic. good times. Got to Nichinan around 7ish and passed out later. And thus the swag
Other things of note were:
-buying a random watermelon in the middle of no where for $18 which is cheap.
-Random man in the massage chair room that we scared the shit out of, he bowed at least 5 times and left(he also had host hair). Also there was this creepy exercise rider machine(very questionable)
-Getting told to be quiet in our hotel room.
-There was a hole in the shower at the crappy hotel.

How to get a drivers license in Japan(miyazaki edition)

Okay,
This process is a real bitch. If you plan accordingly and follows every rule no matter how dumb you shall succeed. Nothing will make sense and you will receive no answers to your questions so just roll with it.
FIRST!! Make your appointments. You cant do shit without making sure their is perhaps someone where your going that speaks english. When I say English I mean awesome people who will try their hardest to speak with you. First I called up the driving center in the city and made a paper work check appointment. This is where all your information is double checked. You need two pics of yourself passport style but they are 30X24mm size you can get these at those strange photo booths all over the road sides.(who the hell needs passport photos suddenly near the shoe stores??)Alien registration card, Certificate of completion of alien registration(you can get this at you city hall in like 3 minutes), License from your home country, and \2400 for the fee. All set..

SECOND!!
Plan a whole day for this and they are only open on weekdays. Go to a local JAF your first day and get your license translated. Costs a bit of money but you just hand over your license and alien card and 30ish minutes later you have a fancy envelope. Later that same day go to your paper work check at the driving center. They will take all above mentioned paperwork and then ask you lots of questions about what you did to get your license in your home country. I'm from America, so they got a little confused about the issue date of my license. It says 2009 because I turned 21 and had to get a new license so I could buy boose. The under 21 license is vertical, while the over 21 is horizontal. So they thought I got my license in 2009, when really I got it in 2004. I explained to them why it got changed and all was well. They super cool guy that spoke with me was amazed I got my permit when I was 15 and took my driving course during school as a class. This took a while maybe 2 hours, but everyone was amazingly friendly.

THIRD!!
Wait a minute are you from the fabled cursed countries?? I mean the ones that actually have to take the driving test. My friend who went with me was from Canada and didnt have to take the test. All she did you visit the same driving center on day 2 and took an eye test and got the license. I curse thee.... Well I'm from America so I have a more expensive process to get my license. Step two of this process is the driving test.

--Driving Test--
Okay this was difficult not gonna lie. I do NOT speak Japanese and I am limited in what I can say and understand. I had my boe(board of education) call up the driving center and find me an instructor. Some poor soul agreed to tutor me for four hours on a Saturday. First of all you can only practice on weekends(saturday) and sundays have limited hours. So you meet the instructor at the actual course you will drive on for the test. Remember you have to pay for this per hour. Each instructor has his or her own fees and then their is a fee for the actual course. I will talk about this at the end. So you show up mee the instructor and get ready to drive for 4 straight hours. In Miyazaki there are two courses you have to remember. Course 1 and 2. When you show up for the test they will announce randomly which is the test of the day. You only need to drive one and pass it to get your license. It's difficult, my instructor laughed at me and called my Bruce lee. He told me I drive too fast, turn the wheel too fast, turn too fast. Please notice the reacurring theme. TOO FAST..You will not go over 24ish Kilometers per hour. Around corners you better be prepared to go slower than putting your car into drive and putting it into drive. Just chant slow the whole time. Hug the white line, don't hit the white dots, triple break, I verbalized in english what I was doing like saying check, okay or counting. You didn't have too but I felt better if they could see and hear what I was doing. There are real working lights on the course and there will be at least 5 other people driving around. I got yelled at for taking my hand off the wheel, having my hand at ten and two(I guess you should have them a little higher than that) and underhand turning my steering wheel. You have to remember the whole course, commit it to memory, but on the day of my test the instructor told me where to go in Japanese. After 4 hours I was still sketchy so I went back for one more hour on Sunday which was the best thing I've ever done. This day and a half of practice was done about 2 days before I went to JAF and got the paperwork checked.

Finally after all the planning and checking it was time for the test day. I got there when it opened at 8:30Am. I went back to the small room for a final paper work run through, then I immediately had to take the eye test. It's a box with C's facing in different directions and you tell the test giver which direction the C is facing, left, right, up or down. If you don't know directions in Japanese just point and thats good enough. Then I had to take a written test. For foreigners it was very simple and in badly translated English but nothing you can't manage. There were ten questions. Like, you should always wear you seat belt while driving. TRUE Just make sure to study your street signs before taking this test. The test is a little strange, but you'll pass. Now you can go out to the course to walk it. They will have announced which is the course of the day(for me course 2) and you can walk for about an hour before they start the actual testing.I did some vision training then waited with everyone else (maybe 25 people) then the test started. All the foreigners that day had to go together. I took the automatic test, which is much different than the manual test. I was assigned a test giver and then just waited until my number car came up. He will then tell you what order your group goes in. Yes other people will be in the back seat while you are taking the test. Ignore them, mine was some crazy Japanese man that became an America citizen and wouldn't stop talking to me. I was nervous as hell no gonna lie, but thats better for me. Nerves = Paying extra attention to detail. I need pressue but other people panic and fail because they are so nervous. Walk around the back of the car, look left and right when you get to the door. Open said door, sit down, adjust seat, close door, put seat belt on, move mirrors, start car, look at test dude and start triple checking you views, and go. I went around the course and the test guy had a sheet of paper that when I made a mistake wrote somethin on the map where i made the mistake. I made two at the beginning. Not being close enough to the white line, Im not kidding when I say get close to it. Finish the test, glance at the test guy, all he said to me is Ok, which means YOU PASS!!! sweet jebus I was happy, I stumbled out of the car and started dancing in the waiting area, didn't care passed!! Then you move to a different building where more money and paper work and tada! you have a license.

The break down:
3 days
roughly $400 USD =\40000 Sucks but the Japanese students pay \300000
Don't forget 2400for test fee and 2100for license fee.

Day 1- Driving practice with instructor minimum 4 hours Saturday and Sunday
Day 2 - JAF in the morning, Driving center paperwork check in the afternoon(make an appointment for the driving center, you can just walk into JAF)
Day 3- Driving test in the morning This all took 4 hours
Yeah it sucked but now I can stay another year in Japan

soccer at yowara

so I'm at Yowara Junior High and only the 1st and 2nd years are left. We played an epic Jeopardy game where I brought in the hayashi pin pon bu bu( just a fancy quiz buzzer with a great name). Teams lost others prevailed, but afterwards I remembered the promise I made last month. That I would play soccer with them. Of course I currently have a cold and can't breathe but whatever a promise is a promise. So I change into my soccer stuff a plain t-shirt with soccer zip-up, under shorts and even longer shorts on top, and tennis shoes. When I walk out one of the teachers sees me and yells Beautiful! I'm immediately stop and give a look of skepticism. Uh what? The teacher repeatedly says beautiful foot! Which leads me to more fake smiling and laughing. The word for foot and leg is the same in Japanese. So beautiful foot basically can mean leg of foot in Japanese. I was being complimented on my legs and how white they were...This is the only country this would happen. In America I might blind someone with how white I am now. Another teacher looks at me and bluntly says, "Maybe the will not play soccer"... I was like, "What?? I just got all dressed", Then she responds with, "Maybe they will just look at your legs." I laughed for a good ten minutes then went and played the strangest game of soccer ever. The goals were on the side of the field and we played in a kind of rainbow arching shape. It was hilarious.

Juku finish

Juku is finished and all the students have graduated so that means......I'M BORED. I now have tuesday and thursday evenings to myself and I don't know what to do. I am also finished at all of my schools for two weeks. So I have to sit in the office for two weeks with nothing but the internet and my imagination to console me. I'm gonna study Japanese, pretend like I'm being productive, possibly join a gym, create a list of stuff I want from America, and plan for next semester's juku. On white day I got lots of snacks and chocolates which I promptly devoured. Then on the 19th I went to Hyuga got lost and walked back to the main street which took 40 minutes. I scared the crap out of a random guy at a book store when I turned a corner to sharply and he smacked into the book shelf and spilled books everywhere. Then on Sunday I went to my students ballet recital and celebrated my supervisors birthday. I ate more food than I would have thought possible setting my stomach up for pain and agony. I have been tearing apart my house in an effort to clean it and reorganize it. I might destroy the wedge chair seeing as no one will sit in it. It's almost like its cursed. I'm gonna be here for another year so I want to be comfortable. A new couch should be a good option as well. This week is cherry blossom viewing and I'm going to go to the biggest bunch of them I can find and drink and eat. There are also lights for night time viewing and perhaps まつり foodstuffs. Yes, I am slowly but surely learning Japanese at a painfully low level. I know about as much Japanese as my 1st grade students know in English...sad day. But oh well I will keep plotting along. And yes this is my geeking out photo at bigbang 3-d

take a deep breath

Okay people here's a list for you.
1. earthquake(miyagi/sendai)
2. Tsunami
3. More earthquakes
4. Evacuations
5. Nuclear Reactor blows 1 time
6. Volcano Eruptions(this has been going on for months)
7. Reactor explosions two more times, 30k radius of contamination and evacuations.


Here in Nichinan there was only a 2 meter waves, and the sirens went off. The good news is that I now know my evacuation point and set up my emergency kit. First there were the news reports that just showed the facts here in Japan, but now America has gotten ahold of the reports and is sensationalizing them beyond all reason. It's bad, I don't want to belittle what I have never seen or experienced, but after 22 years in America I know what they can do to news. They go about reporting completely incorrectly. While Japan keeps saying everything is okay with the Nuclear reactors, I will use the words of a reporter here, It's like their babysitting the plants until they go, rather than actually containing anything. There's radiation all over this planet, in planes, x-rays, just living, I'm far enough away that I'm not too worried. It's business as usual here.

Busy

hallelujah Sweet jebus, I got the tickets, yes BIGBANG tickets. Sad that my life has been reduced to this? Oh well, I applied to 5 separate concerts and read all the reply emails one by one and each one rejected me until!!!!! Tokyo on the 15th of May in Chiba Tokyo. WOO!! I got my plane ticket, my hotel, and finally we have a full group of six to annoy Japanese fans with. Many of us are tall, or foreign enough that we will be the strangest group speaking half Japanese, and random English. My tallness will be an amazing asset to make sure I can see the best! I've been busy non-stop with school and planning because the Japanese school year ends in March. I'm pretty much on the last leg of visiting my schools for the last time this school year. Several of my schools are merging so I will be teaching at the new and improved Udo chu-gako.
On another note there have been many small earthquakes and the volcano ash has made a reappearance. Its pitch black this time and is great fun while playing jump rope on a windy open area. My journaling is making slow and steady progress and Ive managed to fill two big notebooks. I was scared that my art is declining so I have been drawing two large pics a day for 2 months and my contour drawing have gotten pretty badass. My woodcuts are slow progress. The wood is very expensive but amazing so I'm being very careful carving it for fear I ruin a $100 piece of cedar. I managed to make a comb and 2 small prints but it was un-preped wood and was hell to carve.
Golden week plans are complete!
Kyushu round about trip. Its the Holy grail of kyushu traveling.
1. Nichian leave
2. Beppu and Yuifuin- hot spring town have a sweet ryokan and all the hot water and sand baths we want.
3. Mt. Aso- Biggest volcano is the world. Gonna climb nearby and take the cable car to the top if its not spewing toxic gas
4. Nagasaki- Just hang out super historic and plenty of temples to hit up.
5. Shimabara- old town mostly going here for the car ferry. Giant buddah statue
6. Kumamoto- castel and a perfect mixture of historic and upscale.

Then drag our selves back to Nichinan. I'm driving the whole time which brings to information about my car.
Shakken!! the dreaded word was do this month on the 1st. First estimate of the cost \190000 almost died of a heart attack. Literally fell over. After panicking and getting two more appraisals got it for \70000 about $700. It needed alot of repairs but now its good for two years its basically my insurance. Google shakken for more info cause I hates it. Also with cars I can mention I am taking the driving test at the end of the month. I have about two weeks off because of school break so I'm gonna drag my American ass to the test from hell and try my damndest to not make a fool of myself. Knock on wood.
And just as I type this mayhem breaks out in my office because in Tokyo there was a 6meter tsunami after a 6.5 earthquake. Shit, all my schools are on the coast so the workers are all calling my schools because theres an alert out here.

kagoshima part 2

So long ago I traveled to Kagoshima for a vacation to yakushima and the volcano their. Little did I know that with access to a car 3 hours would become a normal driving time for me. The original trip was 5 hours on a train and shorten drastically because I didnt have to go to miyazaki then kagoshima. Then on friday with my copious amounts of Daikyu I decided to go to BIGBANG 3-D!!! The last day it was showing was friday so I took an hour of time and hurried off in my car with Lola and Muqing. So the drive sucked it was long, twisty, turny, and very bright because the sun was going down. Lola didn't want to see bigbang so we dropped her off at the main station in rush hour traffic and then agonized while waiting in the giant line of traffic some how by a miracle we didn't make a single wrong turn getting there, and ran into the theater to much cheering on our part. Bought the tickets a whooping $25 (normal tickets are $20) but this movie was deliciously 3-D. The glasses werent those cheap things you toss in a basket either, they looked like the new glasses that come with 3-D tv's. So to make a long story short there were only 10ish people in the theater and we gorged on potato fry and chiffon cake-e seto's and cried with joy at the spicyness of bigbang. Afterwards all jazzed from the movie with hauled ass to a local Aeon(mall) to hunt down their new CD, but alas it wont be out in japan until march 4, while in korea there CD came out February 24th along with their new Bigshow in korea. I shall be waiting for my tickets!! Then we grabbed Lola after being hopelessly lost for around 30 minutes. Headed back and arrived in the nichi-nan around 2 am after driving through fog.

Takachiho Gorge

We headed out to the gorge on Thursday leaving at around 8:00am. We made a stop at the conbini, and picked up our re-entry permits so we can hopefully do some traveling. But before any of this gets underway at the conbini I have already got my purchases and am waiting outside. When lo-and-behold a really hot guy in a solid red jumpsuit with an epic japan man-afro. It was fabulous no one here has awesome hair except when you count anime/host hair styles. As Im staring at this guy I look through the glass door at Muqin only to find her dancing on the other side of the door.FAIL... Then I also notice all of the cars are honking and I see a man standing in the street bowing to every car that goes by and waving...uhhh what?? apparently this man was running for some government position and that was him campaigning..okay. Then finally I notice the van next to the boxy mobile is filled with workers eating cup ramen next to me. Where the F did they get the hot water?!?
Okay now fast foward 5 hours were in nobeoka still driving and we stop for Yakiniku of course so we can eat mass quantities of beef for \1100. Delicious.Continue on to multiple book stores and we arrive in Takachiho at 3:00pm. We check into our super fancy ryokan called God's house sounds nice right? A worker greets us and shows us to our room and we then head out to the gorge before it gets too dark out. We ride on boats and bother everyone around us. We ask this poor couple to take a picture of us but they were good-natured about it. We buy our omiyage and head back to the ryokan to eat the largest dinner I had EVER eaten. Beef, vegetables, fresh fruits, more meats, mountain vegetables, wine, and salads. I barely get through the meal when we have to run out to catch a bus to a traditional dance performance. We take a bath in the super nice cedar tubs then call it a night.The next day we hit up the takachiho shrine, a look out, the shrine where it was a cave. Then we drove back into Nobeoka and went to the Aeon mall for some shopping. It was pretty small but we picked up some lunch and snacks and headed back to Nichinan. After driving forever we were almost in miyazaki when we ran across an awesome second hand store with clothes, cds, manga, action figures, dvds and all sorts of stuff. We got back to Nichinan around 10ish. We drove back way too slow and ate probably 4 bags of chips in the process.

schools

So heres the list a total of 1,977 students and I've taught each one of them. No I dont know their names but they're all great.

Elementary School

Agata Elementary School - 393 students
Abaratsu Elementary School - 328 students
Sakuragaoka Elementary School - 106 students
Ushio Elementary School - 10 students
Udo Elementary School - 23 students
Agata Higashi Elementary School - 477 students
Katagami Elementary School - 124 students
Yowara Elementary School - 31 studnets

Junior High

Abaratsu Junior High - 234 students
Agata Junior High - 138 students
Udo Junior High - 79 students
Yowara Junior High - 31 students

Special school- student for what ever reason dont want to/cant go to school. This is not special education classes.

partay

So, mid year seminar. Lets talk about it... It might have been the worst day ever in japan. Lets start with waking up at 6am, and getting ready, packing my bags. Only to get a phone call from my supervisor saying that the trains are closed from nichinan to aoshima. Boooo.... So no biggie I will take my car, but WAIT! I cant take my car because its during work hours. Okay then I'll take the bus! What time does it leave? 7am really? thanks for telling me this at 6:55am and the pick up spot was in abaratsu aka 10 minutes away. Mad dash to station in my car(dont ask why I could drive my car to the station) get lost, then ultimately miss the bus, find the station and chillax til the next bus at 8am. Well seminar starts at 9am and the bus ride is almost 2 hours so I'm gonna be late after being warned repeatedly not to be late. Then almost like I planned it I go into my wallet to check how much cash I have on me and lo-and-behold! no wallet. Fan fucking tastic. I drive back to my house get my wallet to arrive exactly as the bus is pulling in. I forgot my facemask so I inhaled what seemed like a pound of ash. Get on the bus and wait. About two hoursish later get off and then get a taxi to the center. Well the taxi took us to the wrong place, then I had to take another taxi to the correct place. Get there late listen to the speakers, finish the day. I hitch a ride to my hotel then procede to get ready for the night ahead.
Trashtastic night! The theme is hostess and hosts. So we dress up, I found a mini tiara and cap, muqing goes as a host, devon and tiff have awesome sparkly dresses. Its a nomihodai for \3000 about $30ish in USD. All you can drink for 3 hours for a flat price. We take care of our 30 in an hour and dance it up. Muqing wins the host division and I get 3rd in hostess. Not a bad haul. Walking back to the hotel I guess in my stupor I decided to tell a random man that his hair looked nice and tried to touch it...oops.. No idea how I got back and now I am sure I will think any guy looks good if he's wearing a scarf.(called muffler in japan.) The next was surprisingly okay and checked out..

Weekends

So the volcano nearby erupted spewing ash and rocks everywhere. There's no lava near me but the ash persists casting a haze over everything in sight. You can't even see the giant mountains in the haze. Lately the ash is subsiding, but it keeps blowing our way. My car is suffering and I have to change the air filter not to mention its filthy. The ash falls like some weird snow and the eruptions sound like bombs going off. Not to mention our share of earthquakes lately. I think the earth is PO'd, take a look at australia. They are screwed. Luckily it rained about a day ago turning all the ash to mud... Yet people are still trying to sweep the ash.
I was going to go to Nagasaki on my birthday weekend, but because of the volcano and bird flu it is a no go. Instead I celebrated my birthday. My co-workers surprised me at 8pm as I was in the office returning from Juku class. The gave me cards, flowers, and sho-chu. Fabulous, they are the best office ever. Then I went with Lola and Kurumi-san to Muqing's house. There I was surprised by more of my friends and office workers. We partook of cake and laughed at all the Bigbang decorations. I got awesome gifts including bigbang bodyspray(hahahha), sweet shochu glass, doll set, cup noodle lip holder, bookmarks, t-shirts, cookies, and posters from my students. My students made the cutest pictures that they wrote in English on. The responses ranged from, you are good at english, to you are my sister. SOoooo sweet. This weekend I decided to go to takachiro gorge. It a pleasant 5 hour drive and there might be snow there.

Jodo temple

So its been a busy week. starting with Monday and having the day off. So it's my day off and so everyone knows I have been studying Jodo, a type of staff art that is defensive and since its the new year my sensei recommends to have our jo(staff) and us blessed by the temple. So 8am Im at the dojo(practice hall) freezing and trying to put on my hakama(special traditional clothing). Once I have it on we all leave for the temple and hakama makes it hard as hell to sit in a seat. We get there and enter the shrine in Abaratsu. Of course other people are visiting the shrine so we get the look at the foreigners stare-fest. Get into the shrine and place the staffs on the alter, and take a seat. The priest blesses the staffs and us by waving the oonusa(paper staff) over us. Then he drums and chants proclaiming that if we put effort into our training we will reap the benefits. Good times. We then return to the dojo and practice for around an hour then get some dinner at a friends diner.
Part 2:Lamenting tickets. To make it short and sweet Bigbang is going to have their new tour in Korea starting at the end of February. So I immediately make plans to go to Korea. Then the very next day I find out that that day I was going to Korea my juku classes are all going to Kagoshima to the zoo...NOOOOOOO!! I secretly think it was sabotage on my offices part. oh well I will wait for the Japanese tour in may and june.
3rd: Partay, so went to a new years party with many jets and friends. I got real drunk, broke a chair, pushed someone into a ravine ( to be fair they tried to take me down first but sadly I am much heavier than him(yes it was a guy)) Then waltzed out for some Karoke, it started snowing, I talked to some random people singing then invited them to join us, walked back, yelled at someone for stealing my blanket and pillow, thus scaring the person sleeping in the next room. So I was productive, partied and was blessed. Good times more pics soon to come.

Recap

reeecap.
Thanksgiving-had everyone at my house for meat, mashed potatoes, rolls, green beans, stuffing and pumpkin pie. Delicious everyone had a good time. Cooking=success.
Christmas-worked all December then left on the 21st for tokyo. I spent about 6 days there in a pretty shitty hostel. Note to self, conveniently located hostel are never convenient. Sooooo far away from the station. Went to the Ghibli Museum and had a blast eating delicious food and looking at all of the exhibits. Went to Ahkihabara where I was going to buy a nintendo ds but ended up getting an ipod touch instead. Ate at the Gundam cafe and had a gundam martini. Went to meiji shrine then visited Harujuku and geeked out out in the idol stores. We went to shibuya on Christmas day and visited all of the stores in 109 station and watched the giant crossing. Then we met up with our juku students at tokyo tower. They were really tired but everyone had lots of fun and they didnt know we were coming. We then traveled with them to asakusa shine and finally out to do purikura with two of my supervisors. We ended the trip with disneyland and went on some ridiculous rides. Captain EO in 3-D was hilarious(aka: Micheal jackson movie from the 80's). Space mountain, tea cups, merry go-round and general eating of food. When we flew back our plane was late and we ended up back in Nichinan about an hour and a half late.

So now I'm up to date...

I have the sickness as previously stated on my facebook wall. I learned of a Korean pop band from some of my favorite teachers at one of my schools. Bigbang is now my favorite band ever. Even moreso than NYSYNC which was saying alot. I started with a couple dvds, and that led to drama's. The drama's led to more cd's(which are expensive in japan) then finally to posters and now the obsession has set in. Or rather the sickness. I had to stop for a moment when i realized i was going to spend $40 on a bigbang backpack. Shit, I'm doomed and my obsession and degree in art only lead to one thing.... Collages. Highly elaborated and obsessive collages. I even chose paper that matched their personalities...Fuck.. and I cant stop. Must get tickets to Korea, then go see big bang concert, buy tons of shit to put in my house, then be taller than everyone else at the concert so I get a good view. Never been happier to be tall in my life.