August 2005 Archives

I spent all day on a bus. Several buses. Trying to find all my schools. The good news is that I found all my schools (the ones I looked for), the bad news is that some of them are like 45 minutes away. Another up-note is that I'll have one elementary school. I'm looking forwards to teaching classes where I just have to be a very silly foreigner all the time. Which is what I do best.

The cool streak we were having in the city is now gone. Back is the humidity and the heat. Not fun.

Patricia called my phone company to see if I can get internet. They're not sure if my place can handle it. Sigh.... I want home internet...

I put up a random silly video. Nothing too special. Shows you the randomness that is my life lately.

We finally got our list of school assignments for the next year. I've got a total of seven different schools I'll be teaching at, all of them middle schools. I was kind of looking forward to teaching at a couple of elementary schools, but I think the fact that I'm a gigantic foreign guy kind of stacked the cards against me. The downside to teaching at so many schools is that I won't get to know the teachers of students very well because I'll be spread a bit thin. The upside is that if a school is really bad, or I don't get along with someone, I won't have to see them very often. Oh the joy! In preparation to teaching I've been printing off color photos of the US and laminating them. Luckily I have quite a few photos of the midwest and the east coast to entertain the kids. Plus no one can resist photos of my favorite cat. WILSON!!!!!!

I tried buying curtains to my flat last evening. I bought some nice roll down curtains, on sale, at DIK and installed them, but when I went outside to check them out I could see strait through them, which is the reason I wanted to get rid of the old ones I currently have. That and the fact that the neighbors have been getting quite the show if they were looking at my windows at night the past month. The only solution I can come up with right now to getting rid of the morning sunshine in my bedroom is to pin up some towels and a blanket over my windows. It mostly works for me. I also bought a couple of floor chairs so I can sit on something with a padded back. Jess was cool enough to come over and pay me a meager amount for my 'bean bag of death.' The thing may be comfortable but it looks like its made of bear fur. Maybe Jess can use some of her crazy decorating skills on it so it doesn't look so ugly. I'm just happy to have all the extra room in my closet.

I finally met my next door neighbors last night. The seem like really cool people and I'm happy they're friendly (as opposed to the insane neighbor Jess, Graham, and Natasha all have). I was able to halfway communicate with them, and they seemed to appreciate the effort on my part. I kept trying to think of ways to say "I'm sorry for hammering things at 10 o'clock at night", but the Japanese escaped me. I've also been trying to get to know the people across the street from me. Several older couples live the houses across from me and I always say こにちわ or こんばんわ　to them and try and chit chat about the weather. They seem to find me overly amusing most of the time. Thats me, the silly foreigner.

I'm going to attempt to get internet again tonight. Patricia is going to come over and see if I can get DSL through my phone company. Any internet is better then no internet right now. I'd be nice to actually download stuff and video chat with my family. Plus I could finally get around to finishing my overhaul of my webpage. I hate an unorganized webpage the same way I hate an unorganized house. Though nothing beats the cockroach I found on Sunday night running around my kitchen. I don't know what it had been doing there because I haven't had any food in my place for the past two weeks. At least nothing that doesn't reside in the fridge or in a plastic container. Oh well, that just means I'll need to buy some roach hotels.

On Saturday night there was a massive JET party in the local beer garden. Nothing like a group of 60+ english teachers at an all you can eat and all you can drink establishment. The true highlight of the evening was when Andrew tried to talk a Japanese body builder into an arm wrestle. What a time for me not to have my camera on me. The beer garden is always a good time. You know whats also good? Curry at 4 am. Late night curry does sum up my evening.

When I eventually got up on Sunday afternoon I rushed over to the Fukuyama Castle Park where Helen had tried to organize some frisbee fun. No one showed up, and no frisbee was played, but we did end up taking to a couple of Indonesian guys who worked on one of the big freighters that was docked in town. Afterwards we went to my favorite internet cafe for some iced tea, and noticed the worst case of Engrish I'd ever seen. "It had made a Monday do with a regular holiday weekly from a September." Helen, being the nice person she is, helped translate the Japanese into more readable English. What the sign was trying to say was "Starting in September, every Monday will be a holiday (day off)." I plan on sending that to Engrish.com and hope it will make the front page.

Helen was also kind enough to take me to a second hand store near where she lives. This place had everything from TVs to old Ninja Turtles action figures. I had to hold myself back from buying both a TV and action figures, but it gave me a good idea of what was available. There was a nice 20in widescreen TV for just 二万円, which is about $180 US. Not too bad actually, perfect for what I want and or need. The problem is that I would have had no way to get it home, and I don't really have it in my budget this month. Maybe in a month or two. I'll probably go back and buy some fun little things for my place next weekend.

I spend some time Sunday night with Jess and Bill at Jess' place, where I found that they were unfortunately watching the new Catwoman movie. I had heard it was bad, but I never figured it could possibly be that bad. So to entertain herself Jess starting putting random things in my hair. Then she decided to put lip gloss on me. Then somehow it elevated into eye makeup. Next thing I knew she was plucking my eyebrows and taking odd photos of me with her new digital camera. Sure it was a bit weird, and sure Bill was highly disturbed by it all, yet one thing was for sure. I looked damn good. I always do.

Has this been an interesting week. My time in Saijo has left me a bit drained physically, though it beats being in the office doing nothing all week. I learned some new handy Japanese, and hopefully I'll remember it next week. I'm also down like $200 US because of the trip, and I anxiously await getting reimbursed for it all.

I went up to Kanabe last evening to hang out with Matt, Mark, and a few other JETs. Its only a little 15 minute train ride from my house and it was interesting going to a different city for a while. Kanabe is small in comparison to Fukuyama, and its slightly rural. The cool thing is that Matt had cable and we all watched a classic episode of CHiPs. While cable would be nice to have, I'll be OK not paying the 5,100 Yen a month for it. Not too far from Matt's place is a mall. A real mall. Western style. I was impressed. Inside was also the largest grocery store I've yet to see in Japan. We were all a bit amazed by it all, and wanted to just live there. I also discovered the wonder that is a Melon Soda Float. So good.

I eventually headed home and met up with Todd and his girlfriend Sarah at a the train station. They had driven into town after Saijo because of a meeting they wanted to attend the next day. They crashed at my place for the night, and it was nice to actually have some company over for a change. The two of them live way up in the mountains of Hiroshimaken, where apparently bears live and frolic through their back yard. I didn't peg Japan as bear country. More of a "Bat Country" sort of place.

I got some sad news this week in the form of a picture from Zach. It appears as if my old college dorm is no more. Three years of slacking down the drain. I only hope that the crew who had the unfortunate task of taking the building down had hazmat suits on because of all the strange chemicals that were present in the building. Seriously. The place was a death trap. I'm just glad that it didn't kill me in the three years I was there. On the upside it did condition me for living in Japan. Compared to my dorm room, my apartment here in Japan seems gigantic.

In other sad news my watch broke this week. The watch I've had since the 4th grade. It started acting weird when I got rained on last weekend, and then it just stopped working. So much for 'Water proof to 15 Meters.' I took it into a watch store and found out that it is completely gone. So now I have a watch tan, but no watch to cover it with.

I've had to do a lot of work on my apartment since I arrived. Lots of things needed to be cleaned (ok, everything did), a lot of things had to be bought (still working on it), and several things had to be fixed. I finally got around to fixing my toilet this weekend, which was quite a task. I also found out that buying shades/ curtains for my back door and windows would cost be a bundle due to the fact that I have non-standard sized doors and windows. I think instead of trying to buy curtains for my bedroom I may either a) make my own 2) do without or 3) buy a face mask for sleeping at night. I've spent too much Yen this month already on getting my house in order. I'll wait till next month before I actually try and add anything else new.

I start teaching on the 1st of September. I guess that means I should get my big Self Introduction ready. This means that I need to print off a lot of photos of me, my home town, and my family and somehow make it all into a game. This isn't so hard for middle school kids but elementary kids are a whole different ball game. This will take some serious thought.

I still don't have internet. Don't know when I will. At least the internet cafe is feeling like my second home, and it beats sitting in my apartment. Plus they make a good cup of ice tea. Sigh... I miss downloading...

So I went up to Saijo for our 'Culture and Language' orientation. The language part is quite helpful, though I really need to question the 'scavenger hunt' cultural part of it. While it is fun to run around the city taking photos of yourself with local peoples, one group got kicked out of a mall within minutes of starting. Ahh the fun. One cool thing though is that right outside the station is a archeological dig! I had one of the Japanese girls in our group ask what it was all about and apparently its a dig from the Edo Period! (For you non history majors thats about 1600 AD) Its the kind of thing we history majors live for.

But now I'm back in Fukuyama for the night because of a Teacher Training class we have going on tomorrow. When thats all done its back to Saijo. I can't really complain. Its time away from the office. We all took the local (slow) train to Saijo, and even though its about an hour and a half trip, its worth it. The view is really nice at several points. A few very lush valleys and a lot of coastline. I took some video of it and will probably put together a video of my random adventures this weekend. Speaking of this weekend I'll probably have a few guests stay over at my place due to a party on Saturday night. Its hard to have a good time in Fukuyama when your train leaves at like 11:00 and the fun is only starting. Plus with the advent of my new bed I have a spot for friends to crash at.

After a long conversation about video games with my favorite Internet Cafe owner, this comic is all the more funny. Funny and true. I like Rockman, but sometimes I have to wonder about him.

Most of the world sleeps on a futon at night. Something they pull out of a closet, or have in the corner. Futons are nice, and work well. This is unless you have a bad back, or just can't get comfortable on them. Thats my situation these days, and I decided to actually do something about it and went and bought a bed today. I remembered this place not too far from my apartment and decided to stop there. Like most businesses in Japan it was a little Mom and Pop joint, and luckily there was just the bed for me. Also to my luck was the fact that my complete lack of 'bed buying japanese' was ok with them, and we somehow worked everything out. They were super nice to me, which once again reminds me of how darn nice most Japanese people are. Heck they were even concerned that theirs beds were too short for my tall foreigner body. Luckily I'm not that tall, and I bought the hole kit and caboodle. Within the hour they came and put it together for me and I then spend another hour rearranging my place. The bed has some drawers under it so I was able to take all my clothing out of the shelves in closet and move them under my bed, as well as move the shelves next to my bed. My bigger room now has sitting room in it and a place where I can actually sit down and eat at. All this for just around $430 US, which isn't so bad, seeing how I got a pillow and sheets and stuff with it, plus they came and put it together for me. Oh, and did I mention how nice they were?

I went out for some 100 yen sushi last night with Jess, Patricia, and Bill. The three of them visit this joint way too much, and I think the employees know their names now. It was good, as good as 100 yen sushi can be, but still not as good as what I got in Tokyo. Sushi is good in moderation, and if only I could get Jared to come visit me so he could try real sushi so that I can change his mind about it.

Afterwards I headed to bar Flower where Lynne had told me there would be live music. Much like Lynne I sat waiting for her to show up for like 45 minutes, but this did afford me the opportunity to talk to Eric who just happened to be chilling outside Flower. As we were chilling outside two guys in a bike helmets came over and talked to us (no one wares helmets in Japan for regular bikes). Turns out they're the local Mormon missionaries in town, which explained the outfits and the helmets. Nice guys, but sadly we could neither ask them to come in for a drink (duh) nor get them to talk longer due to their 9 PM curfew. No fun for them. This is just a nice reminder that I should never ware to work blank slacks, a white shirt, and a black tie. I did that once and Natashi quickly commented on how I looked like a Mormon missionary. Not the look I was hoping to project here in Japan.

I'm meeting some JETs from the surrounding area tonight for some fun on the town. Fukuyama style. Or at least as much fun as you can have in Fukuyama. Hopefully it won't rain on us, or at least me. I'll be spending all next week in Saijo for some cultural and language training, so I doubt I'll be writing anything up for a week. I'll also not be sleeping in my bed for a week. That saddens me.

Its trying to rain around here, but I don't know if its actually going to do anything worth while. This isn't the "rainy" season, and its surprising that we're getting anything at all. The downside to this is that its Friday night and I don't want to have to deal with rain if I'm going to try and do anything fun. Plus tomorrow I'm going to attempt to buy a bed, or at least see how much they cost. The futon system really sucks for me. Some people enjoy it, I don't. Just on my list of things I need to buy while I'm here. Like a bike with gears.

So keeping a decent record of my spending is something new for me. I decided to buy some software, for a change, to help me keep organized. I figure if I'm overly organized I can't help but decently keep track of what the heck I'm doing. Plus the program iCash actually has support for the Japanese Yen, as well as just being rather handy overall. I think its a decent investment.

So the government in Japan is super crazy right now. The Prime Minister dissolved the legislative body and has called for new elections because they didn't pass a massive Post Office Privatization bill. The Post Office here in Japan isn't just letters, its also one of the largest banks in Japan, and employs half a million people. Long story short is that the PM hopes that this will help solve some of the massive economical issues facing Japan, and now that new elections are on the way I keep seeing tons of little vans running around the street spewing out campaign slogans. They wake me up early.

Anyways, off to have a weekend of fun filled bed shopping, and maybe biking shopping. At least I make the big Yen these days.

So after taking a long trek to Deo Deo, which is one cool electronics store, I found out that I am outside the coverage area for yehoo Broad Band internet acess. Even better is the fact that to use a different service I need to have my boss at work talk to my landlord in order to see if I can get permission to have the internet people come over and install the necessary stuff into my place. At least I have my local internet cafe to use until that day. Plus I just found out they have wireless... hmmm....

On an upside to Lynne and my trip to Deo Deo, Lynne did make a new friend. While stopped at a light Lynne started talking to this European guy who turned out to be a stripper at a nearby building. So long story short she`s going to tell the rest of us how his dancing is on Monday. On our way back we ran into a whole flock of girls going into said building who all appeared to be Eastern European strippers. So when in Fukuyama know this: If you run into a foreigner there is a darn good chance that they are either 1) an English teacher, 2) Here on Business or 3) a stripper.

Anyways I need to do a whole lot of laundry and get some food tonight. Hopefully I`ll get everything worked out around here eventually.

Payday is good. But finding out how to use the ATMs is even better. Luckily Lynne showed us all what was what so we could access our cash. Hmm... glorious cash. Now I can actually buy food! I was thinking to myself what I needed and what I wanted. nothing too crazy, but some important things.

Need: Toilet Seat, Food, Internet, Pots and Pans
Want: Western Style Bed, some books, more food, more karaoke.

I really would love getting a western style bed, but I need to look into prices. This whole futon thing is ok, but hurts my back. My toilet is a must fix. I'm afraid I'll have a guest over and they'll fall in or something. I could always go crazy and buy a super japan techno toilet, but really, that may be overkill for just me. Pots and pans are needed to cook. I'm throwing out the ones I currently have because after half an hour of scrubbing on just one pot I realized that the pan was silver and not dark brown. They're so old and horrible I might as well spend a bit of money and get new ones.

Jess and Patricia treated me to a nice meal tonight. The whole gang got together and had a really nice Japanese feast. Beats my usual meal choices around here. Its rather fun hanging out with the gang, they're all really cool peeps. Patricia's brother is in town for a while as well. He's off to Korea in a week to study there. Ooooo the fun!

I'm thinking of heading up to Tokyo middle of September for a few days with the guys. The 2005 Tokyo Game show is going on over a 3 day weekend, and I also would love to to just spend some non jet-lag time walking around the city. But theres quite a bit of time between then and now so hopefully I'll have everything worked out by then.

To end the summer festival times here in Fukuyama there was a massive fireworks display down by the river. Quite cool, and a lot better then the ones I saw in Onomichi. Lynne, Bill, Grahm, Natasha and I all went with the owners of a local eatery we know. They were extremely nice to us and tried to over feed us several times. Some other JETs I had met in the past couple of weeks also showed up and hung with us for a while. Once again the fireworks display went on for over two hours. Its never a dull time here in Japan.

We were all in the local paper this past week. Turns out that our meeting with the mayor was some major news in town.

I spent some time today updating some parts of my site. I fixed a whole lot of issues with my Tutorials, I updated my Contact Info so that it has all my Japan stuff, randomly updated a whole lot of other pages, added some Guides to Living in Japan, added a nice guide on how to connect a Japanese Nokia phone to your Mac, and just did some much needed overhauling. I still have a few things I need to change, but overall its mostly all transitioned over to my Pair.com hosting.

I got my pay stub today. Times are good. Now all I need to do is figure out a budget.

I'll be attending some Seminars for the rest of the week. They have the potential to be very helpful or just very dull. Next week I'll be traveling to Saijo for some Japanese language classes. Hopefully they can help improve my horrible Japanese skills.

The heat is still killer here. I've gotten several queries about the towel I always have around my neck. Yes, it is for sweat. You need one here all the time in the summer. It is just too blasted hot and humid to do anything about it, and you sweat constantly. All the Japanese have one handy and I find myself using it often at work.

I like the fact that for some reason my webpage is attracting an international audience. I hope someone finds my exploits fun and or interesting.

I like my new cell phone for a number of reasons. The ability to upload photos to my webpage, the bluetooth connectivity, the ability to check my e-mail. But recently I've found myself loving the fact that I can put music files off my computer onto my phone for new ring tones. Nothing beats classic Super Mario Brothers or Zelda music when you need a cell phone ring tone. Plus its nice to have a ring tone that is almost assured that no one else will have.

So I spent Wednesday through Friday. Overall it was a tad bit dull, and way too hot for my taste. But on the up side I was able to meet a whole lot of other JETs. Good socializing times.

So honestly not a whole lot has been happening for me. I bought a shoe rack. Has some fun times on the town. Its festival time here in town, which means I'll probably go and see some more fireworks tomorrow night.

Payday is soon. I feel good.

I put up an nice little tour of my apartment on my vidblog. Enjoy.

We met the mayor of Fukuyama today. Yup. Nothing says fun like being super dressed up in extremely hot weather.

New videos posted on my vidblog. Do watch them. The one about Hiroshima is really quite good.

Friday night the entire office went out for a party, a welcome party of sorts for the new JETs. Long story short: Good food, good drinks, and some wild karaoke.

Saturday Bill and I managed to get up at a decent time and drag ourselves to the train station by 9. We did this because it was the 60th Anniversary of the atomic bomb dropping on Hiroshima and we felt we should go. We bought some bullet train tickets and were off. Just to let you know, the bullet trains are damn cool, super comfortable, and not as expensive as everyone thinks. We got into town around 10 and took a trolly to the Peace Park. Because of the special day that it was the place was crowded with people from all over the world who had come to take part in remembering what had happened. There were, as you'd expect, quite a few peace protesters, human rights groups, and local school groups there all promoting different peace efforts. Bill and I ran into a group of JETs who were also visiting and hung out them them for a while. The place was quite packed and the city had erected a stage for the opening and closing ceremony. Due to the extra ordinary good weather we all started feeling the heat and took refuge in a local shopping center. Our group split up for lunch and we headed off to eat some great Indian Curry.

After lunch we sat in the shade of a big tree and watched the people go by. It was then that a Japanese man came over and spoke to us, in english, about his experiences in Hiroshima 60 years ago. He was 16 at the time and was living in the city with his family. He lost both his younger brother and father in the blast. It was quite heart wrenching hearing the story and we were very thankful that he had spoken to us. Afterwards we ran into yet another group of JETs we knew and hung with them for quite a while, walking around the city. We saw several large groups of protesters wondering the streets, and large numbers of Japanese cops trailing behind.

When the city turned dark the entire peace park was lit up with candles and lanterns. The tradition of lighting lanterns and floating them down the river has become a major event, and was quite beautiful. It was quite an amazing site to see, and I hopefully will have all my video edited by this next weekend, because the pictures just don't do justice. We took the slow train home, being completely exhausted by the entire ordeal. Although we were clearly American citizens we had felt no hostilities towards us from anyone at the anniversary events. If nothing else this day was for understanding and remembering the people who were touched by the tragic events 60 years ago, so that they will never be forgotten.

I'll be sticking up several picture albums on my Photos page, including my pictures from Hiroshima. I'll also be posting the video I made from footage I took in Tokyo on my Vidblog page. A special thanks to Dale for hosting my video files.

So you live in a country that isn't the United States, own a Macintosh with 10.4, and go out and buy a nice cool bluetooth cell phone. Only problem is that when you try and get iSync to work with it you get a message saying "security error" from trying to install the AppleiSyncAgent.SIS file. For a lot of people around the world all they need to do is go into their Tools -> Manager -> Options -> Settings and then turn on App installation in their phone. See I tried the same thing here in Japan with my Nokia 6630 (702NK by Vodafone) and it still didn't work. The problem is that here in Japan Vodafone disables a lot of features on this phone and you're left with a very crippled 'smart phone.' I imagine that the same thing has happened to people in many countries. But there is a fix. A rather quick one if you have the right things around.

What you need: A bluetooth enabled Macintosh, a Bluetooth Phone (supported by iSync), OS 10.4, iSync 2.1, A Memory Card Reader that does MuliMedia brand cards, FExplorer, MacUnsisPy. (You can buy a card reader for under $20 US, or under 2,000 Yen)

Step One: Set up your Mac to see your phone. Set it up as a favorite using the Bluetooth preference pane. This shouldn't be an issue overall as long as Bluetooth is turned on in both your phone and your computer.

Step Two: Set up iSync to see your phone by going to Device, then Add New Device. iSync should see it. Now try and sync with it. Your computer will send a file over to your phone in the form of a text message. AppleSyncAgent-s60v22.sis to be exact. Try opening it. If its rejected due to a 'security error' thats just fine, continue. If not, well, you're already in business and shouldn't be reading this at all.

Step Three: Install MacUnsisPy on your computer. Put it somewhere on your hard drive. You should have also downloaded FExplorer, which is a .sis file. Drag FExplorer into the UnsisPy script. What this does is break apart the .sis file into its different installation parts so we can manually install FExplorer on your phone. UnsisPy will have created a folder with all the installation files in it in the same directory that FExplorer.sis was in.

Step Four: Now take your little MuliMedia card out of your phone, stick it in the card reader, and plug it into your Mac. Open it up. Open up the FExplorer folder created by MacUnsisPy. Put the different parts of FExplorer into the correlating folders in the memory card (thus manually installing it). Unmount the memory card and put it back in your phone.

Step Five: If everything worked out fine you should now have FExplorer installed in your Menu items on your phone. Open up the program. In my phone there was a listing for "[ inbox]", if you're using a different phone you may have to search around for the 'Mail' folder. Now select the AppleSyncAgent-s60v22.sis file and click 'Option', chose 'Edit', and then 'Cut'. Now go back a level (push the left arrow on your phone). Click the E drive (which should be your memory card). Once there just go into any folder, or even in the root of the directory, and chose 'Option', then 'Edit', then 'Paste.'

Step Six: Now take the card out, put it in the reader, and back into your computer. Move the AppleSyncAgent-s60v22.sis file to your computer. Drag it into MacUnsisPy. You will now have all the file necessary to install the iSync Agent onto your phone. Just copy the files into the same folders on the memory card. If a folder does not exist then drag it over as well. Now put that card back into your phone!

Step Seven: You should now have the iSync agent in your phones Menu items. Open it up and start up the agent. You should now be able to sync your phone with iSync.

Other things: You can use this same process to install such programs as Salling Clicker and addons like new themes and ringtones onto your phone. Both Salling Clicker and iSync work fine on my Japanese Vodafone 702NK. I'm sure this same process would work for such phones as the 802SE. This entire process is just something I put together thanks to random bits of info found across the web. By no means do I actually know anything about cell phone, Japanese cell phones, or how they all work. This information is only intended as a guide and quite honestly may not work for some people, especially if you're using a different phone. Good luck with the entire ordeal.

UPDATE: Try this OS X Skin for your Nokia 6630 phone.

I now have a cell phone, and I love it. I got what in the US would be a Nokia 6630 phone. Not just a phone, a smart G3 network phone. Which means that I can use it around the world, and that it has a web interface, and lots of fun advanced features which I will never use. One of the reasons I do like it is that I can sync it with my Macintosh, move files and contact info back and forth. Problem is that the Japanese version is just different enoughto cause lots to installation issues for the programs I want to use. I should be able to get around this, but it will take some effort. On an up note it does work perfectly with my Bluetooth headset, as well as some specific programs on my Mac.

Even cooler is that I can e-mail　pictures from my phone to Flickr.com and have them appear on my Moblog (pictures to the right on my main page). Keep an eye out for those. They`re going to be fun.

The other thee new JETs are here. I`m spending my time this evening showing them around the city. Or as much of it as I know. Its no like my schedule is full or anything, plus I enjoy biking around.

So I think I`ll be going to Hiroshima City this weekend for the 60th Aniversery of the Atom Bomb being dropped. There is a ton of stuff going on, none of which I know about. going on, none of which I know about. I`m just going to go and see whats happening. Unill later... keep it real

If you're reading this then that means I either found a way onto the City Hall computer network or that I somehow transfered this data some other means, but long story short is that it probably wasn't too easy. Heres a rundown of what I've been up to.

Orientation in Tokyo fun! Sure we were all Jet Lagged, sleepy, and after a night on Tokyo a bit hung over, but thats what you'd expect from over 1,000 english teachers having fun in Tokyo! Even with heavy rains and winds JETs ventured out to experience Tokyo in all its crazy glory. Having been through enough typhoons, and subsequent soaked outfits, I only went out for a quick Sushi run in-between rain showers. The 2nd day JET workshops were quite good. I attended a shop on teaching middle school students, complete with its own middle school students. In the afternoon I went to a shop on basic "how not to make yourself look like an ass in front of your boss" as well as a very fun shop on getting involved in the community. Our final day in Tokyo was very brief. It mostly consisted of taking a bus to the airport, getting on the plane, flying away. Though on the upside we did get a nice drive through the city which actually does have a cool skyline. Tokyo Tower rules! (Did you know its built out of recycled tanks?) "Fu fu FUMA!!!!!"

The plane ride was quick, just one hour. In Hiroshima the 35 of us were greeted with a very embarrassing crowd of local JETs all holding signs with our names, bright colors, and for a few people a nice big photo of their face. I was relieved when the Fukuyama sign only had our names on it. I guess our local co-JETs were a bit lazy...

After a quick business meeting between us new Fukuyama JETs and our very cool boss I was dropped off at my new apartment. Home sweet home. While my predecessor did leave me the things that I paid for, he also left me a few surprises. The place was a bit dirty. For instance the kitchen looked like an Indian restaurant threw up all over. Spice bottles everywhere, a nice layer of flour over many things, and half empty bottles of ketchup. While this is annoying it has given me a good opportunity to take stock of everything here, as well as be sure that its actually clean. Anyhow I unpacked and we all went to a beer garden. (Its damn hot here)

My first day of work. It mainly consisted of meeting a bunch of people, having a big formal ceremony where we all received our letter of appointment from the Superintendent, and getting several things set up. My office seems really cool as do my co-workers. There will be 6 JETs working in my department at City Hall this year, up from 4 last years. We're still waiting for three of them to get here next week. (Its damn hot here!)

Anyways Fukuyama is about 400,000 people big and there are about 5000 foreigners here. 2000 some from Korea and China, 1000 from Peru and another 1000 from Brazil, and a large smattering from elsewhere. I believe it, I saw quite a few non-Japanese wondering around the city when I was ridding my bike around the other night. The city has quite a bit to do and offer. To quote Rick, an outgoing JET "It has enough to keep you entertained and yet small enough that you still need to go into a bigger city to do other things." I was quite pleased at the foreign import store where I bought a Snapple last night (Only $2) after cleaning most of the kitchen. I then went to a bar that our little group had gone to the night before where I ended up talking to one of my co-workers from city hall. (Its so damn hot here)

The grocery store is always interesting when you don't know what a lot of the packages say. Though I did buy a bottle of wine for the weekend. Thats all I'm going to say about that.

So anyhow I don't actually have internet yet, and I'm not really sure how exactly I'm going to post this yet. I'll just have to go on a wi-fi hunt. I won't be getting an internet connection, land line, or cell phone until the middle of August when my Foreigner Registration card is done. I should have a cell phone by the time you read this, which is a complete necessity here. Without one there is no way for anyone to get ahold of you. Plus in an emergency it would be nice to be able to contact my boss or co-workers.

This past weekend I, along with my fellow Fukuyama JETS, headed down the rail line about twenty minutes to Onomichi. Every summer Onomichi has extremely cool fireworks and thousands of people show up from all over. This also means that the trains were packed, which sucks. On an up note I did meet a whole lot of new JETs/ English teachers and nothing beats Japanese fair foods.

My big accomplishment thus far also happened this past weekend. I managed to go to a hardware store, buy a whole ton of stuff, and then somehow convey that I wanted it shipped to my place. Even more important was the fact that it actually got to me when they said it would would. My place is a bit bare so I've had to stock it with quite a few things. A hamper, some shelves, a book case, lots of little storage containers, some real dishes and glasses (I have like 12 bowls and 6 mugs, but no real plates), office supplies, food, cleaning supplies, and a spice rack. I'll show you what I mean eventually.

Because we're not actually teaching yet work is mainly consisting of getting to know the office, whats going on, and a lot of Japanese studying. I think I've been studying more now then I ever did in college. But unlike college its a necessity for survival, plus now I can actually use a lot of this damned vocab!

Ok, its not really damned hot. Not after I replaced the batteries on my air-conditioning remote so I could actually get cool air to come out. I feel good now.

Lastly I've made up two nice videos to post, as well as several photo albums, but again I need an actual connection to do so. If I'm lucky Lynn will let me use her connection for a while this week. Oooo the fun you're all going to have when you see my crazy video montage!