I am overwhelmed

Hey. I finally arrived. I can`t believe that I`m here in Japan. And I can`t seem to remember where the apostrophe is on Japanese keyboards. Its pretty early here, almost 7am, and since I couldn`t sleep on the plane, I only got to sleep after about 30 hours when I got to Tomoko`s house, I think I may have avoided any severe jet lag. This is about the time I have been waking up all summer to go to work, so it seems ok.

The flight from Chicago really sucked. The food was terrible and I was only able to get down the first meal, which was probably a mistake. It was some sort of ginger/curry chicken, which was abou 15 times over-seasoned. It made me feel really queasy, when combined with the turbulence. I ate the instant bowl of ramen they gave us for the snack along with the cookie, and then skipped the second lunch for fear of having to throw up on my fellow passengers. The smell alone was sickening enough. Other than that, the flight went by pretty smooth. I listened to my music and read for about 4 hours of the flight, and watched the crappy movies the rest. I watched `Over the hedge` which was not very good, `16 Blocks` which was ok, and `She`s the man` which was sadly the most exciting out of all of them.

The plane was really really airconditioned, so that when I stepped off of it, I was hit with the heat and humidity of Osaka really badly. It was like getting bitch slapped in the face by a 300 pound, sweaty otaku, who jsut realized I had bought the last shoujo manga from the discount bin. I was instantly sweating, and I am going to try to wear more comfortable clothes for today. It took me at least 35 minutes to clear all the quarantine and departure crap, since my seat was at the very last row in the airplane, leaving me to rush past everybody on the plane who was ahead of me. But, everything worked out. Tomoko was waiting for me outside of baggage, although I didnt recognize her at first since she was dressed so differently and her hair was longer. We took the bus for about an hour to where her parents met up with us. They are really nice people and luckily Tomoko has been practicing english with them, so our first meeting was not too awkward. I haven`t been studying Japanese, so a lot of my vocab has disappeared. This makes sentence composition really hard, so their English helped a lot. We got to their home, had a delicious supper, I took a shower, and then promptly went to bed. It was a nice evening spent with everyone though, and they liked the gifts I had brought.

On a side note, one thing I had forgotten about Japan is, motorcycles do not use traffic lanes like cars. EVERY motoricyclist either rides up between cars, or between the curb and the cars. This would be fine if it was just a few, but they ALL do it. And they are always going at least 20 km/h faster than traffic. It`s unbelievable, but it makes sense. In Canada, it is illegal, and if you get hurt or hit, or cause an accident bacause you are lane-splitting, YOU are at fault and get in trouble. But here, the smaller vehicle is in the right-of-way, which means no matter what, the bigger car pays, and usually just cash on the spot. That means there is no punishment for sriving like a bat out of hell on a bike. NUTS!

I`ll have pictures up soon as I get to I-house and set up my laptop. I will also try to make a video which I will upload to youtube for y`all.

PEACE out!

AAH, 10 hours left

AHH, 10 hours left!!!

Proof I'm a Pirate. Exibit A..... Plundered Booty

Yes, that's right. I have heaped even more evidence onto the festering pile which is my masculinity. I have plundered not just mere common swag, but swag which will be told of yonder, for eons, from the shadiest of saloons to the highest of bourgoisie courts. I have plundered what some would call a priceless artifact, in that it is fully functional, and is an antique. Are you ready to burst with anticipation? Good. Here is a picture.I can't believe it. It seems some fool in Westdale decided to throw out a completely working drum machine. Now, its not the fanciest of them around, and it is a little scuffed, but other than that, it works pretty good for something that may be as old as I am. As far as I can tell, using all empirical evidence before me, they threw it out because they were tired of wasting batteries in it. I assume this because there were 6 C cell (thats right, it takes a half dozen C cells to run) batteries inside which were dead, and there was no adapter by the curb. I have no idea why they didn't just go to The Source and pay $19 for a universay adapter.... Well, maybe they got a better drum machine, but still. Who throws this kind of junk out??? Sane people? Or insane people?

2 more days until I leave Canadian soil, and I'm freaking the hell out.

Checklist.

Ok, so I am almost done packing fo Japan. Now I only have to get a few more things, like toiletries. and get some Japanese yen from the money exchanger. I made a checklist yesterday, so I will try to get as many things done on Monday as possible. I still can't believe how fast this remaining week has gone.

Internet, work, money

My internet disappeared the other day. It was supposed to be cancelled on the 7th, and a new internet connection was supposed to be connected from Cogeco, but they cancelled on the 3rd. This left me in an awkward situation as I actually got home from work with important emails to send. Then we found out that Cogeco had actually never attached a trap outside our house, so the cable internet connection that we had cancelled more than 2 years ago was still working. This means we had been paying for internet from Sympatico which we could have gotten for free. This has happened twice now. Once with cable TV.

I only have 13 days of work left and I am really excited to get back to school... since it means that I will get to sleep in more! Isn't it bad when you want school only so you get to sleep in?

It also turns out that saving money this summer did not work out as well as planned. I will end up being about $1000 short of my goal. I hope to remedy this by working in Japan though. I figure I can try to get Tuesdays free, since my sister says that I can work at a school. I can also realistically budget money I make in Japan, since I will be able to see how much I am making and how much things cost. I hope to use money I make working to pay for food and trips.

Since I am going away for a while, I am having a BBQ which I hope some friends from school will come to.

Oh, and I saw Miami Vice the other week, and I was really dissapointed. It was really slow through most of the movie, which I assume was meant to build charaacter and story, butI ended up thinking by the end of the movie "what the hell was accomplished in the movie? the world is no better a place due to the events in the movie." There were really only two action scenes,which was not nearly enough. I am going to see Talladega Nights tonight, so hopefully, I will finally have a good movie viewing under my belt by the end of the summer. That's all, since this post is getting to be too long. bye

Too much Summer

I can't believe its this hot out. 47C with the humidity. How the hell do people near the equator put up with temperatures this high. At least the Jamaican students at Mac have been able to doff their winter coats for a little while. Luckily, my job only requires me to be outside for minutes at a time. I do not envy the grounds crew, mostly because they are all jerks. The days are beginning to fly by now and I am finding it hard to believe that in a few weeks, I won't be able to see anyone from Canada for at least 8 months. That seems like a really short time, until you ahve to experience it. I am going to have a going-away party on the second weekend of August so that I can see everyone from school before I leave.

very few days. Looking back and realizing that my summer days were not spent doing summer things. growing up sucks