On Bicycles and... Bicycles.

Why hello there.
You seem to be very interested in me, bicycle. It's okay. You can stare, I won't bite. I'm used to it.


So, are you from around here? You look like you enjoy riding. Yes, I can see it in your eyes, so beautiful so- wait wait don't leave, look! Look, we have this terrain to ride together

and this gorgeous rainy view.

What's that you say? You say you want to stop? But baby, I will never stop, I will never sto-

Oh okay I did. Well, at least let me show you my... "panorama shot"

wait, no, please! Please don't go! Please...
Oh I'm so lonely.

To track my bike routes and to see photos from different spots on the Miyazaki coast I've taken, check out my Google Map here.

On Gangsters, Money and the Fattest Woman in the World

Today something noteworthy happened.
I went to the bank to transfer funds back home to pay off my parents and credit card bills. This (for my Father) is definitely noteworthy, but not the subject of this entry.
What was interesting today happened as I stood in line to use the automatic teller. There were six machines in a row at this particular branch, and at the very last machine a fashionable young man was using the teller with another fashionable young man standing directly behind him.
Their fashion wasn't so unique, the usual expensive suit accompanied by designer watches and slicked back black hair. What was unique was their posture and mannerisms.
The man at the teller had his briefcase propped up blocking the view of his hands, and the man behind who I assumed was just a friend, was fidgeting, looking about, and generally staring at those waiting (mainly me).
He was being the lookout.

I smiled at the lookout just to be a cocky asshole, and he just continued to look around the area stone faced but obviously a little nervous.
My eyes then gravitated to the man at the teller. He had this briefcase propped up, but what for? Unfortunately for him, he wasn't being as discreet as he thought and with a little subtle positioning I saw what he had in his hands... a stack of one hundred dollar bills the size of a novel standing upright on its spine. I very loose estimate for that amount of money would be five thousand dollars? Sure not much, but keep in mind this is cash. Also he was taking out more, and turning and handing his lackey his payment for the day.

As I went to make my own transaction, I noticed the lackey was watching me. Perhaps it was in revenge for watching them, so I made sure to turn my back to them so they couldn't see my pin etc. That's when he stabbed me in my shoulder.
I quickly snapped around, pulled the knife from my back and said "You just cashed your last cheque" his eyes went wide in disbelief as I said this and I sliced him across the chest. Turning to the head man I whipped out my pistol, promptly shooting him between the eyes before he could draw on me.
A tumbleweed lazily floated across the bank's linoleum floor.
I mozied up to the now vacant automatic teller and slowly packed the money into my bag. Another victory for justice.

No, that didn't happen. Everything else is true though. I thought I needed a wild-western ending to reward you all for that babbling.

An addition:
Yesterday I did some overtime work on my precious, precious Sunday to be one of three judges at a speech contest. It wasn't so much a speech contest as a "see who can pronounce and remember the template speech assigned to us", but the kids tried their hardest and in my opinion were absolutely wonderful. Some got into what is basically not their words with gestures and the like.
Anyways, the reason for my addition:
One of these templates was called "The Fastest Woman in the World", a speech about Wilma Rudolph. One of the students had the unfortunate mistake of forgetting the first "s" every time.
This was really hard for me as I had to pinch myself from not bursting out into laughter as the student said gems such as "I'd like to tell you about the fattest woman in the world" and "She overcame her handicap to become the fattest woman in the world."
I couldn't bring myself to correct her in front of parents, teachers and classmates so just let it slide.

On Beaches and Beers

I've been keeping pretty busy lately, let me tell youz guyz.
Abdul visited (as I mentioned earlier) and I've been spending my weekends either cleaning, in concert, or heading down to the Nichinan coast.
Which is what this post is primarily about.

I'm trying to take up surfing, since all my buddies down here do it religiously. I went two weeks ago and stood up quite a few times! The hard part I find is actually catching the good waves and then timing your ride to grab the crest of the wave. I headed out last weekend because a typhoon was coming, but the waves were junk (surfer lingo for "crap") everywhere we went. So instead we drove to some tourist spots and then Mash and I went bodysurfing instead.

So here are a few photos from last weekend:

From right to left: Hassy (Ha see), Dala and Dala's friend who is wonderful but I've forgotten her name.

From left to right: washboard rocks and beach, my arm, my ridiculous face.

From right to left: Mash, Hassy.

Udo-jingu, a beautiful shrine dedicated to lord knows what. I was there for the rocks and sea.

See what I mean?

A lone bird perched on the left rock there, unfortunately the fspeed I was at made it too dark when I took the photo. Nuts.

Here you can see on the bottom right, a rock with a ring in the center. If you throw a little clay ball into the water-well within the ring, you will have lots of luck! Girls throw with their right arm, boys with their left. So sexist! (I'm just bitter because I didn't get any clay balls in).

Clay balls out to dry on the rocks, with the crashing sea behind. A typhoon was a-brewing off the coast.

After the trip to Udo-jingu we went to the beach, where Mash attempted to teach me how to body-surf. I'm crap at it, but the man can ride a wave from its beginnings all the way to the beach! When he surfed past me the top-half of his body was sticking out of the wave and he just turned and smiled at me, quickly passing by. It was a surreal moment, and I wish I had waterproof casing for my camera. I'll have to save up a good 1k for that though. One-a-dees-days!

On Visitations

"Bonsoir!", as they say in Japanese.

I have had a wonderful Golden Week (National Japanese Holiday), visiting Fumi's family in Fukuoka and then taking a trip with her to Kagoshima.
Upon arriving home, Abdul came to visit and he will be here tomorrow. This results in my not posting recently (I swear, it's legit this time!).

However I have uploaded my photos to Flickr, where you can view them without captions... or you can wait for me to post in a day or two with a little story to go along with them.
Click here for the Flickr photos

On Having Little to Write About

Since my last post I have had very little to write about, as the title of this post explains.
Coupled with being lazy and conflictingly very busy with work, this journal has been put on the backburner.

However I have a few things to pass on.
The first is my most recent encounter with the person who lives beside me.

Yesterday, as I was leaving for work I opened my door and stepped out to see this neighbour, a woman around 65ish exiting at the same time as me, and heading to the elevator. I greeted her with a happy "こんにちは！" (hello!) expecting to receive one back. Instead I got a murmured and very scared hello back. She stood near the elevator, and as I approached (the elevator, not her), she would take steps back to keep away from me.
Thankfully the elevator door opened in only a few seconds, at which I politely offered her entry ahead of myself. She hurriedly walked in, not pressing the button and I followed, pressing for the ground floor and then immediately facing the door.
What followed was a short, but confusingly-awkward ride down. I was trying to figure out what the hell was running through this woman's mind. I was wearing a suit and was freshly shaved. What was threatening about me of all people, was a mystery.
We exited the elevator and she just stood under the overhang, staring, staring, staring at me as I unlocked my bicycle and rode off.
It was pretty weird.

On a completely different subject, rainy season is approaching, and that means one thing. Rain? No. Cockroaches.
Lots of them.
So I've been slowly cleaning my apartment, corner by corner, in an attempt to avoid hosting these fairly large, disgusting pests. An interesting guide for those of you living in Japan, or living anywhere really can be found here.

As for work, my new schedule is hectic. Busy, busy, busy. Wednesday is especially strenuous, with four of my seven specialized classes! I originally was very bothered with this setup due to reasons I won't get into... but now I've decided to take it like a man and just live with it. I've made my bed, and now I have to weasel my way out of it-

But all is not lost! Golden week is in t-minus 4 days for me!
I have planned a trip to the beautiful area of Kagoshima to visit one of the most active volcanoes in Japan - SakuraJima, which I will be hiking up with my even more beautiful girlfriend, Fumi.
Afterwards we're visiting the local Aquarium and then returning to Fukuoka 2 days later. I can't wait. It will also be the virgin voyage for my new camera- a digital SLR I got for 200 dollars under the list price, including a 5 year warranty and lens kit. Go Kitamura camera!

So expect lots of photos coming up soon- I might be buying a flickr account so that I can just unload them there, depending on the price and what Pat says about their service.


And a quick addendum for my father:
Not to worry Dad, the camera was nowhere near the price of Greg's camera. In fact it was less than a half - perhaps a third of what it was. I figured I'd put this so you don't have to worry.

On Owing You One

I suppose I owe you all some pictures with all my past crap text-only entries now that I have the internet at home.
I'm just going to post a load of photos to give you, my dear reader, an idea of what I have been up to.

These are photos I took on one of my sporadic bike rides down to the beach in November and December:





It isn't very cold here in those months, dipping at the lowest to 5 degrees Celsius at night, and usually 13-15 during the day. Recently it's gotten cold enough to warrant the purchase of a heater in my apartment, which I just leave on constantly. I'm not looking forward to my electricity bill.

This next group of photos is from the Christmas party held at the Sakata manor, where I made spaghetti with meatballs (following the traditional Christmas tradition) and afterwards got very drunk:

Fumi and I are great in couple photos... we're idiots.

The party group! Michael was my only real drinking buddy. In fact he and I polished off at least two wine bottles, various other drinks and this bottle of Shochu set in a Tanuki bottle:


Finally, here is my best friend Pu. He smells pretty bad and barks all the damn time, but inside his furry, brittle old body lies a heart of gold or some other precious metal. Maybe silver. Or Emeralds.

Then there was Hawaii:



The sunglass trio.


This is a solidified lava pool. The entire thing! Greg is asking what you're waiting for.




After Hawaii, which was absolutely amazing, came New Year's which I spent with the Sakata's once again. Here I am ringing in the New Year, literally, at the local shrine.

And here is Fumi doing the same:

To my extreme happiness it snowed on New Year's day! Here is the mountain behind Fumi's house:


Now I'm just about into February and have no pictures from the past month to show. My next vacation is in May, so hopefully something worthy to write about happens to me! This Sunday I've sacrificed a day off to work for ECC Junior again, which is a pretty good way to earn some extra money. It's a lot of work though, quite tiring.

Also I have started to moderate my comments, so when you post it won't show on the website until I have approved it! I'm looking at you, gramps.

On Not Having the Internet... Still.

I'm unsure whether not having the internet still is a blessing or a curse. On the one hand I have plenty of time to do other things, but on the other I have very little connection with friends and family back home (I miss y'all).
Why don't I have it?
Money, time, etc.
So: I plan on signing up on friday! We'll see how it goes. Companies like to mess with us foreigners. . . well not really, it's really my fault for lack of my Japanese abilities.

Anyways some new things with me: I'm learning to ride a trial bike (a type of dirt bike) and it's so fun. I already destroyed a rice field when I forgot how to stop. It was awesome.
I also am considering getting an open-water certificate (fancy words for Scuba Diving 101), if I save enough money for it. I'm still looking into prices and locations in Kyushu as I type this.

So how are you all doing? Do you still stop by to read this blog despite its 3000 year dormancy?

Drop me a line, hun.