On Freedom

Bonsoir!
Laziness gets the better of us all. As you can see I was utterly defeated by it this year. In reality I have been writing a little Japanese diary that I carry with me for the past few months, but even with that I stopped. I'm considering starting up an online Japanese diary as well as starting this one again to keep in contact with students (maybe) but mostly to release my unimportant internal monologue.

The most difficult thing in writing a journal or diary, I find, is finding the proper timing. Right now I'm sitting in my work clothes and still have my jacket on, having come in the door over an hour ago. Normally I'm so tired from my (easy) job I just cook, watch TV, take a bath and then waste my hours on youtube. BUT THAT IS ALL GOING TO CHANGE. RIGHT HERE. RIGHT NOW. LET'S DO THIS!!! LET'S WRITE THIS BLOG!!! WOOOOOOOOO!!! WOOOOOOOOO!!! YEAH!!!

Okay.
Recently I've been dreaming about my final day of work: March 31st. It has been burning inside me ever since Fumi and I decided to return to Canada next year. My plan is to move to Fukuoka and do some intense Japanese study and then go with Fumi on an incredible bicycle journey.
Currently we're looking at touring Shikoku and then returning to Yakushima again. I bought pair cameras for our use on this journey - Holga cameras! Yes, we're going to be the worst kind of hipsters: Matching couple hipsters.
I recently took a Black and White test roll to see what sort of light leaks were in my camera and to get a feel for it. It looks like I overestimated the exposure time as many are too light. But here is the surprise: It cost 3717 YEN to develop one roll! That is roughly 40 Canadian dollars. Absolutely ridiculous! So tomorrow I'm off to get materials to develop myself. We'll see how that goes.

Anyways, I'll be back to post again sometime with pictures. Perhaps of some photos taken with my Holga.

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 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 Copulation and Castles

I haven't had much time recently(to my surprise) as the training I'm going through is quite busy. Lots of information is handed to us and I furiously take notes ... sort of. Either way it seems to be going smoothly so far, and I have two very friendly and lovely ladies who are also sharing the training session with me. So things are going well. Today I'm prepping myself for a demo teaching lesson on Monday that I hope will go over well. Who knows with me though.

Anyways, what have I done leading up to my training?
First I decided to visit the authentic(rebuilt like all castles due to fire damage) Nagoya Jou:I toured inside and felt a little nostalgic, as I visited this place 2 years ago with Pat and Marc. This time however, I spent a long time walking around the grounds and relaxing in the park. Absolutely no one except for two other people decided to do this, so it was a really tranquil time. I had my watercolours with me, but I'm still a little apprehensive in trying a plein aire painting.
Here is an example of part of the rock garden area of the park:

A mid-autumn Sakura tree all by its lonesome:

Three cats who decided to make an awesome composition for a photo:

Here is the outside of Kanayama station, where I spent most of my time just sitting and listening to various amatuer acoustic musicians. Staying there forced me to buy a baby guitar for 6000 yen (60 dollars canadian). It doesn't sound very nice, but that's 60 bucks for you:


I also attempted to visit the Nagoya aquarium where Marc and I had an awesome time, but I forgot it costs an ungodly 2000 yen, and it was a national holiday so the line just to buy tickets was roughly a 20 minute wait. I skipped that and walked around the port:
I kept on walking around until I found myself in Italy! I was so surprised. Did I accidentally walk through a magical portal of magic!? No! I just walked into the "Italian Village" which looks exactly like real Italy. Not really, but the prices were insanely expensive for everything so I sort of felt like I was there.

I also found the "Chelan Project". I think that's what it's called. It's basically a program where conservationists breed sea turtles in little tubs and then release them into the wild when fully matured. I wonder if it's very effective.

I also saw a Thunderbird just sitting outside a pachinko parlour(Mom, click on the link to find out what it is).

Also, two nights ago I went out with one of my fellow trainees who I will call "V" to McDonalds when we both realized we hadn't been yet. After we finished our meals I looked down to get punched in the face with this advertising gem on the placemat:
All I can say is that MOTESTO is a lucky guy.