Happy Halloween!

Hope your day is spooktastic!

Halloween Take One

Last night was Fright Night 2005 at a club called Sonic in Iwaki. A group of us got all dressed up, prepartied, then had a good time at the club. The night was filled with great DJ's (including our local ex ALT DJ'ing friend) John, tasty drinks and lots of dancing. It was the first time that I actually made it to the end of the night at Sonic. Yeh Halloween!

Keep your eyes open for Halloween Take Two next weekend!

Shaky Shaky

Last night I felt the biggest earthquake I have ever felt!! I was just sittin on my couch, watching TV, minding my own business when all of Yamazaki Mansion (my apt building) started shaking. My light fixtures were swaying, all my room decorations were wobbling about and my shoji were shuttering. I was more then just a little scared...I was borderline FREAKED OUT! Lukily, however, there was no damage done! Phew!

I've looked into it a little on the net and found out the epicenter was offshore of the prefecture just south of us. Yeh for hands-on around the clock instant information!

Foreign teachers are not the only thing Canada exports to Japan

So I was doing a little reading tonight and came across the Canadian Crime Report for 2004. This is one of the articles I found interesting. It talks about how Canada is ranked high (2nd and 3rd) on the list of countries that supply certain illegal drugs to Japan. Canada is also responsible for 10% of the pot siezed in Japan while two years ago Canada had no presence at all. This is by no means earth shattering news, however, I find it interesting as I have never really given it any thought before.

The article continues to site the marijuana industry as one that is helping Canada thrive as a happy multicultural country as everyone works together to hide pot growing operations.

hmmm.....

Boys will be boys

This week I have been visiting my ghetto school- Tamagawa. For the most part the students are cool and like to chit chat and participate in english class. But there are a a group of boys in every second year class that just like to cause problems. They run up and down the hallways (undetered by the desks with potted plants put out to prevent it), jump in and out of the windows, sleep on the floor and generally don't care. Except on Tuesday I made some friends. Well- to use the words friends would be an overstatement. They wouldn't stop talking to me. Mostly they were interested in my pierced ears the size of my chest for the whole class. They kept asking "earing please!" and "cup size"?? It was awkward but made for an interesting day!

Second year thoughts

Now that I am in my third month of my second year in Japan, I have been thinking about the little things that really make my time in Iwaki great. More specifically, there is a group of people here that add just a little sunlight to my day whenever I see them. This is a shout-out for them!

** My favourite crossing guard between Denkodo and the Super Center! Keep on doin your thing!

** The parking attendant in the little booth by the park near the BOE. He waves and says ohayo! to the ALTs when we ride by him in the morning! He always puts a smile on my face and starts my morning off right.

Thanks Iwaki!

Fukuoka Fun

Japan had this great thing called the Birthday Deal. When it is your birthday you can fly anywhere you would like in Japan, accomanied by three friends, for the set price of about $200.

This weekend was Nina and Seans birthday so a group of us headed to the sunny island of Kyushu on the southern tip of mainland Japan. We flew into Fukuoka on Friday evening. Nina is uber orgranized and had printed out a list of restaurants and bars that were a must see, so we spent the first night scoping out the scene. We went to this great Mexican restaurant called Arena. The food was delicious and cheap and they hold latin dancing lessons on Friday so the place was packed with dancers. What a fun place! We even pulled out our own dance moves to entertain the bar. Our moves included the classics such as the lawn mower, shopping cart, sprinkler and window washer.

We followed up Arena with a place called FuBar. This place was cool and was owned/run by an ex teacher of english from England who loved Japan so much he opened a bar. The neat thing about this place was that before 11 you got to flip a coin to determine whether or not you paid for your drink- soo fun! I got my first 2 drinks free then got overconfident and flipped for two drinks at a time (one for me and one for nina) and lost - booo! But 4 for the price of 2 is still a good deal. We continued our steller dancing here and dominated the floor!

On Saturday a group of us took a train to Nagasaki for the day. We walked around and saw the A-Bomb museum, bomb hypcenter, one legged tori gate and a peace statue. Wow- I thought it was a peculiar statue, but whatever floats your boat! One of the neatest places we visited was a turtle temple. Oh yes-- it was a full size temple in the shape of a turtle...only in Japan I tell ya!

One of the most significant events of the weekend was Nina and Seans Engagement. yup...they are tying the knot! Apparently Iwaki is a magnet for married and attatched people! This important milestone added to the fun of the night! Congrats you two!!

The weekend was a sucess and Fukuoka is a neat city that I would love to visit again! Yeh for Birthday deals and friends that share!