Another slow news week here in Kobe.

Last Thursday saw my triumphant return to the working world after a two week vacation. I was welcomed back by two events that day. First, I was told before the break that one of my kids-class students (my star student in fact) was transferring to another school. However, to my (and the staff's) happy surprise he came in Thursday ready to take a lesson. His mother said he really wanted to see "Dockett-sensei" again. Warmed the corners of my frozen little heart, that did. Secondly, in the afternoon, my class of slightly older kids, noting that I had grown my mustache out over vacation, proceeded to call me "old man" in Japanese throughout the lesson. As much as I wanted to defend myself, I think it's better if the kids don't know I understand Japanese (theoretically this means they'll use less of it in the classroom.. theoretically...)

Friday I was sent down to Hiroshima again. This time just for a single day. I don't want to second-guess my company's decisions... but I can't see how spending 20,000yen reimbursing travel expenses on top of my usual pay is worth sending me 300km to teach 3 lessons... but, hey the Shinkansen is always fun!

Monday I got a chance to teach at the new flagship school in Osaka. It's on an upper floor of one of the taller buildings downtown. It's got a great view. I'll have to take my camera next time I teach there...

Yesterday's fun was doing laundry. Today, however, saw actual enjoyment: Due to a happy fluke in my budgeting, I decided that I could afford a bicycle! I had previously scoped out several shops around town and decided to go with the 'B Flat' bike shop in Motomachi. The shop attendant was very helpful in selecting a bike that fit my specifications: inexpensive, folding, and suitable for a 2 meter tall foreigner.

Yay! Wheels!

Re: why it's called a folding bike.

I spent most of the afternoon riding around on my sweet new mode of transportation.

That does it for this week. Maybe next week I'll actually do something blog-worthy... but I wouldn't hold my breath.

Jaa Mata Ne.

Summer Vacation Week II

This week wasn't quite as exciting as last week but it did have it's fare share of adventure.

Thursday I went back to the apartment on the hill to do a final cleaning (as Friday was my official move-out date.) I met up with the "old" roommates and we tried to go downtown for a "farewell" beer but oddly, all the bars were packed for some unknown reason.

Friday I got up somewhat early and wend downtown to pay my rent (for the first time this week.) After my banking was done I stopped by the big department store and bought some new sheets for my bed (had a twin mattress in the place on the hill, now I'm back to a futon on a platform.) I also got a rolling pipe-hanger, as one of the things my room lacks is hanger space.

Saturday my retail therapy continued as I found a nice desk lamp. in the evening I splurged and ordered pizza.

Sunday I decided to head over to Otsu. An hour and 1500yen later I was 80km away in a little lake-side town on the shore of Japan's biggest lake (lake Biwa.)For those keeping track: I've been to Otsu before: I visited for a day when I came down to visit Sparks 3 years ago. This time I ended up taking more or less the same path as last time. I spent pretty much all day walking around taking pictures.

Otsu seen from the end of a pier.

Breakwater, lake, mountains.

Non-functioning dock (taken through the links of a fence.)

Crazy short (about 3' in height) tunnel for kids to get to school under a busy road.

Fortune tide to a tree branch.

One the large temples I visited had caged peacocks.

The Biwa Canal (no longer in use) runs back into the mountains.

The 35th parallel at JR Otsu station.

Globe showing the 35th parallel.

Photo-stitched Pan-o-rama of Otso from the Miidera Temple grounds.

Monday I awoke to my phone ringing followed by an awkward conversation in half awake Japanese. Evidently I botched the transfer of my rent money on Friday and had to come into the bank and do it again. It's a small wonder that my rent gets paid at all, being that the whole system is in Japanese ("banking Japanese" ta-boot!) After going in and figuring out that I was one letter off in spelling my landlord's name (note that ALL of the bank information was correct AND saved in the system from last month) I re-entered the transaction and submitted it again.

After my banking adventure I headed off to Osaka to meet up with the people from my training group. The plan was to meet up, have dinner, and then do karaoke together. Unfortunately in the typical dysfunctional style of this group... only two other people (out of six) showed up. Fast forward over so-so sushi, good, yaki-niku (the grill-it-yourself kind), tasty street beers, and a really inexpensive bar. I figured I'd left myself enough time to catch the last train home. Coming from south Osaka I easily made my subway up to Osaka station but the last Hankyu train leaving from Osaka in the direction of Kobe only went 1/4 the way there. In stroke of genius number one I decided to get on. Sure enough, it stopped where it said it would, leaving me 3/4 of the distance away from home. Thinking quickly I jogged down to the JR station (about 2km away.) Not seeing an improvement in my fortune I arrived just as the last train pulled away. Still the crowing idea of the night was to come. What I SHOULD have done is found a park or an internet cafe to sleep in (the cafes even have "overnight" rates.) No, I in my ultimate moment of pure genius decide to take a cab home. Turns out, yeah, Sannomiya is, like, 20km from Nishinomiya. And it turns out that a 20km cab ride costs almost 7000yen. I can pretty much stop writing now because you know where the rest of my vacation funds went. *See my not getting over to Nara this week.*

Tuesday was spent recuperating and cleaning up the living room (which I don't think hasdseen a dust rag in years.) I also picked up my dry-cleaning from the cleaners across the street (which, it turns out, does shirts for 200yen with a two day turn-around.)

Today's fun was taking a long walk to the un-explored-West of the apartment.

Tomorrow is the first day back at work. I have a feeling re-entry is going to be rough but at the same time it'll be kind of nice to get back to work and see all my students.

In the weather category it's been quite breezy the last few days. Looking at the forecast for the next week it's supposed to be gradually cooler each day. I can only hope there's a continued break in the humidity as well.

As usual I feel as though I'm forgetting something... but oh well.

Jaa Mata Ne.

Summer Vacation Week I

As expected, this week was pretty full of fun stuff to write about.

Last Thursday was mostly spent setting up my new room so not much else got accomplished. Friday I got up and out and changed my address with a few places I missed when I did my rounds on Wednesday. After that I took a long walk around Harbor Land. One interesting find on this walk was a confirmation of a rumor that they build nuclear submarines at the Mitsubishi boat-works located next to Harbor Land. Another find was a brand-new 100 yen store. I think if you had told me 5 years ago that I'd one day be a connoisseur of dollar stores today I'd have laughed in your face... but, here I am. Later I was going to go on a "splash tour" of Kobe (some might know it as "duck tour") but it was a bit expensive, the course was only so-so, and I showed up right after a tour had left (meaning a long wait.) In the evening the roomies and I watched movies until one of us remembered the Olympics was starting, so we switched over and watched that instead. I think one roommate summed up Olympic opener's over-arching theme the best: "Hi, we're China, we have a LOT of people." Good show though.

Small amusement park near Harbor Land.

Tower thing (light house?) near Harbor Land.

Conning tower of a submarine in dry-dock.

Yet another picture of Port Tower (from a slightly different angle.)

Random picture I snapped.
The big building is the prefecture police HQ.

Saturday I was invited out to Juso (just north of Osaka) to watch the annual Osaka fireworks. One of the new roommates and I headed over mid-day and proceeded to imbibe several adult beverages. After realizing we had both skipped breakfast we decided to put grocery-store-sushi in on top of the already consumed beer. Come evening a group formed up and we all went to the riverbank. Sitting and chit-chatting while waiting for the show to start was great until it started to rain. Hard. Just as we were deciding that it wasn't worth sitting around for, the fireworks started (in amongst the lightening that was flashing all around.) All in all (aside from getting thoroughly soaked) it was a good show: on par with Kobe but put to shame by the Olympics opener.

Some impressive clouds above Osaka.
(Could we have had a BIGGER hit it was about to storm!?)

Sunday I endured a long hot day in my heat-box of a room. I was trying to get through the heat of the day without A.C. and I succeeded... but it's not something I'll be repeating until autumn arrives (my clock's temp sensor read 35c on my desk.) In the evening I headed to Osaka with one roommate and we hit up conveyor-belt sushi before meeting up with the group from the previous day to go see "Dark Knight." (Fabulous film, the late Mr. Ledger made a really good Joker.)

Monday was spent laying low for reasons of heat as well as being the last day before payday. In the evening (shortly after sunset) one of the roommates, his language partner (from this cool language exchange program), and I all headed down to Suma beach where we sat, enjoyed the ocean breeze, and chatted in a combination of English and Japanese.

Yesterday was also spent laying low, but for no particular reason, as the temperature was almost manageable for the first time in months. In fact, there's been an almost cool breeze blowing about for the past three days. Could this be the first indicator that summer will end one day? Who knows. In the evening one of the roommates (Hmmm... need to come up with aliases cause "that one roommate" is getting to be a pain to type) and I went downtown to a foot-spa which is a free service of a big spa-hotel-thing in Sannomiya. The near boiling water cooked the heck out of my feet, but felt really nice after I took my feet out.

Today's adventure was a mid-afternoon trip to Costco in Amagasaki. This was a kick for several reasons. First, getting there involves a trip of 20 minutes by train and 10 by bus. Second, the store looks just like they picked it up out of any-town USA and dropped it in Japan. Lots of 'foreign' merchandise and the exact same layout as a "normal" Costco (right down to the snack counter with those oh-so-delicious Costco hot dogs.) Thirdly, the place was a mad house. Carts everywhere, people in the spaces un-occupied by carts, two speeds: not moving and standstill.

I think that about raps up this week. One more week of vacation left. No promises, but I'm working on getting over to both Nara (to see deer and a giant Buddha) and Shiga (Sparks' old haunt.) I also have plans to meet up with the people in my training group to go sing karaoke. So, until next time:

Jaa Mata Ne.

Oh, and here are some pics of my new room:

Desk and closet. Desk faces North(ish).

Closet and sliding door to living room.

Bed with West facing window (sliding door at right, below AC.)

The 4th corner of the room (facing NW.)

View out the North window.

View out the West window.

Looking into the living room (with kitchen at right.)

Not long, not bitter, and not abstract.

Alright, as predicted last week, this week's post will be rather short and boring. Sorry. Quickly covering the events of the past week:

I finished moving into my new place today, a week ahead of schedule. The room was empty, I had keys, and doing it today frees up more time for me to do things over vacation. I got all of my stuff dragged over in three trips (the second two being wisely by taxi.) Pictures of the new place to follow later. By the time my room was put together enough to be photographed it was already too dark out. By way of description; I can say this about it: it's a corner room in the "front" of the building with two big windows and a shallow cabinet/closet that takes up one whole wall. I'm not sure, but I think it's bigger than my last place too...

Moving on: We had another big rain storm this afternoon and again I was out and about and got trapped in it (luckily not on my way to work this time.) I think this year Kobe has gotten more rain since the rainy season ended than it did during the whole rainy season proper (thanks global warming!)

Also: Happy 90 days out to me! I've now been in Japan longer on this trip than either of my previous trips (85 the first time, 69 the second.)

Lastly: Tomorrow officially kicks off my summer vacation. Two weeks of free time to do with as I please. Maybe I'll have some swell adventures to write about for you next week. Here's hoping so.

Jaa Mata Ne.

An explosive update.

I just got back from watching the Kobe Fireworks Festival. I think a good time was had by all and the fireworks were at least on par with a show like the Detroit Fireworks Festival.

At work today I hard from several sources (students, staff, other teachers) that the show was tonight and was to be launched from barges positioned in front of Harbor Land. Rumor had it that the show started from 7:30pm, though no word on length. Since I mercifully had an early shift today I had time to come home, relax, and cool off from the day. On the way home the trains were packed with men and women wearing yukata (a traditional light cotton kimono) headed to the show. About 7:15 I decided to hike up to a park that I knew that had a nice view of the whole harbor. I chose not to go to the harbor-front because, seeing the flow of foot traffic on the way home, I knew it would be very very crowded. Luckily I had been to this park before because by shortly after seven the path leading up the mountain had already become quite dark. Reaching the summit, or rather the plateau where the park is, I found, perhaps, 20 to 30 people already gathered.

My rumored information being correct, the show started promptly at 7:30. It lasted about 45 minutes and featured a variety of fireworks. If you've ever been to a professionally done fireworks show, yeah, it looked like that. After the show climaxed a final time (after several "false finishes") everyone descended the mountain (now in the pitch black.)

Again, it was fun and I'm glad I both had the time to go and went. I think next year though I may pick a better venue as 1/3 to 1/2 the show was partly obscured by two tall buildings. Also no pictures this year because 1.) my camera doesn't handle low light well and 2.) I had no place to set up my tripod to even attempt to take pictures. Again, maybe next year.

Jaa Mata Ne.