hey people
hisashiburi ne.
well work is going fine, has been nearly 5 months now which has gone pretty quick
have seen a few festivals recently as it is the season; plenty of colour, noise and enthusiasm
earthquake count:7
have had numerous only in japan moments. think i was drinking with the mayor one night at this little street bar during a festival. his particularly drunk old mate was telling me i had a very pure heart i think. he was speaking english, just a little slurred. had to do a runner tho cos he was getting a bit tactile; and he wanted us to pay for our beer!
get out to a different junior high school each friday which is always interesting. they are particularly fascinated by my abundance of arm hair. as part of one class students had to draw portraits of me. interesting experience. not sure about some of the results though; i swear i saw a robot, convict, tennis ball, rockstar, mafia hitman, Pikachu, the joker, peter pan, pete sampras and frodo baggins.
recently represented the rest of the world as the one foreigner in a local 10km event, managed to get all 13 stone of me round the course in about 39:15. comfortably under my 40 minute goal so didnt disgrace myself. was raining of course
my japanese is not any worse but fluency and i are along way apart cos i just dont use it enough, i did read somewhere that learning languages (or attempting to) stimulates the right side of your brain so at least something useful is happening
have seen a fair bit of what eastern hokkaido has to offer, and climbed a few mountains and volcanoes in the process, seen many fox, deer and a couple of bears which was pretty cool. when you are walking down a mountain looking about for bears and come within about 10cm of treading on a snake, your eyebrows may become somewhat raised. hiking is only for old people over here
have my one week summer vacation next week so am going for a 5 day hike across the roof of hokkaido. bear country. so am hoping the normally shabby weather heads somewhere else as walking 80km through the clouds is not the aim of the game.
FAVOURITE UNUSUAL ENGLISH SEEN ON A T-SHIRT
Has to be that immortal quote "One doesn't need a lot of bananas; all one needs is love."
I lost it when I saw that and got a few strange looks as i walked about laughing rather loudly.
LIST OF 100 THINGS TO DO BEFORE I DIE
No. 71 - Salute a well dressed respectable old Japanese man for no particular reason. Have him salute you back. DONE.
No. 72 - Introduce an innocent Japanese person to the words cockadoodledoo and supercalifragilistickexpialadocious. Have them repeat them after you at ever increasing speed. Laugh. DONE.
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