Sunday, October 28, 2007

new phone



recently, i got a new cell phone. nothing wild, just the newer version of the casio phone, which i had used previously. i still have the penguin screensaver or display, whatever you call it. i got the radio, the tv, the internet and bunch of other things, which i will most likely not use. i just use the email, the call and the take pictures. the calculator comes in handy when i need to figure out my budget till payday.

i had to get a new phone because my old one just quit working. i lost all my information. so all my contacts, notes and pictures are gone. luckily, i did copy some information down in my planner. but if you happen to be reading this and are wondering why i haven't contacted you, this is probably the reason why. so shot me a holla dog and if you have one of those weird or obscure email addresses, please remind me who you are. don't make me guess,please.

by the way, the people at au were so cool to me. they made a couple mistakes. so they gave me a store phone to use until my new phone came in and they gave me a fat discount on my phone. the lady kept telling me over and over again as she was typing away at her computer, "oh wow! looks like we can give you another discount. is that okay?"

me,"uh, yeah, i think."

Saturday, October 27, 2007

a little debarge for you...magical

Thursday, October 25, 2007

time out for food



there is no food better at an izakaya, than chicken and cheese on a stick. also, if you need a drink to wash it down, why not try a glass of la tomato on the rocks? i have yet to find la tomato in a store. if anybody knows where i can find it besides a japanese bar/grill, please let me know.

i still remember what my reaction was like the first time i had chicken and cheese on a stick.

me: HOLY CRAP!
an english guy sitting next to me: i know.

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

about kyoto



a school that i taught at in nebraska a couple years ago, organized a school trip to japan. so i met up with them in kyoto. it was really great. we went to a variety of temples and places of interest. some i had been to before, some i had not. the silver temple was a lot better than the golden temple. i think a lot of foreign tourists, especially chinese and koreans, like the golden temple over the silver temple. the silver temple is not actually silver, by the way

kyoto is pretty close to nagoya, only about 2500 yen by local train. so i hope to go there again in november. kyoto has a great vibe. easily in my top 5 cities list for japan. my top 5 in no particular order...tokyo, chiba city, kyoto, nagoya and nagoya.

more from kyoto












i love kyoto. i really do.


















Friday, October 19, 2007

recruiting the long hairs





outside the south side of kanayama station is heavily populated with ganguros, rockers, bikers, and girls solicitating something or other. so every once in a while, the japanese self defense forces set up shop for a week and try to recruit these people into joining the military. so yeah... thats what's happening this week.

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

train rapture this morning...and i was left behind





Ayaka - Mikazuki (another book off jam for john)

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Life by Mika Nakashima [中島美嘉]

this song keeps following me everywhere. i hope it gets stuck in your head.

Thursday, October 11, 2007

kansai line to nagoya





Tuesday, October 09, 2007

fumio knows about nebraska



i ran into this guy, named fumio, the other day. his english was suprsingly good. after asking me if i wanted to get lunch with him, he eventually asked me, where i was from.

now, i dont really like answering this question, because nobody knows where i am from, except for people in shizuoka, but nagoya is different. so, i told him that its not a very famous place, its pretty rural and in the middle of the country. fumio kept waiting. so i finally blurted out, "i am from nebraska."

he started to laugh. i asked what was so funny. he asked me, "are you from omaha?" i said , "well, its close". then fumio said, "ah! you must be from lincoln."

he proceeded to tell me that he used to live in omaha. and that he worked at a japanese restaurant there, a while back.

so i went over to his crib over the weekend, and we looked through his photos he took in the states, europe and asia. nice. fumio spent a good deal of the 1970s traveling around the states and europe. his photos from california and nebraska were absolutely ridonculous.

Monday, October 08, 2007

tsushima fall matsuri tall





tsushima fall matsuri wide










Saturday, October 06, 2007

myanmar protests from april





Thursday, October 04, 2007

signs