1 year Japanniversary!!

Yeah, so I've been living the past few months on Facebook, so no new posts here. Though, I just realized that maybe I should write something here. I consider this more the story and diary-like than Facebooks, so I shouldn't neglect it.

So, what have I been up to lately??
I continue to study Japanese almost every day. After one year, I must say that I've made a lot of progress with my Japanese. I can follow most conversations and can often understand jokes and what not. I'm far from great, but just living here has become very easy. I can ask for anything I need and am never worried about not being able to communicate anything that I need to communicate. This next year I hope to get a lot better still.

My favorite thing to do at the moment is go skateboarding and run. I went to this skatepark in the spring and realized how out of shape I am, so I started a plan... well, not really a plan so much as I just started running every day. I started out running for about 1 hour really slow, then after a few weeks I started a 5 kilometer route that takes me up some big hills. Two days ago (August 5) I ran my 150th km of the summer. Now I feel a lot better about myself. Plus, since the Japanese skaters at the skatepark are so skinny and ripped, I don't feel as bad about taking my shirt off on those impossibly hot and miserable days at the skatepark! Though, I'm still much fatter than everyone else there.


Oh Japan... Oh snack bar girls...




In sadder news, one of my closest friends in the area, Austin (above), moved to Sendai. I am sad that he's not around to hang out with anymore, as we always had good times, but his contract went up after his 5th year. He was lucky to get another contract through a school up there so I'm happy for him. Me and some friends are going to be making a road trip up there to Sendai in September. I'm excited, but I hate driving in Japan... At least it will be shared between all of us in the car.

My friend Paul had a birthday and we celebrated with a surprise party! It was fun!
I am also currently taking a "Suibokuga" (Indian ink drawing) class here in Ubuyama. I am learning how to paint flowers, grass and bamboo. It's fun, but hard.
I'm pretty bad...

sensei (below)
BBQ with students and parents: The best part about being in a small town is getting invited to BBQ's. I recently got invited to one by one of the teachers at the hoikuen (pre school). Her daughter (my student) and her friends were there (also my students)! It was great.

We ate a lot of meat and stayed up late as I listened to them all have a very good conversation. Despite the very rapid, difficult Japanese, I had a great time just listening and chiming in every now and then.


So, yeah. Things are going good. I am glad to have a year behind me now with my study and experience here in Japan. Life has gotten a lot easier and hopefully next year will be even better!

Now I leave you with an image... it is a very beautiful woman in a very short skirt handing out cigarettes at a bar one night in the city. It's amazing that anyone can resist smoking when there are such dark and powerful advertising forces at work here in Japan. I'm doing my best...