Summer Vacation and Dustin

My summer vacation has come and gone. The first week was spent completely relaxing in my apartment, in order to save money as well as stay safe from the heat outside. During the second week, Dustin came and we had to face the hot weather together. It was the hottest week of the entire summer while he was here.

We did a lot of things around Tokyo. He wanted to see lighthouses, and we were able to visit three different ones. One of them is famous and is out on an island. We hiked up the mountain and went up into the lighthouse and took pictures of the sunset.

We had several other adventures, many of which involved a lot of walking and sweating in the 90 degree weather. We went to the beach and visited an onsen theme park to have a traditional Japanese bath experience. I am happy that Dustin finally visited so he can see what it is like here. I think he had a good time and I know I certainly did.

I was sad to see him go, but I have to get back to work at the beginning of the next week. :-( Summer vacation is over. Time to start looking forward to winter break!

Summer Vacation is drawing near...

I just discovered a nearby theater and I finally went to see the final Harry Potter in 3D. It was my first 3D experience and I quite enjoyed it, although Harry Potter's 3D was not anything too special. Next up, I am hoping to see Transformers 3, which came out in Japan today.

I recently went down to Kanazawa with Will to visit my friend Nicole. It was 10 hours by night bus but I was able to sleep 8 of the hours. I woke up and it was bright outside and we stopped at a rest center next to the ocean. We then met up with Nicole and went to this great restaurant with her local friend. After that we drove out to an island off the peninsula and went swimming in the ocean at midnight. It was beautiful. I took lots of pictures and documented the trip well, but Will accidentally deleted all of the pictures.

Oh well, here are two that I took after he deleted the rest.

Only 15 more days until Dustin comes to visit! I will make sure to take lots of pictures and save them to my computer so they don't get deleted.

This and That

You never know what you will see in Tokyo. For example, I saw Spider Man in Ikebukuro and Harry Potter in Shinjuku. This weekend I am going to visit Nicole in Ishikawa prefecture, which is on the west coast farther south than Tokyo. It's a ten hour bus ride down! But it should be refreshing to get out of the city for a little while.

I had to work on Saturday this week because we had a meeting to prepare for summer school, which is the last week of this month. After the meeting we went to a company sponsored dinner and the president and vice president of the company came and chatted with the new teachers individually.

It has been so hot and humid here recently. I just want to stay in my apartment and leave the air condition on all the time.

Mami-chan

I have been doing some pretty interesting things lately. Not sure if I mentioned it, but since I have been in Tokyo I have played soccer at some community league thing and I saw an English play at an international theater in Shinjuku.

My most recent adventure was this past weekend when my friend gave me an old bicycle that was given to her and I had to ride it from downtown Tokyo to my apartment in Kanagawa, which is a whopping 30 kilometers and took 3 hours! But it was great to ride through parts of Tokyo that I don't normally get to see because I am always just taking the trains. I definitely want to explore around more now that I have wheels.

This picture was taken in Ikebukuro, which my friend tells me is known for being 'owl town'.

I went to Shibuya to do some shopping and scout around for some places to take my brother when he comes in August. I am excited! Only 28 more days of work until my summer vacation begins!

Some pictures I took on the way to work.

My new (yet old) bicycle is a 'mami-chari'. The name is a combination between 'mama' and 'chariot'. It is the typical bicycle seen all over Japan that many mothers use to get groceries and take children to school, hence the basket in front and the space behind the seat to place a child's seat. But they are used by everyone nowadays. I have named my bicycle 'Mami-chan' instead of 'mami-chari' because Mami-chan was the name of the little girl that lived at the ryokan last year; the daughter of my landlords. When I got the bike the back tire had a slow leak and it would go flat overnight. But the more I rode it the faster the leak became. So I had to take it to the local bike shop and it turns out that some rubber part called a 'mushi gomu' was rotten and needed to be replaced. So at least I didn't have to buy a whole new tire. Fancy, huh?

Welcome to the Neighborhood

I spent a lazy Sunday exploring and walking around my neighborhood while taking pictures of things that I found interesting. Here are the results.

This pretty much says don't get in the river because it is dangerous(and the picture signifies that you will drown).

This is the Tama River (多摩川) that is next to my apartment. I have been hanging out here more recently because the weather is nice and it is a good place to plan lessons. It is pretty and there are usually fun things going on there during the weekends (see below).

This is a shrine that is between my apartment and the river. There are tons of stray cats around the area. There is one sitting up there next to the doors, too.

One of the Original Bento shops near my apartment. They are so good and cheap.

This is an onsen near my apartment, but not a real one like the one I used to live at in Miyagi. This one doesn't have natural hot spring water and it is not a ryokan, so you can't stay the night there.

A coin shower, where...you guessed it, you can pay to take a shower.

These are the roads to my apartment. Very narrow, so when a car comes you have to jump into the bushes.

One of the fun things that people like to do near the Tama River is light fireworks at night. I saw them shooting some large ones the other night and there are always people grilling out and sometimes there is a couple of musicians that sing and play next to the water and they are really good.

Lions, Tigers, and Monkeys

It has been quite a while since I have updated. A while back I went to the Ueno Zoo during golden week holiday. They were having a free admission day and there were a ton of people there. Of course I mainly wanted to see the tiger, but there were some other fun things to do, like chase around the sheep.

They had a new panda and everyone was lining up to see it. I had no interest, so I didn't bother.

It was hard to get around because there were so many people there.

This tiger was much more energetic than the one that I saw at the San Diego zoo.

Besides that, I haven't done anything else super exciting. I have stopped carrying my camera around with me everywhere, which means I guess I am not a tourist anymore. I have started to enjoy my job more recently.

I also started a 'Return to America' fund:

I put some money out of every paycheck in there so that I will have enough money to come home next March.