Jesus built my dryer

Happy Thanksgiving all! Deja vu? Nope! Today I celebrated turkey day with hunbun! However, before we met up for the festivities I had to do laundry... well, that was an adventure! I walked over to the laundry room and encountered a contraption that I hadn't seen before... this thing is a "washing machine" supposedly. Well, it's not your run of the mill washing machine, and I was dumbfounded as to how to work it. Well, after figuring out how to get water into the thing, I then had to figure out how to get the water out. I was pretty pleased that I had made it that far, but then, I ran into the difficulty of how to get the water out of the clothes. I finally figured that out, but it ended up taking me about an hour and a half to do a 30 min load, but now I've got it baby! So after my triumph I headed out to Ebisu to meet hunbun for some shopping. After striking out with the boots in Ebisu, we headed to Shibuya and there we found some good ones. Finally we headed back towards my place swinging by KFC and the grocery store to pick up the fixins for out thanksgiving dinner. Not a bad spread, not like back home, but pretty decent none the less... good day!

Que pasa?

Hola amigos! Que dice poop? How are things? I just wanted to put up a couple of pictures I took today. This top one is the view from my window. On the far left you can see the train station I use everyday, pretty close eh? (shout out to my north of the border friends on that one) Anyway, I haven't had much to talk about recently in my blogs because I don't really like to talk about news and stuff like that because there are people who get paid alot of money to talk about that, so usually I just talk about what I've been doing or seeing, but I haven't done anything special lately. Things are good though, couldn't be better! I'm loving my apartment, and I'm just living man, just living! Anyway, today I did do something, not particularly special, but it's the best I've got. So, this morning I went down to Shinjuku to take back my key from the old apartment to the head office, or the "womb" as I like to call. Anyway, I was only down there briefly, but I did take some pictures that I'd like to show you, please enjoy!

Gobble gobble!

Hey everybody! Happy Thanksgiving! You might be happy to know that in Japan today is a holiday, "Thanksgiving?" you ask? Well, not exactly... it's "Labor thanksgiving" as they say, which roughly, really means it's labor day. Not so exciting but oh well. It's just another, in the long line of days off for Japanese workers. But for me the real Thanksgiving is going down on Saturday, hunbun and I are gonna go out and do some shopping, some errands, watch "Amazing Race" and eat some KFC. I've decided that since it's near impossible to get a decent turkey over here, we're going to have chicken instead, but the 'ol mashed potatoes and biscuits will be part of the dinner of course. Well, I really wish that I was home for this holiday, it's my favorite, I miss the family, and I hope I can see them soon, I wish them the best on this holiday, and to all of you too.

Coming to you live from Snow Valley!

So how is everybody doing? So I've been here in Snow Valley Big Mound (Yukigayaotsuka) for about a week now and I've got to say... It's freakin' great! I love having a place of my own where I can come home and not have to fake interest in people I couldn't care less about. However, there is good news and bad news. First the bad news is that being in my new apartment, I never want to leave and this has led to me being almost late to work on more than one occasion so far. When I was back at the old place I was always at least 45 mins early for work because I couldn't stand to be there, but now, I just don't want to leave until I absolutely have to. The good news is everything else! It's all good. Later y'all!

T'was like the night before Christmas...

Here it is! My last night in Omori! Thought I'd give a peek at the place that I've spent the last 8 months. Pretty great yeah? So, the packing is done, I finished it last night, and so all that is left is to sign the papers and pay the rent tomorrow morning in Shinjuku, and then the keys are mine. I won't really move stuff in until tomorrow afternoon with hunbun and a mover. I can't wait to not be in this apartment anymore. I'm sure I'll miss some things... can't think of what they are yet, but there might be something later. Who knows, but I am just really excited to be out of here, and to have a place of mine, where I can't hear my roommate playing "Ace of Base" or some other garbage at midnight. peace out y'all, catch ya in Yukigayaotsuka!

By the way, that name kinda sucks, it's long and really not as cool as Omori. Much harder to translate anyway...

The beginning of the end... and the end of the beginning...

Today I started packing! Right on me! I think I have underestimated the amout of crap that I have gathered in the past 8 months. I came here with 2 suitcases and a big 'ol backpack, but it seems that I'm gonna need all of those and a few boxes and some good 'ol fasion carrying. Hunbun has graciously offered to pay for a mover to take my stuff as a birthday present, sweeeeet heart! She's great, and I think it's probably a good idea, I think we'll be able to take it all in one trip. It's really not a ton of stuff, but for sure more than what I came in with. The problem with starting early like this is I just never know if I will need something or not. I just want to throw it all in a box and be done. So here's the plan for the week: Tomorrow is work until 5:20, so I plan to come back and grab some more boxes from the super market on the way home. Monday is again work, but a short day so I plan to finish most everything on that day just leaving things that I will need for sure until thursday, mostly clothes and my computer. If there's anything left to do, I'll take care of it on Tuesday. Wednesday back to work, and then Thursday morning I head down to Shinjuku to pay my rent and sign the lease. That afternoon I'll meet up with hunbun, and then the moving person will come over and we'll be on the way. I'll probably put up another post before that, so I'll holla atcha later!

Oh baby, can't wait to miss this

So, everyday I've gone to work for the past 8 months I have stood in the same spot to wait for the train at Omori station, and every day infront of where I stand sits one of the worst advertisements I've ever seen in my life.

It's a painting done for a place called "Budou-ya" and it depects a family hanging out with some Kappa. So, "Budou-ya" means grape-store, but really it's a restaurant that has yakitori and such, and "Kappa" means... well it's a mythological creature that parents tell their kids about so they don't go wandering by the river. It's green, lives in the rivers and has a leaf on it's head, pretty weird stuff. It's a ridiculous picture, and just a really bad painting. Anyway, I hate this stupid painting and in a week I won't have to see it again! Yeah!

whatever may come

A few points I want to talk about, and here we go... First man today was a crazy windy unbelievable day! It was so windy today I couldn't even put my laundry out on the balcony for it to dry for fear that it would blow away. Crazy wind! Now it's night time, and it's cold, I'm sensing a frost-a-coming. In preperation for my upcoming move I decided to put together a little project. Using a program I've had for some time, but rarely use I put together a panarama of my current living place, I hope you enjoy, if you click on it and view the big version it'll probably come across a little better, check it out.
9 days till I start da move! Yeah baby!

If you guys are looking for entertainment, here's some things to check out. First TV shows. Prison Break, Dexter, Amazing Race, Avatar, Without a Trace, and Numb3rs. If you want a movie, you can check out "the root of all evil." and if you need some podcasts to check out, got with "7th son" or maybe "The Rookie" they are podiobooks, or "The moon masters," "Herro Flom Japan," and if you can find it, old episodes of "the Apocalypse Dowell Show."

That's about it for now, check ya later.

poor bastard

So, in all of my time here I've taken alot of pictures, and so far I have two favorites. The first was posted awhile back as the coolest parking job ever. The next best was taken on the train ride home on friday. Man, this guy had a rad night, and probably woke up with some really bad neck pain, cheers my friend, or in this neck of the woods, KANPAI!

T-minus 11 days and counting!

Hello there sir or madame, I hope this series of words finds you in good spirits. By the way, anyone know what's up with the "t-minus" thing? weird... Happy 11 days away day! Cruising into the home strech baby. I know I've only now been waiting for about 3 days, but it seems like forever! AHHHHH! Can't wait! But anyway, this weekend I had some fun. Friday night, after work, I headed over to Nakameguro to meet up with some old friends that I hadn't seen in years. Some I hadn't seen in 4 or 5 years, and others 6 or so years. It was pretty cool, all of them at one time went to my old community college back home as exchange students, and a couple of them I was really good friends with. My friend jun-chi-chi came up to Tokyo from Nagoya and I hadn't seen her since the last world cup, and another friend Oka-chi came down from Sapporo and I hadn't seen her in maybe 5 or 6 years. It was all pretty cool, we went to a bar, called "ping-pong bar." The name comes from the fact that they have a ping-pong table in the middle of the place, and that you have to ring a doorbell to get in, which in japanese, makes the "ping-pong." So anyway, the place was cool, but you would never know it was a bar from the outside, it looks just like a regular apartment, and on the inside it kinda has the same feeling, with couches and such around the place, but it was actually really cool. After the bar, and just in time for our last train, we headed back to Omori, myself, jun-chi-chi, and mack-e (who had missed her last train) and went to sleep. The next day mack-e had to get up early to go to a flaminco lesson and jun-chi-chi and I slept in until noon then went to Mos Burger for lunch before heading out to Kawasaki. We went to a new mall called Lazona which is kinda semi-attached to the station and is brand new. Man the place was packed! But it was really cool, have a look!

I sent a pic to hunbun because she was out of town doing some family stuff so she wasn't able to meet everybody unfortunately, but she thought the mall looked cool and wants to go sometime soon, I'm sure we will. After the mall J-chi-chi and I head to Shibuya to see another of the previous night's group preform at a live show at Club Asia. We'll call her "summer fruit." She was pretty cool, but I guess wasn't preforming with her normal band and was doing some kind of experimental techno-rock-fusion kind of thing, it was pretty interesting and the keyboard player was crazy man! They were called "Cosmic club experience," and the strange thing is that she not only went to the same college back home as I, but also, her really good friend works as a staff member at my work, small world! There were 3 other bands that played, one was called Bonsai Apartment, and they weren't too bad, there was also a rap-hip-hop-rock-group that was really weird and would have been cool, but one of the 2 lead guys was just a jackass, but they did have a pretty hot back-up singer, so it made it ok. The last group was pretty decent too and they kinda had a horn/olde tyme 50's vibe going for them. All of the groups were kinda hard to put only in one genre, but they were all pretty decent. Finnally j-chi-chi and I said our goodbyes and went out for some Yaki niku at the best place in the world, An An, and then called it a night. That's pretty much it, said goodbye this morning to her as she went back to Nagoya, and I went off to work... sad times... but I'm sure we'll meet again soon, and next time hunbun will be there too!

The future is now!

So, I guess congratulations are in order? Well, yes they are! I put down the deposit for my new apartment this morning! Wa-freaking-hoo! I'm really excited to move out of this place! I can't even put it into words, just really excited, two weeks from now, I will never have to see this place again. The 16th I get the key baby! Yeah! I'm really looking forward to it. The place isn't the best in the world, it's a bit old, and there's a bit of noise coming from the street as I expected, but all-in-all, it's leaps and bounds better than here. The walls are thick, and it's really convenient, I love it. The only problem I forsee is money money money. My current apartment takes rent at the end of the month, and the next apartment takes it from the beginning, so for my next 2 paychecks, I'm gonna be paying double rent basically, leaving me with scraps until the middle of January. Not looking forward to that very much... elipses...

Ninniku-man!

The title of this post is a clever play on words, and if you figured it out, kudos! Today's japanese lesson is "ninniku." It means "garlic," and somebody cooked something with it, and the apartment has stunk for 2 days. Ooooooh it's potent! My only refuge is my room, as always...

a new beginning?

Tomorrow morning I'm going back to Yukigayaotsuka to check out the inside of the apartment that I checked out the other night. Here's a picture of the outside, showing which window would be mine:

So, I don't want to get too far ahead of myself because I haven't actually seen the inside of the apartment just yet. But, I figure that by the time I come home tomorrow, and possibly put up another post, I will have made my descision so I wanted to go through the positives and negatives of my current and (possible) future apartment.

1. My current place is a 15+ min walk to the station, with another 15+ min train ride to work, including a train transfer, clocking in at about a 30 min commute, whereas the new place would be a 1 min walk to the station with about a 14 min ride on one train line.
2. Time to hunbun's: current:32mins (including walking) future:14mins
3. Noise. My current place like I said is 15+ mins to the station, however I can constantly here the trains passing by, and when they reach this area, they are at full speed, so fairly noisy. The new place is very close to the station, but as far as I can tell it is quieter because the trains are always either slowing down and pulling into the station, or just heading out on there way. The road traffic noise here is also terrible, there is only a one-way street infront of the building, but there is a constant stream of noisy cars and motorcycles and the noise is funneled straight into my room... There is a big road infront of the new place, but when I was on the roof of the place it seemed fairly quiet, we'll see how that is. My current place is also next door to the place where all of the garbage trucks gather before heading out every morning to pick up garbage, oh wait, the don't do it on sunday, but every other morning between 7:30 and 8am, I hear about 25 trucks beeping as the back into their parking spots etc. it drives me crazy! The last part of noise is from the roommates. At my current place, my room is next to another room and I have paper-thin walls that provide absolutely no sound insulation. I can here my roommate lay down in his bed, cough, laugh, and listen to music all day, it's terrible and it's the worst part of living here. A critical factor of whether or not I will take the new place is the thickness of the walls.
4. The one thing that my current place does have going for it is the amount of restaurants and shopping available in the area. There are countless more options in this area, and as far as I can tell, there are few of them around the new place, however the first floor of the building is a grocery store, so I wouldn't have to go far for food.
5. Roommates. I don't really get along with my current ones. That's all I'll say about that for now, but I share an apartment now with 2 other people. I have a 6 tatami mat room, and share a kitchen, living space, and bathroom with them. I hardly use any of those because I do not like to see them. The future place would be a 12 tatami mat room, including my own kitchen, with a shared bathroom, and shower that I would share with 3 other people. I wish I had my own shower and bathroom, but beggers can't be choosers I guess, and the apartment has alot going for it. It just has a final test to pass, I'll let you know how it goes.