Bounenkai time!

O-hisashiburi everyone! Today's japanese word is "bonenkai." You'll usually find it translated as an "end of the year party," but a better, and a more literal translation would be "forget last year party." It's a time to drink and forget the troubles of the last year, and it's a great part of japanese tradition. So, tonight I'm having my own little bonenkai. Forgetting all the bad things from last year, and going over the past 20 days of not posting. Well, well, well... what's been happening...? I guess I'll take a look at some pictures and see what I've been up to...

I guess we'll start here:

A couple of weeks back I sent home some presents for the kids to celebrate the first annual "Uncle B Day!" The presents got there on Dec. 23rd, only 5 days after I sent them, a bit faster than I had anticipated. The kids all said that they liked the presents, and that makes me happy :) It was sad that I couldn't be with them all for christmas, but it seems that they had a good time.

Next, we have this:











Just a couple of pictures of food I made... that's all...

Next, I've been on vacation now for a few days, and god, let me tell you, it's been great! I love vacation! I've taken a couple of walks around the neighborhood, and taken some pictures, here's a couple of them:

The last one there is a picture of a Japanese cemetery, just thought maybe some people might be interested in seeing how different they are from western style ones.

Lastly, hubun and I made a trip down to Roppongi to see "Letter's from Iwojima." At least I think that's the english name. The movie was pretty blah, but the acting was good. Both Watanabe Ken, and the little guy (can't remember his name, but he's from the singing group "Arashi") gave great performances, especially the little guy, who I think was in his first big role, maybe only role? But anyway, it was my first trip to Roppongi Hills, and only my second trip to Roppongi ever. Although I must say there were more "gaijin" than I could have imagined there, the buildings around there are freakin' beautiful! Really really superb architecture! I was very impressed, especially at night. Here's one of the pics I took that night:

Anyway, it was pretty!

So, here I am, hanging out in Tokyo, hunbun went back to her hometown for New Year's and so I'm just relaxing and chillin' out. I hope everyone had a good christmas, and I hope everyone has a great new year! Rock it hard! I'll let you know if I do anything special for the holiday, I have some ideas...

The best of what's going down!

So, I gotta say I'm a little sad, I just googled "no airplay" and I'm down to #7. At the peak, I was up to #2... what's up? Maybe because I haven't put up post in a while, or maybe I just need to talk more about the "Seattle sock job." That seems to help out most websites. Anyway, first I'll say a little something about why I haven't posted anything, and then I'll move onto what I've been up to outside of that. So, the reason I haven't put up anything is because I've worked about 17 of the last 19 days and just really haven't had time, even on my days off I've been busy with laundry, cleaning, or entertaining the ladies... well, the lady at least. So I had such a hard go recently because of a couple of shift swaps that I did because of moving and K-1, but anyway, that's almost all been taken care of now, I do get three days off this week and that will end that whole thing, so, wahoo! I can't wait, on more half day of work and I've got my first consecutive days off in about a month and a half. wahoo!

Well, so the first thing I gotta talk about is the futsal tournament that my school was part of. Of course I(we) represent Gotanda, the best place in the Shinagawa ward of Tokyo, and we took on such famed locations as; Toranomon, Shinbashi, Oimachi, and Hibiya. Well, it was our first go round, and we ended up at 2 wins, and 2 losses, not a bad showing I'd say! We were pretty happy, but of course we would have liked to come away with the trophy (more on that later) Here's a group shot of the greatest team to ever take the pitch:

After an uneventful 9 days straight of working I finally got to spend some time with hunbun. We spent Friday night and Saturday together, and it was good. Friday night I made Mabodofu and we watched "The Amazing Race" and on sunday I made breakfast, and then we watched "Ice Age 2" and in the evening hunbun made stew! What a great weekend!
Then there was today... what a crappy morning! 2 teachers called in sick and f'd up the schedule, but it wasn't too bad all-in-all. Anyway, this evening we all met up and went to a place in Shinbashi for a Nomihodai and Tabehodai. Japanese lesson! Well, something-hodai means "all you can." In this case, adding "tabe" makes it "all-you-can eat" and "nomi" means "all-you-can drink." Both of these combined to equal 3000 yen, or about $25. What a deal! and it was good stuff! Self-serve beer on tap, Sake, and Shochu, as much as you want, along with sushi, curry, beef, pork, chicken, french fries, freakin' what ever! It was great! Anyway, Great times, and the walk to station looked like this:

Anyway, at dinner, surprisingly, the trophy from the Futsal tournament made its way into our presence, here's kinda what it looked like:

Anyway, this week is gonna be great! Three days off, relaxed schedule, and just all around more time, the one thing that I am a bit sad about is that A.O.S. is gonna head home soon. Several other teachers are gonna go home for the holiday's but, A.O. S. will only be coming back for month after the break, it's too bad, gonna miss ya man!

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.