Hello!!!

 

I'm sooooooooooooo sorry about the lack of action here on the msn space. The truth is I was taken hostage by the Yakuza (Japanese Mafia) and I've only just managed to escape their evil clutches. (That's my story and I'm sticking to it!)

 

Things in Japan haven't changed too much since my last post, except it is now full on summer and bloody hot! Also those crazy Nth Koreans have been launching missiles into Japanese waters but it's all good. If they invade I'll pretend to be a Russian fisherman. There are millions of them around here. I have an interesting story about a couple of Russian girls I met at a bar in Hamada - they were with an old Japanese guy. Sooooooooo dangerous!! I'll tell you later.

 

Life is good - except July/August is the time to say good bye to some of the JETs - this is the change over time for them. So we've been having a few going away parties etc. In August we'll be having the "welcome to Hamada" parties so it's all good. It's pretty hard to say goodbye to mates though. Nina left on Saturday, and it's been really quiet without her. Hard to get used to... never mind, with the internet it's easy to keep in touch.

 

Went out for a Nomihodai/Tabehodai on Tuesday night (all you can drink and eat) and all it cost was 1000 yen!!!($12NZD) Got a little messy, but it was great to see all the Japanese staff (it was a work-do for Youme Town mall) get absolutely munted. I wasn't too much better myself -  I felt it was my duty to drink to the best of my abilities.

 

I'm afraid to say my Japanese language abilty hasn't improved too much - there are a lot of Japanese people who speak pretty good English, even in Hamada, so I haven't really needed to learn the lingo. I want to make an effort now though, for various reasons. I really need lessons - with the Jets leaving I may be able to find a teacher - most Japanese teachers are very busy.

 

I met a very interesting Japanese fella the other day - a mate of a mate. He is fairly random, but a great guy. We went fishing the other day - me, him and Yutaka. Afterwards we went to his place, where we drank sake and green tea and listened to Japanese trance music from the 1980's (I was a little scared)

His house is a pigsty (worse than Picton Ave for those who knew it) but he has one room where he has a shrine. This room is absolutely spotless. In it he has a statue of Buddah, a whole lot of other Buddist things, heaps of religious books and tributes to his ancestors. It was really impressive, I wanted to take a picture, but Buddah would have none of it! Three times I tried to take a picture of the shrine but each time my camera would run out of batteries. It's true, and after that the camera was fine.... very weird.....I kid you not....

This guy's Grandfather was a Kamikaze glider pilot during WW2 (was in training when the war ended) so i've finally found a Japanese person who wants to talk about the war. (It's a difficult subject to bring up - I always wait for the Japanese person to bring up the subject) I told him my Poppa was in the Pacific and he was quite impressed, and also about Grandad in the European side of things. He is a Uni student - I'm surprised he's not in the millitary. He has promised to take me out to "airsoft" which is like paint ball, only more hard-core. Hopefully he doesn't flip out during the airsoft game!!!!

 

I've been eating more random Japanese food - like sparrow!!! Sparrow is how you'd expect - pretty good - apart fropm the beak,brain and feet!!!!! Someone forgot to tell the Japanese to take out those things. The brain is actually liquid, so when you bite into the skull all the delicious sparrow brain juice runs into your mouth. Lucky i'd had a couple of beers by the time I atempted this dish!! I still have to try the raw horse meat - I'll let you know how that goes!

 

Better keep moving, it's past my bedtime!

 

See ya,

 

Edo