Sakura-less Weekend

The first official weekend of hanami season, and I was not able to indulge myself in Japanese drinks under a cherry tree. I did however consume a lot of Belgium beers at a Belgium style pub with a friend in Kawasaki. The selection was quite impressive, and I was able to taste a wide variety of beers. The food, also Belgium themed was quite disappointing however, as it was more Japanese influenced and very similar to what you get at a typical family restaurant. We spent almost 6 hours at the place, which was the most time I ever spent at one pub. You can imagine how many bottles were consumed at the end of the night.

I am hoping that my hanami will start this week. It is pretty crappy weather today, but the rest of the week should be decent. I am also trying to play some basketball this coming weekend. If it goes down, this will be my first "ballin'" session this year for me. I am kind of afraid to see how much my skills degraded from last year. Hopefully I won't meet some motivated high school student who completely demoralizes me on the court which will force me to take another long hiatus from the game.

Sakura season coming to a tree near you

Its almost time for hanami as the cherry blossoms are starting to bloom. Unfortunately, its cold and wet outside. The other day, if you didn't look at the calendar, you would think it was January. I don't know what my hanami plans will be, but I hope I will have an opportunity to enjoy some of the cherry blossom trees during peak time at least once. Until then, I will spend my time staring at gray skies while under a warm blanket. Where 's a snuggy when you need one....

Barium sulfate ... mmm mmmm good.

I completed my annual check up yesterday. Since reaching the magical age of 30, my "course menu" of tests increased which included a nice drink of Barium for my stomach x-ray tests. I've never had such a test before and many coworkers often complained to me on how horrible it was and the feeling of them wanting to vomit after drinking it. So I was a bit nervous on the whole ordeal. The clinic saved the stomach x-ray check for last. The queue was long, so I spent a good amount of time waiting and watching each person's facial expression when they got out of the x-ray room. The majority had an expression like they were just physically violated and even a couple had tears. This did not calm my nerves and when the lady called my name, I was preparing myself for the worst. They gave me a generous serving of the white stuff and it actually didn't taste so bad. It honestly didn't taste much worse then the frothy protein shakes I usually take. I was so relieved and thought I was done with the hard hard part, until the doctors told me to get on to the machine, which was used to twist me all around like a rag doll for almost 10 minutes to get the right picture.

I am so glad my annual check up is finished. I'll find out the results in a couple of weeks in addition to finally knowing what blood type I have, which is pretty major in Japan. Now the only thing I have to knock out is a date with the dentist, which should be in a couple of weeks.

St Patrick's day

I actually went out on St. Patrick's day last night. I think the last time I ever went to a bar and drank on St Patty's day was when I was in university. I am actually not a fan of getting wasted for the sake of a commercial holiday, but a coworker invited me to go out with him and his friends and I was interested to see how St. Patty's day played out in Japan. So yesterday, I headed over to Nihonbashi after work. We went to this small Irish pub. When I say small.. I mean the place only had indoor space for like 10 - 15 people. However when I got there, I saw over 30 people jammed packed inside and the majority of them were non-Japanese in suits. Most of them were from Merrill Lynch which was across the street from the pub. It was a decent night, people were goofy, food was pretty bad, but no one cared as most were already drunk off of Guinness. I actually didn't drink a lot and left prematurely because I didn't want to ride on the dreaded last train and I got a headache from people singing to Bon Jovi's many songs. At the end, I didn't see any difference of how people viewed the "holiday" here than in the states. I guess finding reasons to drink is the same all over the world.

Shake, Shake

Just had an earthquake and the apartment shook harder than it ever did , yet my adrenaline did not spike and my mind frame was business as usual. This I believe is one of the key indicators that I have lived in Japan too long.

In other news, I need to find a place to get my U.S. passport pictures taken. I've checked out a handful of photo booths and none of them have a white background and do not offer the 2 inch X 2 inch dimensions I need. I checked online and there is this one place in Tamachi that specializes in foreign passport pictures, however Tamachi is really out of the way for me. I will be on the lookout for more photo booths/mom and pop picture places while going to the office today. I never would have thought in putting this much effort for passport photos.

Beautiful weekend

The weather was great this weekend. The majority of the time was sunny and temps, especially on Saturday was near spring like. As I've been in study mode, I took advantage of the weather by studying in cafe's. On Saturday, I went back to the Shimokita Segafredo and got myself a nice outdoor seat. The studying experience was further enhanced with a nice espresso and cold Italian beer. Alcohol and being outdoors in a corwded area doesn't sound like ideal studying conditions, but surprisingly, I got a lot of cramming in that day.

The following day I took my studying to Tama-center. It was a lot more crowded than I anticipated and I ended up not studying as much as I wanted to. It was all good though, as I enjoyed the nice weather outside. All in all, a good weekend. It flew by way too fast. Worst thing is that my workday is going to start an hour earlier thanks to US daylight savings time. Booo!

Missing Borders/Barnes and Noble

One of my objectives for my current performance evaluation is to get certified in IT strategy. I have the material, but back in the U.S. when I was cramming for certs, Barnes and Noble and Borders were always my retreat to get smart while drinking some coffee and have a selection of magazines to look at during my many breaks. There are books stores here, obviously but none of them that I've been to anyways had a cafe / sit down area where people just chilled and read books. I could go to the library, but the one closest to my place has a lot of these old people hanging out there all the time and it always smells like a doctor's office. Hopefully I'll stumble to a perfect place (ドマドマ) soon.