Enjoying the refreshing air

It's always good to get out of the big city and enjoy the nice clean air of the countryside from time to time.

Super moon

Everybody has been posting their super moon sighting so I guess I will do the same. I actually didn't know about this event. I just noticed that the moon was unusually bright during my Saturday night basketball practice. I didn't realize about the natural phenomenon until I got home and saw a plethora of folks online posting pics of the moon. This was taken from my balcony and though the moon is about normal size, I like the bluish hue I was able to capture on my iPhone.

Cherry blossoms in Shinjuku

April is always associated with Cherry Blossoms in Japan. This year I wasn't able to enjoy it as much as I expected because I ended up getting sick during the blossom's peak time. I was fortunate to enjoy a bit of them during my commute to the office in Shinjuku. Here are some pics:

Izu trip 2012

I managed to get a couple of days off of work and took a relaxing trip to Izu, which is located in Shizuoka prefecture down on its peninsula. It was great. I was able to do a variety of activities which included going to a zoo and picking strawberries. I also stayed over night at a pension, which is like a B&B but in addition to breakfast, they also offer a multi course dinner which was delicious. This particular pension also had a nice private outdoor hot spa. That hot spa was probably the highlight of the short trip. Nothing beats relaxing in hot volcanic water on a chilly night while gazing at the sky full of shiny stars. The trip also brought back some nostalgic memories. The last time I was in Izu, I was hanging out with my old Yonago ALT friend who has since moved back to the states. Man, it is crazy how time flies. Well here are some pics from the trip -

Cold winter

February is almost over and I can't wait for spring and it's warm air to come. This winter has been pretty cold. I have seen my electric bill sky rocket the past two months because of the heavy use of my AC units acting as heaters. It has not snowed that much , probably like less than 5cm so far this winter but the cold air is killer. The worst part is during basketball practice. I play at a school gym and even though it is technically an indoor court, the temperature is exactly the same inside as it is outside. So far I have probably gotten sick like 3 times coming home after practice this winter. It is pretty ridiculous. I miss the heated courts in the states. I miss driving from place to place and only experiencing the brutal cold air when going to your car. Winter is not all bad though. I love winter food in Japan. Clementines, strawberries and crabs are all in season now and they are delicious!! Here is a pic of one of those yummy strawberries:

Start of 2012

Another year passes through and a new one sets in. Recently time for me has been a non factor. As I mentioned previously, days to me are like hours and weekends come and go faster than I can remember. So recently, new years have little meaning to me other then I have to remember to change the number at the end of my dates. This year however is going to be different. I anticipate significant changes. I don't know if it will be all positive but I am looking forward to them. Well, the first half of January has passed and that usually means lots of eating and drinking. Here some pics below -

Holiday lights

This is the season where night is sometimes brighter than the day time. I love it.

Rest between turmoil

It has been horrible at work, probably one of the worst times since I have been with the company. Luckily, I requested some time off prior to the troubled period and was able to recover a bit. I have been reluctantly checking my work emails via my blackberry throughout my time off and issues have yet to be stabilized. At this point I am not sure what the outcome will be but what I do know is that I have to move forward, whether it be with my current employer or not. Most likely the latter. I anticipate a rough few months ahead and really need to prepare myself to be put in a better situation.

Anyways, here are some random pictures from my recent time off.

Rainy days in Sydney

As expected with my "rain man" reputation, it rained about 75% of the time and was unusually cold. Luckily, I saw more of Sydney than my previous trip, but I couldn't do what I wanted which was chilling at a beach wearing nothing but my beach trunks and sipping on an ice cold cocktail. Oh well, I may still have a chance to fulfill that dream as I may be asked to go back there in the near future.

Now here are some random pics of the trip:

Going back down under

I have a business trip coming up in the next couple of days that will send me back to Sydney, Australia. Unlike my last trip to Sydney where I was there for about a week, I am scheduled to be there for almost three weeks. Hopefully, I will get to check out more of Sydney than just Darling Harbour. I will definitely take pictures while I am there. In the mean time, here is a pic that I took 2 days ago while I was attending a BBQ next to Tamagawa river in Setagaya.

Natural disasters

Natural disasters, like earthquakes have always been a way of life in Japan. Every time one occurs, I just say to myself, "Oh .. its an earthquake" and just brush it off. I almost never stop what I am doing. Ever since the 3/11 disaster however, I notice myself with a bit more anxiety during a tremor. I don't go into panic mode at all, but I do find myself briefly interrupting on what I was doing and question myself if this could be another "big" one. This past week, there were 2 big jolts that could be felt in the Tokyo area. Scientists still say that the Tokyo area is not out of the woods yet in experiencing a big earthquake, so there is still fear that we may experience a another super earthquake in the near future. Besides earthquakes, a strong typhoon just ravaged Japan this past weekend. Luckily, the Tokyo area was spared but parts of western Japan wasn't as fortunate. I hope natural disasters won't continue to escalate. However, I am not so sure especially with Virginia just recently experiencing a magnitude 5 earthquake! The world is a scary place.. and that is not even factoring the man made chaos like crumbling economies, wars, etc.

Summer time view

Summer came and went in a flash. My little bro from the U.S. came to visit for his summer vacation. It was great. Here is a brief view of that vacation -


Enoshima shrine. Really awesome and first time I visited there.




Went to visit Disney Sea again. We stayed there for 12 hours. Pretty crazy but fun!



Blueberry picking. A great summer time activity.



Chinatown in Yokohama. Ate too much Chinese food that day. I haven't eaten any Chinese food since!




Fireworks at a festival in Yamanashi.




Tama-center festival.



Shonan beach in Kanagawa.



Roppongi Hills as seen from under the spider.




Small beach in Odaiba.




Lake view at Yamanashi.

In the SLR game

Well, I finally gave in and bought an SLR camera this week. I've always been about convenience, hence all my pictures were taken from my camera phone. After a while though, the pictures and memories that got captured from those pictures all started to look the same. No depth. Just bland pictures that gave me the same mindless reaction "Oh yeah I remember that. Heh...". I was always impressed with the pictures that people took with their SLR cameras but I was never motivated to get one because of the cost, it was inconvenient, compared to my camera phone and the fact that some lenses cost more than the camera itself. I tried one at a local electronic store last week and was amazed that even I could take a picture of a simple object with little to no effort and it would look stunning. So now, I hope to take better pictures and possibly turn it into a hobby... hopefully not an expensive one...

Hot nights

Summer is officially here and I am feeling the heat. There are supposed to be many power outages during the summer due to the projected increase power consumption and the shut downs of various nuclear power plants. I am getting worried on how I will be able to survive this summer if the AC is not on consistently. The average high now is around 26, which is not that bad at all but the humidity levels are through the roof. During the day time I actually don't suffer that much, but at night, it is unbearable and I am unable to sleep. It doesn't help either that my apartment is situated where the wind hardly goes through. I bought one of those "space age" cool mats a couple of years ago where it was made with special material to cool down the body when it touches it. It works pretty well for the first few minutes, but when the body heat goes back up and the cool cells don't have time to get cold again, the mat actually works as an insulator with my body heat and makes me even hotter. I am using a fan now, but it doesn't really work so well in combating the high levels of humidity. I need to find a way to cool down soon.

Exhausted.

House hunting is really exhausting. The sales guys that I've interacted are really convincing and every meeting I had with them felt like another brain washing session. I am still unsure on exactly what I will do. Even though I have only looked at houses so far, buying a "manshon" or Japanese equivalent of a condo is still very much in the picture. I just haven't formally made an appointment with a real estate company that deals with condos yet as the house appointments take up the whole weekend. So my progress so far still appears to be the same as when I first embarked in the long and tiring adventure a month ago. So tired...

I did it!!

Today I received my driver's license. It was a great feeling but I was and am still very exhausted. I ended up taking the driver's test just once. I honestly didn't expect to pass it, but I reserved some lessons with some of the driving instructors at the center this past weekend and really took detailed notes. It was pretty expensive, but compared to going to a driving school, it was very cheap. One of the instructors told me that the average number of times that someone passes the test is about 4 and she continued saying that she saw on person take it 10 times. 10 freaking times.. can you imagine?!?! She insisted that I shouldn't expect to pass it on the first try. Anyways, I'm glad I proved her wrong and beat the test. I am sooo relieved I do not have to go back to that place again.. at least for a very long time!

Its time to be legal..

I've been living in Japan for a few years now and I am finally going to try and get my driver's license here. It sucks that I have to virtually go through the same steps I did when I was in high school many years ago. The driving test center is in a remote part of Kanagawa-ken and I have to get there extra early tomorrow as space is limited for test takers, 13 toe be exact. This is only for the written test as well. For the actual driving test, I would have to schedule another appointment at the center on a workday should I pass the written exam. Its pretty busy at work and we are undermanned so me taking off of work for the written test and a future driving test is pretty depressing. A fellow foreign co-worker of mines got his license a while ago but he had a license in Australia. Because Australia is part of the exempt list, all he really had to do was convert it to Japanese without any hassle. It also only took him a couple of hours to do everything so he didn't have to use a vacation day. I was really envious of that guy.. still am after reading all that I "may" have to go through in getting my license. Anyways, I have been lucky thus far driving almost all of Honshu, cop and accident free with a only valid license from a different country. I absolutely understand the world wide rule that luck must come to an end sometime and do not want it to happen to me while I'm behind the wheel without a real Japanese license. Its time to become legal!

Happy mother's day...

6 years to this day since the time I last spoke to my mom. Man.. time goes by really fast....

Sports Depression

I forgot to mention that I am completely depressed on how my sports teams did this year. On two completely unrelated sports, American Football and Basketball and in very different parts of the country, the teams that I support performed EXACTLY the same. Both were considered elite teams before the season started and were favorites to win the championship. At the end, both teams crumbled and finished with complete disappointment, not even close to making it to the same point as they did the previous year. I was completely disinterested when the NFL playoffs began and now, I do not care at all about the NBA playoffs as my team was knocked out of the first round. Oh well, now I can focus all of my attention into deciding whether or not I should buy a home...

To buy or not to buy

I have rented since I've been in Japan. I do plan to be here for the foreseeable future so I am debating if I should buy my own place. The biggest reason is I don't want to see my money that I use for rent go into oblivion. Owning a home is a bit scary though, especially in a foreign country. The flexibility of not being tied down to one place for a prolonged period of time goes away. Also there is more added pressure of making sure I do all I can to not lose my job. Another aspect that I have to think about is the financial side of owning a home in Japan. Like back home in the states, I am not guaranteed the value of my property will go up as time goes by. Actually, real estate in Japan is more like buying a new car. Chances are that your asset will depreciate as soon as you move in. There have been many exceptions to that rule and location has been the biggest factor. Unfortunately, it is crazy expensive to get a place in an ideal or "hot" location in Tokyo. I am also debating whether to buy a house or condo. If I buy the former, the location will not be in an attractive area but I would own land rather than a piece of the sky. Is it worth it at the end? Hmm... *brain is churning*