IT'S OFFICIAL!!!

I'm legal!!!!! Here for a year....if I want that is = w00t! This happened earlier this morning then I later went through the work day teaching kids how to sing "Jingle Bells" and do xmas word searches and what not. Tomorrow is the big day of the UNITAS Xmas party...I'm a little nervous because I have to be Santa, which is so funny because I don't fit the character at all...well maybe my rosy cheeks but that's it! Although it's only a 10 minute appearance I hate the whole "all eyes on me" thing but ohh well.

I'm stoked afterwards the staff is going to dinner and they're having this all you can eat & all you can drink party!!! Which is always nice to get a chance to indulgde. Sunday is going to be rock climbing and night riding which should leave me exhausted and doing nothing but chilling for my day off on Monday which follows into another shred session on Tuesday. The 23rd happens to be the emperors birthday so no school!!! YAY!!! lol Although I have to work on the 24th & 25th I will still be able to celebrate with a Xmas potluck and as my true homies know on Christmas Eve...I will be breaking out the Chistian Bro's for you guys! Although you guys are too busy snowboarding in CO to read this blog don't worry I still know what's up!

BTW, I thought I'd attach a pic of those epic boots I bought at that epic price! I sure hope they're comfy and keep me warm during the night ride. I'll throw another post on after the weekend and I hope everyone is having a great week!

HARAJUKU!!!!

Woohoo!!!

I even think I changed the language around for you peeps!!! On Monday I had to go into Tokyo to get some snowboarding boots. There is a giant Burton store in Harajuku, which I've decided is the most expensive place in the world :) But, I was amazed at how everybody dressed in Shinjuku(where I arrived) and Harajuku. As AJ put it well, it's a mix between 1980's and 2020!!! I felt like I was wearing rags compared to these people. And no wonder the Japanese are constantly working everything is ridiculously expensive....long sleeve shirt = $90!!!!

Boots we also twice as much then compared to US prices but you gotta do what you gotta do = 33,600 yen!!! ahhhhhh it hurts just to look at... I won't even convert that for you people who don't know just to save myself some pain.

But basically I decided Tokyo is probably one of the most happenin spots in the world. I immediately felt as if I was in New York city and when I talk to a colleague at work he says Tokyo reminds him of London, but he's from London. Which is funny because those are supposed to be the top 3 cities of the world and in a way I felt like through talking to him and my realization of the city it's true!

....Just a little view of some of the crazy stuff you see in Shinjuku as I'm trying to find my bus stop. My landmark is actually a KFC which is really funny to me. I can't wait to go back to Tokyo but with the current state of my budget I think i'm going to find something cheaper than ramen to eat :P So with Christmas already being a huge bummer I figure it can't get that much worse right?!

Luckily classes this week are cake. I make stockings with the kids, cut snowflakes, and listen to xmas music while doing word searches and xmas anagrams if there's free time. With the exception of my adult private lessons and planning for our childrens Christmas party this coming Saturday my job this week is brainless(w00t!).

With my crazy weekend I learned a lot in Japanese and has only pushed me more to study harder...hopefully ramen is good brain fuel!!! Now that this blog is up in English I expect to see comments people!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

FUJITEN

AHHHHHHH

So I orignally wrote a very nice, long, and detailed blog but my internet explorer crashed on me :(

So today I went to Fujiten!!!!!

The fellow on my right is my friend Fred. Way cool dude from France with an English accent who's pretty damn funny actually. That's his Suby on the left and it is a very very cool car. We drove out to Fujioshida last night and we got there really fast :) because he's a crazy fast driver which is also awesome. I met up with AJ's friend Jyoti, who is a killer cool Aussie chick where we had dinner then met up with AJ at a party. What was great about dinner is the bartender gave us free dessert!!!!! it was like a half tofu half cheese thingy with strawberrys and raspberry sauce.

After this party Jyoti, our friend Ann, and I were heading home. I really wanted a beer nightcap and they mentioned there was a beer vending machine, which I haven't even seen yet! We go and unfortunately couldn't get any beer...as some people were walking up we asked why after staring at the machine and pressing all the buttons and cursing at it like drunk idiots. They said they turn off at a certain time each night(lol) because of underage drinking.

This is when they invited us to drink with them....and they were actually firefighters going to their firehouse to drink! So we ended up chilling at a firehouse eating octupus cracker thingys(which were actually good!) and me laughing histerically just about the whole time!!!! These guys were hallarious and Jyoti and Ann are very good at Japanese so I just did my best to listen and when they asked me questions I would spurt out something that was actually not bad Japanese = w00t I'm learning!

Fujiten the next day(today) was great!

I finally did find a vending machine that worked @ Fujiten~!!! It snowed a couple inches in the morning too which was great. I'm jealous of all my friends in Fujiyoshida because the resort is only a 30 minute drive!!!! But still was very very fun!

They even have places to give your board a bath get all the snow off and a compressed air gun to dry everything off which was pretty cool!!!!!! I had a great time and chllin with Fred and Jyoti was great! No jibs unfortunately but I was still having a lot of fun with all the natural stuff there. I think that's why I like snowboarding so much because it's up to you to figure out how much fun you're going to have!!!

Now that I've generally got all this stuff figured out I will be posting more and more!! I'll fill everyone in with some past stuff too. Tomorrow I'm going to Tokyo so more will be up soon I hope everyone is having a great holiday I keep hearing Wham's "Last Christmas" everywhere here I think it's the most popular xmas song in Japan!!!!!!

December 8th, 2008

Well it's official!!!

I've been in Japan for a one month and 3 days and i'm having the time of my life. Bare with me in the blog because everything is in Japanese and it may take me some time to get things up and running. Life here has been very good and my budget has been almost exact, with my getting paid on Wendesday (YESSSS) and only barely making ends meet.

This past month has been great, I've met a lot of new friends and started to get into a nice grove at work. My job is great, I work at a place called UNITAS, which is an after school language school. I teach kids ranging from 4 to 70! The kids classes are fun but it's really great to teach adults that really try hard to learn english. It makes me feel a little weird having a lack of Japanese knowledge but it's interesting to discover the words and sayings they don't know that we don't even realize we say all the time.

For example, when I explain "What's up" and "How's it going?" For "How's it going" you can't say "not much" right!? and the opposite goes for "What's up" and when that happens you get those auto responses from "tools." Although I have yet to explain what a tool is little things like this pop up in just about every class and it's very fun and interesting to try and explain how much slang, or idioms we use in our day to day life.

As I said everything is going well and I recently got a bike this past week too, it's great to be able to cruise through Kofu(where I live) on bike because with how much traffic there is and no parking a bike is ideal in a city like this. Thanks to the help of my best friend AJ (formerly known as the person known as Amanda) I have met great people and even a new click to go snowboarding with, which I shall be doing this Sunday (12/14).

Other than that not much has changed i'm still the same Brian you all know, just far away!!!!! Please check back from time to time I will try and update this at least once a week if not more. Even though mostly everyone I will send this to talks to me on Facebook or Myspace I've been saying I was going to make a blog and I am....It gives me a chance to elaborate more on some of the things I don't say in chit chat with all my peeps across the Pacific. I hope everyone's holiday season is going well and you should all drink some egg nog for me because I can't find the stuff around here which = :(