Maija's Stay

Maija's came and went, hence my absence. We did a lot more than I anticipated and I did post most of the photos on to facebook, but that was about all I had the will to do. I'll try to get them uploaded through the blog at some point soon. We spent the first weekend touring some of the ancient Kyoto sights together. Our first stop was Shōsei-en, a garden built in the late ninth century by a Heian Prince. The place had a really old feel to it, despite the buildings on site being re-built in 1865-1912 since the originals were destroyed by fire. (can you tell I read the info pamphlet?) Right after that, we hit up Kiyomizu-dera and arrived just in time for the last Dragon Performance of the year.
The next day we returned to meet up at a British style pub called the 'Pig and Whistle' with some of Johnny's English teaching buddies. After many gin on the rocks and Maija's gracious gift of tequila shots, we wound up at a club since the last train had long since gone. We all celebrated a bit too hard, and spent all Sunday recovering. Quite the welcome weekend for Maija.
Other things we did include: visiting the Botanical Garden on lake Biwa, ate at a Shabu-Shabu restaurant called the golden pig in japanese, went to Osaka's den-den town, went bowling in town, saw monkeys at Arashi-yama, visited our friend Mizuho's club "Giraffe" for her birthday party there, had nabe at Yuri +Johnny's apartment, and just relaxed in between all these events. It was really great to see Maija again since she operates in a completely different part of the globe, and we had a lot of fun. I think that she had a pretty good holiday.
Since Maija left on thursday, I've mostly been recovering from sharing her travels. Johnny, Yuri, and I went to climb a mountain yesterday in Omihachiman, it was called Hachimanyama. There were the remains of an old castle at the top, and it was beautiful weather. We went shopping afterwards, had delicious home made Gyu-don (thin meat cooked with onion and mushrooms put over rice with a raw egg cracked into the bowl and mixed around) with gyoza on the side, and watched "The Life Aquatic". It was a great dinner and a great movie. I still cant get over Bill Murray in that movie, watch it if you've never seen it.

I'm back!

Hello, It's been a busy two year gap.

I finally graduated from UMASS, and have subsequently come back to Japan with hopes of finding some work. I have three months to do so and it is illegal to work while on my tourist visa, so I am kind of on a job search holiday.

Today is my fifth day here in Moriyama City, Shiga Prefecture! A city that shares its border

with lake Biwa (Biwa-ko is what they say here) the largest lake in Japan. I am living together with Yuri and Johnny in their apartment, and I am so grateful for their hospitality! They both

work full-time here, so i'll be doing a lot of traveling alone. Maija is coming to stay with us for two weeks on Friday though, so we'll most likely travel together for that time. It will be a true Japan room-mate reunion! It's crazy how the timing of all this worked out.

Anyway, I'll hopefully update more often than my last stay here since I have no obligations other than my own so far. This time around I want to try to use more photos than text, to keep my posting shorter and eye candy sweeter.

Here are the highlights thus far:

JB and CG's Japan Reunion.

Awesome BBQ hosted by Yuri's Co-worker's family. It was all you could drink and eat!

I really like this picture, kudos to Yuri.

This is Kyoto Station, It is massive! I was in shock and awe. Can't believe I never went here before.

Something seriously wrong is happening in this picture, other than the apparent hemorrhaging happening to these children.

This was even more demented than the other mutilated children. A scarecrow so scary, that it makes you want to call the police!

Here we have the "BP OIL SPILLERS CLUB" seriously that's what I thought it said at first glance. They will never live that down.