Christmas in Japan

Hello friends and family and all of you who have stumbled onto this blog. I have once again been internet-less for an extended period with all of my travels and settling into my journey.
Two big updates. First Rosie and I got engaged. Second I have left my job at Language House. I am currently in Saijo with Rosie. We're just soaking on the season and Skyping with our families over the holidays. More to come in the near future.
Hope all are well and having a wonderful Christmas and New Year Season.
Your friendly neighborhood geek
Jody

Times is flying

Hello world.
It has been a few weeks since I have updated you as to my adventures. So here we go.
The past two weeks I have been living in a house with a new roommate. A local business owner named Norman White. He is a good friend of Jonathan and Ghiselle, and owned a Sandwich shop here in Tokushima. He recently sold the sandwich business "Big Brothers" to devote his time to his new Bar "Root Down".
Very fortunately for me, he was looking for new roommates and myself and another new teacher here were looking for a place to stay. I was not happy in the apartment we were put up in by our school when we arrived.

Here's a few pics of the house.



A peek inside a Japanese Household Kitchen



More of the outside of the House



The lil Orange Golf cart is what I have been driving lately. Geoff, one of the other teachers here dubbed it the orange Dragonfly. It fits. 660 cc's of pure evil. I love drivin this lil demon.



I also scored a Street Bike from one of the Norman's friends who was looking to get rid of it. Norman is as much of a Bike Geek as I am a computer Geek, so if he recommended I grab it, I was not going to refuse. Cost me 2500 Yen, which was just the price to replace the front tire. Norm's friend Hiro hooked me up with the tire, and Norm gave me some pedals. Hiro owns an awesome Bike Shop near the Tokushima Park, and he supplies a lot of big race teams with parts. Thanks Hiro, Norm. I'm ridin in style now!!

The Street Bike is mine, the Mountain bike behind it is Norm's Monster



Well that's about all I have to report for now. My ticket home was booked for November 14th, and no word on my Visa yet, so time is drawing close for my potential exodus from this wonderful and exciting country. But I have had some of the most incredible adventures here so far, and hopefully things will work out with my visa, and Rosie and I can experience some more really cool things before I have to go.

Peace and Love
Odious - Jay

Katakana - Phonetic characters for foreign words

After settling into my new surroundings it has become apparent that life will be much easier once I have settled down to learn how to read many of the road signs.
One of the symbol or character systems is called Katakana, and is mainly used to write foreign words, but can be found on almost every map. Definitely a help if you wish to take the transit system here.
Here are the characters in that system:

KATAKANA HYOU:



KATAKANA DAKUON:



KATAKANA YOUON:



For example, the name of my current city is Tokushima

So -> Breaking down the phonetics into one syllable representation we get

To - Ku - Shi - Ma

Which from the above charts we read as トクシマ

Yay now I can find my way home!! Well, many of the Express roads actually have English names for the cities. And I have learned that several main roads are numbered, so getting around has become easier. But this is a good idea to know so Katakana at least, to help read menus or warning signs, ingredients, prices etc.
For the time being I can pronounce the words by checking my Katakan cheat sheets, and eventually I hope I will have learned enough Japanese language to understand what they mean :P. For now I am just memorizing location names, and getting these characters memorized. The next step will be a similar character set known as Hiragana. Stay tuned for a progress report.

PS. My name in Katakana is roughly like this. Jody (or 'Jo Di') = ジョヂ

Pimp My Ride

Just a quick post today. This is my new ride.



I use it for work only. 660 CC Subaru Pleo. 0 - 60 in the time it takes to boot a 386.



But it's a efficient lil thing, and most people drive that speed anyway. The yellow plated cars are all 660 cc cars, and pay a lowe tax, and less expensive Expressway fees.



It's the way to go. But man I miss my Golf. Vrrm vrmm. I don't even mind the fact that it is Right hand drive, and you drive on the left side of the road.

My new hood.

This past weekend Rosie came to visit me in Tokushima, where I am currently residing. It was really awesome to have her here with me, as I am not yet familiar with the area, so we went on a tour of the city. Tokushima is a fun city, as we came to discover, with a lot of things to do and see. We started by riding the Cable cars to the top of Bizan mountain for a view of the surrounding area. Absolutely beautiful.









We hiked back down the mountain on foot, then went back to the apartment to rest before making our venture out for a night of festivities which included meeting up with Norman White, the owner of the fabulous Big Brother Sandwhich shop, and Root Down a local bar establishment. I didn't get any photos with Norm, but he has an awesome spot. From there, we were off to visit Ingrid's Karaoke bar. A good friend of Norms they often direct new comers to each otehrs establishments. It was to be a evening filled with singing and meeting new people there. We ran into a group of the local English teachers, and introduced ourselves. It was a fun night. Here is Rosie with Ingrid, the owner of the Karaoke bar. She is an awesome lady who made sure all of her patrons had a fun night there, singing and telling stories of their experiences.



I am not sure what street this was, as many of the streets here have no names, but there is a large ACTY building at the end that makes a rather good landmark for the downtown area.



After our long day of adventures, we settled in to rest, and on sunday, we decided to stay low key, and check out some quieter venues. Amonst which was a visit to a Sushi restaurant near to the apartment. mm it was soo yummy.



Then we wandered down to the River near Tokushima station to check out the Board walk area, and happened across a anniversary party where several local talents were out playing music and dancing.



We caught the performance of some highly talented rock groups, and Blue Production, a B-boy dance group. They were awesome as well.



This coming weekend, we have decided to stay in, to save money for the weekend after next, which will be Rosie's birthday weekend, and I am going to visit her in Saijo. Hopefully I'll have some more photos to post from that as well.

Peace and love

Jody

Trying new things

One quick blurb about being brave and trying the different foods and sweets in a new place. Quite often it turns out to be a wonderful experience, but every so often one can find that they are not quite so ready. Observe:

Hmmmm Wasabi flavoured Ice cream.



The taste test.



The Verdict.



On a more positive adventurous note, my melon flavoured ice cream was delicious. And I found the Wasabi tasted exactly like Wasabi. They got it right, I just don't think we much like it al by itself.

Peace.

Into Da Mountains

At last, internet again. Well for now. This past week I have spent in a Hotel, awaiting training for my new job, and after one days training I was given a class to teach. Guess there is truly no time like the present. So along with trying to figure out where everything is (basics like restaurants, roadways, coffee shops, internet access, etc) and learning the job itself, I am trying to remember all my students names, figure out how to determine which level they are at, and remember some cultural customs, so I do not say or do anything that might embarass my students or myself. I then found out I am moving to an all together different prefecture. You see I was trained in Takamatsu, whihc is the largest city on Shikoku island. I taught classes in Tokushima, which is to the east of Takamatsu. So now I am learning locations of things all over again.



Needless to say it has been a challenging week so far. But lets step back a moment and I will drop some pics of our trip to Kamegamori mountain. The participants included Rosie, Myself, Jerome, and Carolina. This was the second highest peak in Western Shikoku from what I've been told. 18000 feet.



Super cool.
There were several other people along for the climb that day. It is apparently an annual thing with a few of the nice folks form Jonathan and Ghiselles church.



At one point along our climb, we were taken to a lower point of the mountain to where in the stream someone had drilled out a bowl to capture water. Saijo is famous for it's spring water, and at this altitude it is equivalent to Distilled water. In the city it has some iron in it, but is good straight from the tap. Was quite nice being in Saijo. I really like it there.



After we descended the mountain we got to go on a tour of Asahi Brewery in Saijo. They chose this location because of the natural spring waters in that region. we even got to test some samples of the products after the tour of the factory. What a huge place. We had 20 minutes to drink all you could :P. I had one of each type they were offering. A pilsner and a stout. And we even got some really yummy beer snacks.



Last weekend we visited Matsuyama. That will be my next post, but as my camera is on the fritz, I'll wait til Rosie comes to visit me this weekend so I can upload some of her pics.

Peace Y'all

Welcome to Japan

At last! I have made it. Enter Felix to the Country of Japan.
After a two day voyage, tracing through Fort Worth Texas, then on to Osaka, and an overnight ferry ride to Toyo Port in Saijo, I along with Rosie's older broher Jerome, and his girlfriend Carolina have made it to our destination. We took the first day (Friday) to get over our jetlag, and then immediately started our Touristic duties, entailing a visit to Hirosima Peace Park, the sight of the A bomb Detonation of World War II. This was definately a humbling experience. No history book I had ever written had prepared me for the feeling of sadness that overwhelms you as you walk through the museum.



Pictured above is the Memorial in the center of the Peace Park. Through it you can see what was referred to as The A Bomb Building. A structure that had survived the Detonation which took plave 2 blocks East and 400 meters above it's location. There were approximately 3 other buildings in the surrounding 3 kilometer diamaeter which survived the blast. I am still trying to wrap my mind around that destructive force that must have been experienced by the Detonation. The Flash from the intiail detonation gave off a heat that was roughly equivalent to the surface of the sun.



Once we had walked through the park, and made our way back to the van it was off to Miyajima Island for the night, to visit a very popular Shrine. The island offered beauty and history in a positive light, as opposed to our previous days experience. Miyajima is popuated with several hundreds of goat sized deer which roma freely throughout the island, and will eat any scrap of paper or whatever items the deem chewable that might be in your possesion.






The next day the Tide had gone out so we got to walk out to the Tori. Got some cool shots in the shrine as well.





I have also made some trips to Niihama, and Takumatsu for interviews, but I did not take my camera with me then. So far so good, now I apply for a work Visa again. From now til I hear back, I am simply a tourist for thre months.

More pics and postings to come.