Japan Bound

Well were in Canada eh! Been here a week now and really havent done anything except a litle bit of visiting and a tonne of sleeping and went to Tim Hortons a few times. Its been strange so far. In Kagoshima theres hardly any foreigners. When we got to the airport in Tokyo the first thing I said to Rikki is "white people look funny". I definately have a bit of reverse culture shock some good some bad. I miss Japan but its also good to see people I havent seen in a year. I went to the gym today and after being a fairly big guy in Japan I felt dwarfed by the guy that was there. I dont think he was actually that much bigger than me but most men I met in Japan had fairly slight builds so I usually felt like an animal compared to them. In Japan in the mens section has super extra slim fit pants...I didnt think they made stuff like that. I would be afraid of the damage I would do to my body if I tried to put them on. I will make sure I post some pictures of Christmas while I am here. Mostly so my friends in Japan can see where I live. So keep an eye out for "Shawn sightings" in Nanaimo. You may be one of the lucky few to meet the worlds best Tom Cruise look alike. Ok out for now.

Cya

Shawn

So its official we will be leaving Japan in a week and a half. Were coming home a little earlier than anticipated. Rikki's job (boss) has gone from bad to worse to crazy to whatever comes after that. Im not going to write the novel that has led us to this decision but know that, we havent made it lightly. The only thing that has been hard for us in Japan has been her job so with that in mind, we will be regrouping looking for new work and returning to Japan ASAP. Rikki is technicaly a lifer after 8 months at this school so it gives you an idea of how hard it is. I unfortunately wont get to write my Japanese proficeincy test. But if you have read some of these blogs then you will know that I should be working on english proficeincy anyway.

In the time we have been I have survived:
2 earthquakes
A typhoon (larger than hurricane Katrina I might add, and I went to the store when it was nearly at its worst)
A fire in our apartment building 3 floors directly below us
Being hit by a car
Breaking a rib at Judo
Godzilla

The only thing I didnt get to see was the active volcanoe in the harbour really blow. Sure it smokes at lot but I wanted to see fireballs.
Since we will be coming back I am not going say what my favorite thing about Japan is or what I hated the most. I figure I have yet to encounter both. We figure we will be home for around 2-3 months......Staying with our parents........That just sunk in further as I wrote it. Not that I dont love them. There all great people hers, and mine....But this will definately be added incentive to get moving. So no regrets, this is the start of the next exciting chapter. I will continue to post and make sure I put up stuff over Christmas so you can hear about all the cool things I didnt do.

Last post I mentioned Guys in Diapers. Thy were part of a Matsuri (festival) the college was having. Here are a couple of pics of them running by our house. Its from 6 stories up so the qualities not there but you get he idea. Also here are some Pics from another Matsuri they had a few weeks ago. Its a harvest festival there was over 1000 peole in the main street downton in different groups dancing this traditional dance and of course drinking. Nothing in Japan is complete without booze. It was like a parade but the majority of people were participants not spectators. The last ones are of a special dinner our Judo sensei ordered for Rikki (yes its a fish head) and one of the group that we had thanksgiving dinner with.







Oh and by the way nothing makes you look good like standing next to drunk guys in drag.




So I hope to see you all soon.

Bye for now Japan

So I have finally joined the 21st century I have the internet and a computer at home. Hopefully this means I will be blogging a little more often. Since the last post lots has been happening, I started school through online correspondence back in Canada. Weve done a little bit of site seeing and Ive been studying Japanese like a madman. I have a Japanese preoficiency test in December. It only happens once a year so Im pretty nervous. Also friends of our back home just had a new baby. Congratulations to Paul and Mel and a hello to their new daughter Lauren.



Last weekend we visited this Samurai Village. It wasnt a real Samurai village like the one I lost my camera at but this is the site of The Samurai Armoury from a few hundred years ago. Now they still make armour there but mostly as props for movies. Its wa pretty cool, there was lots of different types of armour and weapons including some ninja weapons. My inner geek totaly came out again........I had a "what do you want to be when you grow up" moment. I wanna be a ninja. Any way I took a bunch of pictures but I am only going to post a few because Im sure after the 30th picture of the same type of armour you might get a little bored.


So then
We got dressed in some helmets sat on a fake horse and took some pictures....Very touristy but whatever it was fun. The picture of Rikki stabbing me should have been named something like make my dinner, but I decided to call it Married Life.






Here is a picture of my friend from work and her husband who came with us.



After the Samurai Villlage we went to a nuclear power plant that gives tours. It kind of seemed like a good terrorist target to me so unescorted tours might not be the best thing. It was definattely intersting and we got life size uranium pellet key chains. Without real uranum. The Guy at the power plant had a real one. Seems like a dangerous thing to have in your pocket unless your trying to have mutant kids. There was a life size model of the reactor here is a picture of us in front of it.



After the Powerplant we went to the observatory. All in all a very geeky informative day. Felt like a school field trip. Anyway Im off to work so I will post about the guys that just ran by our house in diapers later.

Cya

Shawn

Two post ago I was whining about not having any guys to hang with. Since then Ive had ( I was going to say an injection of testasterone, but the image that creates is not where this post is going) the chance to hang with some guys I met around town. First guy is a university student in Kagoshima whos english is good ...but interesting. He wants to feed the starving children of the world so he is studying agriculture, which is a nice but lofty goal. Half way through the night he gets all excited and says we can be boyfriends. His friend that was with us just about spits his drink on the table and was yelling "boyfriend nai yo" kind of like saying not boyfriend stupid. What he meant was we could be buds but it was still pretty funny.
So about a week after that, some of you may have seeen that a guy named Mel from Kagoshima replied to one of the posts. We hung out and played pool and darts, he's from Illinois, errr I think....Somewhere in the states for sure. I mentioned to him that everyone I meet in Japan tells me I look like Tom cruise, he takes a second look and says if you die your hair you could be a younger cocktail version of Tom Cruise. He looks kind of like Lenny Kravitz so it was cool times in Kagoshima with Tom Cruise and Lenny Kravitz chillin at a bowling alley playing pool. Now I know those of you who remember what I look like may think that theres no connection so heres a picture of me and Tom Cruise side by side..........you see if you can spot the difference.





As you can see the resemblance is amazing !

Cya

Not the kind of ultra sound results most people think of. It turns out that my rib isnt sprained its broken. They had to get a picture from a different angle to tell. So I now get to wear a man bra for ten days and take about a month and a half off Judo. So by the time I get home all the weight I lost since coming here will be back on. Oh well Im sexy when Im fat. So here are two pictures of the ultra sound. I couldnt get them to scan since its very glossy. Taking a picture of a small picture is kind of crappy but you get the idea. The first one is uneditted and the second kind of explains what you are seeing (well no it actually doesnt explain much).






Well a picture is worth a thousand words so heres 2000 words. Enjoy.....I will talk to you all later.

Cya

Shawn

Hello from Japan Land,

Here is the monthly Im alive posting. As you can see by the title I have disslocated ( or twisted , the doctor wasn't really sure) one of my ribs. I was at Judo earlier this week practicing Randori which is like sparring. Some how I managed to have a rib pop out of place. This is the first time I have ever had anything like this happen and let me tell you it sucks. Any injury that causes it to hurt when you breathe is not conductive to happy daily living. Ive broken my fingers and toes numerous times sprained wrists, elbows, ankles, knees and my shoulder, pulled every muscle in my body but never hurt my ribs. Lucky untl now. I think I"m getting old. The severity and length of injuries seems to be increasing with each passing year. Oh well Im confident I will heal soon and be back at it. I have a tonne of new pictures but the are on the lap top and I am posting from the school still. I know lap tops are portable and I could just walk it to the school and show you all pictures from our life. But the truth is I'm kind of lazy so you will have to wait.

I realized the other day that all the people I hang out with here are women. I work with only women, all my students are women or are children accompanied by their mothers. All of Rikkis friends at the school are women. We spend sometime out with the Judo Sensei but its not quite the same as a normal friendship. I know most guys are probably like whats the big deal. But I miss listening to my meat head friends ( you know who you are) talk about video games or things that they have no knowledge of and continue to try and BS eachother into thinking that they do....say for example conversations about transmissions or carburators (inside joke). Anyway its funny in a way because I am starting to talk like a Japansese women since that is the only speach pattern I get to hear.

Its early October and the high and low temperature are still like late July in Nanaimo. The low average for the next week is 18 and the high is 28. People tell me its cld in the winter but I think cold is relative to what your used to. I am sure that when we visit at Christmas I am going freeze, so I am looking forward to that.

I don't really know what else to say, since the last few posts have been boring I will make sure to add sexual content or gratuitous violence in the next post to keep everyone back home interested.

Cya

Shawn

So since My last post I have been fairly busy. We finaly have a computer at home but no internet yet. Its more difficult than one would expect. If you didn't hear on the news a Typhoon passed though the middle of Japan and another is on its way. Turns out Typhoons and Hurricanes are the same type of storm. The typhoon that hit us last week Typhoon Nabi was supposedly more powerful than the one that went through New Orleans. We weren't hit Very hard in Kagoshima even though it went straight through the city. The prefectures to the east and north were hit pretty hard and therre was a fair amount of damage and flooding. Being my first typhoon I didnt know what to expect, It was loud and the wind was strong enough to push me around a bit. Rikki was a little scared and didn't sleep much the night that it hit. I thought the whole thing was fun but then I have a strange sense of fun. Anyway were safe and unfortunatley I dont have any pictures to show .......it just looked like rain and wind any way.

Did you ever watch videos of Adolph Hitler in highschool? I did.....he was a really angry little man, sounding all crazy when he was up giving speeches. Turns out that seems to be the popular style for Japanese politicians right now in Japan. Its election time right now and for about 3-4 weeks there have been these vans going around with 4-6 loud speakers on the roof and sometimes more than one van at a time. Through the neighbourhoods with these angry sounding, screaming, politicians. You can here them from several blocks away and they start each morning by roughly 730......EVEN ON WEEKENDS!! Its like some evil version of the ice cream man slowly driving through your neighbourhood with all the annoying sounds but only bringing headaches. I'm sure that japanese people can't really understand them either because all the buildings cause a huge amount of echo......so I don't see the point. Any way this Sunday is the election so it should be over soon. Im working lots and Rikkis job has settled a bit. My hotmail seems to be working fine again so start sending. Hope everything is good in Canada.

Cya

Shawn

Nothing new to report from Japan. I just wanted to let you know that Im not able to send from either of my email accounts right now. For the last week I just keep getting errors from both my hotmail and MSN accounts. I have however been able to recieve email. So keep em coming and I will try to reply as soon as possible.

Cya

Shawn

Wow posting 2 days in row, Im very proud of myself. Day two and three sort of blurr together so I will talk about them both at the same time. You can only see so many historical castles temples shrines and museums before everything begins to feel the same. MY favourite temple of all was Sanjusangendo, which has 1000 gold satues. The main temple is over 100 meters long has all 1000 of the statues in neat rows along with a few other cool demon and statue and a giant budda. Having all the staues staring at you is kind of creepy but the whole site is fairly impressive. Unfortunately most of these places are UNESCO world heritage or religous sites so we were'nt allowed to take pictures inside. Im not going to go into detail about each thing we saw because it would take forever. I am going to add links to sites of most of the places we went so that if you want to you can get a better feel for the history of Kyoto. One thing I should add is that the only reason most of the heritage sites and old areas of town survived during WWII was that Kyoto was originally desiganted as a potential target site for the nuclear bombs. It was left untouched by bombing so that the american military could better study the effects. Ok on to the pictures.

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Kinkaku link

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As a side note for the above picture, my inner redneck really came out when I was staring at the rocks in this zen garden thinking, I don't get it....these guys need a hobby....they rake gravel and stare at it....Huh?

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Ryoan Ji link

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Sanjusangendo Link

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Nijo link

Here are a couple of random pictures from the trip

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Funaoka onsen was listed in the lonely planet guide, it has an outdoor bath, and wood carvings that date back to the late 1800s. It was pretty cool as far as onsens go, we went to this onsen twice. I feel like a proffesional public bather now so if any of you happen to come to japan expect to my naked sweaty body.

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With the cramped living conditions of most Japanese houses, love hotels with short stays are supposedly not uncommon. This was the first one we had seen, Im guessing there are some close to our house but probably written in Kanji.
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We had a few real Geisha sitings while in Kyoto. In all of Japan there is estimated to be less than 1000 practicing Geisha left. Fairly rare throughout most of Japan Kyoto has an old entertainment district where we were able to see some each night we went.

The last day was spent with a little more site seeing, first at Higashi Hongan which has the largest or one of the largest wooden structures in Japan. Unfortunately it is under restoration so the building is covered. After that we saw a parade which was one of the last for the Gion Matsuri. Matsuri are religous festivals that are used to ask shinto gods favour. It appears to be more of an excuse to party and sell stuff, but that seems pretty standard in most cultures now. After the parade we went to a studio where rikki was able to dress up as a Geisha and have her picture taken. It takes roughly 1 hour between makeup hair and the 5 layerrs of Kimono to get dressed properly. The studio took pictures but we were also able to take some with our camera so luckily with have some digitals to show you all. Lastly while we were wrapping up our last day in Kyot we ran across a huge air soft store. Air soft is similar to paintball but shoots plastic BBs. The Guns in this store were unique because not only were they real looking ( most airsoft guns are) but they were real wheights. The Canadian army has a rifle called the C-7, which is an M-16 style assault rifle. i used on when I was in the army and the one in this stored wheighed exactly the same.

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In each temple before you enter you are supposed to wash your hands, example the dragon fountain photo above. What your not supposed to do is pour the clean wate over your dirty hands back into the clean water....Ooops.

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Gion Matsuri Link

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So we ended our trip with a short stay in Fukaoka and more extremely long train rides and another 6 hour bus ride. I was so tired by the time we had gotten home. All total we spent just under a day and a half on trains or buses. Here are some pics and links of some things we saw in Fukaoka.

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Fukaoka link
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Well if your able to absorb this all in one sitting I will be amazed. I will try to be more on top of these entries as the events transpire.

By for now

Shawn

Its only been three weeks since we went to Kyoto, Its about time I posted about it. Its difficult without a computer at home but I finally found some time. Im not going to go into to much detail on each piece but I will include some sites so you can get the history and a better feel for where we went.

Our trip consisted of 3 parts Hiroshima for 1 day, Kyoto for 3 days and 1 day in Fukuoka. For those of you that are curious, we didnt fly .....we didnt take the bullet train ....it was buses and local trains the whole (extremely slow) time. Shinkansen ( bullet train ) costs as much as flying which isnt cheap in Japan. We started our journey with a 7 hour night bus from Kagoshima to Fukaoka 11pm-6am. The seats partly recline and I think we both got about 4 hours sleep. At 8am we caught the train to Hiroshima, which actually means several transfers.

We arrived in Hiroshima tired smelly and ready to go at 1pm. We started at Hiroshima castle. It has a pretty large ground and the main tower is still standing. In the castle are history exhibits and some samurai armour you can try on. I tried it on but your not allowed to take pictures. We tried to sneak one with my phone but forgot to hit save.

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Hiroshima Castle

From Hiroshima Castle we went to the Peace Park. This area consist of the Atomic Bomb dome, two museums dedicated to the nuclear holocaust and several other reminders of the bomb. One of the other major displays at the Peace Park is the statue of Sadako. Sadoko was a young girl who was exposed to radiation due to the bomb and developed lukemia. After she was diagnosed she decided to fold 1000 paper cranes in hopes that her wish would be granted and she would be cured. She only was able to fold 644 before she died. Now each year thousands of paper cranes are shipped here from all over the world from schools and other organizations. Visitig the park is a very sobering experience, Im glad we visited though. I'm also glad that that reminders exist. Unfortunately not enough people are able to come face to face with these reminders and the fear is that history will repeat itself. We took as many pictures as was tasteful. I wanted to show this to you all but at the same time show a little respect.

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Peace Memorial

Here is a picture of the Ryokan (traditional Japanese Inn) we stayed in in Hiroshima. We didnt really get to enjoy it since we checked went and had dinner and then left for Kyoto at 7 the next morning.

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We arrived in Kyoto at Noon. Kyoto is the easiest to city to navigate, I have ever been to. All of the bus schedules have colour coded routes and there are englissh maps for stupid foreigners like me ( no one calls us that ....at least not to our face). Kyoto station is a huge contrast to most of the rest of the city. Its huge and modern where the rest of the city is small and older.

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The first place we went to in Kyoto was Toji Temple. Toji boasts one of the tallest pagodas in Japan. The day we went there a flea market was in the temple grounds lots of neat stufff but I dont have enough Japanese to barter and I didnt feel like getting ripped off, so we didnt buy anything. To give you an I dea of how hot it was there were locals who are used to the heat with bags of ice for hats. Each temple we visited had something interesting about it. Most however did not allow pictures inside so we only have pictures of the outside. They were pretty interesting, but Im definatley not converting anytime soon.

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Toji

After Toji We went to the Ryokan we were going to stay in. This place was gross, we ended up with bug bites from mites or fleas or something. Also the urinnal had a nice inch thick green film, Mmmmmm ....you could smell it from 2 rooms away. Unfortunatley we paid up front so we were a little stuck. Here are some pictures of our wonderful home for three days.

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Im going to stop there for today, I will finish the remainder of the trip later. Its was defiantely an "experience". As an Update about us Judo's good and our Judo social calender is busier than Judo itself. Also another teacher left the school so its good times at work for Rikki. Hope everythings good at home.

I'll post again soon

Shawn

Well Its definately been a busy couple of weeks. Rikki is on holidays and we have been all over Japan (at least it feels like it). A week and a half ago we went to thhe Amami Islands and last week we went to Hiroshima and Kyoto. I will be posting about Amami today and about the Hiroshima/Kyoto trip later.

Amami is like a small piece of paradise. We were invited to go with our Judo Sensei (not the bodygaurd) and some friends of his. His wife is currently working on the island we went to. High school teachers in the Kagoshima prefecture are all expected to spend 4 years teaching on the islands. She just began her first and is there with her kids. Amami is 11 hours away by ferry....yes 11 hours you wouldn think it was that long looking at a map. Here is a map of the island we went to.
http://www.rfbolland.com/okislugs/m_amami.html
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The ferry is definately interesting. There is a common sleeping/eating area where you are provided just enough space to roll out a futton....which I am slightly taller than. There is a bathroom, a smokingarea (the rest of the ship), a restaraunt and the outer deck. Peoples sense of space is definately different here and this trip is a perfect example of that. Luckily for the ship wasnt to crowded and we were able to take a little extra room.
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We got a little bit of sleep on the ferry which as you will see is a theme to both of our adventures. Im not 100% sure now when each event transpired since it was a power sightseeing trip. We arrived on Amami at 630 am which means there was nothing to do except sit at an all night restaraunt until the island was up and running. First stop was a little sightseeing boat that took us over a coral reef. The bottom of the boat has windows so you are able to see all the fish, kind of makes you want to be a marine bioligist ....or go spear fishing.
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Next was a sighteseeing trip around the island......I forgot to mention earlier that there was a typhoon hitting near Okinawa which is also close to where we were. The waves and wind were big and it made the scenery that much more spectacular.
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We went swimming with some monster waves after that. I also forgot to mention that the Judo sensei that we were traveling with has sort of adopted us. As our mentor or somthing, basicly its like getting a new parent. This seemed weird to me at first but turns out is very common in Japan and he has been a big help to our training at Judo. The reason I mention this now is because I wasnt allowed to swim out to far in the waves. I don't ever remember my real parents telling me not to swim to far, I was a little offended but since he has encountered more typhoon size waves in his day I thought it best to listen. Later that night we had a big BBQ with his freinds and his wifes new coworkers. The BBQ is charcoal with a metal cover in the middle of a picnic table. Their was lots of sho-chu ( the potato whisky mentioned before) for the adults and fireworks for the kids. Hmmmmm....drunk adults and children under 10 with explosives. Japan so far has not appeared to be the safest country, seat belts arent required in the back seat, no bike helmets, RAW CHICKEN, things like that. But little kids with fireworks I was to amused to be worried. I didnt take many pictures at the BBQ, too busy trying to be social.

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So after a long day and a late night we were woken up by a loud speaker just outside the room we were staying in, it was 630 in the morning 5 hrs after getting home. So in very enthusiastic japanese we here lets start our morning excercises, some other instructions and then one and two and one and two. I had no idea what was going on. Turns out for emergency broadcasts incase of typhoons there is a load speaker every block. People from the Amamis are some of the oldest on earth, guess thats why.

So day two more sightseeing. First we went to the Habu center. Habu is a type of poisonous snake and most species are indigenous to the Amami islands, the Judo sensei had Rikki and Jessica (the other white girl you see in this series of pictures, who is also doing Judo with us and works at the same school as Rikki) so freaked out that the didn't go near tall grass the entire time we were on the island. I wasn't to worried and this is why I am always the first to see how good the local first aid really is. Anyway after the Habu center we went and saw some more of the island had lunch, relaxed near the beach and then had dinner and went home. It was definately a power sightseeing trip. I think we willl head back to the island before we leave Japan since it is supposed to have amazing scuba diving.
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We had one day in Kagoshima again to do laundry and then we were off to Kyoto. By the way I have seen starwars now and it wasnt quite as good as I was hoping.

Oh one last thing here is a picture of the Yukatta (summer Kimono) Rikki got from her coworkers for her birhday. I will post about Kyoto in the next day or so.
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Ja Matashta

Shawn

Its been 2 weeks since the last post. Things are good with the exception of Rikki's work, some of you know because we have sent private emails or had conversations but it seems strange to pretend that things are totaly fine. This city is great, clean, safe, with plenty of opportunitys and it is a good base that we can launch ourselves into adventures but I'm not sure how long it will last. I hate to be another forgiener complaining about there experience overseas blaiming someone else for there problems but, it looks like thats the way it is going to go. Rikki's boss is more than a little challenging to work with without going into details lets just say that the school has been open less than 2 years and 3 teachers have made "midnight runs" ( left the country and the job without informing the company) in the last year. To my knowledge only one teacher fullfilled her contract. Unfortunately we didnt know any of this until after we had been here a while. Its Everything else in the our world is good. It could be worse though they havent been late paying us and there have been no threats to our physical saftey.

Ok that felt good, thanks for listening. On to more exciting things. Judo is going well Rikki is improving and has learned some basic throws. I have started to lose some of my desk job wheight Im down about 12 pounds since I first got here. Between the Judo and the lack of a car I may get back into the same shape I was when I just got out of basic training. Here are some pictures of the Judo dojo. There is one from each side of the room and a picture of O-Sensei who refined Judo into what it is today.

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Oh and here is a picture of a wicked bruise I got during the second week of Judo I landed on a guys ankle bone with the back of my leg after a hard throw, his ankle was a little sprained but this bruise went straight to the bone.

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Last weekend Rikki and I were invited to have our pictures taken at this really nice professional studio. Why you may ask.......becasue we are white. The photographer had two reasons for wanting us to go. One the lighting for phtographing caucasians is different and because he felt that japanese couples didn't look sincere during photographs where they are supposed to be in love. I thought it was a little weird but we are going to get free photos out of the deal. Don't wory I will scan and post as soon as we get them. I wanted to devote an entire post with the title "Because I am white". Because I am white children on the street would rather stare at me than a passsing police car with sirens. Because I am white (and speak english) I am offered jobs on an almost daily basis to do something I have no real experience or education for ( teach). Becasue I am white (and speak english) people stop to ask me the time using their broken english when there is a clock on the building next to us. I am going to have a serious blow to my ego when I come home and a little bit of reverse culture shock. Luckily for Rikki, she blends in a littel better and doesnt get as much attention as I do. She is definately less extroverted but I think she enjoys the attention also.

This weekend we went to a sleepy little town called Ibusuki. The place is totaly dead with the exception of the waterfront where we were going. Ibusuki is home to sand baths. There is some kind of volcanic activity unground near the waterr that makes the sand extremely hot ( I should remember to research before posting). This is all part of the public bath experience. When you enter the bath house, you are given a towel for your head and a blue robe to wear. After changing you go down to the beach and lie in a designated area and the satff come and cover you with really hot sand. While I was covered I dug down a little with my fingers to see how hot it gets but had to stop because I was actually getting burnt. Amazingly the robe prevents any sand from finding its way deep into your nether regions . We only lasted about 10 minutes before having to get out. After the sand bath you shower off and then go into an onsen to become totaly relaxed. I felt great afterwards but barely stayed awake long enough to catch the train home. I dont have any pictures of us buried but here are some pictures of the beach area. Next time we will try to get some better shots.

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Ok enough for now. Don't let the first part of the post worry you, we're tough but I needed to vent and didn't feel right not saying anything incase a prospective employee tries researching the company and gets blind sided like us...................One last thing Star Wars is final in Japan........I bought our tickets a week ago and will be going this week HURRAY!!!

CYA

Shawn

This weekend we went to the country side with a few of the familys from Rikkis school. The family that invited us owns a cabin on the top of a mountain about an hour away from the city. Originaly we were going to stay the night but before we left decided that spending both of her days off with students from the school may not feel like days off. It was a good day with a lot of eating and sitting outside around a fire. After lunch I realized that Rikki had disappeared and I asked where she had gone. Turns out she was up in the cabin having a bath. I was a little shocked but I had been told earlier that the cabins water was from a hot spring and that some of the other people that came had been planning on taking a bath. Meiling, the lady who invited us said, "you should go join her" I'm thinking no thats ok Im not really in the mood to have a bath with my wife in a strange place with a whole bunch of people running around near the open bathroom windows. But she convinced me, I thinki it was when she told me that everyone else wanted have a bath and if I didnt join her no one else would take there baths annd they would all be very dissapointed. The bath was reallly nice. The cabin itself was semi old japanese style and had a lot of wood and tatami mats. The bath was all stone and the water came of a rock fountain and trickled down. The whole expereince was enjoyable and there was more that enough room for the two of us. I still think its a little weird but the public/family bath houses are all around and it seems like an ingrained part of the culture ...at least where we are staying.

So have I mentioned it is rainy season. which isn't so bad because i don't think it rains as much as Nanaimo, but combined with the humidity and the heat its gross and sweating just makes you wetter not cooler. I was almost starting to think there was an evil genius some where in the city who is causing it " As I increase the humidity, I will render sweat ineffective then I will control all of Kagoshima Muwuhahah!!! ( thats a maniacal laugh by the way)" So any way I havent stopped being hot day or night for about two weeks.

We bought a new camera so you will all see new pictures of us and what we are up to. I hope everyone else back home is doing good.

Cya

Shawn

Its been three years since Rikki and I got married. It doesn't seem like even one. They have definately been an action packed three years with her completing school, my fun ride at NCO (RMH), and now our adventures in Japan. I am slowly but surely getting busier and busier. Its funnny how work keeps just falling into my lap. Oh and for those of you who are curious yes the body guard job was for real I wouldnt have believed it myself but Rikki was there at the time and although I do sometimes stretch the truth to make my stories better but Rikki doesnt and she can vouch for me. So I am still waiting until my Japanese is good enough and then I am definately going to try the job.

Any way off to pretend to be a teacher

Shawn