My future home in Japan

I apologize for the picture-less nature of entry, but I'll try to compensate by adding a few hyperlinks. 

I got a call from Japan today. I'm moving to a city named Joetsu, which is in the Niigata prefecture. Joetsu is kinda small (200,000 people), it's one the snowiest areas of Japan, I'm teaching in 6 schools (2 Jr. high and 4 elementary), and I have to lease a car. Fortunately, it's close to Tokyo.

I don't think that I got the best placement, but I'm still really happy to be going. And I look forward to the challenges of driving on the left side of the road in the snow and dealing with middle school kids in Japan (see the first entry of gaijinsmash.net). I guess when you're going to replace a teacher that quit for some reason, you can't expect too much.

PS- I just realized that I am not prepared to live in the snow at all. I packed for southern Japan and there is no way I'm going to find snow gear in Hawaii. Crap!

Long drives and hard drives

Today Brendan drove me around the island. I've been wanting to get up to north shore and check out Pipeline and Waimea bay, so we took the kids in Brendan's awesome new van. Overall it was a very beautiful and (relatively) long drive. To top it all off, I got lots of smiles from attractive young women while carrying my 2 y/o housemate (Gabby) across the hot sand at pipeline. I wonder why...

Yesterday my friend Glory took me to Koko head, which is a crater that has a few hundred steps leading to the top. It was a really fun hike with some great views. I think next time we'll be able to beat 25 minutes to the top.

The last interesting thing is that 2 days ago my hard drive crashed. I woke up and my computer wouldn't boot. I spent all morning resetting things and trying to open menus, but it was dead. So I took it into the Apple store and they gave me a new hard drive and a new keyboard (the plastic near mine was starting to crack). Good thing I still had 3 weeks left on my warranty! I lost all of my files but it's not that big of a deal because they're all backed up at home. I think I'm going to make due without them for the next 6 months. Basically this has been a big inconvenience, but it is just like having a new computer because the keyboard/trackpad is all clean, I've got a new hard drive, and they upgraded me to the new operating system!

Just checking in

Here is the latest.

- My flight to Japan is booked! I'm leaving on Oct. 5th. I don't know where my assignment will be yet, but I'm really excited to be going.

- I've spent the last 10 days working for my roommate and surfing mostly. Last week I had both the best day of surfing in my life, and then the worst day of surfing. On Monday I had 3 really long rides where I was carving up waist-high waves. YES!!! Then on Wednesday I surfed for 2 hours and didn't even catch a single wave, much less surf a wave. The fact that the waves died off in the middle of the week (knee-high) made it hard to catch waves, but it was really my fault for never being in the right place. 

- I've been getting some handy-man experience out here with my roommate. In the last two weeks we've managed to build a carport and an additional room off of the back of the house (under the pre-existing porch roof). Who would have thought that I would finish my masters and then become a nail-driver/concrete-mixer/painter? Brendan teases me for using terms like "hypothesis" and "activation energy" while cutting plywood.

- We went to a BBQ at a friend's house on the East side of Oahu. Took some pictures and drank some Kava (it is extracted from a root found in the Pacific islands, it gets you kinda drunk and afterwards you sleep for like 12 hours). I had a great time.

Thailand will have to wait

I just reviewed my books again and decided that I won't be able to swing a trip to Thailand. Even if I sold my car, worked really hard in Hawaii, saved every penny, and got a startup loan in Japan,  I would still be cutting it really close. 

I'm a bit disappointed but at least I get to move to Japan in 4 weeks!

A new plan

I got another call from Japan today. I learned that I can choose from three training sessions, which start on Oct. 10th, Oct 20th or Nov. 20th. Initially,  I thought that Oct. 10th was the obvious choice because I can't wait to go to Japan. But then I remembered that my good friend Dave is going to Thailand from Oct. 31st to Nov. 20th. Hmmmmmm...

 It would require some complex planning and more money than I have right now (maybe I could sell my car back home), but staying in Hawaii through October and then going to Thailand would be AWESOME. 

So that's what I'm dealing with now. I guess this week I'll work on getting a job and checking to see if this plan will work. Wish me luck!

PS- Because I know that everybody love pictures, here are a few from my exploring today. I went to Diamond Head crater.

Here is Diamond Head viewed from my street.

And the view of Honolulu from the top of Diamond Head.

Big news from Japan

Yesterday morning at 6:15AM my phone started ringing. Half awake, I looked at the incoming number for a few seconds and finally recognized it as the consulate of Japan in San Francisco. It was Mrs. Mainard calling, the lady in charge of my VISA application. She has been very frustrating to work with because she has asked me to do everything but back flips for her. But I know she was just doing her job and I can tell she worked hard for me. Anyway, she was very excited to tell me that my work VISA has been approved and that she's mailing it to Hawaii right away. I was happy, but too asleep to act excited with her.

I informed Interac (the company I'm working for, which has been awesome), and they told me that they'll get back to me next week with a departure date and maybe some placement options. They said that I'll be an alternate, which means I'll go to Tokyo and do my training while we wait for another teacher somewhere in the country to quit.

I also told Brendan that instead of staying all winter, I'll probably be moving out this month. He said something along the lines of "Of course you're moving soon, the good roommates can never stay long". But he's excited for me. I'm excited too, but a little disappointed that I'll be leaving after I just got used to the long, uphill ride into Palolo valley. 

What I did today

It's starting to look like my new roommate/landlord, Brendan, has adopted me as a buddy. He seems smart, hard-working, and fun to be around so I can't complain. Today he took me surfing, which was my first time in warm water (no wet suit needed!). 

We went to Queens in Waikiki and he had a friend hook us up with a some 10' rental long-boards. We paddled out to the main lineup, which was about 90% first-time surfing tourists and 10% locals. The whole place was like a parking lot of surfboards... by far the most crowded spot I've ever surfed. So naturally, we went furthest out with all of the locals to try and catch the "outside" breaking waves before anybody else could. After getting a few questionable glances I became self-concise of my milky white complexion and how much of a fresh-off-the-plane haole I was. I need to get a tan.

We soon got tired of fighting that crowd, so we paddled to another peak that was breaking bigger and had less people. But even though there were less surfers, they were all locals so getting in the best position was hard. That's when Brendan spotted another peak that was uninhabited, so we raced out to it. This is when we started to have fun. We got to ride any wave wanted. We also got a chance to work on our hang-5 and headstands. We took advantage of that sweet spot for as long as we could stand to surf.

After paddling in we found out that most people don't surf that peak because the reef is relatively shallow, but we didn't have any problems at all. With the exception of a sunburn, surf wax in my chest hair, and sore nipples, I walked away totally unscathed.

For the rest of the day I rode my bike around town on errands. Came home exhausted, ate dinner, and caught an uninvited guest on my bed...