2 Years And Counting, or "That's a Whole Lotta Pics You Got There Brian"

Yes I like to take pictures, and I took about 360 while I was in England (and that was only for one week, haha).

Well as the title to this entry states, I've now been in Japan for 2 years. August 27th passed by quietly as I met an acquaintance for lunch and language exchange. I can't believe I've been here this long; time flies when you're having fun (and when you're out of school and in the working world too). The last month has been pretty quiet. I've been studying Japanese, playing baseball and watching DVDs. One thing of note was receiving a free, slightly used 28inch television from one of my friends. It beats watching TV on my old 13inch TV and it looks massive in my little apartment(^_^). Sendai and Japan also had a heat wave in the middle of the month. The temperature rose to 37.2 degrees celsius one day in Sendai (breaking the 85 year old city record), and 2 towns further south reached a temperature of 40.9 degrees celsius, just beating the old 1924 record to become the new hottest temperatures ever recorded in Japan.

Anyway, the pictures I've posted are from the 3rd and 4th days in England. We decided not to travel on Day 3 in England, as we all needed a day to rest, do laundry and spend some time together. Sean and I went out before breakfast to the nearby University of Leeds West Bretton campus. The campus is also the Yorkshire Sculpture Park and it consists of a few hundred acres of forest and pasture land where sheep and strange looking statues and scultures live in harmony with one another. I've never seen so many sheep before in my life and it was strange to be able to walk freely through the sheep herds without some farmer yelling at me to get off his property. The gates even had signs that said, "please make sure you close the gate firmly behind you." How courteous (^_^). We went to Wakefield and ate at an Indian restaurant for dinner and went to bed early because we were going to York the next day by train.

We saw a lot of things when we visited York, so I've posted pictures from our first sight: The National Railway Museum. Yes, the Green family loves trains. Some of my students thought it was amusing that I took so many pictures of trains during my trip, and they compared me to the "densha otaku" or "Te chan" (train geeks) who can be seen at most major train stations snapping photos of passing trains. Japanese trains are all electric and all look the same(not counting the Bullet Trains), therefore I don't see the point in taking pictures of them. So I like to think that I'm not the same. I prefer to look at steam engines and Britain is the best place for that. Anyway, we spent about 2 hours in the museum and I was very happy to have seen all the famous steam engines they have.

I'll post more pictures from York and York Minster Cathedral next time.