Is that Santa drinking and smoking??

Well here's one of my overdue updates (as usual). I have no excuse because I didn't do much in January, except going to a few New Year's drinking parties and working (>_<). So all of these pictures are from December.

The first picture is from my school's Christmas party on December 16th. That's Mike dressed up as Santa (kind of). This pic was taken during the first of 3 consecutive parties we had that day. It's amazing what teachers have to do to keep their students entertained (^_^). The second picture is my school's staff party on December 23rd. That was only a "2 party" night, but the second bar we went to had lots of drinks and karaoke altogether.

The third picture is on Christmas Day. My Geos friends and I had a classic ex-pat Christmas with lots of beer, good movies, homemade food (with Chrtistmas crackers from England) and Nintendo Wii. This was my second Christmas away from home and it was a good time; but if I had a choice, I would still prefer to be sitting on the couch in Corunna watching Wallace & Gromit videos and eating cheeseball, shrimp and homemade dip with the fam.

Of course if I'd been back in Canada for Christmas, then I wouldn't have been able to go to a hot spring resort with Nao. I guess I haven't mentioned her yet, but Nao is my girlfriend. We met in October and have been seeing each other since late November. That's her taking a picture of our dinner as I'm doing the same thing, hehe. We spent one night at a hotel south of Sendai on December 28/29th. It was so relaxing and the town (Tsuchiyu), was very beautiful.

So those were all the big events in December. My New Year's Eve was very quiet and involved a few dvds, and I met one of my ex-coworkers early in the new year. After that it was back to work and the last month has flown by as a result of all the rest I had. Anyway, I'll tryyyyyy to update again soon with some more pictures. Stay tuned please (^_^).

My First Japanese Wedding

I went to the wedding reception of a Geos student and friend of mine on November 23rd. Her name is Ikuko and she got married in Guam on Oct. 6, but the reception was held in Sendai last week. I went with 7 other GEOS students and ex-students, so I had many people to speak English with (although I was the only foreigner present).

I must be honest and say that I think Japanese weddings are much more beautiful than weddings in Canada; the food and drinks were better than anything I've experienced, as well as the reception room. But of course the superiority in quality comes with a price. It's customary in Japan to pay about 20,000-30,000 yen ($200-300 dollars) to attend. This helps to pay for the food, drinks, reception room and the gifts that are given to everyone by the bride and groom. I received a box of chocolates, a bottle of Japanese sake and a free gift that I could choose from a catalogue similar to a Sears catalogue; and the items I can choose from don't look cheap either. I have to think carefully before I choose it (^_^).

Another difference about Japanese weddings is that Japanese brides wear between 2 to 4 different dresses as the day progresses. Brides always wear the Western style white dress, as well as a long dress of a different colour, but many also wear the traditional Japanese wedding dress, and brides with really rich parents will wear a 4th dress as well (^0^). Ikuko chose to only wear 2 dresses (which you can see in the pictures), and they were both amazing.

Anyway, I had a great time, but after 1 hour of ceremonies and 2 hours of eating and drinking a plethora of alcoholic drinks (sake, beer, champagne and sparkling sake), I felt a little tipsy, so I decided to skip the 2nd party and rest up for work the next day. I hope I can go to another wedding in the future (^_^).

Another Winter Approaches...

I'm back!! Have you all given up on this site yet?

As you can see, Halloween has come and gone at Geos and Japan. We had some fun with monkey costumes and toilet paper(^_^).

I also went to a small town east of Sendai with my friends Owain and Mike to see a replica ship from 1613. It's called the San Juan Bautista. It was built by the famous feudal lord from Sendai, Masamune Date, and it sent a delegation to the Vatican to seek a trade treaty and encourage the spread of Christianity in Japan. The ship crossed the Pacific and the delegation changed ships in Mexico and made it to the Vatican in 1616. They even managed to return (it only took 7 years), but by then, Japan had expelled all Christian missionaries and the original San Juan Bautista was sold to the Phillipine Navy in the 1620s. It was nice to go to a tourist site that was NOT crowded. The day trip was followed by pasta, beer, sake and Nintendo Wii at another teacher's apartment.

This Sunday I have to go to work for a couple of hours. My company has decided to have a speech contest to encourage our students with their studies. So the first round of speeches are this weekend and I'm looking forward to it. We have 3 levels of competition. The kid's contest topic is titled, "My Hero," the Japanese teacher level students will speak about the best place they have travelled to and the Native teacher level students will speak about whether times have goten better or worse. I've checked over a few speeches this week and they look good. Everyone is writing about their topic from a very different persective. It'll be hard to choose only one winner I think. So that's aboot it. I still haven't posted the last pictures from the trip to England, haha. If anyone wants to see more pictures of York, please let me know and I'll post them. If not, then I'll move on and try to post recent photos only.

Take care!!

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.

A family reunion of sorts

These pictures are from our second day in England. This was the big Family Day, which involved a lot of house hunting, ceremonies and eating and drinking.

In addition to celebrating my Father's birthday, we were bringing the ashes of my Grandparents to England to have them buried in a small cemetery in the town of Ackworth, close to the remains of my grandmother's parents. We met my Aunt and cousins (who came from Toronto for the same reason as us) around mid-day at a pub and had a drink together and a nice chat. The burial ceremony was held at 2 in the afternoon and, to my Father's surprise, he was able to meet two women whom he and his sister had gone to school with 50 years ago. Both women said that they recognized my Father immediately, even with the beard(^_^). It was a nice afternoon and I'm sure that my Grandparents are happy where they are now. I will definitely have to visit Ackworth again later in my life.

The rest of the afternoon was spent looking for the 3 houses that my Father, Aunt and Grandparents had lived in before moving to Canada. Surprisingly, they were all only about 5-10 minutes away from each other by car. I've included a picture of the final house that they lived in (the best of the bunch). We also located the house where my Great Grandparents lived, which was also nearby.

We had dinner at a pub (buffets are called carverys in England, and it's pretty good; the meat at least)and then drove to another pub to have a drink and meet one of my distant English relations. Her name is Susan Fletcher and she was a second cousin to my Grandmother (which makes us 4th cousins). I began to contact her and her brother Ian 2 years ago shortly before my Grandmother died. She was really nice and fun to talk to and I hope I can meet her again someday. Her brother lives with his family in Australia and he always tells me that I'm welcome to visit them since I'm nearby. I hope I can make a trip to Sydney sometime next year(^_^).

So that was Day 2. We our goodbyes to Susan and to my Aunt and cousins, who decided to drive to London the next day for some sightseeing. By the end I was a little drunk from all the beer and cider I'd had at the pubs, but we decided to make the next day our "lay about day." So I didn't have to worry about getting up early. I'll post some pictures of from the third day soon.

Why can't I ever find the time to make regular posts??

Well it's been almost been 2 months since I last posted anything. Time flies when you're having fun travelling and having too many farewell and welcome parties.

So to summarize all of June and July, it was pretty much "business as usual" for most of it. The teacher who replaced Lauren arrived at the end of June. His name's Mike and he's from Boston. He's got a great sense of humour and one of the best collections of cool and funny t-shirts I've ever seen. He bought a lot of them when he lived in Japan a couple of years ago (he majored in Japanese studies at University, so he probably knows more than I do about the language and culture after being here for 2 years). He likes to play baseball as well, so he joined a game with my team in early July. We haven't had a game since then, but he wants to play again, so the more the merrier(^_^).

I spent most of July conserving my money in preparation for my trip to England. I went from the 22nd to the 29th with my parents and brother and ended up taking over 350 pictures (waay too many), so I've decided to explain what happened in a few parts. These 5 pictures are from the first day after arriving at Manchester. We stayed in a cottage in West Yorkshire in a small town called West Bretton. It was a beautiful place and I was really glad to be out in the country. The picture of the horses is the view from the bedroom window.

And the other five pictures are from the East Lancashire Railway. We celebrated my Father's 60th birthday by giving him the chance to act as engineer/fireman/brakeman on a real live steam locomotive in Britain. So we spent the whole first day watching him have the time of his life with smiles and laughs in abundance. I was happy to get into the locomotive cab for a short part of the day, and to act as the official family cameraman for the morning runs that Father did.

We then spent the afternoon touring the railway's shops and viewing the other coaches and locomotives they have. There must have been about a dozen other steam locomotives, as well as several diesel and electric engines and 2 or 3 dozen coaches, all in different degrees of condition.

It was a fun day and I was surprised that I stayed wide awake for all of it, even though I'd had 5 hours of sleep the night before, which was preceded by 50 hours of working and travelling(^0^). I was even wide awake on the next day too, but that's another story.

By the way, I never feel that my descriptions of what I do are the greatest, so if you'd like to know more about what happened on our trip, I highly recommend you check out my brother's website. http://www.myspace.com/alreadywhere

Sean is the master of detail and his descriptions are much more vivid and interesting. So please feel free to read his blog and enjoy my pictures (he kept forgetting to bring his camera, hehe).

Bye for now!!

Lauren don't leave!!!!!!!

A full year has passed since Lauren came to Sendai, and now, sadly, she's heading back to Canada. We held a farewell party for her with many of her students on Saturday June 9th. It was a great time and it was followed by a second party at karaoke. I stumbled my way out of the karaoke booth at 3am (while everyone else stayed until God knows when), having drunk more than I should have. I was dreading playing my baseball game the next day, but luckily it was cancelled due to rain. We've had many fun nights like that and I'm sure we'll have more with the next teacher Michael, but it just won't be the same....

Lauren's heading back to Vancouver on the 13th and in July she will head to Nova Scotia for Graduate school. I hope she does well. And tonight we're having another farewell party for her. All the Geos teachers in Miyagi prefecture and some close friends are going to an okonomiyaki restaurant to have fun all over again. I'd better go easy on the booze tonight, or else Monday will be another write-off(>_<).

Golden Week

I always seem to be a month behind on my updates. These pictures are from Golden Week, which was the first week in May. Oh well, better late than never.

I had 9 days off at the beginning of May. During last year's Golden Week I did a lot of travelling with my parents, but this year was much more quiet. I went to an onsen and had some nights out drinking with my friends, but the highlight was a 2 day trip to my friend Satoshi's house outside of Sendai.

I went with Satoshi and our friend Toshio to a small hot spring town called Tohgatta. Satoshi's parents in-law have a summer house there, so as we were driving there I imagined a small old fashioned style house. Instead we pulled up at a massive modern house with 2 garage doors, a personal hot spring bath and enough sleeping space for about 10 people. Civil servants seem to live well in Japan(^_^).

We had a typical boy's time of it, with lots of beer, barbeque and table tennis matches, followed by playing Nintendo Gamecube in the evening before bed. And I got to use the hot spring bath twice; so relaxing. It was a great time and I hope I can do it again.

As for the rest of May, things got back to normal after the holiday and the month went by quickly. My baseball team only played once in May (one game was cancelled due to a lack of players and the game on June 10th was cancelled because of rain), but we won the game and I got a couple of hits (I was 0 for 3 in the previous game). I'm looking forward to the next gam on June 24th.

Talk to you later!!