alpha whiskey hotel

Don’t think there’s a whole lot in specific to say here. Just making a general update (I have been getting modified comic strips in my mailbox each morning suggesting that I make an update (hi Victoria)).

I’ll report that I passed my first Aikido grading a couple weeks back. Now I have the rank of 9th-class (as opposed to my previous rank of “absolutely nothing”). Very cool, but it’s made me realize even more that it’s a long long path that I’m on. The training for the test, and the intensive midsummer training before that, took quite a lot out of me and I finally hit a wall in the week after my test. I’m only now starting to recover a bit and really want to train again.

Things are finally starting to get comfortable at work — in the past little bit I’ve wrapped up two projects which have been lingering around (and causing stress — not because they’ve been difficult, but because they’ve been lingering). It’s really nice to be able to go home on Friday with no thoughts about coming in for a few hours on the weekend “just to clear off the plate a bit”… On the other hand, I’m sure it’ll get busy again before too long, so I’d better enjoy it while I can.

Time is fast approaching to figure out what I’m going to do about going home at Christmas… I can’t believe it’s been almost a year already. It’s already past Thanksgiving at home!

Hmm, I guess that’s about it.. If you haven’t been paying attention to the photo galleries recently, go have a look — there’re a bunch of new photos in there (and a new version of the Gallery software).

Three weeks ago, I moved into my first “real apartment” here in Japan.

I must admit that I was a little bit surprised to discover how ill-at-ease I’d been in the temporary apartments. Realistically-speaking, there’s little material difference between my new apartment and my old one. True, I do have more space, but I can’t really use it now (due to lack of furniture). It is closer to work, but since I’ve been working in a far-away client’s office for the past month, I haven’t really noticed that either. But I’m so much more comfortable and relaxed here than I ever was before.

I suppose that just having a sense of continuity, of knowing where my “home” will be for the next couple years, of having a place in the world, is more important than I originally thought.

So upon realizing that my Ontario license was only 6 weeks away from expiring, I figured it was high time that I got a Japanese license.

Now, the way that it works, at least in Saitama Prefecture, is that there is one huge license bureau serving the entire prefecture (population 7,000,000). So, in Canadian terms, imagine that there is one bureau serving all of Southern Ontario. And, since it has to serve all of Southern Ontario, it’s located somewhere central so that it’s convenient for everyone. Somewhere central like… Fergus.

The entire experience was surreal from beginning to end. First off, it was somewhat like going to Disney World.. Since the license bureau is about the only thing in this little town, an entire industry had sprung up around it. As soon as you step off the train, you’re assaulted with ads for buses and taxis to the bureau, businesses offering cheap license photos, boxed lunch stores offering “having to spend all day in the license bureau” specials, and even a business that offered CDs to help last-minute studiers prepare for the knowledge exams.

Apparently, morning at the license bureau is kind of like Driving Survivor. First applicants do written tests, then eye tests, and finally driving tests. If at any point they fail, they get kicked off the island immediately. Now, luckily, I didn’t have to take these tests — Holding a Canadian license automatically passes the test for you (even so, I failed this part twice — once because I went to the entire wrong city, and once because my Canadian passport was insufficient proof that I used to live in Canada). So, I got to do a short-cut and get “injected” into the process at 2pm. I got sent to a room with at least 100 people in it, and I passed several other such rooms on the way to mine. Everyone was assigned a number and had to sit in that chair.

What followed was exactly like being back in Grade 7. That room was “home room”, and the other people were my classmates. At certain times, we’d all get marched off in single file to do some procedure. Almost like, “Okay class, now we’re going to take a field trip to get our pictures taken” or “Okay class, now we’re all going to go down and pay for our licenses”. “Okay class, now we have a special guest. It’s Mr. Okayama from the Traffic Safety Council to explain why it’s important to not run over little children”. I imagine that the people in the other rooms did the same tasks, but in different order, so as to make the process flow as smoothly as possible for everyone. Although it was inconvenient, I must admit that they processed a lot of licenses using very few staff members, without too much chaos. Everyone was handed their license as they left the room a few hours after we’d gone in for the first time.

Anyway, when it was all over, I did what any holder of a freshly minted drivers license would do: I walked a mile back to the train station, then I took the train home, and when I got there, since it was still light outside, I got on my bicycle and went for a ride.

Well, a lot’s happened since I posted last. For starters, I was back in Canada for 10 days over Christmas. It was nice but unfortunately not long enough to see everyone that I wanted to see and do everything that I wanted to do.

When I got back to Japan, there was quite a snowstorm in Tokyo. I didn’t pay any attention to that, though; I just hopped on a train and went straight down to Kobe for the Kansai Canadian Association’s New Years Day Polar Bear Swim. It was fun, and the Kansai folk were very hospitable to the “spy” from the Tokyo Canadian Club.

A few days after that, back in Tokyo, my buddy Dave and I got a car and drove out to Mt. Fuji (pictures to be posted later). It was a great scenic drive, though a casualty of the drive was my Palm Pilot (with built-in Japanese dictionary) which either got left in the rental car or dropped somewhere between Tokyo and Mt. Fuji.

Hmm, I suppose that some people may not know this (because I may have forgot to tell people) but in January I started working as a Software Developer again (I’d been working in an English school since I got to Japan). It’s great to be back in a job that’s in my “career path”, and it’s good that I don’t have to worry about whether I’ll be able to stay in Japan. Right now it’s a bit tough since I’m still working part-time at the English school (saving up for an apartment deposit) and I feel like I never have any time off.

The biggest change recently is that I’ve moved to Higashi-Omiya, Minuma-ku, Saitama-shi. For those unfamiliar with Japanese addresses, let me translate: “123 Nowhere St. E., Lower Bumblesnort, Alberta”. It’s a nice little town about 30km North of Tokyo — about 35 minutes by train. It’s quite rural — there’s a park across the street, and an orchard (an honest-to-God orchard) beside that. It’s nice, quiet, and cheap. Right now there’s a little bit of trouble getting an Internet hookup, but those are the breaks.

Anyway, I’ve got lots of pictures that I’m sorting through. Look for those to be uploaded fairly soon…

So for some reason, I agreed to work a 7am shift today. It was a campus I’d never been to so I planned to arrive at 6:30 just in case I had trouble finding the place. So I dragged myself out of bed at 5:45, threw on my suit, and hopped on the 6:04 into town. I found the school no problem (fuelled with coffee from the local Starbucks) and sat down at my booth to… no students. They’d all cancelled. “Oh well,” said I. “At least I can get a head start on going to Immigration” (You have to go to Immigration and pay 3000 yen for permission to go on vacation — or, more precicely, for permission to get back into the country after having been on vacation). And then I realized — I’d forgotten my passport. So I had to trek back across town to pick it up. As I write this, I’m on the train back to Immigration. I’ve been awake for four hours, almost all of it on trains and none of it productive. Ah well, my day can only get better from here — you know what they say: “Eat a live frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen all day.”

It’s weird — it only just struck me Saturday, two months after leaving Toronto, that I don’t live there anymore.

I still work there, of course, so my weekdays don’t really feel any different, aside from taking a different train. Even coming in for my class on the weekend, or to hang out with my friends, still feels pretty much the same… I still go downtown; it’s just a longer drive.

So why was Saturday any different? As far as I can tell, it was just the way that I drove home. Instead of taking the highway West out of downtown, circumstance dictated that I take it North, which is how I always used to get home. For some reason, driving up this road, like I had so many times before, but with a different destination, just drove home the fact that I was surrounded by a million homes, none of which were mine.

Toronto was my home for 4 years. I guess it’s harder to let go than I thought.

Well, all of my life has been sold off, thrown away, or packed into a compact pile in the corner of my parents’ basement. I’ve moved out of my apartment and back in with my parents. Got a doctor’s appointment for a checkup, and then I’ll be submitting the visa papers. Found a great price on air tickets. My projects at work are starting to wind down. While I still have coverage, I’m getting all necessary dental work done. Right now I’m looking at a departure date of May 25th.