Final thoughts and pictures
Trip Start
May 20, 2005
1
35
Trip End
Oct 31, 2005
Hirakata, Japan
Friday, October 14, 2005
Things are good. I arrived safely to very welcome arms from eveeryone including "Otosan" Tsugumi's dad who has been surprisingly nice. he continues to get drunk and try to discuss my pursuit of the "japanese dream" which is nice. He also shakes my hand very lovingly and tries to get me to either arms wrestle with him or come and play golf 2 options I fear can only end in disaster.
So we found an apartment which is rather nice and big and new and have begun furnishing it something thats a bit more involved in japan as aprtments come completely empty...no light fixtures, fridge, stove, oven, heaters, air conditioning...i can't quite understand why that trandition still exists as it seems like it would be easier to install central heat/air when building a house rather than force the occupants to install individual heaters and airconditioners in every room...but who am i to judge...our new mailing address is:
Barnaby Richards and Tsugumi Suzuhira
Pastel court 102 51-30
Ko-rien Sakuragi-cho
Hirakata City, Osaka
573-0088
JAPAN
Feel free to send all things western as a care package :P
WE also have a car (thanks to gumi's dad's company) which is fun its a toyota station wagaon and according to some strange japanese custom must be reversed into every parking space...something that is usually assisted by funny looking uniformed parking lot traffic directors...everywhere feels like disney land or 8:30 am at the base of a ski area...with light up batons more high tech than used to land a 747 being waved at you....i guess its nice though.
I spend most of my days relaxing Tsugumi's parents house as we havent quite got everything sorted yet in the new place and tsugumi would rather sleep here...as would her mom who is feeling rather sad that we'll be moving into our own place soon...
I've updated my resume for english teaching jobs and will begin sending them out soon...it seems like it wont be too hard to get a job but i somehow feel i need to be a bit more settled in first we still need to get internet installed at the new house something which is overly complicated with the many isps and different service options (fiber to the home, cablle internet, dsl, etc) each with differing problems...fiber actually takes 3 months to install...but you can get up to 1 GB of speed which sounds like fun...and will make downloading desperate housewives a bit faster :)
I've uploaded all the trip pictures and they can each be found in their respective folders:
IRKUTSK
MONGOLIA
CHINA
SUZUHIRA HOUSE
OUR NEW HOUSE
JAPAN FAMILY AND FUN don't miss the videos in this one
Please be aware that this BLOG will expire in a few weeks (I keep extending it so that I can send out these messages). I might start another blog just to keep everyone up to date on life here and to rant about the silly things that japanese do...did I mention that my bathtub talks??!!
send me an email if you want me to include you on any future blog type thing (barnis@gmail.com)
Also please take note of my skype phone number...you can call me anytime +1 (847) 230-4743
I'll probably get a cell phone soon..but they aren't cheap...
Thanks again for everyon for reading this and for those who send me money :P It was a really great trip and the perfect way to decompress from the west and to slip more comfortably into my new life here in Japan...many adventures await!
Sayonara
Barn
