People Leaving

Just looked at the blog and found this in the drafts folder from when I was I was in Japan so thought finish it off and do a few more and get up to date with the saga.

God Junes gone I don't know what's been going on much, but do know I was a bit of a slob did not go to the gym for a whole month. Think I'd said that didn't really like the new place I was at so when my membership was up didn’t rejoin. It took most of June before I decided on another one. I've got go to say though it's really easy not to go to the gym, to be honest after a days work going to the gym is a bit of a pain in the arse. I mean if you don't get back home till around 6.30 -7 pm going to the gym can take around 2hrs with the getting there changing showering and all that, before you know where you are it’s 10pm. The other thing you always have people asking to go out for meals or a drink that kind of stuff and they always want to go at around 8pm that sucks as well you can't do both, on top of that try fitting a bit of telly or slob out time in around the edges, can’t be done it so it ends up almost impossible to go all the time, well that's my excuse and I’m standing by it. Like i say finally did decide on another gym it was called central gym and was just down the road from my house, I mean literally 5 mins walk away form the apartment.

One of the other things that's be happening is that a few people I’ve got to know over here are leaving and have to go back home as their stints over here are up. Even my neighbour Raza who’s in my apartment block has left had and back to Indonesia so I'm the only one on my floor now, I mean there were only two apartments on my floor and one has always been empty. Most of these guys work at Honda plants in other country's and were over here for a 2 year period, at the mother ship so to speak, training or learning the Japanese way of doing things something like that.

Anyway had a couple of parties, BBQ and the like, even played a bit of baseball which is a bit of a first for me, it was OK and much to my surprise I wasn't as bad even though I say so myself, after all it's only hitting a ball with a stick, cricket sort of but doesn't last for 5 days.

Just going to add some photos need to get up to date pretty quick as I'll be leaving myself soon, got a flight booked for the 3rd August right now.

June is the rainy season in Japan so if anyone is ever planning holiday over here try and avoid June/Early July as it's pretty damm wet.

Anyway below are some photos of a BBQ I went to for a couple of friend, Reza and Keith, it was at a place called

BBQ was for Keith and Raza, Keith is the one in the middle of the photo below on the left who's going back to the states and Raza is in the one on the right below and going back to Indonesia

I't was day me and Raza bought some chicken and stuff along with a load of beer, i got a football and a couple of things to chuck and kick around but turns out we were out numbered and base ball was the game of the day.

I also brought a car boot or trunk if you're from the states full of broken bits wood from site. Funny thing to keep in your boot I know but we had planned a bonfire fireworks and all that for Saturday night but the days got switched to Sunday cos of the weather so it never happened. I ended up taking it all back to site, the Japanese blokes had been looking at me strange when he was putting old bits of wood into the car you should seen them when I unloaded it and was taking it back.

May 2

This blogs called May 2 but I can’t really remember much else of what happened in May that’s probably a good thing as I don’t think there was much going on.
I’ve been working 6 days a week now for probably the last 4 months up to May so no time to do much other than work with the high lights of the week getting a lie in on Sundays and doing the weekly wash, pretty boring huh, as they say over here “same same”
Been out for a few meals n drinks stuff like that, went to Tokyo one night for a few beers and the like, Tokyo is a great city but you need time to see it and plan out what you want to do and that not,s my forte. Any way it was all very nice, went Shibuya and Roppongi again and even fitted in an new area for me Shinjuku, took the video camera with me this time so did not get any one shot photos.
Oh nearly forgot for most of May borrowed my mate Razers bike, what they call a “Mamachari” chari is Japanese slang for bike and I’ll leave you to guess what Mama means.
Now these aren't real pretty bikes but as everyone or almost everyone rides this type you never feel out of place. I mean you see young kids, cool kids and senior citizens business men dressed up in their suits going to work, girls done up to the 9’s going out riding em so no problem. Got to say I enjoyed it like I say never felt out of place should have bought one when I first got here. One of the great things about having the bike was that you sort of go places you never would have if you were walking and sort of explored the little back streets it was real quick and not much effort, walking you probably could not be bothered, anyway I really enjoyed have the bike.
Oh the other thing I guess I did in May was to join a new gym my old one “water water” if you remember had closed, joined a big gym at the big shopping centre “Bel” Mall” the other end of town but as I had the bike I could cycle up there. Actually I’m not even a member of that gym now only joined it for a couple of months (the minimum) for a look see and didn’t really like it, to crowded for my liking. One good thing that came of it though was on the bike ride up there found a couple of nice restaurants and bars sort of tucked away in side streets which I would never have found if I’d been going in the car so that was good.
One of the places was a “Gyoza” shop Utsunomiyas famous for Gyoza by the way, well the tourist authority promotes it as the speciality of the town, and there sure are a lot of restaurants that sell it, to be honest It’s over rated if you ask me there seem to be hundreds of different types but only a couple of different tastes, guess the taste is too subtle for me.
Right so now I’m just going to throw in a few photos vies of Utsunomiya etc, the flowers by the way weren't mine I was just holding them for a mate of mine who was taking them to a girl he had pissed off, don’t really remember the details except it involved quite a bit of beer and crawling, not on you knees but to this girl

The photos below are of a night we went out with Arei san or Arry as we call him mainly cos that's what the name comes out like when we say it. We went to a Karaoke bar, usually they have young girls in them that want you to buy them drinks but apparently he knew the owner who tuned out to be a pretty old lady, she was good fun though and made us welcome. You can see by the photo when she stood next to Scott how small she was mind you he is about 6'3

May No 1

I’m feeling pretty guilty about this blog, although I’m posting this for May it’s actually a week or so into July right now. I haven’t posted for nearly 2 Months but in my defence It’s shot past and as anyone who ever looks at this blog will know I’m not the most conscientious person when it comes to posting anything.
Actually I really do have good intentions but by the time I’ve done a days work It’s hard to get going and get motivated, to be honest sometimes I just can’t be bothered. It’s so easy once you get home just to chill out watch a film or go for a beer, anything for that matter that dosen’t involve anymore typing, the next days work comes around too quick as it is.
Anyway I’m just going to do a post for the whole of May and then for the whole of June to see if I can get up to date, that is if I can remember what I did in May and June.
Like I say things have shot past can hardly believe I’ve been here over a year now, an things are just sort of blending into each other. These two entries will be a lot of photos that is if I can figure out what photos are and where I put them.
So what did I do in May, can’t remember so got to go an look at photos see if the refreshes my memory.
Just been looking at the photos don’t think I did that much in May apart from the usual, work, eat and sleep.
Think I’ve mentioned it before but we always stop at the 7/11 on a morning to get some breakfast some sarnies or something like that. Anyway the owner’s always asking us to go out with him, he likes talking to Westerners practicing his English he also real friendly and want to show off bits of Japan to us. Arie san, call him that cos that’s his name had asked lots of times before and we’d never been, it’s not that we didn’t want to it’s just when you’re working six days a week it’s always tempting not to do anything on the seventh apart from go to church, Yeh right.
So anyway this time me and one of the German guys Mike went out with him, Arie took us to a local Winery called Coco Farm and Winery http://www.cocowine.com/english/harvest.html for a spot of wine tasting and something to eat. Unfortunately didn’t take any photos while I was there, left the camera in the car.
I did take some on the way though, we stopped at a service station, actually it was more of a self service station, coffee and tea was all out of vending machines so was the chips and hot dogs. Now I don’t know a lot about vending machines but if you ask me these were the up market type. Cot to say the coffee was good, the machine even played a little video of the coffee making process while you waited. I’d never seen a fries and hot dog machine before so I was well impressed, and they were good not soggy or anything just as if they were freshly made by a little man in the back of the thing.
So after that it was on to the winery for the wine tasting, now neither me or Mike knew much about wine, but it tasted ok and it had alcohol in it, poor old Arie san couldn’t have any as he was driving, ah well rather him then me. Actually me and Mike had both been out the night before and were a little hung over to say the least, we couldn’t be seen to falter and let the side down even though alcohols was probably the last thing we wanted at 1pm when we’d not got home till about 4am that morning, we managed it though. Next thing it was lunch and another bottle of wine, water for Arie, we were feeling better by this time so the meal and the wine went down really well and as we didn’t pay that was even better.
So that was the wine tasting out of the way now we though he would just take us back home but he had other ideas, first he took us round his older sisters to introduce us to her. She was really nice and gave us green tea and some little gifts, a fan and a toothpick holder with tooth picks I might add, nothing big just a little tokens but it was real nice. I mean have you been round someone’s house out of the blue before, someone you didn’t know and who couldn’t speak your language who gave you a gift I mean wow, she just disappeared into the kitchen and got them. I’m mean we’d just turned up out of the blue no one knew we were coming. She then got out the map and asked us where we came from and which country’s we’d been to, Arie translated as she couldn’t speak a work of English but we got there in the end.
So we were back in the car now we really thought we’re off home, but not this time he took us to his house which was about an hours drive away and showed us round it. His wife wasn’t there which was probably just as well for him because it was a bit messy and she’d probably have been pissed, not at us but at him for bringing strangers round when it was messy.
Arie then wanted to take us for a meal, I mean we’d only eaten about three hours ago but he insisted he wanted to take us for horse meat, he said he knew a really good restaurant that specialised in horse meat. So off we go in the car again, but it was shut so plan B was to take us to a little Sushi type place, for beer, Sake and Suchi, not necessarily in that order.
Check out the photos we had some kind of deep fried fish which he called devil fish, plus other assorted bits of Sushi and some Yakitori which is usually meat an a skewer bit like a kebab. Old Arie san was to drunk by this time to drive us or himself home, actually there is no drinking alcohol at all if you drive in Japan, so he was going to get what they call a Daiko.
A Daiko is basically a taxi service, a small car with two people come to get you where you are, one of the guys takes you home in their car while the other one drives your car home, pretty neat hey,
I’ve seen it when the guy usually pretty drunk just tosses his car keys to the Daiko guys who go off to find his car then come back pick him up and off they go, I mean it works there are literally thousand of them here.
Wonder if many cars would go missing in the UK if they had this service there, think I know the answer, it’s not a problem here though. I can see it now especially in a big city back home, two strangers come to pick up some drunk guy who gives then his car keys, would probably seem like Christmas to them.