So my friend and I decided to be adventurous and try to find some beach to go swimming at last night. Our starting point? Somewhere in the middle of Osaka. Our eventual ending point? A giant swimming pool complex at 6AM. Needless to say we found a lot of warehouse beachfront property with plenty of disgusting concrete jetties and rusting machinery to play on, but sadly a lack of pristine white sand beaches. We even contemplated swimming in the dubious water we did manage to find, but as Japan is notorious for terrible pollution we decided to stay disease free and opted out of the experience. However we did discover that you can go just about anywhere you want as we found no fences, guards, attack dogs or anything in our wanderings which shows just how trusting this country is. Anywhere in America that is closed at night is usually surrounded with barbed wire fence and lots of lights, etc. Just another difference.

Apartment pics

Here are some pictures of the monster one room apartment I call home.

Gaijin Smash!

So as I think I've mentioned before being a gaijin in Japan gives you a great deal of freedom in an otherwise fairly structured and hierarchal society. No one expects us to be aware of their various and sundry social rules and not only that, in such a polite society everyone is very hesitant to approach us if we do act wrongly. I like to attribute this to what I call 'gaijin fear' or the deeply instilled xenophobia that Japan is historically known for. However this isn't entirely true as my Japanese friends have told me that most people are just too nervous to approach us because of the language barrier and their culture of ignoring instead of confronting as one sees in America and other Western countries. A great many gaijin don't care and love the freedom they are given here and now we are finally getting to the 'Gaijin Smash'. My friend Nathan termed the gaijin smash to describe behavior in which gaijin just blatantly intimidate and ignore any thing that gets in their way. The smash comes from when gaijin come off the last train just wasted and having lost or never bought a ticket just 'smash' through the ticket gate and ignore the Japanese staff who hesitantly call after them. Now behavior like this earns us the reputation we have here, but I mean come on...that is just hilarious. Seeing gaijin out of control over here is like watching Godzilla destroy Tokyo, the Japanese people just flee in terror. Hilarity.

and...

To those who didn't know, you can click on the pictures to see a bigger version of them. Let's you see just how excited Matt is in that first picture and wow is he excited about something....

Pictures!

Here are some random pics taken with my cell phone. The ones with the cool cloud formations were taken right before a typhoon hit Osaka, so it was crazy windy and the sky looked really pretty. Others are just from around Osaka.

one more time

Just a quick note to anyone who actually reads my blog. If you want me to regularly update this thing like twice a week or something you HAVE to comment on my posts. Otherwise I figure no one is reading and just don't write in this. I'm also rather lazy, so if I can use the excuse of no one reading my posts to avoid writing more I certainly will. So really you decide if I write or not, so do what you will.

Wow

So who is terrible at blogging? This guy. Anyway here is what has happened in the crazy world of Christopher:

1. I have moved to a branch school, so I am no longer at the Multimedia Center. This means several things: no more webcams! hooray, working with a core group of great teachers! hooray, seeing the same students on a daily or weekly basis and thus being able to build up relationships! hooray, and having just four different Japanese staff which I am getting to know well and practicing my Japanese with! hooray

2. I just skyped with my family for two hours so now I'm actually going to bed.

3. Joey I have no idea if you are alive or still in Med school or America or jail or whatnot. Get skype you big weirdo so we can talk. As sad as it is I miss giving you all the advice you are always bothering me about. www.skype.com Easy peasy. Do it and im me your schedule or times you might be able to talk weekly.

4. This one is for Monica...Rhino charge followed by a walrus flop, with an eagle claw and seagull dive to stun you, then an elephant stomp to finish you. Burn!