Some random pictures

Yay, I got my cellphone this weekend. It has a lot of cool features. Maybe I'll make another post about it, but as a side note, all these photos were taken using my new cellphone.

In case anyone was concerned about my vitamin C intake.
I bought this today because I felt I had to. It says "50 lemons worth of Vitamin C in every can."










And.... in case you were wondering if I am eating, I decided to pick up some tonkatsu on my way home from the station. It was about 500yen (about $5). It was good.








This is the lobby of the school I work in. We started to decorate for Halloween. Most of my students aren't too familiar with Halloween.





My view from my classroom. I can see a million bicycles parked neatly along the road. Japanese people are hardcore when it comes to cycling. Most of the bikes don't have gears. Sometimes there is some kind of big sale going on across the street. They put stuff on the sidewalk and some guy is talking into a microphone for hours. I have no idea what he's saying.

And yes, me in my suit that I have to wear everyday. Oh, and part of my classroom.

By popular demand

Here are some photos of my apartment.
First photo is taken from my doorway. You can just barely see the corner of my washing machine on the left. Then the kitchen sink and stove. On the right what you can't see is the shower, and then the door to the toilet.






Second and third photo are of my sleeping/living room. As you can see I have a futon, table, dresser, TV, legless chair, a mini-fridge (which is actually pretty nice).

Karaoke!

From left to right (Top photo: Melia, Andrew, Mathew, and Robin)
(Bottom photo: Robin and Curtis)

I went to Mathew's welcoming party on Saturday. (Mine was the Saturday before) It was a lot of fun. The food was great and I met a lot of his students. Afterwards we went for Karaoke. If you are going to stay out late in Japan you have to stay out REALLY late unless you want to pay for a taxi which could be expensive and tough since I can't quite direct where I'm going in Japanese nor would I even know how to get back to my apartment. So if you stay out past 12:30-1:00am chances are you missed your last train. Usually you decide well beforehand if you plan on missing your last train or not. So after the welcoming party a few of us went and did Karaoke until 5:00am. It was a lot of fun.

The next day (well I guess technically the same day) I woke up around 2:30pm and got ready to meet my co-worker Roger and a few other people at the Nishi-Funabashi station for Tennis. We carpooled to the Tennis courts from the station and played a few games. I enjoyed it quite a bit even though I felt a little tired from the Karaoke. Afterwards I went with a few people to Denny's. Wow, the menu is quite different than in the states...but...maybe Chad and Heather can guess what I had...haha... There was all kinds of interesting stuff on the menu. I can't even explain, but they seem to take it more serious than Denny's in America.

My first real blog!

Hello from Funabashi, Chiba, Japan!
I just arrived in Japan on September 30th. I think I've already gone through various stages of culture shock. Already had some ups and downs. Sometimes I think "what was I thinking?" But then things change and I have fun and am glad to be in Japan experiencing something new.
My first weekend here I went to an area called Asakusa. I saw a large temple and many tourist type shops.
One of my co-workers is from Canada. He has been a great help to me. I am looking forward to traveling around Japan with him and his friends. He has many friends that are also GEOS teachers but from other schools in the area. Most of them are from the U.K. and are fun to hang out with.