Week 3

Going to a concert last Tuesday led to a party invitation last night. Dinner at a friend's house led to a date tonight. Who knew that being social led to being more social?

I didn't end up doing much of anything last Monday (no work, a national holiday) but it was good that I had some time to rest as the next day was a long one. I woke up at 8am Tuesday morning, packed my camera in my backpack and headed out. My first stop was Krispy Kreme doughnuts for breakfast (luckily there wasn't a line that early in the morning.) Next I took the Kintetsu train and a cable car to the top of the mountain range that divides Osaka and Nara prefectures (Mt. Ikoma.) After taking some pictures of the amusement park at the top (which was closed for the winter) I headed into Nara city for lunch. Fed and watered I took the JR train line North to Uji. Uji is in southern Kyoto near the boarder to Nara and is famous for the Phoenix Hall of Byoudo-in temple which in turn is famous for being on the back of Japanese 10 yen coins. After touring Byoudo-in (which had a lovely museum) I wandered around Uji for a bit before finally taking the Kaihan line back into Osaka. Back in the city, I headed to the evening's concert venue. It was my second time seeing the band (The 50 Kaitenz) and I, again, thoroughly enjoyed the show. After the concert a bunch of fans went to a restaurant near the concert hall for an after party (which ended with an invitation to a New Year's party being held the following Sunday). It was quite the long, rewarding day.

As for the story of the dinner that became a date... well the story's not over yet...

Week 2

No big adventures this week. Instead I decided to get a clean start to the year and sold my two year old Mac-Mini (computer) and bought a new one. I also visited a friend of a friend at the Nikon service center in Umeda (North Osaka) and got my camera cleaned.

Other than that, work started up again... slowly. There were surprisingly few (adult) students in my (adult) classes this week. I guess some people were still on vacation.

Today's day off (to mark "coming of age day") is the calendar start to another great year full of 3 day weekends (at lease one a month for the next three months, anyways.) Now, what to do...

Week 1

A new year and a fresh start on the blog. This year's goal is to expand on last year's success with updating every week. I hope to include a picture of myself as well as a brief summary of what I did in the previous week. I also plan on bringing back the longer posts about the various trips I take (of course with photos.) As they say in the neighborhood "Kotoshi mo yoroshiku onegaishimasu!"

To start, the highlight of this week was definitely my first experience going to a shrine on new years day. This is called hatsumode and is done to pray for a good new year as well as to receive one's fortune. I received the best fortune (daikichi) which bodes well for this year.

In other news it snowed twice in Osaka in the past week, once with flurries and once with big fluffy snow flakes (no accumulation though.)

Week 52

Well, here it is, my last weekly post for 2010. I'm surprised at and proud of myself for actually keeping this more-or-less on schedule and up to date. This weekly update along with "be more social" and "cut spending" were successful resolutions for this past year. I fell short on "learn the guitar", "brush up on Japanese", and "get more exercise" but, hey, what's 2011 for?

Week 51

In the penultimate (weekly) post of 2010 I thought I'd look back and see where I've been and what I've done this year:
I took 3 trips to Wakayama (Wakayama City, Shirahama, Mt. Koya), 2 trips to Shiga (Otsu, Mt. Mikami), and individual trips to Nara, Himeji and Ako in the Kansai area (Not even counting trips to Kobe and Kyoto.) A bit farther afield I traveled to Matsuyama City in Shikoku, Nagano and the Tango peninsula to the North, as well as capitol city of Tokyo. And of course, fairly early in the year, I traveled to Korea for the first time.
In my travels I ended up taking over 5000 photos this year and, while not everyone's not a winner they all help remind me of what I've experienced.
I'd say 2010 was pretty successful. I can't wait to see where 2011 takes me!

Week 50

The third long break period of the year is almost upon us (the first two being Golden Week in May and Obon in August) and I again find myself having signed up for a ridiculous amount of overtime. Countering the downside that I'll be completely exhausted are the facts that the vacation I do get will ve that much more relaxing and that I'll be getting major bling added to my next paycheck.

Week 49

It seems that I've been doing a lot of touring around since the end of summer. Enough, in fact, that it felt really strange to take a week off to relax at home and nurse the end of a cold last week. Fortunately I've got plans every "weekend" from now until the end of the year. Who knows, maybe I'll take time to make some extra posts in there too.