So I busted out the DSLR for some better photos recently.
Let's start with the daily life stuff first:
I got a box from my parents! And then I turned the box it into a large garbage can! I'm so thrifty.
Check it out. This corner is so much more tidy looking now...
Made myself stove top curry ramen and added hot sauce, fresh tomatoes, and frozen spinach. It was the best thing I've ever made to date.
The day before I made "bruschetta," if you can call it that. I sliced up baguette and topped it with spinach and tomatoes... and hot sauce.
It was delicious.
I baked them in my... toaster... oven?
Yeah, I've got this interesting feature with my stove top where I can divert the power to a small... oven drawer thing right below the coil units. Check it out:
weird, right?
Just a little bit of snow left in the area.
My parking spot.
Even some of the larger hills in the area are losing their snow at this point. Almost feels like spring. Almost.
I've gotten better at using these corner mirrors to confidently drive when visibility is slim.
I remember seeing these all over Europe as well.
Today the weather was really nice so I decided to go and get some footage/shots from my typical drive up north along the coast. Warning: it's super shaky/nauseating and I set the whole thing to smooth jamz, so be prepared for that as well.
I teach at three different schools on the water and two of them are north of my town along the stretch in these photos...
More snowless hills. These are directly across from the ocean.
Went down to the water today. The water was pretty brown...
So it's been a while since I last posted new pictures! The only pictures I had were some random things from my phone and a couple of things inside my apartment, so it wasn't terribly interesting.
But now it's Golden Week here in Japan, so I've had some time to go out and get some more pictures of things worth looking at! (For those interested: Wikipedia entry on Golden Week)
Anyways, things have been pretty normal around here. I've gotten a better grip on teaching and making lesson plans... and that's pretty much all my news!
Self Portrait: All dressed up for my first day of school!
Oh and I went down to Sapporo last weekend. Went up on Saturday and spent the night, then headed back to Mashike on Easter in the afternoon.
But before we check out the photos from my trip... check this out.
So this is my Japanese phone.
AND THIS IS THE BOX IT CAME IN. NOT A JOKE.
Yeah, allow me to quell your curiosity: That is a white jelly bean wearing pink panties with a baffling expression on his face (I've decided it's a he... for some reason... maybe just to make it that much more disturbing).
But let's talk about that mug of his.
What a complex expression he's got there! It's 50% "I'm embarrassed you caught me in my underwear," 50% "I have to pose for this photo or otherwise you'll tell the boss I skipped work to go to Jelly B Festival 2003" and 50% "I have diarrhea and you picked the worst time to stand behind me" so that's 150% of "what the heck is going on with the cellphone industry in Japan?"
Right, so Sapporo...
My hotel
Sapporo Station where I arrived that afternoon
The plaza in front of the station
More of the plaza
My room - TWO BEDS! How did I receive so much space???
Just look at how spacious this room was! By Japanese business hotel standards this is pretty epic...
Sapporo when I arrived... cold and rainy [´_ゝ`]
The trip involved two trains, each of which I rode for roughly an hour. The experience was pretty low key, so it's good to know I can get to the 5th largest city in all of Japan without much work (and keep in mind, Tokyo is the largest city in the world). Also I think driving there is relatively simple as well.
Here are some back logged pictures from a week or so ago:
My neighbor has a pretty awesome Street Fighter shirt.
Sometimes Mashike feels an awful lot like rural America...
Especially when you pull up to the grocery store and you park next to a Lincoln Navigator
But then you go inside and the tomatoes are packaged like this:
Today the weather was quite warm - almost 60˚ F at midday. Great day to be outside, but not so great for pictures because it was pretty cloudy.
Regardless, I tried to capture some new spots that I haven't shown on here yet...
This is the front of my apartment, we have outdoor closets for storing old furniture and what not... which is where a lot of my current furniture came from (other peoples' outdoor closets)
When I arrived in Mashike, I had to slip and slide over a good foot of snow to get from the parking lot to my front door. As you can see in the picture, that's all melted at this point.
I can even see the ground! There seems to be some tilled land right behind my apartment complex.
Everyday the playground becomes a little less covered.
The drainage system is overflowing with water from melted snow up in the mountains.
On a small back road behind my apartment there's this little set of barns. The lettering says "りんご” - Apples, "さくらんぼ" - Cherries, and the large characters in the center say, "直売" or "ちょくばい" which means "selling directly."
Seem to be a lot of orchards in my area.
Country road.
I don't have the energy to look up this kanji. That's all I do. All day long. Is look up kanji.
If anyone's interested in how one "looks up" kanji - there's a variety of methods, depending how adventurous you're feeling with technology. I've been experimenting with using the new feature on OS X Snow Leopard where you "write in" the kanji using the track pad.
but it looks like it works a lot better than it actually does.
I still prefer picking out the pieces and assembling them using jisho.org
I've always found something distinct about Japanese sidewalks. I really miss the ones in Tokyo near Yoyogi Park.
Curious about the temperature? Just ask the giant apple. It was 57.2˚F today! Very pleasant.
These little fellows are sprouting up all over the place.
People are beginning to uncover their gardens from their winter dressings. A lot of trees and bushes in this area are shielded from the snow in tepee-like wood and burlap coverings.
The junior high right near my apartment that I'll be teaching at twice a week.
Dinner the other night: rice, green beans, potato and bacon croquettes
Dinner tonight: Yakisoba, Beef broth-ish "soup," broccoli and rice. Lots of rice.
Speaking of dinner, this is my lovely little kitchen. I love it. I did this freaky "photomerge" so you could see the whole room. (unsuccessfully that is, note the bottom cabinetry - didn't quite pan out right...) And because I don't have a wide angle lens. yet.
This is what my kitchen window looks like at night.
I often stare at the window making myself scared that I might look at it once and see this...
BAM. GHOST FACE (killah? is that a rapper or something? just googled it, yeah, he's a rapper)
Feel free to click on the image above and observe just how well I photoshopped that ghost face into this photo. I got the window distortion down so good. real good. I didn't go to grad school for nothin' my ghost face photoshop skills are in peak form.
also, if I took this picture standing right in front of the window.... where's my reflection.
Scaaary~
Anyway, that's all in my head. Why on earth would there be a ghost face there?
My apartment building is relatively new, so it wouldn't likely be haunted or anything.
and there isn't a huge ass cemetery nearby or anything- OH WAIT YES THERE IS.
It goes on for MILES. And it's RIGHT ACROSS THE STREET FROM ME.
It's actually kind of pretty, but I didn't notice it until the snow started melting. Imagine that. You live some place for a week and then, BAM, HUGE cemetery outta nowhere. I was like, "WHA? Where'd you come from?!"
But I'm just kidding, it doesn't bother me.
But just to illustrate how close it is... here's a video. The pink building is muh house. and the cemetery is muh next door neighbor.
I probably just disrespected a lot of dead people. sorry guys :(
