And so it was that I dragged my sleepy self out of bed at 6:30am in order to get ready in time to catch the 7:30am bus outside AP House 1 that would take me to Genkai Nuclear Power Plant for an awesome behind-the-scenes private tour… Unfortunately, it is fair to say that a hot shower and breakfast of rice and fried eggs were the highlights of my day. Had I known ahead of time what I *really* was going to be doing, I would have dismissed the trip out of hand without a second thought… had I known…
Tag Archives: Japan
Karaoke 2006
Being the good little students that my friends and I are it took us exactly two weeks before we just couldn’t take it any longer and had to zip out for a night of karaoke. Saturday night was a special night because it was the first true group activity of the 4th Floor Team 2006. While not every member was in attendance – Jessica was conspicuously absent – all of our new additions made it out and the overall attitude and pervasive style of the group was firmly maintained by Satoshi, Taw, and myself.
Semester Overview
Well that bit about having lots of time to post hasn’t quite proved true this past week, but I’ve finally gotten most of the errands I had to do upon return out of the way and am settling into a somewhat regular schedule.
Today is a briefing, if you will, on what is in store for me this coming semester. Class is a good place to start – this semester I’m enrolled in:
- Fundamentals of Environmental Science
- Sustainable Use & Management of Tropical Forests
- Development & Conservation
- Environmental Economics
- Research Seminar
Sakura
Sunday afternoon, the day after my return, the remnants of the 4th Floor Team gathered together and went down to Beppu City Park to see the sakura, or cherry blossoms. We’ve lost 3 previous members: Ting is back in Hong Kong joining the legions of working stiffs and Arami and Yunji are now living somewhere downtown. However, we’ve already recruited two new ladies to the team though, so our numbers weren’t too depleted.
Winding Down the Show
My date of departure approaches. I leave Japan on the morning of December 28th for a three month absence that will have me circumnavigate the planet by airplane – seriously. APU, bless its frosty heart, is doing all it can to make me desperate to leave. Winter so far has been unseasonably cold – we’ve had snow 5 out of the last 7 days, including the current tempest I woke up to this morning. I enjoy snow, very much in fact – but the snow I enjoy falls gently down to earth, accumulating into a beautiful silent white panorama as far as the eye can see. APU snow, on the other hand, on account of our ever-present hellacious winds, *never* accumulates. Instead, it prefers to stubbornly drive itself into your eyes, up your nose, and occasionally even into your ears. I don’t particularly enjoy this…
Memoirs of a Gaikokujin
They tell me time is relative, which is the only explanation I can conceive of to explain how I managed to go 5 days without writing a journal, and yet it felt like no more than 2… Things have been busy here, but it is the kind of busy that is, for lack of a better phrase, not busy. To elaborate, there are days when you wake up in the morning with nothing planned, anticipating time to do things you would otherwise put off, like vacuuming the floor, or bathing. Yet as the day wears on, one thing after another appears that needs attending to, and before you know it the sun has set and while you’ve been busy all day, you don’t feel as if you’ve accomplished anything.
I have decided that this is what it must feel like to work in an office.
I digress. Today, with 5 associates, I journeyed to the far off city of Oita (10min train ride) to visit what you folks would call a “movie theater.” The talkie that we had chosen to see was none other than Sayuri, which was released nationwide yesterday.
It’s Windy Here
Underneath every aspect of APU life there has been one thing, one theme, one reality that is so constant that it simply cannot be denied. In fact, the existence of the thing of which I speak is so certain that it might as well be considered the genesis of Truth itself. That thing… is wind. Laugh not at this seemingly simple observation. I have heard of places on this fair planet that are what you might call “windy.” Chicago seems to be one place in particular that carries with it a sort of mythos of moving air…
Safari Land
Sunday found 8 or so of us, the core 4th Floor Team and a handful of associates, shivering inside of a pathetic excuse for a bus, steadily trundling our way towards Destiny. That’s right, we were headed to Safari Land. Just in case you’ve somehow forgotten, I live in Japan. This was a fact I had to remind myself as well, as my feeble mind tried in vain to visualize anything remotely resembling the plains of Africa in the land of samurai, shinkansen, sushi, and skyscrapers.
After disembarking from our rusty freezer on wheels, we were all fleeced to the order of 3000Y, and then unleashed upon the majesty, the wonder, that is… Safari Land!
As it happened, our first clue that we had mistakenly ventured into an alternate reality was the motor pool. Mistake not the true nature of these vehicles!
Fukuoka
Fukuoka was the chosen location for celebrating the completion of our first quarter at APU, and Fukuoka was the place we found ourselves bright and early on a Thursday morning after a 2hr bus ride through the boondocks of Kyushu. It was Ting, Satoshi, and I’s first time in Fukuoka. It was just like any other big city, pleasantly beautiful so long as you didn’t look too closely.
We had the run of the place for two whole days and must have walked 40k easily once everything was said and done. My pictures from the trip are reflective of my mood at the time, which is to say, light-hearted.
That is by far the strangest pair of mannequins I’ve ever seen…
A Man Abroad, aka, My Research Plan
Camiguin… +10,000 points if you’ve heard of it before. Camiguin, as it turns out, is a small tropical island towards the southern edge of the Philippine Archipelago, and Camiguin is where I shall be doing my thesis fieldwork.
My official degree title here is Masters of Science in International Cooperation Policy. My unofficial degree title, based upon my chosen specialization, is Masters of Science in Environmental Policy and Administration. To delve further, my thesis theme is community-based forestry management policy within Southeast Asia.