Nasty Conjugation

So!

It has been a long time, and I have missed all of you. I am serious about this. Being here in Japan without Internet has left me feeling very disconnected from everybody. But no longer! Today we received our modem in the mail, and I am wasting no time in putting it to use. For those of you who aren’t interested in reading the rest of this post, here is a link you probably want:

Pictures of our adventures so far.

For those of you who are just bored or crazy enough to read the rest of this, well, do it now and never look back.

We are gradually reintegrating ourselves back into the Electrosoul, so please bear with us. I know for a fact that I have neglected to e-mail some of you back, and for that I apologize. I am trying to catch up now.

We have been in Japan for a little over a month, and we are settling into our jobs and life very well now. The first few weeks were a little rough for me, but Holly took to it like a chinchilla to warm desert sand (TAKE THAT ANALOGY). Having never left the United States before, and having never lived outside of Florida before, the transition took my brain a little while to handle. I do miss Florida, and I didn’t think that I would. I never doubted that I would miss all of you, just that I would miss the moist peninsula which spawned me. Travelling for the first time like this has stirred up my mind a little bit, so I find myself being nostalgic over just about everything.

However! I have recovered my equilibrium now, and Holly and I have gone adventuring in our immediate area. We visited Kamakura, a very old city (all the cities here are very old) with very old shrines and temples. You will find pictures of that trip on our Flickr account. We visitied Yokosuka as well, home to the US Naval Base and a very cute town in its own right, but I managed to forget the camera that day. I’m sorry.

We’ve started work as well, and work is work. I wear a tie every day, we have to iron our clothes and be professionals, and in that respect I don’t think you’ll find much is different from any other post-college corporate job. It can be rewarding at times and annoying at others, but it is not awful. I love teaching old Japanese men. They handled an entire life of propriety and manners and now can be as eccentric as they want to be. They understand how things should be done, clearly. Holly and I work at different Nova schools, which is a little rough, but at least that guarantees that we get the same days off.

We went out to karaoke with two of my co-workers a week ago, and it was an experience that changed me, deep inside. We arrived at 11:00pm and were there until 6:00am. Strange things start to happen to a man’s soul under such circumstances - we stepped out of the dark singing box into an already-risen sun and my mind did a few broken somersaults. Japan does karaoke right.

I have written quite a lot since I arrived here, so I will be updating periodically with little stories and observations. If you hate yourself and want to be bored, feel free to check this space frequently for new things. I hope I talk to you soon on the INTERCHAT.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 9th, 2006 at 7:53 am and is filed under Japan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.