LAST CLASS

最後クラス

ONE LAST CLASS PICTURE

GRADUATION DAY 卒業式

one last song 最後歌

GOODBYE

さよなら

COLLAGE

A farewell collage I made for Kobu Jr High School. Worked their for the past 6 months in Nishinomiya. Went to all their events ranging from sports day, super sports day, karuta, speech contest, teacher softball game, music concert, etc. Printed out about 200 photos, cut and used about 100, took about 2 days, and slapped them in a frame until 4am in the morning. But it was fun! Gave it to the school president Nishiuchi as a graduation present, I would say she was pretty happy.

THE ROCKY BALBOA GYM

Mr. Sakamoto, mystery guy, and Ken at the World Training Center gym in Nishinomiya. Really nice guys, be sad to miss em all. Everyone at the gym was very friendly and nice. At the beginning I compared the bling bling Konami Center gym ($120 month) to this gym ($60 month). Cheaper it was, so I opted for the down and dirty Rocky Balboa style gym. Literally the carpet was coming up, with floor boards showing through, there were huge holes in the seats as if Wolverine came by, the weights were brown and rusty. But hey I liked it, just gotta push iron no matter what it looks like. And the dudes there were huge! "gotsui" ごっつい they say in Japanese. It was fun times.

PINK?

Just some random apartments I found around Nishinomiya. Love them pink and green. Don't you want to live in a pink one?

MANHOLE

Every city has a different design for their manhole covers. Tatsuno is the dragonfly and for Nishinomiya is Koshein Stadium. Guess they love their Hanshin Tigers!

ME AND THE FROG

Was walking around and got intercepeted by some group telling me that Japanese work too hard. I told them I didnt speak Japanese so I could try to escape, but they were nice and tried to speak to me in English. Found out they were part of the communist political group, and one of their agendas was work. Personally I dont like communism, but then again I dont like over working. So it was interesting to talk to them. Even asked the frog guy for a pic too.

HANSHIN TIGERS 阪神タイガース

Baseball season is just around the corner. Go Hanshin Tigers!!! The Tigers are the Cubs of Japanese baseball, great history, great fans, great stadium, and always losing. Anyways hope they do great this year. If you are a Hanshin Tiger fan, you are called a "tora kichi" in Japanese. Tiger fans are great! Pretty much all home games at Koshien stadium are sold out. Fans come decked out in all sorts of Tiger wear, I would say that about 80% of the fans have some sort of Tiger clothing on. Much different than in America when you roll in with anything. And even with the team losing the fans are still cheering loudly, never a boo, and the sounds of drums, trumpets, any music instrument you name it, can be heard. A definite must see if you live in Japan.

TRAIN SUNSET

A sunset of train wires on the Hankyu line.

IN THE HOT SEAT

Yeah thats my chair and my ass burning up everyday. Sometimes it feels good and sometimes its a bit toasty. Was so glad it was natural gas this year, much cleaner than the ghetto oil gas that stinks. Well everything was peachie until this morning. When in the morning meeting the VP was talking something about the heater, then held up a brochure, then pointed at the one I was sitting by. Found out that there is some sort of problem with them, not sure what, but they gotta be fixed. Great, dumb heater ...

CRAZY?

Crazy is probably what all my teachers and thought of me today at school. Why? Because I was wearing a short sleeve t-shirt (mind you, 3 layers). I was fine, and the sun was shinning, it was a nice 54 degrees as a high, kinda felt like a Seattle spring. But teachers and kids were still in winter mode. Whispers went around, "hansode? 半そで? short sleeves?", "are you hot? atsui desuka? 暑いですか?", "oh, it must be because he is young, wakai kara, 若いから". Mmm .. this is the land where all elementary kids go to school in shorts, even when its snowing, and girls wear skirts year round. It was fun, maybe I will wear short sleeves again this week. 　

BLACK AND YELLOW

Colors of the Hanshin Tigers and also a rail road crossing.

HANKYU 阪急電車

Hankyu is one of the 3 major train lines in the Hanshin (Kobe and Osaka ) area. Of course its my favorite, the main station (Nishinomiya Kita Guchi) is by my home, fares are cheap, its clean, not too crowdy, train comes every 7 minutes, and it takes only about 20 minutes to get to either Umeda/Osaka or Sannomiya/Kobe. Its great until about the end of February when I have to move again, dang.

THE NEW YANKEE

Good luck to Mr. Igawa. From Hanshin Tigers to New York Yankees. (took this pic when I was walking around Koshein Stadium in Nishinomiya)

MORE PHOTO BOOTH

Poor guy can't get his head in the circle, (diagram to show you how to get the perfect picture) and when he does, he is still sad. Isn't he supposed to be happy getting it in there?

AT THE PHOTO BOOTH

You know it's a little old skool if it still says "FRESH".

IN THE PARK

It was a nice winter day for a walk in the park, and other people thought so too.

PIZZA?

Ordered some pizza from Pizza Hut. Wanted to try something new and ordered this lovely creation. Looks like some sort of creature! The crust was filled with nice yummy cheese, and they also provided honey and hot sauce. This thing sure was good! But might have to go back to the old skool crust, looks more legit. PS ordered Dominos in Japan too, and just like in America it sucks too! Well, at least you don't have to tip the driver in Japan, or in fact anywhere.