Still Alive

  Well well well, what do we have here? Holy it's been a long time, was just about 3 Months ago I made my last post. Now I will admit that when it comes to updates I a bit slack, in fact amazingly slack. However this time I have a good excuse! As you may remember I landed a job in Japan as an English teacher, and I simply haven't had a computer to actually post from.

Holy Tokyo!

Its been an amazing couple of months so far, in fact I have so much to write about that I'm going to have to take some time and write them in retrospect, so I guess this is sort of to be a bit of teaser while I sort out what I want to talk about first. Briefly Ill go over whats been happening I think then Ill go into details in following posts to be able to fully give justice to the experiences.

 

  Our trip begin in Tokyo, about a thousand people from around the world (although mostly America) came for orientation before heading out to designated prefectures. We were only there for a few days, never really having been to a super large city before it was quite over whelming, combined with jet lag and 35-40 degrees heat and 100% humidity it exhausting, but still amazing. 

New Home

 After leaving Tokyo our group headed to our prefecture, Shiga. So far it has been pretty good, its only 30 minutes by train from Kyoto as well =D. Admittedly I had never heard of this particular area of Japan, so I came here without any expectations which I think has allowed me to enjoy it all the more. Of course it helped that our first night in Shiga we were able to view the best fireworks festival of the year by the lake side.

I arrived in Japan with around 200,000 Yen ( around 2.5k USD ) and immediately had to pay 130,000 in just rent. My first pay check wouldn't for an entire month, and after factoring in money for trains and necessities I found myself with 50k (around 600USD) Yen left, however I literally had nothing in my apartment apart from a futon. With a lot of surprise costs showing up in the first month I was down to around 50 dollars the night before my first pay, so things were a bit tight for that first month. Although I still don't own any tables.

Cat Cafe

However I did have enough money to do some fairly unique things, such as going to a cat cafe! It literally a cafe where you have some coffee or cold drinks while pats walk around and you play with them and stuff.

Cats are naturally very popular over here, I even got a video of this woman who had a cat riding her shoulder while she was going for a bike ride.

Again I have been very brief and will go into more details soon, just after I decide how I want to format the content, if you guys want me to look into something specific while I'm over here let me know! Cheers.

Much to say, here is some Penguins.

Wow looks like its been a couple Months since I posted anything. What happened? Well a bunch of stuff, first I started a really boring job to raise some money for a trip and then I went on that trip, fortunately I was able to visit Granite Island in Victor Harbour, South Australia. Which is home to one of every ones favourite animals, Penguins!

Too adorable

Granite Island is really an amazing place, its a tiny island that you can take a horse drawn tram to, and then walk around and look for those adorable little birds. 

Iv been fortunate enough to see these Little Blue Penguins around my town in New Zealand as well as in Australia. But for an unknown reason their numbers are reducing on Granite Island, when I visited as a kid 10 years ago their were over 2000 on the Island, now there is less than 100.

Hopefully when I visit next their numbers will have increased, the thought of their being no Penguins on the Island would make me a very sad man. 

 Naturally I didn't spend two months just looking at Penguins, I have also been visiting family in South Australia. It must have been over 12 years since I last saw them so it was really good to see them all again after so long. Some quality time was much overdue, and we all went to a see some more native Australian wildlife...

 (I did warn him about that Emu, but unfortunately missed the inevitable bitten finger.)

 Although I should have visited sooner, its always hard when you are a poor student, this trip was also extra special because I was attending a wedding.

Also, I heard there was free drinks.

 It was my Fathers wedding, so I now strangely find myself with a couple extra adult siblings and some extended family, but everything went really well and a good time was had by all. I cant imagine the cost of the whole thing though, bringing people over from another country. Fortunately (for the cost) it was held at my new uncles house, which is an amazingly big and breathtaking place.

The biggest piece of news is that after what may be the high score in The Waiting Game I have succeeded in landing a job over in Japan. I had been waiting and hoping I would get this job for months so naturally I am thrilled to be heading over there in less than a weeks time! I will do my best to conduct myself in a professional and dignified manner while experiencing a new side of life.

And drinking all the grog.

                                                                 Have a good one all!

Why you shouldnt take break late.

So now that I have a now have a job things have been very busy for me, time seems to just go by so quickly. I have been working very hard lately, and tend to take my breaks after just finishing a current load of work, so usually this means that I start and finish my break 3-5 minutes later than the rest of my work mates, instead of pausing it and just taking it straight away.

So why shouldn't you take your breaks late? Because you'll miss the chance to meet this guy.

Seriously, all my work mates got to meet Stephen Fry! I mean, Its not like I'm a big Stephen Fry fanboy or anything, but still I cant believe I missed him by just a couple of minutes. Such is life though, being able to pay rent is cool too...I guess.

Well anyway here is a funny like video someone made about him.

 

Other stuff update:

Well if you remember that I went to a casting call for The Hobbit I actually got an email from there, basically saying "Still interested? We just want to know if you are, not saying we have anything for you to do yet.." so that's kinda cool, might still get a chance to be in it =)

Update on myself and recent photos of Sendai Tsunami Zone

Hi all, been a couple weeks since Iv had some free time. Been pretty busy looking for work, unfortunately still unsuccessful in that area. I did go to a interview for the JET Programme to teach English in Japan (basically what my degree was about) but a couple months till they will respond to with those that were chosen and even then doesn't start till August so still need something till then.

Had a good interview for a 6 month role which would have been idea, I was actually shocked at the interview because they mentioned the pay scale was 30-40 an hour (around twice my average).

My face when I heard 30-40 an hour.

Really disappointed I didn't get that one to be honest. Oh well life goes on, over the weekend I will be visiting some family up north (in a 10 hour bus trip) so maybe ill take some nice New Zealand scenery photos for you guys.

Also this is a really amazing set of photos from the Sendai Tsunami with then/now shoots.

Also still Youtubing, decided to try my hand at a parody video of quick scope montages you see for COD or MW3 etc, tried to make it funny but maybe its just really gay haha would be good to get some opinions on it, only 40 seconds long =) 

Although if you have never seen a no scope vid or dont like Starcraft it will probably just seem really bad to you, but its sorta meant to be like that, anyway have a good weekend all!.