The Story so far....

Ok so I admit its been a while, but things have been really hectic here. It's been busy just understanding what the hell it is I'm doing and managing to form some sort of social loop.

Anyway I have just had my second (out of an overall of three) week off. My first week off was in May. This was called Golden Week and for that week I headed out of town to Hirosaki, a city about 40mins away by train.



You can see pictures of it here.

After Golden week was over, I stopped being trained at Aeon and it was up to me. The lessons are very structured so a whole procedure has to be learnt but they are manageable. Essentially there are two kinds of adult lessons, Round up and Group. Round up is grammar based and shows the student how to use certain grammar points within a conversation. Group lessons are just conversation and focus more on pronunciation and phrases.

Most I have in a class is about eight but usually my classes hold no more than three and often just one on one. I can talk to students when they come in and get to know them and I have set up nights out drinking to help welcome students and socialise with them. These have been big hits!

Here are some pictures of one of our Karaoke nights

I am also leader of recruitment at Aeon so I am in charge of making new posters and coming up with new ideas to help get more students. This is giving me lots of new challenges and a great way to be creative.

The people I work with are very friendly and often want to socialise with me after work. I have even attended my boss's wedding which I have pictures of here

Over the road from Aeon is a British bar who is owned by a man called Rob from Leicester, I have been helping him promote his bar and set up his sound system. In turn he has let me borrow his drill to help set up my apartment.

My apartment is small but comfortable. I have a main living room which is tatami and that's where I live and sleep. I also have a separate kitchen/dining room and a balcony. I have 2MB/s internet so I have been downloading British TV, I have a 19" TV and a separate speaker system. I managed to get a DVD player that plays SD cards so I can download a film in AVI, put it on a 1GB card and put it in my DVD player.

I also have a mobile phone which can play and record live TV (but its in Japanese :| ) and I have a home phone. Still, I'd rather use skype for overall price!

The temperature here is still so hot, most days I'm out sweating in my T-shirt but at night its nice and cool. I have just returned from Hokkaido, the northern most island of Japan and it is still boiling up there. I will post pictures of it on my site.

Recently too I saw the biggest festival in Aomori called Nebuta. Naturally I got dressed up in my Yukata and danced for two days during Nebuta. During the festival they have these huge floats lit up and followed by drummers and chanters. Everyone really loves it! I took some pictures of the whole thing although a little blurry. Click here

I should also point out the Japanese girl in those pictures is now my girlfriend. We've been going out for about a week now and she is really lovely. Her name is Yuuri and she works in tourist information in Aspam (the giant triangle building in my pictures).

Well that's pretty much it up to now, I'll try and keep you all posted. To see more of my pictures you can get them directly from here

PICTURES