淡路島

This is a bit late but a couple of weekends ago we had a long weekend for Marine Day. What better way to celebrate Marine Day then by heading to the beach. Keiko found a nice cheap hotel on Awaji Island in the inland sea so we headed there for some quality R&R. The hotel was on top of a hill so it gave us a great view of the surroundings. There was a golf course as well and I was interested in potentially playing a round, but they had this asinine rule that golf shoes were absolutely necessary to play. Since they didn't rent shoes, and I only had sneakers (which are perfectly fine to play golf in by the way) so I couldn't get out on the course.

The beach was very nice and not crowded at all. Although I wish it would have been a little deeper. You could go out 50 meters or so and still only be knee deep. It's nice for little kids, but I wanted to get out in some deeper stuff.

Food was fantastic as well. The first night we ate at a small local restaurant and chatted with the locals. It seems to me that even more so than Osaka or Kyoto people, Awaji locals are intensely proud to be from Awaji Island. The second night we ate at the hotel which was featuring a Korean/Japanese buffet. It was nice, but I ate way too much.

The drive wasn't too bad either. We hit some traffic both way through Kobe. Why a city of 2 million only has 2 lane highways I'll never understand, but maybe that's just because Toronto's highways are massive. Anyway, once we got through that it was clear sailing.

涼しいっす

For the past 3 weeks or so it's been unrelentingly hot and humid here in Shiga with no signs in the forecast of any changes. Even at night when it gets a little cooler the air is still so humid that you feel a glaze coat you the second you step out of an air conditioned room. When you have crazy nappy hair like mine too it gets annoying when it's long in this kind of humidity.

I'd been thinking about it for a little while, but yesterday I decided to chop of all my hair and go for a buzz. Luckily for me, James, another teacher in my town had a hair clipper set so I was able to head over to his house and take care of business. Now I'm rocking a 6mm buzz and I must say it looks a fair bit better than I initially expected. It seems a little bit cooler as well, but maybe that's just all in my mind.

Deal of the Year

Yesterday I went to Nagahama to pick up a 32 inch LCD HD TV and surround sound system. A JET teacher who is leaving this year was selling trying to sell them before he went home. If was thinking of buying an HD TV this month anyway so when I saw he was selling his I jumped. After a tiny bit of haggling I got him down to 75,000 yen (about $750) for the set. A deal by any one's standards. I checked a Japanese used electronics specialty website and the cheapest they were offering the same TV for was 100,000. The speakers are 400 bucks new so all toll I got it for just a bit over half price. Probably half if you consider sales tax as well. Monty Hall would be proud.

Setup was a breeze, but I haven't got around to setting up the speakers. Playstation games look fantastic as do sports broadcasts. Can't wait to watch the Olympics on it.

耳鼻科

Last week I made a trip to the ear, nose and throat doctor to get my right ear looked at. When I was swimming in the school pool water kept getting stuck in my ear and wouldn't come out no matter how hard I shook. Eventually, it got so bad I went deaf in my right ear for a day so I went to get it checked out.

The best thing about going to a doctor in Japan is that you don't need an appointment anywhere. You just go. So I went, filled out a short form, and about 10 minute later I was in the doctors office getting checked out. He took a look and found my ear was packed solid with wax. He said the water got in there and the back and forth motion of my head swimming laps helped to pack it down so that's why I couldn't hear. He cleaned it out and I must say it was pretty gross looking earwax. I looked a bit like mud actually, but 10 minutes and 10 bucks later (the portion of my bill national health insurance doesn't cover), I could hear perfectly. Not bad at all if you ask me.