Anyway, over the course of the last month I have been to many places and seen many things. I went to a classic car show. Here's a picture of some classic cars.
That was the same day I went to a waterfall. This waterfall, in fact.
The weekend after that, I had a GREAT barbecue with my co-workers after work on Saturday. It was raining, but we barbecued inside the work facility and all. We had already scheduled the barbecue some time ago, but since everyone found out I will be leaving soon, they altered it to be my going away party and they pooled their resources and bought me a really nice modern-day stationery set with a really nice retro theme. I say modern-day because rather than stationery, it has a nice pen, a 4Gb flash drive, a mouse pad, and a business card case, and they're all sprinkled with gold dust. Lit'rally.
After the barbecue, I missed out on some really great karaoke but at least I got to spend hours and hours with the company president in a dimly-lit, smoky bar you may have heard of before, called Snack Funny.
However, the next day I got to go to Penguin Town City Hall, which is not what's it is called in English OR in Japanese, but I like the ring of that so I'm sticking with it. We met all the council members as we served them lunch.
And we got a rare glimpse of the King of the Penguins, sitting on His throne.
I also found out on short notice that my really super awesome little sister Izumi from when I was an exchange student found time to come visit me! So Tuesday after work I picked her up from the train station. It was SO good to see her. We ate a hearty dinner at my favorite pub with my best friend. Mom sent loads of cash so that we could paint the town red while Izumi was visiting, so we ordered anything and everything we wanted from the menu. Here's a stock photo of Japanese money because I forgot to take a picture of the food. But I will mention: raw horse.
Wednesday I took the day off work to spend with Izumi. My best friend Sumihiro also took the day off work to spend with Izumi. He drove us to Nagasaki (proper) and showed us the bits and pieces of Nagasaki that lots of people don't know about.
Some of these backroads end abruptly in stairs, so there's no way for vehicles to get through. So if you live up in the hills and you order a package from Amazon, the delivery man straps on a giant backpack and hikes up all the steps way up into the hills to deliver your package. It's true! I saw it on TV!
Here's a picture of me about to enter the women's bath. Silly American! Don't you know those characters on the door mean "women's bath"?
The funniest thing is introducing Izumi to people I know as "my little sister." The other person invariably IMMEDIATELY looks at her, and she very casually nods in agreement...no smile on her face or immediate offer of explanation. To us it's just a given that we're brother and sister. Then of course when people ask, we go into detail, but if they don't ask, we just let them think about it for years to come.
Last time I came to Japan, Izumi and I had a movie moment, where I was on the "passengers only" side of the glass barrier and she was on the lobby side, and I ran out of prepaid cell phone usage but I had already entered a text to her in my phone so I just pressed my phone up to the glass so she could read it. Then we both cried so hard. THIS time, we've come a long way and realized how small the world is and how strange the world is and that we'll almost surely see each other again, and probably soon. Not that it wasn't difficult parting ways AGAIN, but it was a lot easier than last time.
That brings us up to today, because Izumi left this morning after a late late night of drinking wine and talking about our childhood together, where we've been since then, religion, philosophy, relationships, parents, children, EVERYTHING.
So, while we're on the subject of today, here's an old-timey internet we use at work. In the photo, I'm using it to check Facebook. It's different, but it works.
And here's a picture I managed to capture of two monkeys playing in the sand.
Author's Note: I opted to not put pictures of giant biting centipedes in my post today because it was only just announced this week at work that it's "officially centipede season" and we should be checking our shoes regularly before putting them on, and the centipedes we have seen around the office so far have been the "small" ones, only a little longer than my middle finger. The "big" ones will be around soon, and I will post panoramic photos of them as I see them.
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