Aug 16th

So I'm back with another post in store. The weather feels pretty similar to a NY subway, and isn't improving each day.

Today was the first day back to work after a glorious 9 day vacation for summer. Ironically after coming back from NY no more than 6 days later I had a full week off. Regardless, it was great to stay local for the week and actually get a nice taste of Japanese-only life. Before the vacation started, I was called into the office by my manager and head teacher. We had a quick discussion and they said they felt they wanted to offer me the maximum length contract extension for one more year at AEON. It was great to feel that my work hadn't gone unnoticed and they said I had the vacation to think about it and come back with an answer once I return.

Saturday night was the biggest festival in Sasebo, known as the Sasebo Seaside Festival. Near the train station, there were food stalls (remember yatai from Fukuoka?) making some real authentic foods for everyone to enjoy while the fireworks show was displayed. The yatai were making tacoyaki (fried octopus), yakitori(chicken), okonomiyaki(Japanese pancake), ramen, champon (noodles, seafood and soup) and a few other things. The fireworks show was great; they launched over 1 million fireworks.

From Sunday 7th to the following Saturday 14th it was just a continuous motion of going to the gym, soccer training and/or practicing golf during the day and going to izakayas and bars for drinks and food at night. Monday after training I met up with a friend and she introduced me to some of her friends and we chilled at a bar for the rest of the night. Somehow or another it turned into a English/Japanese quiz game on my friends IPad and I had to guess the meaning of the written kanji and they had to guess the meaning of my English words.

I played futsal on Tuesday evening at a local gym without ventilation; it kind of gave me the experience of living in a rainforest, 600% humidity and soaking wet, well from sweat not rain. Wednesday I played a full field match at the turf pitch near my house we won 11-2. It felt like playing against a bunch of children. In celebration, I grabbed some drinks with my boxer buddy and commiserated on how to find the best girlfriend and schemed a diabolical plan in order to help him make advances on one of the girls he likes in our class at AEON.

On Friday one of the older guys from Renaissance wanted to take me out for lunch because he is really rich and he can pay for two lunches. I was a little skeptical at first, but hey I guess you never find out someone's true intentions until you do some investigating. We grabbed lunch and he, for some odd reason, called the waitress over and was like, "Hey, this guy, he's my friend. " And started to talk about some of my attributes and all I could do was just sit there like a dog in a pet shop hoping she would take me home. Turns out the guy owns a few clothing websites online as well as owns two buildings in town; no big deal. We drove around in his BMW after lunch and as we were sitting down for some dessert at a bakery he showed me a picture of his daughter. I'm not sure what the clear meaning of it was, but he soon invited me to his house to have dinner with his family sometime. To be honest, if his daughter is going to be there too, then I'll show up with slicked back hair and a dozen roses bulging out of my leather jacket.

So Saturday night I stayed at my friend's house about 40min from my apartment because we were planning to go to Nagasaki on Sunday. I posted pictures of the kid's room a while back. He has his room loaded with weight lifting equipment. His family owns like 10-20 acres of land and his dad is growing rice on all of it just for hobby. I was shocked to see how much land only his dad takes care of while still doing a full time job. Sunday morning we lifted, then went to the same all-you-can-eat restaurant we went to a few months ago then went to Nagasaki city for the day.

This weekend was one of the biggest holidays of the year, known as Obon. It is a 3 day holiday, and the time depends on the region of Japan. Obon is a special holiday to honor deceased family members and their spirits. On the first day, the spirits return to the house, and all the relatives gather and eat food and enjoy time together. On the 3rd day, the spirits are prayed for and guided safely back to their homes in heaven. Nagasaki region has a special ritual, different from many places. Many people construct small boats and a source of transportation for the ancestor to take back when they return to heaven. These boats are let out to sea at nightfall. Sasebo and Nagasaki city are also notorious for fireworks during the last day of Obon. So people were parading the streets with shrines/boats of their ancestors and throwing fireworks all over in celebration. It was a reallllyyyy culture shocking experience to say the least.

Today I returned to work with my contract extension decision in mind. I made my final decision, and it will be to extend my contract. However, for various reasons, I will not be fully extending. I put in for an extension until March 10th 2012. After March 10th I will no longer be employeed at AEON, and I plan to stay in Japan for another month and a half or two months traveling, studying, and enjoying the culture and country before returning home.


That's all for now....... Talk to you soon folks! Thanks for the read!!!! : )