Big update!

Ya... so I suck at keeping blogs up to date... But, this time I DO have an excuse...
When you wake up at 8:21 AM, leave for work at 8:40, travel on trains until 9:45, walk until 10:00, work until 7:00 PM (or sometimes until 8 or later), walk until 7:15 (of course, this depends on how late I work), train until 8:10 usually, hang out with girlfriend until 9:40ish, train back home at about 10:15 PM, find a place to eat (usually Ramen, or some sort of Don, or curry), then go home and get home at about 11:00ish, maybe a little bit earlier... AND then repeat the next day :).... well, you don't really feel like writing a blog :D haha.

But! It's the weekend, and I'm not doing a whole bunch this weekend... so here you go.
First of all, pictures!!! Lots of em! Go look in the Tokyo folder, and you'll find many new pics of Sakura Tree's blossoming (お花見, or ohanami). Next of all, Gunma! Yes! I went to Gunma a few weeks ago with my 2 good Japanese guy friends... or rather, I met them there... since that's there home place. Then we have Chiba, two new panoramic pics from my phone there. And then I've added a folder for Kanagawa prefecture. Which is just south of Tokyo, with Yokohama (and Ichigao, my work place ), along with many other beautiful places. Two pictures were added there.

So! お花見！ ohanami. A time when millions and millions and millions of Japanese and 外国人 (gaikokujin, or foriengers) come and see the Cherry Blossoms (Sakura, 桜) bloom. It was a very nice and beautiful thing :). Everyone goes to big parks usually with their companies or friends for a 飲み会 (nomikai, which directly translates as Drinking Meeting, but really means drinking party.) Yes, you are allowed to drink in public anywhere in Japan. So that was fun :). We had some other foriegners from Holland join us. They were just visiting Japan.

In gunma, I was basically just showed around Gunma a bunch from Kohei and Kenta, my two best Japanese male friends. We went to an Onsen though! ahhhh, those are always wonderful. No pictures of the onsen.... which might be good... haha, but there are lots of pics from elsewhere. :)

My job is going very well. I am enjoying it very much and can see myself staying there and trying to advance myself a long way inside of it. I quite look forward to the future now :).

Onsen!

So last weekend I went to Yunishikawa Onsen (湯西川温泉) in Tochigi Prefecture (栃木県) which is about 160 or so kilometers north (北) of Tokyo. I went with 6 other people, all Japanese, (all are people that went to Canada in the past. I know them through Asako)

Onsen's (hot springs) are WONDERFULLY AMAZING! I think I'm in love. It was extremely fun. This time (as opposed to previous hang-outs with these people), I was able to understand and converse with the other people MUCH more (due to my Japanese skill being much better) and therefore I had a tonne of fun. It went down to -12 or so I think at night... so that made it even better in the outside Onsens. There's nothing like bathing naked outside in the open air under the starry night sky when it's -12 outside haha (oh ya, in Japan, in an Onsen, you do not wear clothes).

Most certainly a new experience. It takes 4 and a bit hours to get from my house to where we went. There was snow, a good deal of it (yay!), so I was quite satisfied. The Ryokan (Traditional Japanese Inn, a must-do for people visiting Japan) that we stayed in... was neat first of all... The dinner and breakfast provided by them was wonderful as well... but a really neat thing is that some of the wood that makes up the building is 800 YEARS OLD. Crazy...

Real Onsen like that one are much better than Hot Tubs... MUCH better... they smell a bit... (due to various minerals in the water, such as sulfer) but you get used to that quickly. They say the BEST Onsen can heal anything except love sickness. I believe them... My back, which had a NASTY knot in it for the past few days, was extrememly sore... However, the INSTANT (no joke) I went in the water, my back felt just fine... Very interesting in deed...