ohayo gozaimasu

good morning. it's 10:11 on monday, september 22 in ueki, japan. first off, let me apologize for the lack of capitilization or proper punctuation throughout this; these things become slightly more difficult on a japanese computer.

now, i am sitting in the teacher's staff room at a junior high school where i teach english, using a laptop designated specifically for my use (an "FMV" model which appears to be from the late nineties, and is set in english by default, making it invaluable). two hours ago i left my modest apartment in the middle of suburban ueki on the ten-minute bike ride it takes to get here, then taught my first class of the day. these usually consist of me slowly weaving through the network of students desks as the teacher speaks, occasionally correcting grammar and spelling in the students notebooks, and periodically being asked to read sentences and passages from the english textbook with my golden american voice. i say golden because my ability to read aloud in my native tongue is the primary skill that qualifies me for this wonderful job- an assistant language teacher (ALT) through the japanese government-run JET program.

i'd like to keep these entries relatively short and readable, so i'll wrap this first one up with a quick story about this last weekend. i caught a silky smooth train ride up to fukuoka (the largest city on my southern island of kyushuu) along with a group of other JETs in the area, and went out to dinner and a dance club. a very capable DJ coupled with an epic breakdance-off helped the club stay entertaining until about 4 in the morning, after which 8 of us JETs attempted to share a room in a japanese "love hotel". love hotels are special private hotels intended for couples, but their focus on privacy is rumored to make it easy to move a large group of people in to a single room to crash for a night. unfortunately we chose the higher end of the spectrum in terms of both luxury and security, and the extra 6 of us were kicked out on to the cold, cold street. in reality it was quite warm and pleasant- which is why after searching in vain for another option, we settled down in a nearby public park like any friendly hobo. this was my first time sleeping outdoors in a city park, and i remember waking up slowly and peacefully, with the warm september sun on my face and the sound of children's playful laughter surrounding me. literally- there were children surrounding me since i had fallen asleep on a platform by the top of a slide.

after everyone dusted themselves off we made our way to costco, where i bought an annual membership and massive containers of a few essentials- barbecue sauce, beef jerky, nutella, and sharp cheddar cheese among them. beautiful.

soon i'll start uploading pictures to this blog to add some visual aids to these stories. in the meantime, i am having the time of my life here and will try to keep this updated in order to explain why. if you know me well enough to read this far, then i am missing you and would like to hear from you. anderskg@gmail.com is what i use these days, so please throw me a transpacific line.

ja mata,
ken