Ah, summer vacation. Japan has this national summer break kind of thing called Obon (お盆), where most people get a week off of work or school. There is all kinds of religious and other things related to this holiday that I don’t know much about, but you can read about it on Wiki. The important thing is that AEON gives us this week off, and with my normal Sundays and Mondays off, and 2 carefully used vacation days, I find myself in the middle of an 11-day vacation. Oooooh yeah.

Last Saturday after work, went with some other AEON people to the Chiba Port Tower fireworks show (see above), which was pretty awesome despite the ridiculous crowds and the heat outside. After the show ended, we hiked a good distance to some Italian restaurant to hang out. After that, went to the Ocean’s Eleven, or whatever it’s called, bar until last train. Sunday, I didn’t do much all day except watch TV, then headed to Tsudanuma to have a staff going-away party for one of our teachers who is retiring. That was fun and relaxing. Then headed with 2 of my co-workers to Chiba. Again, last train from Chiba.

Monday, more relaxing at home. Ate some yakiniku and okonomiyaki up in Chiba. Tuesday, more relaxing and then headed to Soga Ario. First, saw a movie by myself. Yes it is very loser-ish to see a movie by yourself, let alone the Kamen Rider Den-O movie, but it was fun and I enjoyed it. Shut up. Then ate tacos, did some shopping, and bought some cream puff things to take to everyone at school since it was the retiring teacher’s last day. Even though it was my day off, I’m not a complete jerk. Wednesday, I ran some errands around Goi, and tried this Sri-Lankan/Indian buffet near my apartment which I had never tried before, partially because the outside looks sketch and also partially because the place is called Samanara (サマナラ), which sounded a lot to me at first like salmonella. The people on the Goi mixi group said it was good, and indeed they were right. Spent most of the day at home doing job-hunting related stuff, and also watching News Radio on DVD. Went to the Chiba net cafe at night to print out some Korea-related stuff as well as some resumes, and then came home.

Tomorrow, well, really in a few hours, I need to wake up and head to Tokyo. Believe it or not, I’m going to 2 job interviews/info-session things. Nothing major yet, but it’s good to be starting this kind of thing. I’m not looking forward to waking up early to go into Tokyo though, especially wearing a suit in this heat. But at night I’m going out to dinner with a friend I haven’t seen in a while, so that should be good.

Overall, yes, summer vacation has thus far involved a lot of sleeping and TV-watching. And that’s just perfect. I can’t imagine anything better than doing nothing during this break. If only you didn’t need money to live, I would probably sit at home all day the rest of my life. Unfortunately, that’s not the case, so I need to get only 2 hours of sleep to go into town for the possibility of getting another job. Ah well.

Korea in about a day and a half! Annyong!