Hello Blog, I’ll bet you thought I forgot about you. Well actually I did, but only because I’ve been doing a lot of stuff in the past week since returning to Japan. Let’s look at a quick summary of that stuff in a nice bulleted list:

  • remembered how to speak Japanese (harder than it sounds)
  • played a lot of DS
  • slept a lot
  • organized a 新年会 (New Years Party) at Lockup, almost killed half the people there with the Electric Shock drink
  • finished reading Beach Road. Ending was disappointing.
  • found the joy and convenience of delivery curry from Coco Ichi’s
  • re-watched the entire run of the highly under-appreciated Judd Apatow series Undeclared
  • dropped a valuable thing of deodorant into the toilet. Don’t worry, I threw it away… reluctantly*.

Of course that’s not a complete list, but I’d say it covers the highlights. I also managed to teach some people English somewhere in there so that I can afford to enjoy the things in the bulleted list. But the greatest discovery I made during the past week was, wait for it, the library. That’s right, shut up now, the freaking library. I had never been to the Chiba Chuo Library before, but one of my students recommended it over the weekend so I went to check it out. The library is right next to Chiba Park, which I had also never been to. Both places are huge and a lot nicer than what I would have expected. The park has a lot of walkways, baseball fields, playgrounds, and a huge lake. The library has, of course an impressive selection of books, magazines, maps, and those little golf pencils, but most importantly for me, they have a passable section of English books and magazines. I’m almost done with Dave Barry in Cyberspace. I think I found a new hobby. Oh, and the best part is that it’s free. Now I’m starting to sound like one of those hokey PSAs they’d show on PBS.

I guess that’s the biggest update. For two days in a row I rode my bike about 7 miles exploring Chiba, mainly going to Chiba Park and stuff. I’ve lived here for a while but am still exploring and figuring out how all the roads and stuff fit together. Good times.

*Hey, Old Spice Pacific Surge deodorant doesn’t grow on trees here in Japanland.