Hotel Kazurabashi Miyoshi

... to climb to the top of Kompira-san in about 1 hour. Way easier than Misen mountain. The shrine is dedicated to seafarers and actually has a hall of pictures of boats blessed there, including a donated sailboat. I'm staying at a ryokan, which was quite nice on the river in the midst of all the action. Dinner was maybe less impressive than in Tsuwano, but good nonetheless (tempura, sashimi, hot pot, grilled salmon). The best part maybe was meeting a middle aged ...

... so I'm hoping to pull them off the card when I get back home at a CVS or something with a dedicated photo machine. Either way, I arrived in Kochi to the rain, and had literally 2 things on my list of things to see in the city--the castle (one of the originals in Japan) and the market. Sadly the latter was basically non existent due to weather and the castle, while nice was rather dreary during the day. However, there was a night ...

... Japan country side. However when we arrived there,I noticed there were so many people and couldnt find the car park. All the parkings were full, and one guy took us to a parking inside one small road. So lucky! There is 785 stone steps to the Main Sanctuary, and another 1,368 stone steps climb up to the Inner Shrine. If you couldnt climb the steps, there are ...

... in the area. It took the whole day and it was a lot of fun. The next day a big group of us went to Tokushima City to visit the largest orphanage in the area. There were 72 kids there and we had a lot of fun playing games and opening gifts. I was basically a human jungle gym for the most part as kids wanted to climb on our backs and be picked up into the air. Overall it was a really fun experience and I was happy to be there. That ...

­Okay, I've been lazy about updating this.   I guess it's been about two months since I last entered anything.   Things have been great around here. Fall has been slipping into winter and it's starting to get pretty cold. Japanese buildings and homes aren't built with insulation or central heating so it gets really cold in my house at night. I have to use kerosene heaters to warm up whatever room I'm in, which is sketchy to me, but it beats being cold ...

... quite funny pictures.... We did manage to eventually reach Shikoku and were pleasantly surprised by the nice Japanese style accommodation that had been arranged for us. We were even more surprised when we heard that there was a lovely hot open air onsen (bath) on the top of the building. However, we were absolutely blown away by the dinner the inn had prepared for us. During dinner we had nice Japanese style dance which ...

... easy these days, I don't think I've worked an entire five day work-week yet, and I'm still getting paid anyways. I'm going to see Radiohead in Osaka on thursday (be jealous), which is going to be awesome. There's other things I'd like to talk about (car inspections, my cell phone, the impact of Tom Brady's injury on the global financial markets, etc.) but I'll save those for another blog post. Hey, maybe I'll start updating this more often, but no promises. 'til next time. Eric Gardner

... the saxophone at work?! So, I put together my horn and played through a few standards before putting it away. I'm not sure how the performance turned out, but I'm just glad I didn't pass out in the middle of it or vomit into my horn. The rest of the week consisted of me giving the same self-intro to other classes. I also had my first adult English conversation class, which is basically me talking to 5 married women for an hour and a half. They're all very interesting and some are ...

... predecessor), more on that later. Basically think of the cities of Tokyo and Osaka as the Japanese versions of New York and Los Angeles. They are both amazing cities and very large, and what many foreigners think of when they think of Japan, but also not where everyone lives. I would say my town is more like the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina than Times Square. My area is famous for a few things: - Udon. The wheat noodle dish that is served either hot or cold was ...

... stunning scenery my skills improved. We saw some gorgeous terrain, walked across local vine bridges, & folded in mirrors many times for crawling past oncoming cars. Upon returning the car and being politely informed that there was no insurance, 7000Yen please ($65) for damaged hubcap, the otherwise great day ended. I told Masaki, (this is how I speak every day), "You know sometimes fisherman go to sea and there is typhoon?" "When they come ...