The Tin Man's back from Oz
Now Playing: Deep Purple THE PLATINUM COLLECTION
Just crawled in the door from my flight back from Perth. Had a great time there...didn't take many pictures, but here's a few choice ones. More travel stories later, after I've rested up...

It's windy down along King George Sound in SW Australia.

Nori by The Gap (where Antartica split from Australia aeons ago). A German tourist fell to his death from the cliffs opposite just 2 weeks before. Youch!

The striking landscape of the Pinnacles, about 2 desolate hours drive north of Perth.

Life on Mars.

Though you can't really tell, it was VERY windy that day. We were being ruthlessly sandblasted while taking these photos.

Some signs of the sandstorm evident here.

Cute little Nori in her cute little sunhat, standing next to her favorite plant from the trip, the extremely useful bulgar bush, or "grass tree."

Taking a camel ride in Caversham Wildlife Park.

Nori gently petting a poor koala, previously violated by the grubby touch of many humans, judging by the "Get me the hell outta here!" look on his face.

We stayed several days with my friend JJ's dad and stepmom, Ian and Valmai. Truly lovely people, pictured here in their lovely back garden.

Ian and Val lived in a nice suburb of Perth called Wanneroo. Lots of red and yellow brick houses. There were dozens of wild kangeroos in a nearby park. And of course one wild Nori.

Who's that manly fellow?

I'm baaack!
Now Playing: CHRISTMAS WITH THE RAT PACK by Messrs. Sinatra, Martin and Davis, Jr.
Whoa! Has it been a long time since my last post, or what?!?

Sorry about that, folks! Been damn busy here. New job and all. As most of you must know by now, I finally got my foot in the door at a local university called Kansai Gaidai. I took over for a sick teacher and by all accounts should be in like Flynn for the forseeable future. It's a solid gig with the chief selling point being 5 months-plus vacation with pay.

So far I'm digging it, despite the 38 90-minute make-up lessons crammed into 6 weeks. Added on to my 15-hour a week schedule (plus residual part-time ECC work and private lessons), it makes for a comparatively-grueling 6-day work week. However, I'm more than halfway through the short-range grind now, and my Western Australia holiday beckons. Other pluses of the new job: the commute is short, the campus is lovely and the students are decent enough kids who for the most part don't get too unruly. (And, of course, many of them are 19-20 year-old co-eds with short skirts, go-go boots and little else but thoughts of shopping and pop stars in their pretty little heads.)

Speaking of make-ups, I'll try and do a better job keeping up with things here.

So check back once and a while. In the meantime, I leave you with a few pics.

Happy holidays!

Me and a certain Jedi Master hanging out after dinner in a Kyoto eatery.

Leaf-viewing season in Kyoto.

A brief word from your sponsor...
Mood:  a-ok
Now Playing: MASTER OF REALITY by Black Sabbath



This probably belongs more on my movie blog page The Fortress of Celluloid (which you should check out, BTW...see the link to the left) but I just have to pimp the upcoming movie SERENITY, which had its official U.S. premiere in Los Angeles this past weekend, here.



Everyone over there in the States will be able to see those Big Damn Heroes (from the short-lived but beloved-by-me sci-fi/western/all-around-great TV series FIREFLY) on the Big Damn Screen this upcoming weekend, starting September 30th. Waaaayyyy before poor wittle me. *Waah!*

Anyway, do me (and FIREFLY fans the world over) a favor and GO SEE IT!!!

Here's one of the stars, Morena "Inara" Baccarin, at said premiere. Ain't she a beauty?:

Had a good Monday, considering...after my morning class at SOAI, put a bug in the ear of the co-ordinator there, Professor Arai, about joining their staff on a non-ECC (read: more profitable and with much greater vacation benefits) basis next year. It's a long shot, but worth a try.

Then back to Moriguchi at noon. Found the newly re-opened city pool and went for a swim (still trying to lose those extra 3 kilos packed on during my gastronomically hedonistic trip back home last month). Then back to cool at the cribbo, a laid-back afternoon of reading and watching TV downloads on my precious (Gollum voice) - and oh-so-fast - pa-su-kon (Nihongo for "personal computer").

Back to school...
Mood:  energetic
Now Playing: PET SOUNDS (1965) by the Beach Boys


Still smarting from being burglarized last weekend...yet one more notch in the continuing downward spiral that has become my faith in humanity.

But, to keep things in perspective...at least I don't live in Louisiana:




Had a nice, relaxed Sunday. On the work front...The autumn university semester officially kicked off last week - which means it's back to my full teaching schedule. *sigh*

ECC sends me to two very different universities: the prestigious Kwansai Gakuin near Kobe, and the slacker-iffic SOAI (located, appropriately enough, near Universal Studios Japan). What the SOAI student body (heh) lacks in academic acumen, it more than makes up for in eye candy, as a mini skirted mob of 19-21 year-olds parade in dimwitted but friendly fashion around its small, tree-lined campus.

Teaching at SOAI is a no-brainer, but KGU is another kettle of fish entirely. On Saturdays, I teach a pretty demanding curriculum of advanced reading and listening skills for anywhere from three to four-and-a-half hours at a time to a group of highly-motivated yet hard-to-please students. Wednesday nights it's more of the same, but with an emphasis on business English and its various and sundry applications in the "real" world. (Sounds ever so exciting, doesn't it?)

Added with my other classes and weekly private lessons...well, it keeps me pretty busy. But seeing how it comes after a very easy 2-month fallow period, I really can't complain.

At least about my workload. ECC management is another story. Don't get me started on them...grrrr arrrgh...

To end on a positive note...it's FINALLY starting to cool down over here! Temps are still in the 80-90 degrees Fahrenheit range during the day, but the humidity is dropping slowly but surely, and night-time temps have been hovering in the 70s.

Today especially was blessedly cool, with a nice breeze blowing through the apartment. Autumn is around the corner...bring it on, says I!

Photos from my August trip
Mood:  don't ask
Now Playing: LIVE IN AMERICA by the John Renbourn Group
Tripod's blog builder software is working my last nerve, I tell ya!

Anyway, without further ado, here are some pics of me and my family, taken on the last day of my 3-week sojourn to the States back in August:



Me and my sister Amy in my family's new kitchen.





My Dad in the backyard with the big black smelly dog, Kota.






Me out in front of their new house. Looking a little tired around the eyes, eh?





Madre & moi.

Stop! Thief!
Mood:  irritated
Now Playing: TENACIOUS D by...Tenacious D

First let me stress: Japan is a very safe place. Many foreign acquaintances of mine tell many tales of the overall trustworthiness of the Japanese when it comes to money. Returned wallets, dropped or forgotten change diligently protected until the rightful owner comes back to collect it, purses and bags left unattended and unmolested for hours in offices, etc.

Secondly: last night, I was robbed.

Color me shocked.

Let me set the scene:

Osaka (as some of you know) is a BIG city. I live in a small, northeastern suburb of said big city. Never have seen anything untoward or of a suspiciously criminal nature in my one-and-a-half years here.

I live on the fourth floor of what is called (rather ironically) by the Japanese a manshon (their version of the word "mansion.") It resembles less the swank estate of some Hollywood starlet that that word conjurs than a large, drab grey slab of concrete cinder-block, containing 25-odd one-bedroom apartments.

Don't get me wrong - my place is decent enough on the inside. But a mansion it ain't.

Anyway, it's quiet here. My neighbors are a mix of lower middle-class Japanese families and gaijin, mostly English teachers like myself. It's a comfortable, safe-feeling place, about 10 minutes' brisk walk from the Keihan train station and the local supermarkets, a stone's throw from a small neighborhood koen (park).

Lulled by the sleepiness of it all, I sometimes neglect to lock my front door when I'm home. Thinking, what could possibly happen with me inside, right? The average Japanese person wouldn't dare enter the potentially filthy and fearsome abode of a foreigner...right?

BZZZZT. Wrong answer.

Sunday night. Around 7 p.m. Feeling too lazy to cook, I pop over to the nearby obento take-away restaurant to pick up some dinner for Noriko and myself. Leave Nori in the apartment, head downstairs, shoot the breeze for a while with some gaijin friends who happen to be congregated by the parked bicycles below, grab the grub, head back upstairs - everything normal and in its place.

As per my custom, I place my keys, wallet, etc. on the top of the convection oven in my kitchen, a mere three steps from the front door.

It's still hot and humid here, so the air conditioner is running full speed. To keep the cool in during the summer, I slide the partitioned doors between the kitchen and living room shut. This leaves the kitchen - and the front door - unattended. But the front door is metal. It usually creaks when opened, and I normally have sharp ears for such sounds. However...

Nori and I grab our dinners, drinks and chopsticks, sit down in front of the TV, pop in a movie and dig in.

Sometime around 11 p.m. we lock the front door. Nothing seems amiss.

Until next morning, as I get ready to buy a 1,000 yen subway card at Umeda station, when I find my wallet is completely empty of cash. Some $200-plus worth is gone. Vanished.

That's right...sometime during that 3 hour period Sunday night, some sonuvabitch snuck into my kitchen WHILE WE WERE IN THE OTHER ROOM!!! and slipped that money right outta my wallet.

Needless to say, I was a far cry from amused. My gast was appropriately flabbered. I searched everywhere for the money, to no avail.

There was no other possibility. I wuz robbed.

Doh!

Others are appalled and equally surprised when I relate my tale of woe. But gradually more info comes out...Moriguchi is apparently a hotbed of petty crime. An associate tells me he saw a news special on one of the Japanese-only TV networks that same weekend pinpointing an outbreak of similar crimes in the Kansai region. And it seems that no Japanese city-dweller in their right mind ever fails to lock their front door.

So now I lock my door as soon as I enter my apartment, and sequester my wallet in the back bedroom, by my computer, just to be sure. As they say, fool me once...

Not gonna happen.

All I can say is, good thing I didn't catch the sucker in the act.

Welcome to my Japan blog!
Mood:  chillin'
Now Playing: BOSSAS AND BALLADS by Stan Getz
Greetings from Japan!

Stay tuned for miscellaneous musings on the expat life.

Feel free to comment as you see fit.