Category: Entries with Images

This was my attempt to sing Journey’s Separate Ways. I can’t even begin to describe how bad it was. The other song I was coerced into singing is far too embarrassing to name. (It was a Disney duet.)

The evening of karaoke was last week, when a group of teachers from my school went out after work for drinks and pub food. We had a small, private room with a karaoke setup. The head teacher took this photo with her mobile phone. The other guy in the picture is Jason, one of the other two foreign teachers at the school. He was trying to provide backup.

Went to a club tonight for a night of DJs and bands. It was a small hole-in-the-wall, like so many local clubs. Cover charge was ¥1500 (about $12), and included one drink, which the bartender made into a quadruple. As he was pouring, he lost his balance and fell, luckily, onto the chair behind the small bar. Exuberance or inebriation? It was hard to tell.

Today is one of those days when I unhappily realize I’ve been working for the past five months at a job where I have to wear a suit and tie.

Five days a week I tuck in a starched shirt and tie that silly strip of cloth around my neck. And I actually leave the apartment wearing this get-up.

Suits are for special occasions and death (someone else’s, not one’s own — don’t put one on me when I go), not for everyday wear. And when I realize how normal it’s become for me to don this garb every morning, I’m slightly horrified.

It’s a bit of a stretch to call either of these food; they belong more in the “probably-not-necessary-sustenance” category. But somehow I’ve gotten hooked, especially on the protein supplement shown on the left above.

I’ve been worrying about getting enough protein. I’m not really eating any meat or chicken, so my protein intake comes mostly from fish and beans (not a bad thing, I’m just concerned that I’m not getting enough). So one day last summer before going swimming, I tried the Protein In Body Make (or whatever it’s called). To say it’s strange is putting it mildly. The container is soft with a built-in straw, through which you suck the “liquid” protein. The texture is a mixture of not-quite-jelled Jell-O and tapioca pudding. Yum!
The Amino Supli is a Gatorade-style drink — basically lightly sweetened water. And it includes 1000mg of eight essential amino acids. Wow! It’s much better than one of it’s competitors, the tantalizingly-named “Pocari Sweat.”

I had an amazing two days in the Northern Alps. I’d planned to stay for two nights and three days, but the forecast called for rain Sunday night and Monday, so I returned a day early. And sure enough, as I write this (Sunday evening), it’s just started to rain here in Nagano.

I’ve posted pictures from the trip — lots of beautiful fall colors starting to emerge in the mountains.

I left early Saturday morning, catching an 8:30 bus from Nagano station for the hour and a half trip to Ougisawa. The weather was perfect.

Continue reading “Two Days in the Mountains” →