Blog about Yoo, but me

Last week went quite fast. AGAIN! Well I guess things are starting to pick up at work again. So time seems to going fast.

We played mini volleyball again. I had a lot of fun. Good laughs. There were 7 of us. So it means more running around. I actually like smaller numbers. Less people = more work.

Hoshimura-san is leaving next week. She’s on the same team as me at work. It’s too bad she’s leaving. I guess things are really slow at the office. Not much work to be done. However, I’ll probably see here at volleyball.

Saturday, I played ping-pong with Ryu-san, Ueno-san, and Urushibata-san. I had a lot of fun. Haven’t played in a while. But it seems like I haven’t lost any of my skills. We later went to Ryu-san’s place to have dinner and to drink. Hwajin noona made some delicious food. I was really really full after. We also drank makurlee (Korean rice wine). It wasn’t too bad. Also, Asakasa-san and his son joined us. We had a good time playing the Wii. Good times.

Today, I went to a different church. I went with Noriko and the Australian couple, Gina & ___ (can’t believe I forgot his name). Anyways, it was about a 20 minute drive to the church. But on our way to the church the roads were so beautiful. I mean we were driving along the coast. It was beautiful. The church was very nice. Nice small church. The interesting part was that there were a portion of people that were deaf. I think everyone knew how to do sign language. It was awesome to see. Also, the sermon was done in Japanese but the we had these fm receivers where someone was translating in English for us. They also served us lunch. Tortillas! So good.

I ordered a new pair of headphones. An early birthday present to myself. Audio Technica ATH-AD700. They are super comfortable. I tried them at Bic Camera. I should be getting them in a few days.

Got to decide this week if I’m going to Korea or not after I’m done here. It’s most likely that I won’t be going. I’ll probably just spend a few days in Japan then head back home. Money is a factor. =(

February has come and gone. I would say it was a good month. A lazy but relaxing month. I got to go to Hokkaido and watch the winter Olympics on TV. What more can you ask? But it’s March already. I’m happy that is though. This means spring is coming! Well it’s been here for a while in Kagoshima. Plus 3 more months left till I go back.

Last Friday it rained all day. I left my umbrella on my bicycle, as I forget sometimes. And rarely does it get stolen. However, I had a bad feeling about leaving my umbrella the night before. I knew it! It was gone! Bah!! I had to get to work anyways. It was pouring quite hard. I stopped by a conbini and bought a cheap umbrella. I was still quite wet. Whatever, it’s all good.

Saturday, I went to my supervisor’s place, Goto-san. He invited Ito-san, Ito-san’s girlfriend, and myself. I had a good time. We talked and had lunch. It felt more like a huge dinner. We had kimchi nabe. Yum. And other stuff. I was really full after that.

Sunday, went to church as usual. Not much going on but I felt at peace. Later, I didn’t do much except watch Lost all day. LOL.

Lost is so good so far. I’m on the 3rd season after a week. Crazy! I know I know but it’s addicting. I didn’t know these shows were so good. My next show will probably be Prison Break.

Also, the Olympics are done. As much as I wanted to watch the Olympics, Japanese coverage of the Olympics is terrible. Well I can see why but I didn’t get to see that many events. Also, the time difference really doesn’t help. However, I woke up early to watch the Canada vs USA Men’s Gold medal hockey game. Even though it wasn’t playing on TV, Internet had it. Anyways, great game! Oh Canada!

And what else is on my mind? ………. Starcraft 2.

The weather is getting nicer! It’s hitting the 20’s during the day and mid 10’s at night. Perfect weather.

I’m watching the LOST season. I must say that I like it so far. I’ve only watched 4 episodes but so far so good. I’m liking the Korean actor/actress. I can understand everything. hehe

As I mentioned in my last post, I’ll be moving to Toronto in the end of May. I finish here in Japan on the 21st of May. I think it would be a good idea to get back before we move. At first, I had planned to go to Korea for at least 2 weeks. But I may have to change that. I may just do a bit of travelling in Japan then head back home after a few days. I’ve already done quite a bit of travelling in Japan. I’ve been to Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, Nara, & Sapporo. I still want to go to Fukuoka, Hiroshima/Nagasaki, Yakushima (small island), and possibly Okinawa. So, I could do those after I’m done working.

I’ve got to decide soon because I have to book my ticket back to Canada. And I can only change it once. Any suggestions?

PS. Cheering for Canada, Korea, and Japan (in that order).

A bit late on the update but here’s how my Hokkaido trip went…

Well it first started with me waking up at 5:30am to catch the bus to Kagoshima airport with Urishibata-san and Kamada-san. Our flight was at 8am to Haneda airport. We slept on the plane to catch up on our sleep.

We arrived in Tokyo and had to change to terminals. Our flight to Sapporo was at 10:45am. Not a long flight. About 2 hours. Slept again. So tired.

Finally arrived in New Chitose airport. It was cold. But a good cold. Like Canada cold. We had to make our way over to Sapporo by train. About a 30 minute train ride. We arrived and put our stuff in lockers so that we could explore Sapporo.

Sapporo is a nice city. Well nothing special really. There were a lot of people because of the Yuki Matsuri (Snow Festival). But before that we had some Ramen. Sapporo Ramen! It was good. I love ramen.

We headed over to where the Yuki Matsuri was. We met up with Kamada-san’s friends. I forgot their names. Anyways, the Yuki Matsuri was pretty cool. They had lots of snow/ice sculptures, food stands, and what not. Other then being really cold, I really enjoyed it.

We headed back to the station to meet with Phyliss. She’s another intern from UofT working in Nagano. While she checked out the festival we ate dinner. Nothing special, just some Japanese curry.

We had to catch the train that was bound for Niseko. A relaxing ride. By then it was all dark so couldn’t see outside. However, we could see that it was snowing as we got closer to Niseko.

We finally arrived. Snow EVERYWHERE. It was overwhelming. I mean too much of it. So happy. We took the shuttle bus to Niseko and to our accommodations at Grandpapa pension. We all met Jacob and his coworkers, Yamamoto-san and Ijiri-san. It was late. We decided on a place to eat for tomorrow’s dinner and headed to bed.

Next morning, had breakfast. It wasn’t too bad. Toast, cereal, eggs, and bacon. Myself, Phyliss, and Urishi-san need rentals. We had ski hire pick us up. We got our rentals and they took us to the hills. Oh and they brought back our shoes to our pension for us. That saved us the trouble because it’s a bit of a distance from our pension to the mountain. Otherwise, great service I must say.

Anyways, from then on it was just pure snowboarding. Powder and more powder! We did some backcountry and tree runs too. That’s where all the powder was at. Like snow up to my waist. Crazy! The regular runs were good too. Just too many mini moguls. Well it’s hard to go too much in detail about the snowboarding part but all I can say it was awesome the first day.

After boarding for so long we were all tired. Well I was. We headed back to our pension and to an onsen right by our place. Ah!! The onsen was so nice after a long day of snowboarding. Later we had some seafood dinner. Crabs, oysters, shrimp, etc. So good. We were all exhausted by the end of the day. But we still had another day ahead of us.

Next day, again amazing! The conditions were awesome. It hadn’t snowed the night before but the skies were clear. So we could see the mountains of Hokkaido quite clearly. What a view. Snowboarding was awesome as usual. My legs were aching but we kept going. We snowboarded till 7pm. So exhausted. So onsen again and seafood again. I had seafood hotpot, and some sushi. Awesome. We played some darts and fooseball. Then called it a night.

Next day, we had to head back. We had a long day ahead of us. Bus to New Chitose airport, plane to Haneda, plane to Kagoshima, bus to Kagoshima Chuo Station, and walk/taxi to home. So ya, it was long and tiring. Not to mention, our flight was delayed at New Chitose so missed our flight at Haneda to Kagoshima. Being how amazing the customer service is in Japan. No worries, we got on the next flight at no charge. It would have 40,000yen ($450).

Overall, the trip was awesome. The snowboarding was awesome, the food was awesome, therefore Hokkaido awesome. I would definetly go back again.

Next time, I want to do more backcountry. Maybe even back in Canada I can do that. Anyone want to join me?

Other than Hokkaido, there’s other stuff going on too.

I found out I’m moving back to Markham (well Thornhill) by the time I get back. That’s good. Closer to Toronto! A lot of renovation has to be done though. So looking forward to that. And I’ve been looking to build a Home Theatre PC and a unRaid NAS server. Lots to do.

I also have been eating too much. Gained some weight. Need to workout hard this week.

A Bic Camera opened in Amu Plaza. Awesome. Lots of electronics to be had! Lots of people on the grand opening and on the weekend. A lot of new stores as well. So I’m happy.

Also, I should mention that Junior is leaving today. He’s going back to Australia. Gonna miss the big guy. It was good chilling with him. Some food, karoke, randomness. Fun to be had.

Played mini volleyball and some softball. Love playing sports.

I had to read some Bible verses in Japanese in front of the church congregation today. I was a bit nervous. I’m sure I made a lot of mistakes. But it was a good experience.

Anyways, that’s all for now.

I’ve been reading more on cameras. I’m thinking about getting a DSLR when I get back to Canada. Well that is if I have the funds, which I doubt I will. So, most likely have to get one when school is done and I have a job.

Actually there are 3 things I want to get for myself when I get a job.

1. A DSLR – I want to to start doing photography as a hobby. I’ve been looking at different photos from different people and it’s just stunning to see. I want to do that too. I know a lot of people are getting into amateur photography. Why not? I mean it’s relatively affordable and widely available. Camera companies must be making a killing right now. I also want to take some pictures for my mom. She arranges flowers every week for the church. I think it would be a great way to see how beautiful she arranges those flowers. (Sort of an excuse to get one. haha)

2. A road bike – To mainly stay in shape. I’ve been doing a lot of biking when I started school. I mentioned this in a previous post before and I’m determined to get one still. I think it’s a great way to stay in shape too. I picked up running but I realized that it’s not good on my knees and riding a bike has a lesser impact on the knees. I’ll still run but not heavily. In the future, I want to do a triathalon as well. So I need more experience in riding. Next will be swimming.

3. A motorcycle – Oh how I miss thy bike. I rode for 2 years until I started school and had to sell the bike, ie. no money for the high insurance, gas, etc. I miss the feeling of freedom. Where your body is open to the fresh air. Instead of being trapped in a cage (car). It’s a great feeling. It’s hard to describe. It’s something you have to experience to see what I’m saying.

I should be set with those things. They are just things but I want em. lol

But before all that…

Off to the land of Hokkaido powder where we get to play on the mountains. With waist deep snow that we can literally swim in. I’m looking forward to the heaps of snow but not looking forward to the cold. Especially living in +15 degree weather for the past month is a huge change to be in -10 degree weather. I’m also looking forward to the food. Apparantly Hokkaido has very good seafood. Yum. My flight is early. 8am! Which means I have to wake up at 5:30 and take the bus by 6:15 to the airport. I’ll be in Tokyo at 10am and Sapporo by 12:30. I’ll update my trip when i get back. Excited!!

PS. 100 days left in Japan.

A good week I must say.

I’ve been going to the gym almost everyday. Working out as much as I can. It’s one thing that keeps me sane.

Thursday, I was going to go to Japanese class with Junior. But his leg is messed up. So instead he said he’d go to a Bible study. I haven’t had Bible study in a long time so I decided to join him. It was refreshing. I met some new people. An Australian couple that have been here for a few months  and Ineko-san and her kids. I had a good time playing with the kids. Anyways, we talked about the story of Lazarus. Where Jesus’ wept. It really shows how Jesus was a human too. I won’t go into much detail. So ya.

Friday, we played some volleyball after work. It was a lot of fun. We had enough people for 2 courts. It was good times. Saturday, played futsal again. Good times again. After futsal, I went to Kamada-san’s place to go over the last details for the Hokkaido trip. We played some Mario Kart Wii. That was fun.

Today, I went to this Udon Soba place somewhere in the mountains. It’s about a 40min drive from Kagoshima City. And it was Ryu-san’s first time driving a distance. He just got his license so we decided to go there. The restaurant is quite famous. The food is the real stuff. And the place is like an old Japanese style place. With sliding doors and tatami mats. It was an awesome. The food was awesome too. There’s nothing like real Japanese Udon. After we went to the batting cages. And later headed home.

I recently ran out of food. I mean the food I brought from Korea. My aunt made all this spicy pork for me. But I finished it all. So now I have to start cooking again. Bah! Sall good, I don’t mind.

Hokkaido Thursday!!!

Updating for the sake of updating…

Last week was another week. Yesterday was another day. So not really much has changed. Well, Friday went to Seika gym. I worked out my legs. But later Ryu-san, HwaJin Noona, and I decided to join a class. It was a body combat class. So lots of kicking and punching. Reminded me of Taekwondo. So It was fun. Saturday, played some futsal! Fun it was too. I watched too many movies on the weekend.

Bah, this post is boring. Whatever! At least I’m looking forward to Hokkaido!! Niseko!!!! The land of powder!! Ya baby!

Anyways, been doing more thinking about life after this. I know the potential. The possibilities. But I’m worried. I’m worried about the choice that I could make. It may be a foolish. I’m still wondering and day dreaming. And that’s all I’m doing. Thinking without actions. I will admit that I am scared. I have many obligations or even personal plans. Is it a good idea to drop all that? I mean what if I never get back on my feet. The next 5-10 years are important. I can’t be stupid. Anyways, for now I’ll let it be. You probably have no idea what I’m talking about. And that’s the point. You’ll never know. lol

Last week I started up my workouts because I rested all week last week. My legs felt good and I was ready to get back in shape. I also was looking for different exercises. I’ve done the P90x before and I still incorporate many of the exercises in my routine. I also found about Shaun T’s Insanity. I haven’t watched the videos yet. But I heard it’s pretty crazy. For now, I’ll be doing random exercises to get my body going again.

I went to Japanese lessons on Thursday. I met up with Junior at Temonkan. We walked over to the international centre. The class was a lot smaller then before. And only 5 lessons. Before we had 2 seperate classes, beginner and advanced, and had 15 lessons. I guess there aren’t as many students so they combined the class. It was more of a discussion with everyone. I miss the first lesson last week so everyone already introduced themselves. We also talked about the earthquake in Haiti. They call it jishin. Anyways, they were saying how Japan gets earthquakes all the time. I experienced my first one a couple of months ago. But today, I felt another earthquake. They were two seperate ones and lasted for a few seconds. This was when I was working. So it was quite scary. Anyways, we also wrote our own haiku’s. The teacher actually specializes and teaches haiku’s at a school. So he taught us the rules and what not. I’ve done them before back when I was a kid. But never in Japanese. This is how it goes.

ともだちや
たくさんのゆき
コートきる

Which says,

Friend
Lots of snow
Wear a coat

Well, I hope you enjoyed that. Some of the other foreigners had some deep haiku’s. Even the teachers thought was very deep in thought.

Friday, we had a farewell party for Yamanaka-san. We went to some restaurant after work. The food was okay. At least the drinks were free. Well I had one beer. That’s all I needed. We later went to a second bar with half the people. We talked, laughed, and took pictures. It was good times. It was getting late and I decided to head home. Some of the other guys were onto their 3rd stop. Probably a fourth too. Anyways, I called it a night. I still had fun.

The weekend was okay. I worked out, watched a good amount of movies, and went to church. We had curry at church and it was goood. But I found out I have to read a bible passage in front of the congregation next month. It’s Romans 10:8-13. I’m a bit nervous but at least I have some time to practice. I borrowed one of the Japanese bibles and everything is written up to down and right to left. lol. I’m not used to that.

Well for now, back to listening to more Regina Spektor and Adele.

Today I thought I would write about something different. Taking a break from writing about Japan.

Well sometimes I think to myself what it would be like 10 years from now. But let me tell you what it was like 10 years ago.

I am in highschool then. I’m beginning to settle with the new friends I’ve made. My marks are slowly dropping as all you want to do is have fun. In my last year of high school, things are good. You have your friends established. Everyone knows you. Life is good. But you realize you have to focus on your marks for university. Well for me, I still half-assed it. I still got above average marks in most of my classes. However, due to my laziness, all I wanted to do was finish school and start working. So I decided to go to college despite getting accepted to most of the universities I applied to. All I wanted to do is make money so I could buy myself a motorcycle. lol.

Well I’m in college now. Most of my friends are in university. At first, I didn’t care. All I was thinking about was the $$ I would be making after I graduate. College felt like high school again. And what made things worse was the lack of girls. “Whatever!” I thought.

So after graduating, I had trouble finding a decent job. I had a good GPA but had little to no experience. I eventually got a job. A below average paying job. Thinking, “Wow! What a waste of time and money going to college to get such a sh!tty job. However, I was still happy that I got my first real job.

I finally bought the motorcycle I always wanted. Most of my friends are still in university while I’m working. So I was having fun with the motorcycle. But at the same time, I was still lonely. We moved to Burlington to make things worse. I was far from all my friends.

I eventually got layed off after working 6 months. Life got pretty stale from then on. I was living off EI and basically took a good 3/4 months off. Well it wasn’t so bad. I was getting paid to do nothing. lol. At that point, I told myself I was going to go back to school. I applied but found out I was too late in registration. And I couldn’t start school in January. I had to wait till next September if I got in. I wish I had a applied earlier. I applied anyways.

At that point, I wasn’t sure if I would get accepted or not. So I decided I would find another job. I still didn’t have much experience but I found one company that would take me. It was very low paying job. I didn’t care. I just wanted to work. I had to travel around Ontario. Like Toronto, Niagara Falls, Barrie, Belleville, etc. I really enjoyed it. It really put me of my comfort zone. I had always talk with people. So it was an awesome experience.

During that time, I also got an early acceptance to the University of Toronto for Computer Science. I was super excited. As crazy as it may sound, I was looking forward to going back to school.

School was soon to start so I had to quit my job. Unfortunately, I had to sell to sell the motorcycle. It was sad moment. But hopefully, I’ll buy another. It was first year and I was older than everyone. It felt awkward at first but I fit in just fine. I met new people from my classes and also at KCF. It was a good year. Everything was new. Things were starting to pick up again. Why didn’t I go to university first? I ask myself this all the time.

2nd year was a breeze. Well not really. Failed my first course in my entire educational life. It was a depressing moment. However, I moved on. That wasn’t going to stop me from moving forward. 3rd year was better. I was enjoying a lot of the classes I was taking. They were difficult but I enjoyed the challenge. I also had PEY applications, resumes, interviews also to worry about. I was keen on going to Japan to work. I wanted a challenge and prayed really hard for this job. Well, thankfully, I got the job. I was not expecting it at all. I guess the college and the work experience paid off in the end.

So here I am in Japan. Doing an internship with Epson. I’m half way done and it feels unreal at times. I know I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t go through all of what I went through. It was long journey thus far. I look back and I have no regrets. Well maybe a few but I’m thankful for where I am.

The next 10 years of my life will be exciting. I know it. I look forward to so many things. I’ll be finishing up school, starting up my career, buying another motorcycle, and of course finding a girlfriend. lol. It will be exciting times. Not only for me but for all my friends too. I’ll probably be going to a lot of weddings and seeing a lot babies. It’s a new chapter in life and I am excited. Are you?

The past few days the weather has been amazing. We have been getting +10 degree weather. We hit about 17 degrees today. It was so nice. I’m already ready for the summer. But not until I go to Hokkaido.

This past week, I’ve been resting up after the marathon. It took about 3-4 days to full recover . I thought it would be a lot worse. I also went to the Seiko sports gym a couple of times to stretch and go on the massage chair. Feels great. I was talking to one of the employees that ran the marathon as well. She asked me the time I finished. I told her my time. I asked what she did. She finished in 4 hrs 20 mins. WOW. I was very impressed. My time felt embarrassing. After that moment, I thought to myself I should run again and try to get the 4-5 hr mark. I know I should be able to with some training. I won’t be doing another marathon anytime soon but I plan to do another. The next one will be a half-marathon. Hopefully. Right Yury? Well the next 2-3 months I’m going to be working out again. And after that, I’ll be training on my running again. It’s going to be a tiring next few months.

On Saturday, we had a futsal (indoor soccer) tournament. The bad thing was it started at 9am. BAH! So early. Whatever, I woke up in time and Wada-san picked me and Urishibata -san up. We headed over to the dome and warmed up. Our first game was against the past tournament winners. It was a good game. Because we WON! I wasn’t surprised. We had a good team and we were a lot more organized. Our next game, we also won! Yaaa!! We were #1 in our division. Well only 3 teams in our division. Our next game was the semi’s. So if we win this, we would go to the finals. Right at the last second of the first half, the other team scores. The next half, we tie it up!! I was so happy. I sat off because one of our star players was sitting out. So I substituted for him. With 10 seconds remaining, all we had to do is keep it out of our net. But that didn’t happen. They score at the last second. AGAIN! We lost. It was heart breaking. We played for the 3rd place spot. We won! Ya, it wasn’t first place. It was 3rd. Whatever. We grabbed some Ramen and headed home. It was my brother’s birthday yesterday. Well today on his time. So I talked to him on MSN. He seems happy and he says he feels no different at the age of 30. Dang he’s 30. I’ll be there soon.

On Sunday, I went to church. It’s been a while. I haven’t seen the church members in a long time. Well, Ishiguro-san being the nice person she is, helped me with the Japanese sermon. After, I gave gifts to the church. It was seaweed. Japanese love their seaweed. I had to go. Noriko wanted to meet up with Janet and his brother. She picked me up and we picked up Janet’s brother, Junior. Big guy. He’s from Australia. But doesn’t really look Australian. He’s a cool guy. He’s here for 3 months on vacation. Her sister Janet was still asleep so we just left. We also picked up Noriko’s friend Yuka. She had a night shift so she was super tired and out of it the whole time. It was quite amusing. We grabbed some lunch at an Indian restaurant. Good stuff. Then we headed over to Starbucks and just chilled and talked. It was good talking to them. Junior is learning some Japanese. So we decided to go to Japanese class this Thursday. That’ll be interesting.

Well this week is back to work. Work is work. But I’m looking forward to the Hokkaido trip. That’s all I’m really thinking about. Well I was talking to my mom the other day and she mentioned living in Korea. I thought about it. I would consider it. I’m not sure long term. But maybe short term. Like a few years. But ya, living in Japan has made me realize that it’s possible to live anywhere. I’m sure it would be a lot easier living in Korea or anywhere other than Toronto. Preferably, somewhere where English is the first language. But Korea would work too. So, at least I can do it if I had to.

Anyways, this Friday there is a farewell party for Yamanaka-san. He’s been at Epson for 10 years. I guess his contract is over and he’s moving on to another company. So I’ll be enjoying a night of good food and drunken coworkers. That’s going to leave a dent in my wallet.

Well back to life in Japan…

PS. I’m loving Regina Spektor. She has beautiful music. So different and unique. My type of my music.