recent news
what have i been up to recently...
after finally getting a few free weekends to relax, it back to being busy busy busy again.
since i last wrote on the 19th, i have been riding a bit. I bought some new brakes for my bike. About time too. I dont know how mant thousands of km i had done since i bought the bike in oct last year. But they were very very worn down and probably dangerous. Now i am all ready to ride some huge ride.
I did ride down to the beach and then to the shopping centre that weekend. And then the weekend after i rode a big 50km circut around mito and the surrounding cities. Riding along the country roads is very relaxing, but the large roads have way too many trucks on them for me. I think next time i will stick to country roads again.
On the 22nd we had a big party at one of the JETs houses which ran into the next day. Luckily it was another one of those great public holidays japan loves. I am sure there is at least 1 or 2 a month. The next day a got a lift home with a friend and we decided to go shopping at the new Jusco shopping centre again for christmas presents. I am having no luck at all this year finding anything. And i will have to soon or they wont arrive in the post in time...
This just passed weekend i went into Tokyo on the sunday to meet up with Tom. He had been in Kochi Prefecture, about a 2 hour flight down south working and was coming back to Tokyo to work there for this week. HE wasnt coming till the evening so i spent the day at Design Festa, a big arty kind of show at Odaiba Big Sight. Two of the JETs in Ibaraki were having stalls there so i checked them out. All i bought was a few post cards though and i am sure i will never get around to sending them..
So sunday night was in Tokyo, then monday was the first day of the CIR conference in Chiba. Spend the morning shopping in Ginza with Tom and then got on the train to Makuhari where the conference was being held. I had spend a lot of time in Makuhari in 2003 cause it was where the Tokyo Motor show was held.
The conference was a bit of a waste of time, 3 days of seminars about pretty obvious things. But i got to meet up with lots of other CIRS and stay in a nice hotel (the Prince Hotel). I even met up with an ex-swinny student who was 3 years above me (any one remember Jason?). And also i met someone who was a Rotary exchange student from Melbourne to Saitama 3 years before me.
Tuesday night and wednesday night i went back into Tokyo to have dinner with Tom. First time in a while i have seen him 3 days in a week. Next week he is coming back to Mito though. But the week after is Okinawa. Luckily i am going to go to Okinawa too, but just for the weekend. My office owes me so many days in lieu for weekend and evening work so i can justify taking the friday off. Maybe i will be able to find those christmas presents i need to buy there. I am planning on spending one of the days learning to scuba dive though.. And i will not spend any of the time watching the golf!
So back at work now. But this weekend i will go back into Tokyo to watch the golf on sunday (i know i said i wouldnt go to watch it again, but they have a good chance of winning this week) and have dinner with one of Toms friends on sunday night in Roppongi. Gosh i do some kms for this boy! Oh well, he did come all the way to japan to be with me so i have a couple of thousand kms to catch up on :)
