First things first. Check out my new webpages.
        www.dons.net.au/~nevre

Learn all of the most important things
about Japan, this is seriously the best page I have seen, and the
funniest.
        http://www3.tky.3web.ne.jp/~edjacob/intro.htm
The Quirky Japan homepage

Alrighty, It has been a very long time since I wrote my last update. I
think that the main reason for this is that I haven.t had the energy,
seems like a strange thing, that it would take energy to write an update,
but there you have it. Since I returned from traveling with my parents I
have been quite sick, and in the last 2 months ranging from more sick to
very sick to now, finally, starting to get better. In this time it has
been very difficult for me to concentrate for any period of time so I have
mostly amused myself with the playing of games and reading and whatnot,
things which don.t require a great deal of effort.

The last few Mondays has seen me in the main city of Matsuyama visiting a
doctor there who can speak good English. The first week I had everything
checked, x-rays, saw a specialist, 5 vials of blood taken. I was there all
day! Between the doctor and the specialist they decided that my sickness
is the result of allergies. Apparently I have a good deal of inflammation
and damage to the soft tissues in my nasal passages as a result of this.
To let you know a little about how I have felt let me explain. Firstly, my
nose has, at nearly all times, been runny or blocked or just causing me
grief in some way or another. Secondly, I have been extremely tired all of
the time. Most nights I have slept for 10 hours or more, when I have been
worse I have been sleeping 12 or 14 hours a day, sometimes more. I have
been feeling extremely weak, drained and energyless and as a result have
done no exercise. Lastly, as I mentioned before, it has been very hard to
concentrate or think very hard about much of anything. So, the doc set me
up with allergy tablets, inflammation tablets, antibiotics (have had sore
throats and colds and things most of the time as well), a nose spray and a
throat gargle (they are big on gargling over here). Last week he took me
off the antibiotics. I explained to him that in Australia we have medical
certificates written by doctors which allowed someone to take time off
work as sick leave. I asked if I could have one for 1 or 2 days as I had
lost my voice and that made teaching hard. He asked if I thought that was
long enough and I said that I hoped so. I then asked how long he thought I
should have off. And then he dropped the bombshell. He said that he would
like give me and it would be best for me to take 2-3 months off work but
that it might make it hard to keep my job in Japan if he did so.
Interesting. Thankfully, haven taken these last few days off, relaxing and
resting. I am starting to feel a little better, and I should continue to
do so. Yay!  Finally.

So, enough of the fun stuff....what have I been up to over here?

The last really exciting thing that happened was that a friend of mine
from Brisbane who is now over here teaching English on the same program as
I am came and visited and we went camping at Nametoko (you can see some
pics on my webpage) and down on the beaches of Southern Shikoku in
Kochi-ken. There was a typhoon about so the waves were pretty awesome. One
minute you would be standing on dry sand, 5 seconds later you would be up
to your chest in water getting pushed and pulled all over the place. Quite
exhilarating, perhaps a little dangerous but just enough to be fun and not
serious.

Before that I spent a month traveling about with my parents and my cousin.
There are a bunch of pictures in different sections of my web site. We
traveled all around the southern isle of Kyushuu, around a good part of
Shikoku and then from Hiroshima up to Tokyo. Traveling around Japan really
was quite fun, I was surprised by how much there was to see and do. Most
of the best things came out of the book .Hitchhiking around Japan. and a
few good things from the Lonely Planet and Fodor guides. Some of the most
disappointing things are the ones most recommended and most visited by the
Japanese. It was stressful at times and we packed in a lot, most days we
were out and about for about 12 hours but overall it was great. It was
nice to be able to take my parents on a holiday for once instead of the
other way around. We saw so many shrines and temples that I don.t know if
I will ever need to see another one again! There are still a lot of
beautiful natural places left in Japan. We visited a number of pottery
villiages and paper making factories as well, they certainly do have some
excellent artwork over here. I ended up buying a bookmark which had beaten
gold sections and a indigo died scarf.

We stayed with a number of Japanese people along the way. I think it is
always good to get to meet the people of a country that you are traveling
in as you can understand a whole lot more about it. On Kyushuu we attended
a gathering of about 20 people, many of whom are planning a trip out to
Adelaide soon and wanted to know a bit more about it. I must say, in
general, the people of Japan are unfailingly hospitable and generous
(assuming they haven.t run away at the first sighting of you in case you
might have been about to speak English at them) and must believe that
Westerners eat about 10 times as much as they do! We also stayed with some
people who I had met through the JET program (Giselle and Jonathan in
Niihama, Kristyn in Kyoto) and some people in the JET directory. I had
found an amazingly cheap place in Tokyo and apart from one night spent in
a love hotel (there is quite a bit of info on these at
http://www3.tky.3web.ne.jp/~edjacob/intro.htm the Quirky Japan homepage.)
we camped or stayed with people all over the place. Camping in Japan is
pretty cheap or free and a great way to go!

Some other things that stick out in my mind * There is a temple in Kyoto
which has 1000 gold buddhas, all about person size, all different,
surrounding a really big gold Buddha and with lots of other intricate
Buddha statues in front. Amazing, though most people don.t seem to know
about it.
http://community.webshots.com/photo/17389542/17389907DBTbdiyOnk has a
picture of a postcard. Its called Sanjusangendo. * The a-bomb dome in
Hiroshima at night. * The a-bomb museum in Nagasaki. It is a mixture of
amazing and horrifying. * Driving around in a valley out behind Hiroshima
somewhere. * Going to the Ninja House in the mountains near Nagano. There
was a shuriken throwing range, a large gallery of pictures of Ninjas doing
their stuff, a bunch of their stuff, and a Ninja house full of secret
doors, tricks and whatnot. Great fun. We stayed with a JET I didn.t know
in Nagano, went along to the welcoming feast for the Newbie JETS in Nagano
and our host let us have her place all to ourselves. We stayed in the
Olympic village! Cool. * Aso-san was awesome. Check out the pictures on my
site. Even the camping ground was beautiful. * We ate a lot of convenience
store food, restaurant food and prepared supermarket food. It really is
easy to do this in Japan, and the food is generally good. They have great
coconut jelly as well. Some of us also tried raw horse (basashi). We ate
the regional specialty wherever possible. Okonomiyaki (like an egg
pancake) in Hiroshima (where they put bunches of noodles in it and cook it
different from down here) was pretty awesome.

Well, I am sure there is a bunch of other things I have forgotten.

A while back I went and saw Kodo, one of the biggest professional Taiko
(drumming) groups in Japan. It was amazing. At times it was so primal you
just wanted to get out of your chair and dance or go get some heads to
shrink and some hearts to eat to gain the power of your enemies! Other
times more relaxed. One moment saw two near naked mean beating furiously
on the big big drum, they must be amazingly fit. My favorite part of all
had about 8 guys sitting with small drums, playing so softly you could
hardly hear, doing all sort of things. At some times it sounded like there
was only one person playing, other times like rain, insects, like about
1000 people were playing, one one occasion it got steadily louder and
louder and louder until it was furious and then just suddenly
stopped.....................tap tap tap tap.taptaptap. Everyone loved the
performance. Go see some Taiko if you can, somewhere, anywhere!

I now have internet access at home. Beautiful. Being able to chat with
friends online and having something to keep me occupied has kept me sane
these last few weeks.

Of course, undokai (sports day) and various town festivals have rolled
around again. This year I spent one day a weekend at a sports day for 3
weeks in a row.

And an amusing story to finish off...I think I have hit the ultimate low
in terms of dating. In fact, I can.t recall anyone, ever, getting this far
down the charts before! To cut a long story short, I managed to not be
able to get together with someone who wanted to go out with me! Impressive
eh? The only way is up right?

Well, that.s about it for now.

I hope that you are all well, sorry if you haven.t heard from me in a
while. Please write and let me know what you have been up to.