Sunday, November 2, 2008

Japan

Alright... So, I've been in Japan for a bit now, I've worked a few gigs, and I've eaten some GREAT food.

I've taken a number of pictures and I have them all on my camera to download, but this computer isn't working with me too well. So, as soon as I can figure out what is not working correctly, I'll have them up and posted for you to see.

My Haloween gig was a lot of fun, but I was COMPLETELY out of balloons. I had placed an order way before, but there were complications and I did not get balloons until today. (It's past Halloween in case you didn't already know.)

So, I had NO: Orange, Yellow, Green, Mocha, Lime, Dark Blue
And I was VERY low on: Red, Orange, Black, Clear, White

The only colors I really had were: ALL my blues (Blue monkey anyone??) and I had some Purple Violet

So, yeah... That made halloween a little difficult to say the least.

Just the same... Even though I didn't get the balloons in time, Steve from LP Balloons was VERY helpful in doing anything and everything he could to fix the problem once he discovered that there was an issue with my order. So, for that I'm very thankful.

And I also have a HUGE box of balloons that I can't take back on the plane with me...lol, so I'm going to do everything I can in order to use them all up while I'm here... So, hello street busking! I'm totally going to a few different places accross the island so that I can twist for the locals. I can't wait to try out what little Japanese I know and I can't wait for the chance to learn more.

Speaking of Japanese...
I can totally read Hiragana, most of Katakana (the alphabet), and I can understand about 20-30 Kanji (the chinese-looking symbols that stand for complete thoughts and phrases). There are VERY FEW that I actually know how to "read," but I can interpret a number of their meanings...

I can understand Kanji for: fire estinghisher, days of the week, numbers, man, woman, bathroom, tool, stop, enter, exit, sake, power, king, Okinawa, tree, big, water, ice, and a few others...

I'm also learning to say things too:
I can say hello, here (as in, here, this is for you or here, please take this), thank you, your welcome, goodbye, most of the numbers, and I'm going to next be working on all the colors and animals (for balloons)

Of the week or so I've been here, I've mostly been working on learning the alphabet. So, that is hard enough and has kept me plenty busy. I definately had a breakthrough once I started using flash cards. So, that helped.

Well, that's an update on my Japanese and the balloon stuffs.

On a more personal note, I miss everyone back home. I LOVE japan and the culture here, but I kinda wish I could be back home every now and again too. So, that's made life here kinda difficult sometimes.

Other than that though, life is great. ;-)