birthday/golden week

yesterday was my birthday. i'm a big 27 now. didn't do much to celebrate because I started my new part-time job at waseda yesterday and taugh my lab class. I've been pretty sick for the past week, so I didn't really feel like going out anyway. However, the lab surprised me afterwards with a little awamori(okinawan liquor), beer, and sweets. They also gave me a really cute card and a hanko(a japanese stamp used for signatures) that is pronounced zakku. The kanji mean something sort of bad, but they all thought that made it much funnier. I was really happy. I also got some presents from other random sources. Naoko, one of my private students, gave me this weird brown spongy stuff filled with anko(red bean paste). really delicious. She also helped me find some cough medicine after our lesson. They gave me a bottle with some codeine in it(which is legal over the counter). I thought it would be super strong, but it didn't really do much for my cough. Tasted like maple syrup though, which i say is a plus.

Over golden week, i did a bunch of drinking with chris, hung out with meaghan, went out with yuki, and went to irozaki( at the bottom of izu). i decided to go cheap and take the local trains, so what could have been a 100 dollar 2 hour journey was a 60 dollar 5 hour journey down to the see. It was absolutely beautiful there. I hiked around the mountains for about two hours, found a weird abandoned jungle park, went back for one more glance at the ocean(which is a bizarre shade of dark blue, but beautiful). I took some pics. Don't hold your breath ;)

Tomorrow is band practice - we're auditioning a singer - i'll write more on that later. now i have to write a thank you note to hiroshi et al at the lab.