Phew, I'm glad that's over with

It looks like I have my financial situation under control again. I only have to pay $1,286 instead of $1,686 because I read the bill wrong (they were giving me back $400, not charging me. How nice). The 400 dollar difference is from my dental bill (back in May, WTF?). I guess the insurance company finally agreed to pay the rest of it (thank god, even though I was told that it was all good and taken care of). So my stress level and risk of early heart attack have decreased substantially. Unfortunately I still don't think I'm going to be able to make my little southeast Asia tour this year. Yet, with a little luck maybe I can tour Japan a little bit more before I go home. Thailand isn't going anywhere anyways (I hope) and i'll be back to Japan before I know it and will be able to hop on over there easily.

In other related news, I had an interview today with a little English teaching company called Lilly English Salon. It's owned by this woman who opened a Chinese school (called Lily Chinese Salon) five years ago and decided just last year that she wanted an English school as well. She named the schools after her daughters (Ai-li and something else-li). I guess she lived in Beijin and used to work for a car parts export company before opening her Chinese school and she's fluent in Chinese (pretty badass). She also co-owns a business with her husband (watch making) and she runs a blog site as well; AND has two young children. Wow, that's what I call a career woman! Anyway, we had our interview and she pretty much hired me on the spot to teach on Thursdays. Her last Thursday teacher had to return home because of visa problems but will be back at the end of July when I go home so it works out perfectly! It looks like i'll be teaching an older lady 9who teaches some sort of crafts at a craft school and wants to learn English for some reason), as well as little kids from the ages 5-12 (well, this will be interesting indeed). She also wants me to tutor her as well, but mainly correcting her blog site (she runs it in English). There's no dress code so that's a huge relief ( I own no suits). I went and bought this nice, cheap pin skirt and top for the interview but when I asked her she was like "no, you can wear whatever, it doesn't matter!" so, hurray for that.

To make the day even better, I got a call from Gaba (the big English teaching corporation that my friend works for and that I was hoping would contact me) wanting to set up an interview for this Friday! Unfortunately, I know for a fact that they have a dress code so if I get the job I'll have to drop some money on a couple nice suit-like outfits (sigh, i'll be turned into a suit wearing monkey). Gaba pays bank though and reimburses for the commute so I'll put up with it. Lily also reimburses so that's cool as well. The only reason why I wouldn't get this job is the contract. They contract for 6 months and I'll be short a couple days but the nice lady on the phone today said that it shouldn't matter so long as I work all the way up to the time I leave. FINGERS CROSSED!
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Unrelated stories.

The lovely Aori

Went and hung out with this guy that I met randomly in Shibuya a few weeks ago. He seemed cool enough when I talked with him so I thought, why not? I could use some more friends.Yet, what I thought was just going to be casual hanging out turned out to be a date. And an awkward one at that. This guy is so completely desperate for a white girlfriend it's kind of sad really. I guess he was engaged to this girl from Sweden but they broke up in July after only knowing each other for ten months (great, i'm a rebound). I don't know how many times I said that I didn't want/need a boyfriend that night but for some reason in his mind that meant "I wanna be your girlfriend". He even bought me a Xmas present! Really? We talked for maybe 10 minutes on the street like, three weeks ago! Sigh...needless to say I ditched his ass for some more agreeable company. The story of the ditching is one worth telling though so please, follow me.

screw you creepy guys!!! 

After going to dinner (and him paying for everything) we went to a bar and the whole time I was desperately trying to figure out a way to get ride of him. Eventually, I texted my friend Micah and asked for some advise on how to ditch a guy. Said friend did more than give me advise though, he came and saved my ass. Well, he didn't actually come, I had to go meet him at the station. As an excuse to leave, I told this guy that my friends were really drunk (which they were, hence the enthusiasm in which he said that they'd come save me) and needed my help so I had to go meet them at the station. He seemed sad, but determined not to let me go so easily. He offered to walk me back to the station and on the way there he grabbed my hand (uugh) and asked if it was okay to date me (ahhhhhh!!!) in which I replied "umm...how about we just slow down and maybe hang out a bit first?". I'm afraid that mis-translated again and in his mind I said "yes, I would love to date you" because he didn't seem the least put out and tried to get me to kiss him on the cheek goodbye in which case I was like "I'll give you a hug instead....".

Aori and Yusuke (one of my heroes!)

He left, and I waited for my rescue team to show up. About three minutes passed and this fool comes back! No, i'm fine. My friend isn't here yet (where the f*ck are you!?). Yeah sure, it's okay if you wait with me, why the hell not (starts texting friend desperately). Then I see my friend Yusuke run by (part of Micah's rescue team) and I yell out excitedly and chase after him, leaving said loser behind without even the slightest look back. What a nightmare.

Masaru

However the night ended on a good note with drinking and Karaoke with Micah, Yusuke, Aori (Yusuke's GF) and Masaru (Yusuke's older brother). This team of rascals are really a crazy bunch and know how to have a good time (even if they do get a little bit out of control sometimes in which case Aori runs as far away from them as possible out of embarrassment, poor girl). It seems I missed the bulk of the excitement when I went home early though. Seems some guy on the train, instead of asking my rowdy friends to quiet down, attacked with fists a-blazing. Luckily, Yusuke and his bro are complete badass gangster brothers and were able to subdue this guy before anyone got hurt. What an exciting evening!

You tell them Micah!

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Natsuyo

Yesterday was a planned day to hang out with three girls that I met back in Portland. One of them, Natsuyo, has already made an appearance on this blog and the other two were Fumika and Yumiko. Fumi and Yumi are actually the first friends I made when I can to PSU, and I met Natsuyo through them. It's been about 2 years since I saw Yumiko because she was just at PSU for one term through a study abroad program through her university in Hawaii. Fumika I hadn't seen since the beginning of last summer, so I was really excited. Unfortunately Fumika wasn't able to come (poor girl is always so busy with everything!), so it was just me, Yumiko, and Natsuyo but we had a great time ( and had a good laugh when loser from last night texted me wanting to know when we can hang out again. Did. not. reply.). I love all my friends, they're such awesome people.

Delicious Indian curry for Lunch

Yumiko, long time no see!

School starts this Saturday (stupid Saturday class), and I start work for Lily next Thursday!

Until next time folks,
PEACE OUTSIDE
Jamie

Osaka part 2

December 25th 2010 
(I've been writing these half on the day it happens and half the next day because I never have enough time to write everything and post them so all my posts are going to be a couple days late from now on).  

Christmas day in Osaka and it's snowing! But it only lasted a couple minutes then it stopped (thank god). I has been so cold ever since I got here making going outside almost an unbearable thought. Almost. Today my plans revolved around the big aquarium (what? I like sea life....). But first me and my new friends went over to this local temple where they were holding this mochi making party for anyone who wanted to join. For free! I like free. It was super tasty and watching the little kids pound the crap outta the rice was really cute (for those who aren't familiar with mochi it's a rice cake made by repeatedly pounding hot rice until to forms this sticky, stretchy substance then you eat it with either soy sauce, red bean paste or by itself). The temple staff seemed very pleased to have a group of foreign girls participating and kept on asking us various questions and wanting to take pictures. There was this older lady there who freaked out when I said I was from Portland. I guess she went there last summer to visit her friend; a very famous friend (well okay not famous at all, but she seemed to think very highly of him). Can you guess who it is??


KOJI! like the owner of the restaurant Koji's. I thought it was pretty cool. She hugged me when I said that I knew the restaurant.

After the mochi making party I parted from my friends and made my way to the aquarium! My friends had other plans (biking all the way to Osaka castle) which I wasn't interested in (it was cold, and we already went and saw a castle). The aquarium was packed! ...with couples. Christmas is a couples holiday, mush like Valentine's day, so everyone goes out on dates. And the aquarium seemed to be the hot spot. But it didn't take away from the awesomeness of the aquarium. The main exhibit was two spotted whale sharks. They were HUGE!! and really ugly. The also had a bunch of dolphins and penguins and other animals you'd expect to find at an aquarium. They even had a guy dressed as Santa Claus swimming around in one of the tanks. It was cute. When I got to the cafe I was pretty hungry so I got some tako yaki and had a nice conversation with this couple who had just gotten back from a year study in Vancouver Canada. It seems that everyone I've met so far has either studied/been to Oregon, Washington or Canada.

After I got back to the hostel me, the three girls I met and a group of guys decided to throw a little Xmas party at the hostel. We bought Xmas cake, booze and Domino's pizza! It was a good night (especially for the English guy, he got lucky with one of the other girls lol). There were two Australian guys there too and one of them was pretty cute but got way to drunk and ended up taking the bed of the girl who got lucky with the English guy (of course she wasn't in it at the time, but in the morning it created a little confusion) XD.

Tomorrow I'm going to check outta my hostel a day early and go stay with my friend Yukie! She did a home stay at my friends family's house that I lived with throughout high school. We're going to go to Universal studios! So until next time

PEACE OUTSIDE
J