Lo Lo Lo La Lola!

You can tell I`m not particularly motivated to write a blog when I give it a uninspired title (actually I changed the title, this new title is inspired) and fill it with lots (lots) of pictures.

So, today since I am not in a particularly blog writing motivated sort of mood I figured I may as well make good on my promise from my past posts regarding `Things to Look Forward to:` and post some pictures from my trip down to Nagasaki and maybe add some commentary. So let`s have at it!


Okay, so here is a map of Japan. Note that I used high technology to illustrate my start point (Oshima) my destination (Nagasaki) and the Oregon trail that I traveled across to get to the land of milk and honey (and goldfish lanterns, wait can`t I just see those in Yanai????) Now, how about you have a guess as to how long it took me to get from the island of Awesome to the land of lanterns (distance: about 244 miles). Think about it.



Now let me relate to you a little anecdote. Yesterday I was at my Eikaiwa (adult english conversation class) and we were each taking turns talking about where we want to travel to and why. After listening to my students (?) tell me that they wanted to go to Singapore, Germany, Mt. Fuji, and America, it was my turn to tell them where I want to go. And so I said that the place I most want to visit is New Zealand,and geeking out about how lord of the rings was filmed there, the hobbit is being filmed there and it is gorgeous (not to mention I want to be a kiwi)! Anyway, maybe you are wondering what this story has to do with Nagasaki, and why I am including it in this post, well I`m getting to it so be patient. After that my students began talking about how New Zealand is really beautiful and they have nice weather (in the summer season) but then they told me, `Keri, New Zealand is so far! Maybe it is 10 hours by plane.` then pause. `But, maybe it isn`t so bad, after all it took almost 5 hours(!!!!!!!!) for you to go to Nagasaki (I had told them about my trip during our last class). But, yes. A nice 244 mile trek took me nearly 5 hours! Worst.Ever!

Anway, I guess it was worth it (see: it really was worth it but I am still bitching about the distance).

Alright, (I`m feeling a bit more blogging motivated, probably from the bitching) so it was kind of a spur of the moment idea to go to Nagasaki. A friend had clued me into the Lantern Festival and a quick glance at the google images results peeked my interest. So after about a week of debating the question `To go or not to go (that is the question)` I found out that Taylor, a girl from my prefecture was planning to go down, and also my friend Jasmine (who lives on a manini island off of Nagasaki) was also planning to make the trip. So, with that I figured why the hell not, and packed my bags, booked a hostel, and bought some train tickets.
4.5 hours later:

Awesomeness!!!!!!



So that evening Taylor, and I and my new friends Joel and Larissa (ALT`s from Kumamoto) ventured around taking photos of lanterns and lit up creature like lantern things. We also ate some questionable Chinese food (to celebrate a belated Chinese New Year), visited a shady American bar with even shadier bartenders, and got lost in the pleasure district (or so I dubbed it) and ate more food.




Taylor, Larissa, and I hanging out with a deranged Panda.
(Photo courtesy of Awesome Kumamoto JET Joel)




Year of the dragon!!!!

The next morning I woke up fairly early to meet my friend Jasmine and her super awesome Nagasaki ALT friends at the train station.
But, before they could appear I saw the most AMAZING/AWESOME boy ever!


Seriously, this kid is like a quarter of my age and already 100000000 times cooler than I will ever be!

Anyway, after meeting up with Jasmine and her friends we made our way to the Nagasaki Peace Park.




This monument symbolizes the hypocenter of the bomb drop. I like the concentric circles that radiate out from the center, it was an interesting visual representation.

After meandering about the peace park we made our way over to China Town to check out all the festivities and admire the lanterns. :D







Pig heads, but why?


Am I back in Yanai?????


Jasmine and I being genki tourists in Japan!


The lanterns were really awesome, and well worth a trip (nearly 5 hours!!!!!) to Nagasaki. But the reason for a return visit: Lola!

Who is Lola? Only the most awesome amazing D-List celebrity in all of Japan!!!! After enjoying the lanterns The Awesome Nagasaki JET`s and I went to Lola`s awesome/crazy/amazing karaoke bar. Too. Much. Fun. I think you have to go there to really understand how awesome this place is! P.S. Before we left Lola gave all of us a signed headshot!!! Amaze! (It is hanging on my wall!)


The super fun Nagasaki JET`s and I enjoying Almas` and Owain`s rendition of Park Life. Nagasaki is well worth another visit just to see these awesome people again too!
(Photo courtesy of Awesome Nagasaki JET Karl)


Ali, Lola, and I. Isn`t he something.
(Photo courtesy of Awesome Nagasaki JET Ali)

decision making.

Me with a goldfish (they`re baaaaaack!) trucking around Nagasaki.

Hey everyone,
So unfortunately my adventures/experiments in dating have come to a bit of a close. So, today you wont be regaled with amazing/awkward stories. But, maybe next post? Seeing as how popular the topic of dating in Japan (<- click here if you missed it, you wont regret it) was, maybe for the sake of viewership I will need to go out and have a few more misadventures in dating. If I`m completely honest it is at least mildly entertaining.

I know I said I would post about cat origami next, but...I haven`t got my camera with me right now, and those cats are a betch to fold! Next post, I promise! And if it`s not, then well you can think of the punishment. Boycott my blog maybe?

Usually I try to post about some of the weird crazy things that happen to me while here in Japan,or else the really hectic things (car in a ditch!?!?). But today I thought I would post something, a bit more personal, which I guess is putting myself a bit out of my comfort zone because I dont usually like to publicly share a lot of my personal thoughts. Anyway, hopefully it will still be enjoyable, if nothing else it will occupy about 3 minutes of time if you are like me and have nothing to do today.

Time has been breezing by and if you have been checking my blog posts regularly you may recall that way back in November through to January some of my posts thought about the topic of continuing my year on JET. Well, it is now February, the month of reckoning, and from what I can gather most of my friends in the prefecture have made up their mind, signed and turned in their contracts. If you recall from a few posts back I had a few questions for myself to consider prior to signing, here is a refresher:
Where do I want to be next year? What would it mean for me to sign up for another year? Do I want to put the rest of my future plans of grad school, etc. on hold to spend a second year teaching in Japan? I`m really not sure. But I am sure that by the end of this month, in under 20 days I will have made my decision for sure for sure. Truth be told, I think I already know what I want to do (and I think I`ve known for awhile), but it is pretty difficult to think that once I sign those papers I cant really change my mind one way or another.

These were some of the questions I had to mull over before being able to be confident in signing my contract one way or the other. I didn`t want to jump into a a half thought through yes or no, and so about a week and a half ago, on a particularly long (2 hour) train ride by myself I decided that there was no better time to go over my thoughts. And with that, after about an hour of thinking and internal arguing, I began a little note to myself that was a bit of a condensed version of what I had thought through which ran as follows:

22 years old. It's weird for me to think that when I was younger I used to imagine that at 24 I would be married and at 27 beginning a family. I think when you are a child of 10 you can't really grasp that in your early 20's you will be just as young at heart and have the entire world waiting at your feet. I'm 22 nearly 23 and know now that I am not at all ready to give up my hopes, ambitions, or independence whether that be in the form of marriage or maybe even a boyfriend. Likewise I don't find myself particularly eager to rush back to school. I figure that if you can only be young once why should we waste our prime sitting in a class researching and writing papers. I am never going to be as actively fit nor free of responsibilities as I will be during my 20's. Right now I am accountable to no one but myself (and maybe my boss if I want to keep my job) and no one is particularly accountable to me. It's a liberating feeling to think that if I should want to pick up and move to New Zealand for a year or two no one is holding me back except for myself (and of course the necessity of funds). As a young adult the options and opportunities in life are endless. Our youth is the time to experiment, take risks, get a little lost, and make mistakes. Somewhere along the road we will get ourselves back on the right path and those mistakes we made and risks we took will be the lessons we take away that will let us know which path is the one that will lead us to the destination we hope to reach. This being said I have decided to stay in Japan a second year, and after that, well who knows. For now the rest of my life can wait.

And with that the next 18 months of my life have been decided.


More posts shall be coming soon, I`ve been up to a lot of mischief, or something like that. But I figured it is about time I let my friends/family know what I`ve finally decided.

Things to look forward to in coming posts: Origami cats (I promise they are coming!!!!), Nagasaki Lantern Festival, and maybe more on dating (Tonight I think I am going on a psuedo-date with my Japanese chap from `My life as a 20 something single: Dating in Japan`. But does it really count as a date if you`ve got a chaperone of sorts?)