Living in a collectors paradise

Konnichiwa mina-san(Hi everyone),

Everything is going fine, i had a combined meeting on saturday with all the other teachers in my area about some new curriculum which starts next month. I'm going to be on my business trip to okuchi this week and thanks to a changed schedule i'll go back down the following week as well.

To give my blog a bit more content i thought i would write a bit about my hobbies and amongst them is my interest in japanese manga and anime and the associated merchandise. Now i've read a lot of manga and i've watched a lot of anime but i haven't got much of the merchandise(mainly because its a bit hard to find specific items here in kumamoto and also because of the cost(plus i don't have a heap of space to store things).

So i'm going to talk a bit about it, at the lower end of collectables(by which i'm talking about figures not cards or posters(although they're around as well) are the random figure ranges which cost between 100 and 500 yen a piece.
There's the micro sized single piece figures which come with a fortune(not much help unless you can read kanji/kana) these come in small plastic sealed packages(a bit like a chip packet but much smaller) and are generally also keyring/mobile phone accessories.
There's the mini figuremate style figures which come in a small box and are generally in 3-4 pieces with a stand/base.
And there's also the ball machine figures(you can find these machines all around the place) the ball is a good size for one hand and the figures are usually a fare bit bigger than figuremates but of a lesser quality and more pieces.
NOTE: random collectables aren't only anime based you can also get random figures based on dolls, animals, furniture, bears etc.

At the upper end of the figure ranges comes the non random figures which are generally much bigger and are either a single continuous model or in the case of mechs a large number of small pieces which will form a fully articulate(or partially articulate) model which you usually can also paint to your own liking. These style of figures are much more detailed and also cost a lot more 5000 yen($50) for a lower end one.

Personally i've only really got into the figuremates so far as they are cheap, of decent quality and the random chance is fun. The picture with this post is one of my figures, the character is from Pani Poni Dash! an anime which i like for many reasons: its warped sense of humor(which is also heavily japanese culture relevent), its theme song which is very funky "黄色いバカンス (Kiiroi Vacances)" by Momotsuki Gakuen 1 Nen C Gumi, the fact its about a school teacher/students in japan and also the fact that the main character(shown by figuremate) is a blond haired blue eyed teacher named Becky and i have a friend who fits that description, of course my friend isn't also half american/half japanese and an 11 year old graduate from MIT who hides behind a curtain and cries when shes scared. But the similiarites are there.

Kami-sama's in heaven and all is normal with my world

Yellow(intentional mispelling),

Well everything is still pretty normal, life goes on and all that. A few interesting things have happened though, I worked a week at a different school because one of my fellow teachers took some time of to do a trip back to australia. It was interesting working with different students but it was also difficult because the transport was much more difficult and expensive than i was expecting.

A great student from one of my school's is sadly leaving because her father is moving to another country for work. So myself, the japanese teacher and 3 other natively english speaking teachers went to her house for a farewell party. The house was very beautiful and really hyper modern(not normal for japan) and we had lots of great food and drink. We also played a tennis tournament on the nintendo Wii and played a pirate/sword game which randomly chooses a loser and as punishment we drew on that persons hands(my hands ended up very purple and with interesting patterns). It was a lot of fire and we got to see the burning off of some fields on a mountain at night which was pretty spectacular.

Another thing which is less interesting but still struck me as something worth saying, is that supermarkets and convience stores have started stocking "TWO DOGS tm" which is an australian alcoholic beverage which is basically alcoholic old fashioned lemondade, it was also a favorite drink of my mum's a few years back.

Anyway thats all, as always i'll try to post more, i'm thinking of possibly posting about my personal obsessions like japanese animation etc. to make more posts.

Luke Gration

The photo is a photo of the magic christmas tree my parents gave me for christmas in japan, sadly it now is almost dead(faded and falling apart).

Totemo Gomen(aka Very Sorry)

Its been a long time since I last posted I know. I've been busy with work and everytings become a routine and as such doesn't seem as interesting to me. However i'm not going to let that stop me anymore so i'll be doing 1-2 posts a week even if theres nothing amazing to talkabout. Instead i'm going to talk about the everyday life over here, since my parents amongst others have told me that, that in its self is interesting.

I'll start by talking about transport: In kumamoto there are densha dori(aka Trams) which run from Kengun(which is further away from town that suizenji where i live) through central town before branching of to end up at the 2 major train stops in kumamoto(Kumamoto and KamiKumamoto). The trams are a good cheap way to travel and cost at max 180 Y for a trip. The tram stop nearest to me Suizenji Ekki Dori is about a 12 minute walk from my apartment.
There are also Kotsu(buses) which run all over the place with many different bus lines, there's a bus stop a minutes walk from my apartment and from there into central kumamoto costs 160 Y.
Both bus and trams can be paid for either by getting a ticket when you get on and paying for it when you get of or by getting a prepaid card which you input when you get on a charge when you get of.
When going to the schools i generally catch the densha(train), the suizenji train stop is only about 8 minutes from my apartment and goes to the central Kumamoto station in one direction and out to Higo Ozu in the other, it costs between 200 and 400 Y to catch the train depending on the school(Local train that is), there are also limited express trains on the line which continue north to Bepu etc. on the top end of Kyushu, they stop at less stops are quicker and cost different amounts.
When going on my business trip to Okuchi i travel by local train to Kumamoto station and then travel by limited express to Shin Yatsushiro which turns into a shinkansen(bullet train) to shin Minamata where i get of and catch and airport shuttle bus to Okuchi.
There are also swarms of taxi's in kumamoto it costs about 1000 Y to get from kumamoto central to suizenji by taxi.

The picture is from Kyoto when i was training, its of me at Kiyomizudera one of the great temples of Kyoto.