A day in my life...

Japan "Land of the Rising Sun"...

I took this picture one morning on my way into work. The sun seemed much bigger in real life; beautiful just the same. I find it hard to believe that I have been here almost 2 months now. I miss everyone at home terribly. I am getting pretty comfortable with my surroundings though.

I know that it is very hard to make out any detail in the picture below, but I am pointing to where I live in Nagoya. I am pretty centrally located for the locations I have to drive to for work. I could take the subway and train to Gifu on the days I have to go there but I have found that driving allows me to get there earlier and leave later than the optimum train schedules allow (it's a little quicker too).

I have to take toll roads and toll bridges to get to work every day. They are quite expensive. A daily round trip costs 1,850 Japanese yen, or about $18.00 US. Thank goodness I get reimbursed for those expenses. This bridge is one in a series of three that cross over Nagoya Bay(each one costs 300 jpy). They are quite majestic on the skyline.

Once I get to work, I get to share a very cramped office area with 5 other people and we often have visitors from the US. At times we have had about 15 people all trying to work out of the same office. There is a lot of activity right now. We work in the Kawasaki building below.

We are very close to the port. This is a large container ship that was moored across from the factory this week. I took this picture from the parking lot at work.

I pass this Ferris Wheel every day on my way to work. There is a big aquarium in this location. I need to schedule one day and go visit it.

There is time for recreation too. We had a company bowling get together recently. Bowling is the same sport here as in the US and there are big bowling alleys all over and they always seem to be packed. The scoring is the same but reading the instructions on the set-up screen... well I left it to someone else.

Tina brought her family to the bowling alley. I work with Tina daily. She has been showing me the ropes. She is a walking, talking encyclopedia and she has set the bar high. I am hoping I can keep up and measure up.

It's a strike!

One of my hobbies is to walk in area in the evenings. I explore everywhere, usually walking for an hour or two every evening. I try to head out in different directions each night. This always seems to pay off with some pretty cool things to see. There are many Buddhist Temples around the city; some large some small, like this one. I find them very intriguing.

Once in a while, I'll find an interesting restaurant. Gotta eat. This is the entrance to an Udon (noodle) restaurant.

When the weather is nice, I try to get to the parks. They have many very pretty parks in Nagoya.

I meet some very interesting people this way. The lady you see in the picture below was homeless and she insisted that I stop so she could sing a song to me about being homeless. She made up the words (I think some of them were in English). Everyone enjoyed the performance (including me) and gave her a donation.

So at the end of the day, it is always nice to come home. I must admit that this is a nice place to come home to. The pictures below were taken in the lobby of my apartment building.

This one is a view out my back window. Very relaxing.

...oh, and by the way, sunsets are beautiful here too.