The Night Before a Flight

I’ve never understood why airlines maintain this nonsense about arriving 3 hours early for an international flight.

They basically just want to make you wait for the sake of waiting. First, you wait to check in. Then you wait to have your bags scanned and ‘random’ explosive device scans. Then you gotta bypass customs – guess what – more waiting. After that, you have to wait at the freakin’ gate some more. Finally, you get on the damn plane and you have to wait for it to take off.

So yes, I haven’t updated this blog in some time. I have been busy/occupied with all matters of nonsense, some serious, others not so much. Some of the not so serious stuff included digesting one of these.

NOMS

Yes, that’s another variety of Gari-Gari Kun. This particular one is shou cream, or CREAMPUFF flavour. You can only get these in 7-11s around Japan. It is probably one of the most amazing ice-creams I’ve ever tasted. It even has custard in the middle which isn’t frozen solid.

In other news, I’ve completed my contract at Coco Juku. I worked with a great group of people and had many great students, but I felt there were better opportunities out there for me. I’m not sure where exactly just yet, but somewhere.

I know that I still want to spend more time in Japan. I’m still enjoying life here and my Japanese is steadily improving. There have been many different options discussed in the past two months, but most of them have been all smoke and no fire. Some of these opportunities could have been potentially life-changing. The others? Not so much. Job interviews, requests for interviews and things of that nature.

The month I’m about to spend in Australia promises to be an amazing one. I’ll be fortunate enough to spend a lot of quality time with family and friends before coming back to Japan for another stint.

More things that occurred at random in the past few weeks here!

DD

At this particular bar in Kyoto, you have to pay a 200Y charge. Now, the charge system is nothing new to Japan, but not as many places these days enforce it or have one. It’s a service charge, in most cases, but you usually get something in return – a small snack or something like that.

This bar gives you all-you-can-eat peanuts for the mere sum of 200Y. There’s something immensely gratifying about cracking peanut shells. It’s one of those activities that I could spend countless hours doing over and over again, without any kind of goal or resolution in sight. Much like this blog.

Lo and behold, the wave of self-deprecation begins to show itself off the far coast.

Back to the bar. So you have all these shells lying around in front of you. What does one do with said shells?

Why, feel free to throw them on the floor in any way you see fit.

Naturally, I tried to find as many creative ways to drop peanut shells as I could, much to the bemusement of the staff and friends I was with. Perhaps I have a future as a prop comic?

To even write that sentence must mean that I currently loathe myself in a way I never thought possible.

When you’re trying to find luck, look no further than a bagel, apparently.

Uhhhh....

Sure. “Luck” is in the “hole”. Right…

The sign on the right there also states… My “Bagel” Life Start! ..it was a month-long promotion that had different bagel types on different days, but apparently the whole thing was that you should only be eating bagels every day?

On top of that, you could buy a bagel container of sorts that had 13 or so different bagel bits in it.

And of course, I ended up at Oktoberfest celebrations in Nara. Besides being a bit on the steep side price-wise, I had a lot of fun with a group of people I’d basically met for the first time. Dancing happened. I imbibed something to the tune of 4 or 5 litres of beer.

Well, I’m going to cut this off here. Japan, I will see you soon. Australia, catch ya in a day or so, cobber.

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