So here we are at the end of March and at the tail end of Winter. I'm pretty excited for the start of Spring. Winter always seems to drag on for ages. There are times when I truly enjoy the cold weather, especially during the holidays, but it seems that by the time February hits us, I'm absolutely sick of it's ugly dreary face! But yeah, It's been a while since I've written anything in here but it's about due time that I had an update.
After our snowboarding adventure at the end of February, Nat and I headed off to Osaka to visit our very good friend Lou whom we met while living in Seoul last year. I don't have much to say about that weekend but that it was really nice to catch up with an old friend and reminisce on some of the wild adventures that we had while living in Korea. I'll always look back fondly on that first year living abroad. It was definitely an exciting time in our lives and we were all lucky to be able to spend it with a great group of friends. So besides catching up on old and current times, we essentially spent the weekend letting our feet to the talking. We walked and explored most of Dotombori in Osaka, which is Osaka's most famous entertainment/shopping district. We explored Don Quijot for the umpteenth time, ate Takoyako, got lost, shopped, ate Okonomiyaki, sang some Karaoke, bar hopped, and walked through the rain for what seemed like hours. We even saw MJ!! (Not, not Jackson, Johnson, or Jordan...but MJ from Korea). Overall, it was a great weekend but it was kind of bittersweet having to say goodbye to a good friend for the second time without knowing if you'll ever see them again. Besides living away from family and friends, living abroad has been difficult in that we've met dozens of really amazing individuals who are as open minded and curious about the world as we are but at the end of the day, you have to say good bye. Of course we'll always be friends, but we all come from different parts of the world and we all have lives to go back to. But hey, it's part of the adventure of living abroad!
Otherwise, it's been a pretty chill month for us. Besides trying to survive the daily battering of low strength Japanese cold weather, we're kept ourselves busy by keeping it local. Blessed with a 3 day weekend in March and no money, we took the opportunity to explore more of Kurashiki and it's surrounding areas. For one, we rediscovered Kurashiki's Bikan all over again. That place never ceases to amaze. It really is a great place to explore and it seems to have an endless amount of surprises. We also went down south to Kojima station and did some beginner level hiking. We saw some great views of the Seto Inland sea and the nearby Seto Ohashi Bridge (which is not the longest suspension bridge in the world like we've been claiming) and we were able to check out a really epic sunset. And it never ceases to amaze me how nice people are in Japan. During the sunset, we realized that we were stuck on the mountain so we asked a bus driver if he was going back to the station. When he told us that he wouldn't, we were disappointed but he gave us a wink wink and let us hitch a ride on his bus for free anyways. That was really cool of him! I think it was a pretty good chill weekend. We also did a major Spring cleaning, and I mean major! I cleaned the door frame! THE. DOOR. FRAME. Who does that? Never ceases to amaze me that when you zone in on cleaning, you will clean the fuck out of the things that don't need to be cleaned for hours.
This past weekend was also a good one. The theme of the weekend was definitely coincidentally meeting people randomly in random places. Yesterday, we were working on a side project of ours and purchasing materials for the said project in a used kimono slash anime card slash toy model slash strange candy slash dusty store when we saw an absurdly tall foreigner with a Japanese women. After closer inspection we realized that it was Sean and his wife Mako whom we had met a handful of times but had never really hung out with. After a short chat, we hit it off and ended up chatting the day away together over coffee, dinner, and drinks. It ended up being a really random good time and we really loved talking with them. Sean, being an artist, also gave us an amazing perspective on his life philosophy and gave us some really good ideas on the project we were working on. So yeah, I'm really glad we were able to spend some time with them.
And finally, the underlying theme this month has been the future. Ah, what to do with you? There comes a point in every who lives abroad's life when they are faced with the decision of what to do in the after life. It's amazing how fast time goes the older you get and especially when you're staying busy, but it already seems like the end of our next contract is coming faster than we can blink. And so me and Nat have been heavily talking about our future and what we want to do. Fortunately, I think that we're both talented individuals and that opportunity awaits us at every turn. It's just takes finding the right thing. What makes us happy? What makes us tick? Life is fulfilling now while we are traveling, but how do we keep it fulfilling when we get back or even if we ever get back? My biggest fear is of falling into a rut that I feel almost everyone I know has fallen into. Same old job, same old bars, same old routine, same old shows, same old striving for a bigger and near everything. I don't want that for me and Natalie. But I think we have options and honestly, if that fails...we're starting a band. After all, we've been getting compliments that I look like a famous celebrity right out of Hollywood and that Natalie looks like a famous musician. Plus I think we sound pretty good when we're intoxicated and screaming into a mic in a small room where we can hardly hear ourselves. And then there's the matter of us being Kurashiki's 6th best 2 person non-Japanese novelty band. So what do ya say ya Internetters? We'll take you in our band...we'll need guitarists, bassists, keytardists, drummers, triangle players, and songwriters. We'll take care of the fame and singing and awesomeing. How bout it?
