Miyakonojo

I don't belong to a gym here yet. I need to do some scouting. I know there is a good one in the city, but pretty far away and very expensive. There is supposed to be one close by, but not so great. I have not checked either out yet.

I may not need one however. I got more comfortable with being around children, so started playing with them more aggressively. Side story: I don't understand Japanese people. As adults, they don't show public displays of affection. No touching.. no hugging.. no verbal expressions of emotions even. But then you look at their children, and you can't pry them apart with crowbars. Back to topic: This had positive and negative outcomes. I found that they like to cling to me. And Japanese kids are light. So I now use them as free weights. I can do curls and stuff with one on each arm. I get a workout, and the kids think I'm the strongest guy in the world, so it's a huge ego workout at the same time! But now you can't pry them off of me for anything. At any given time I can have 5 children hanging off me. Yeah.. I bet my family can't even picture that. It's fun swinging them around, launching them into the air, it's just a blast. Some are shy at first, but once they see 1 student having fun, they ALL want to have fun. I have not got poked in the ass yet. I do however get my crotch grabbed. By 8yo boys. I don't even know how to react to that. I don't do much about it though(other then pry them off at lightning speed), I do NOT want to draw attention to that, lest every child decides its funny and tries to cop a feel. *shudder*

Also I'm a celebrity at every school. Because I only see these kids once a month, I'm a cool special treat. I'm exotic to them. I can do ANYTHING, and they will pretty much say "OH WOW THATS SOOOO COOL" For example, climbing stairs 3 steps at a time, reaching up and touching the ceiling, waving to them, showing them my shoe size. Pretty much if I do anything, I'm cool. Soon I won't be able to function in society if I return to the States. I won't understand why everybody doesn't treat me like I am the next best thing since sliced bread.

People in general here are very nice. I recently took my car in to have it looked at. The previous girl left it in pretty bad shape, but wasn't really aware of the issues when she sold it to me. She didn't deceive me on purpose, she just assumed because it got her from point A to point B fine, it had no problems. But the car's not a complete loss, and everything will turn out fine. At the dealership though, I got treated better than anybody ever has at any car repair shop in America. I was given a discount, just because they liked me. It was a small one, but they didn't even tell me, I just happened to read it on the receipt. And get this, instead of trying to repair stuff that wasn't broken they told me the exact condition of everything I asked. I was debating on what to do with the breaks, because I am trying to put as little money into the car as possible until I scrap it in April and buy a different car. They thought that the breaks would last until then, but were not positive and it might be pushing it. It would cost a few hundred dollars, a little too much for me. So what does the mechanic do? He goes into his own parts supply that he paid money for and brought out some brand new brake pads and offered to give them to me for free. Not only that, but he did the labor for free also. They are also going to keep an eye out for a good reliable car for me when I eventually scrap this one. Used cars here are not too expensive, at least cheaper than in the states.

Bye for now.