Timeline of a farewell party

Ryan kindly sent along some embarassing photos, which I will of course show to the world. Or the three people that are looking. This must have been 2 weeks ago?

One of Ryan's many farewell parties.

Tyler's stronger than he looks. We're fighting over Ryan's leftover deodorant by the way.

I don't photograph well at all.

My beautiful flowers...

...are all pretty much dead now. The lilies and tulips collapsed spectacularly. But, before it all went down, I took some pictures of course.

だいいちバドミントン２

Sayuri controlled the singles match. 1-1 overall at this point.

The team.

The last game was close, but we lost. 残念.

I really don't like the lighting in these gyms. It's sickly green fluorescent. I got to play around with the camera settings a bit though.

だいいちバドミントン

Went to the girls tournament in Okegawa. They played an interesting system where schools have teams of five players, and they play two doubles games with a singles game in the middle. The team that wins two of the games wins overall.

Gaku had a nice new haircut. The boys showed up as the cheering section.

Today's opponent was 大宮なんと. Pretty strong team. One of the other teams at the tournament was my old school 浦和東. They were pretty surprised to see me.

We lost the first doubles. Kind of a blowout.

Progress

After what was not a promising start, the new school is starting to pick up. I can see why some ALTs like junior high. I imagine it's like being a popular janitor. Not exactly a challenging career though. I've got four months to start liking it before I get let go. The countdown's on.

Travelling

Considering what the next few months will be like. Travel time probably won't bother me much, but I was curious how it's changed. My first year and a half was working in Ageo (mostly). Over half the travel time was in walking and waiting.

Urawa Higashi and Ageo Shonan. The bus was fucking slow, but I could sleep on it. Got a CD player and the time seemed to fly by.

Hiroshima Junior High. Looks really bad on paper. I'll have to ride a bicycle too. It's only four months though.

More of the same

DIVAのお花見

Went out in Yono to see the cherry blossoms. It got a bit rainy near the end, so we ended up inside without cherry blossoms.

Everyone knows quality nihonshu comes from a carton.

お花見

Last week, before the blossoms were full, I took this picture in front of Shonan. It looks like I won't be working there again, so unless I go in for badminton someday it may be the last time I see it.

The infamous Yasukuni jinja. Except for the complete lack of anyone younger than their 20s, it wasn't that remarkable. The metal とりい makes it seem a bit lifeless.

Around Yasukuni. I wish I had the energy to run around and get in good positions for these pictures. It's hardly a new subject, but taking pictures of people taking pictures is pretty fun.

Same.

In Omiya park. I guess it's the third time I've gone there for お花見.