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Living Out Of A Suitcase
秋田 Akita Prefecture
Round 1 is coming to Sendai!
Mar 5th, 2009
Driving back from Sendai last weekend we passed by one of the many construction sites in the city. Usually they’re for apartment buildings or pachinko parlours, but the big sign I saw immediately caught my eye. This was going to be a Round 1. It’s gonna be right next to Nigatake Station, which is only 8 minutes from Sendai Station.
So, what is Round 1? Basically it’s a giant multi-floor game center. One of these behemoths was built shortly after I moved to Akita City. I hope the one in Sendai is at least as good as Akita’s.
What can you do at Round 1? Let’s see… one floor is devoted to slot machines and gambling, another floor has like 30 or 40 bowling lanes, a different floor has a race track to ride mini motorbikes on. There’s a floor full of video games, pool tables, karaoke rooms, massage chairs, a mechanical bull, catch and release fishing (wtf?!). There’s another floor with basketball, soccer, and badminton courts, batting cages, archery, mini golf, and a curling rink (double wtf?!?!).
(L-R) Basketball, Soccer, Archery, Frisbee, Mini Golf
(L-R) Curling, Batting Cages (background), Badminton
There’s food, you can drink alcohol, and from what I remember it’s open 24/7. I’ve been there for various parties in the evening, and at 4am after the bars. It’s pretty cheap as well; I don’t ever remember paying more than 3000 yen for a long night of fun.
Here’s a link to a PDF file from the Round 1 website; it’s in English and shows all of what they have to offer. Here’s also a couple low quality YouTube videos I uploaded a couple years ago. One of the mechanical bull, and one of the mini motorbikes.
A Trip To The Aquarium
Sep 21st, 2008
Had 10 days or something off for Obon in early August, so I packed my bags and hit the road. Destination: Akita. Specifically, I was going to go camping for a few days at the Oga Peninsula with Joe, Sayaka, Wade, and some other friends. I headed up one day early to visit some fellow members of the Front Drinking Team. Life was good.
The next morning I awoke to the sounds of a torrential rainfall. We debated calling off the trip as there were flood warnings in the area, but we managed to find a solitary weather report that said we might be okay, so we went for it.
I was going to talk more about the trip, but I gotta go do something else, soooo…
There was an aquarium.
There was a polar bear at the aquarium.
The Japan Sea was beautiful, warm, and clear.
The rocky beach tore my feet up like they were paper mache.
We drank a lot of stuff.
Tohoku Circuit
Apr 30th, 2008
Spent the last couple days bumming around Tohoku. First off was a visit to Akita City for Joe & Sayaka’s annual Hanami (Flower Viewing) party. The Sakura (Cherry Blossoms) had already come and gone, but that didn’t stop any of us from overdrinking and having a great time. Kyoko came up late the next evening to watch us continue to drink.
The next morning we took the 9am train north to Aomori Prefecture (Province), specifically Hirosaki Park, which is one of the most popular places to celebrate Hanami. We caught the tail end of the Sakura, which I actually liked more, as the cherry blossom petals fluttered around in the wind as they fell off the branches. An evening traverse across Aomori landed us in Hachinohe, where the Tohoku Shinkansen Line begins. A couple hours later we were back home in Miyagi. Total travel: 800km!
At the beach
Aug 15th, 2007
Like it says on my Facebook profile, I’m at the beach! About a 40 minute bike ride from the city, it’s like another world out here. Hot sandy beaches stretch as far as the eye can see, and the Sea of Japan is SO warm.
If you want to get out of the sun, there’s a bunch of open air huts with tables and tatami mats you can chill out at. Oh yeah, they serve food and cold draft beer as well :P Gotta drink it quickly though before they get warm haha!
Needless to say I’ve been spending all my free time here since I got back from Tokyo. It’s a great place to relax, read a book, or study Japanese.
Oh yeah, and look at girls in tiny bikinis too :P
Lunch break post
Mar 15th, 2007
Getting in the habit of posting on my work break from my phone, maybe i’ll try to find something or someone interesting to shoot…
Not much to report today other than the fact that the blizzard appears to have ended.
Here are some fun facts about Akita:
1st in Japan in suicides
1st in Japan in alcoholism
We’re number one!!!
Update
Feb 13th, 2007
Sorry to everyone for not updating the site or really keeping in contact with anyone for the past couple months. No excuses; let’s move on.
My VDSL modem finally showed up today, but I still have to wait for some documents from NTT before I can actually use it. Should be about a week.
Life here in Akita is great. Meeting lots of nice Japanese people, who I primarily socialize with on a regular basis. I’m not consciously avoiding hanging out with foreigners, and there are a couple that I do stuff with outside work, it’s just that teaching English is pretty much a short-term, transient job. Since I arrived in October, 4 teachers have moved on, and 6 have joined us here. I think it’s better to develop relationships with people that actually want to live here for a while, since that’s what I plan on doing. Also, it’s pretty difficult to practice one’s Japanese with gaijin.
Speaking of relationships, this city is famous in Japan for the amount of beautiful women (Akita Bijin), and boy, they ain’t lying. And of course, being true to my character, I’ve chosen to make my life as difficult as possible in this area. While it is nice to have these problems, they are still difficult to solve. If it sounds like I’m being really vague then you’re absolutely correct. I ain’t committing that shit to the Internet. If I call you (and I do plan to call), maybe I’ll fill in the blanks. Probably not.
Anyways, that’s it for now. Hope everyone is doing whatever they want to do. I’m living my dream and loving every minute of it!