the pictures are supposed to be down here, but....

I worked out a sweet deal with the Boss at work. In Japan the company takes care of its peeps, it even pays for commuting costs. They dont pull the 39.5 hrs a week "sorry, you don't qualify for benifits" like SOME countries... Anyway, my commute costs roughly 6.50 US a day, and its cool if I parlay that into a sweet road bike. I'll have to up front the yen, but Ill have something to show other than pushing and shoving and stares. There is something amazing about taking the subway here. The flow of bodies blur, pidgens fly around upstairs, people people people, crazyness.
Speaking of Boss, Ive been sampling the beverages in the machines that are everywhere and discovered Boss coffee. Check out the can-how propaganda poster is that?!?

Under the cap is this little disk that uncrinkles into a washcloth. A REAL cloth washcloth! How loving the boss is! The boss knows you work hard and sweat for him.

Work today was pretty cool too. I helped my boss do an interview for a pair of potential new students. Names and blah blah blah are changed to blah blah blah, but basically we asked questions of the family and gave tests to the kids for entrance into the school. It was a lot of pressure for these kids... The boy put his pencil box on the table and cringed at the wee bit of noise it made, the girl would barely look up. Come monday theyll see how mellow I am. The boy is going to teach me to play cricket.

Watching out the window I passed this lot of statues near a temple so I hopped off and took some phonetos (I wonder if thats a word?). There were lots of street cats napping on em. Even cats and mice get along in Japan. I wandered around the park and the temple. It is so beautiful. The Japanese know how to put trees and green and beautiful buildings and statues and flowers and water together. It gave me goosebumps, seriously. Beautiful

Roomie was out when I got home, so there was no beer and no food. Thank god. I threw things together that I recognized: mushrooms, tofu, onions, garlic, rice and too much tobasco. I couldnt figure out any other spices or liquids and didnt want to do some kind of squid ink or fish juice so I poured in a bunch of grape juice to tone down the hot. It turned out pretty good, and purple. fer desert I had some modern pets.