End of school and heading back to Canada

Hey everyone !

Sorry for not updating the last few months, school and work have been pretty busy and I just can't seem to have the energy to write after every night..

Summer vacation has started!!  Well.. I still have my thesis report and a paper on film studies due but besides that summer has started!!

I'm going to miss all my friends that are graduating this semester!!!!!




















Irusopu a really great friend of mine is off to Korea!!!  It's soo sad!!!!










Small gathering of friends blowing off some stress with beers and good food.

Unfortunately I wasn't able to meet even half of friends that are graduating... I hope everyone forgives me!!  My last two weeks of school was a screamer!! Trying to finish off all my papers...


Anyways!

Does everyone remember last summer?    I volunteered on the Morioka-Victoria Mural Project ?

One of the leads on the project has offered me a summer job to help with a group of international students from Miyagi, Sendai.  My job is to help them throughout their trip of the West Coast over the next few weeks.

I only still have the draft plan but it looks like its going to be a blast!  As such!

I had originally thought that I would be heading the group all the way from Sendai to Vancouver but it seems I'm needed for helping with the final preparation on this side.

So!!  I finish my papers *Most of the them* and packed my bags and jumped on a plane!

I'm need to start my day pretty soon so... I'll let the pictures do the talking and I'll just comment..

Yesterday Morning









My bags










Waiting at the local train station near my place










Airport!!  ^___^











Oh!! Look! It's my plane!








Mmmmmmm Plain Plane food....







Oh ! Look! I'm in Taiwan!!!    ---->  8 hour wait for the next plane


Waiting...... ----->> Lets eat something!










Oh Look!! Turtle soup!! Lets try that!

MEATY!!

Oh!  Dumplings!  mmmmmmmmm

4 hour later ---->> Yeah.... That turtle soup wasn't enought

Milk Bubble Tea 

Beef noodle soup

Anyways... This was a little interesting but half of the people on the airplane were East Indian..

ਸਤਿ ਸ੍ਰੀ ਅਕਾਲ। ਨਮਸਕਾਰ Everyone!!

My feet hurt

Another plane

Oh!!! Canada!!

Grand Welcoming

Vancouver

Getting good coffee... Oh yea!!

Ferry

....Are we there yet?

Looking out the window this morning

**Sorry for the topic jumping all over the place... I just have so much I want to say!

I have a good feeling that this is going to be another great summer .....it just beginning!

Note to self...Finish reports...


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School... Here we go!

Hey everyone!

Its been a busy week. School has been hectic... Lots of studying and homework, not to mention doing research for my thesis. (Undergrads are expected to write thesis here in Japan)

Last semester, I wrote a little bit about my ideas for it, but after a few revisions and one class later, it seems that the topic was a little too broad...

It wasn't all for loss... My new topic is almost the same thing just alot more focused.

I'm going to try and sum it up in a nutshell...

Japan was and still is a leader in social networking. Although it came after the early services like Geocities, Mixi was around almost 5 year before Facebook was released...
It allowed UCC (User Created Content) to be posted easily from any Mobile Phone... Bring in the rise of the Camera Phone.

Do you own a Mixi account? If your between the ages 10- 35 and Japanese the chances are you do.... Mixi is strictly Japanese.

Anyways... Today, Facebook, Myspace and Twitter have seen a huge increase of users from Asian, more recently Japan (5 years)

As these social networking sites continue to grow, the gap between social groups has both grown closer together and further apart.

My thesis is focused on researching how younger (ages 15-30) Japanese adolescences cultural values will change over the next ( x amount of time)

Anyways... Gotta go to class!

More later

Tom






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Location:At school

Ueno Park Volunteering

Hey everyone!

Sorry I haven't been keeping my blog up to date.  It's been a rather busy few months and I am runnning around with my head cut off.

I when to volunteer with a soup kitchen a few weeks ago with my class and NPO teacher.

Our mission?
To feed hungry people.

We joined a NPO group called Second Harvest running right in by the JR Yamanote line between Asakusa and Akihabara.

The NPO gets over 500 hungry people a hot meal every Saturday.  It was definitely an eye opening for me as my image of the homeless problem in Japan was much different up till now.  Anyways, I make good use of this experience to finish my report on NPO and homeless in Japan.

Now I have to write about it....

Tom's little two day adventure. Part One

My adventure started this last Thursday morning when I received an email from my school adviser.

She wanted me to check out and research into what would be needed or what type of qualities are sought after in International Development. The following Saturday Morning in Shinjuku, about 2 and a half hours away from my place, not that far from my part-time job.

Anyways, figure that if I'm going to head to Tokyo and back then go again in the Morning, I might as well just spend the night in Tokyo.

The place I'm working at in Yoyogi also runs a Youth Hostel, which is coincidentally the same youth hostel I stayed at with Ivan a few years ago!!!
It's super cheap!! 3000 Yen a night, and the people are normally pretty nice.

Its pretty basic,






You get a bed and pillow, desk, and some hangers for your clothes.
A nice place to just hang your hat.

I jumped into the tub, got changed and headed to work.

After I finish work, I sat down for a beer.

There's is little place called 万豚記, its just across from Yoyogi Park that I've been wanting to try. I heard that they made awesome Gyoza.

























It was pretty tasty!!!


Wish me good luck tomorrow!!

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場所:東京都渋谷区代々木４丁目８

Over due post

Well, here is my long awaited post.

I'm writing this as I'm eating my dinner at McDonalds in Akihabara.






Don't get the idea that I eat junk food all the time, I haven't eaten McD's for sometime.

Life has been pretty busy, after coming back from Morioka this summer I jumped straight back into school.

I joined a NPO(Non-Profit-Organization) event with a group called Oxfam a few weeks ago and we did a bit of rallying and raising awareness of poverty around the world and how we can help.





















After that, I was conscripted to help out with the annual school festival. We organized a small group of about 15 people from our study group and make different types of food.
Pho noodle soup and Bubble Tea. Not really very common combination but we sold quite abit.



























Anyways, that's about it for the last few months... I'll post about my trip to the Zoo a little later.

Cheers!


Tom


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Location:秋葉原、Japan

七夕 ー ＧｏＧｏ！

So... Today was Tanabata...  The festival celebrates the meeting of two lovers, Princess Orihime  (Vega) and Hikoboshi  (Altair) who, by order of Orihime's father,  are only able to meet once a year..  More here  ..

I when out with some new found friends and had a few drinks at the Shrine.  Then we were able to go in side one of the shrines and one of my friend's friend played a Taiko Drum and did a quick prayer.... Its been along time since I've been in a Japanese Shrine......  Last time, has to be in Morioka's Hachimangu.....  That was when I was running around doing Mikoshi ( (神輿 ) 

Anywho... The pictures can do the rest.....


Oh yea.... I need to finish one of my papers pretty soon...... Ack!!!

My T-Shirts from around the world

So.....  Hello everyone!

It's been a long day..  I'm a little tired..  But everything changed when I got a package in the mail.


I've been buying / selling odds and ends on ebay the last month..  Ipod parts from Hong kong, cellphone stuff to and from France, China, Canada,  and Jeans from Las Vegas, USA.
Most of this stuff is only worth like $5 a piece .. but... I'm getting strange looks at when I go to the post office...... Today's package is the big one ^__^


Today's luck Country is  ISRAEL

I took  a video of me opening it .. lol

Funny I got this from Israel ........   Anywho...

GOGO GOOGLE MAP



大きな地図で見る

Thats all for now! Hugz!

I'm still alive.. ^__^

Hey everyone, sorry to worry everyone.  I haven't written anything for a while..

I would first off like to thank everyone for all the donations!  I was sort of half joking about the donations thing, but surprisingly I had a lot of support!!  I was also a little surprised of the people that were reading my blog...  

I would like to thank everyone that made a donation to me... I'm currently buying food with that money..

ATT: People that donated money, please look out for a letter from Japan.

And yes Alex, I did buy Udon... It was really good.

I've been really really busy..

• I've started school.
• I met a bunch of really nice international students and we went drinking under a Sakura Tree .
• I went to visit Hideo again.
• Cass is really really busy.
• And no.. I don't have a connection to the internet yet... So expect all my e-mail and blog posts to be really really late.  Don't even think about twitter.. 

Today, I had first Seminar class( ゼミ）　、　It's basically were we discuses about current and past topics with-in our prof's experience.  I choose to go with NPO and Developing Countries. 
^____^

Anyways, Thats about all that is new.  I've posted a few pictures ^__^

You can click on them to make then bigger....

Outside - Entrance Ceremony

Entrance Ceremony

Hello everyone!

Sorry, I haven't had much access to the internet that pass week so I'm sorry for the last update.

I've fully moved in to my apartment ( Dormitory ) with the acceptation of not really having a place to pull my clothes...  I'll think of something...


My place comes with a bunch of appliances such as a Hotplate, Rice Cooker.... 

Microwave, Refrigerator and a Laundry Machine

Heres a pictures of my fridge fully loaded...... or at least, kind of loaded....

But the best part of the place is the view !!!

My place looks right out to a bunch of rice fields !!!   I'm so close to the rice, I feel like the farmer....

Thats it for now!

-Tom