it's been a very long time since i've posted anything to this blog.

i have a feeling i'm going to start fresh and create a whole new one with a different layout, etc. but mostly i want to come out and say that facebook is a hole that sucks in the mediocre of the blogging world.

usually i'd just post photos and stuff up here but facebook is so much easier.

but it's run by midgets in a bunker 10km below the earth's crust.

it's february 11 as i post this. i'm in vancouver. i'm in vancouver bored to tears. this town seriously does not have much going for it unless you're a douchebag who likes shit that isn't cool. i don't know how to say it, but it seems that a quad-pronged attack of wack traditions, corporate domination and city government have turned vancouver into a place i just don't want to live in.

i've probably ranted about that before so i won't belabor the fact.

march 1 i fly to japan.
march 12 i move into a small apartment in kashima, ibaraki-ken (ken=prefecture/
province).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kashima%2C_Ibaraki

http://www.city.kashima.ibaraki.jp/english/index.html

it's a small city, only 65,000 people or so, but when it comes to the urban sprawl of tokyo or seoul or any other big asian city, it seems hard to disconnect a place like kashima from the greater tokyo area.

on here, kashima is "鹿嶋市" 鹿=ka 嶋=shima 市=shi (city) - you'll see it right on the coast, under the highway 51 marker, right next to the little anchor icon which must indicate the port of kashima.


View Larger Map\

now zoom out a bit:

View Larger Map

the little body of water in the bottom of the frame is tokyo harbor. the distance from kashima to tokyo is 111km, and it's a 1400 yen (16 bucks CDN, approx.)/90 minute train ride into the city, so if i want to get crazy in tokyo, that is very possible.

there seems to be a fair amount of farmland around there, but i would guess it's probably like comparing abbotsford to vancouver, as far as its relation to tokyo.

except, of course, that there isn't a train running every 20 minutes or so from from abbotsford to vancouver at 1/2 the price of the greyhound.

and then minus the inundation of hell's angels, crystal meth, hyperchristian morons and add a coast... and you'll be pretty on target i think.

a real plus is this (i'll be somewhere near the bottom of the map, look for kashima stadium).



and close by is the border to chiba, maybe 20-30 minutes away:

http://www.wannasurf.com/spot/Asia/Japan/Kanagawa_Chiba/index.html

yeah. at first glance it looks like a much cooler abbotsford with surf.

http://www.internimagazine.it/s013001000163/s013001000165/d013001000745/a013001011560.htm