on the 8th day the lord jim rested, and the swimmers were happy

Enter Garcia everyone. He just flew in this past Monday, and he's already dominating my computer emailing his family and everyone else. Not a big deal of course. For the record this is a terrible picture of him, but Garcia is in fact Filipino (I can't begin to pronouce or write his first name). A short history on him: we graduated school together in Virgina. Though he wasn't part of our "clique," he was an always welcome supporting cast member to our shenanighans. Because he was underage in the states he couldn't come out with us to the bars, but now that he is here in Japan where the drinking age is 20, I now have a running mate if I so choose to slip up a little and have some fun. Either way it is good to have someone here who I'm very comfortable with and have known for almost a year now. Be prepared to hear his name in later stories I'm sure.

The other picture is one night when we did go downtown to explore the bars and such. This is Darrell Icenhour, but we all call him simply "Ice" (or I call him Darrell because that is just too sweet of a name to not say from time to time).

This is a legitamite door in Japan or an actual resteraunt. Ice is 6'4'', but as you can clearly see there are some disadvantages to being slightly above normal height here. In our journey on this night we hopped from bar to bar. Luckily I have found a beer I can tolerate called Kiren. It is a lager and because regulations are different here than in the states the alcohol content is a little higher. Beer is about $5 a bottle, but they also have drafts here as well. Bars in Japan are very tiny due the lack or available real estate, but if you go off the beaten path to a mom and pop type establishment you will find that they are clean, homely, and are full of curious native Japanese people as interested in us as we are in them. Overall I feel that everyone wins. Now I just need to learn more of the language.

Some more pictures are posted on facebook.

Tomorrow we have a dress white uniform inspection. Normally I could care less, but I'm making this into a bigger deal because if you get an "outstanding" score I could possibly get a day of special leave as a reward. My uniform is not so bad that I would be trouble, but I spent almost an entire move shining my shoes to make them look shithot. Time will tell on this one.

Today all the new sailors who checked into the command had a sit-down with the OIC, or Officer In Charge (essentially our commanding officer at the clinic). We all went around telling her a little about ourselves and when we got to me, before I told everyone about myself she told me that she has so far heard only good things about me, very good. That kinda fired me up, especially when Garcia came right after me and when he got done talking she looked at our sponsor (the guy who helps welcome us to the command, someone who we both share cause we're both pharmacy techs) and said that "you need to help work on this shipmate's military bearing." Apparently my act was hard to follow. Again, I'm awesome.

Yesterday I was actually working in the pharmacy compared to the checking in classes and signatures I had to find to complete my check-off sheet. Thus far working in the pharmacy isn't too bad of a gig. It is sorta busy here and when I'm not serving someone at the window, I'm asking questions about the computer system from the times I messed up earlier. As with anything a person does, each day gets a little easier, I retain just a little bit more, and I'm more familiar with just what the hell I'm doing and spent the past 6 months preparing myself for.

The watch billet for June came out today. I stand 5 watches I remember correctly. Because I'm not qualified to be an EMT yet, or certified as an ambulance driver, I'll do other smaller jobs on watch and learn as I go. My title is "UI" which is Under Instruction. Standing watch is something my recruiter definately forgot to tell me about. That's okay though, all goes with the job description.

I've decided I want to spend Christmas in Sydney, Australia. Thus far I'm in the priliminary stages of organizing such a trip. I may want to spend a day or two in New Zealand too just because I can being I'm so close. A good friend from high school, Brian, who is in the army, just facebooked me today and said that he'll be back in Korea this fall. That'll give me another place to go to, but probably not until next summer or so. Beijing, China is also still on the docket, and I'm still weighing my options on wanting to visit the Taj Mahal in India. If I hit all these places before I leave I feel that I will have completed just about all I wanted to see in the eastern hemisphere close to Japan.

It's nice not having a roommate. Besides the obvious walking around naked and such, I like having that sense of ownership to my room. I can keep it as clean as I want (and it is very clean), I don't have to share anything or worry about stuff turning up missing, and there are times I like being alone with my door open.

I'm still waiting on my package from my folks. I do say that the military mailing system is about as pleasing to me as Wal-Mart is, I'll avoid it all costs.

I've pretty much wrapped up all the movies I wanted to see of 2008. Almost all movies nominated at the Oscars save Revolutionary Road and The Visitor. So now I get to venture into the older movies I have yet to have seen. I did go see the new Wolverine movie though on base (it just arrived here). Yes it was entertaining, but in the end I was disappointed with how I thought it fell short of being as true to the original trilogy as it's potential afforded it. I love summer, it's when all the good blockbusters come out.

Overall status is still high and I want to let everyone know that I changed my security settings on here so everyone can now post a comment whether or not they have a google account. I appreciate all the words of praise on this blog. It's a fun thing to do and as long as you keep reading and feeding my ego, I'll keep writing.