Posts tagged Tokushima
Settling into Life in Tokushima
Aug 15th
Although these past few weeks have been quite hectic, I feel like I’ve been settling nicely back into life in Tokushima. I’ve been making a countless number of trips to the furniture shops around Tokushima and trying to get things together for the August 22nd show that will film in less than a week. That being said, I’m really happy to be back and am quite enjoying my time here.
I took a trip to the Awa-Odori festival again this year and shot a short video. Take a look and let me know what you think!
Starting the Weekend
Apr 10th
I was able to take a trip last weekend back to Tokushima to meet up with a few friends and coworkers. Around this time, people in Japan seem to busy with welcome parties and cherry blossom viewing. For many companies and institutes, April is the beginning of the new year and is a time at which positions shift, new workers begin, transfers occur and there are quite a few changes.
Following this nationwide trend, I’ve been looking for something new to take up for fiscal year 2010. I’d love to learn a bit of PHP and MySQL but most of the literature I’ve found in bookstores is entirely in Japanese. Unfortunately, my reading level isn’t quite up to the point where I can read technical manuals. I suppose that means I need to do a bit more studying. For those of you who are more technically oriented, do you have any suggestions regarding good introductory manuals to PHP? I was thinking about having the “PHP & MySQL for Dummies” book imported. Here’s a link to the Amazon listing: http://bit.ly/amJtL6
New Experiment
Feb 27th
I’ve been messing around with a few tweaks to my website and messageboard. I know that I spend a disproportionate amount of time messing around with this stuff when you look at the number of people who actually follow this site, but it’s become a bit of a hobby. Over the past few weeks I’ve:
1. skinned my message messageboard (succeeded)
2. tried to integrate Facebook Connect into my WordPress blog (failed)
3. tried to integrate Facebook Connect into the message board (failed)
4. returned my message board to the default skin because I didn’t like the layout (succeeded)
5. added Dropbox integration to my WordPress blog (succeeded)
6. added location data to my wordpress blog (succeeded…sort of, it’s just a map)
With a lot more to come I’m sure.
In addition to that, I’m still doing well here in Imabari. The weather seems to have finally turned and the past few days have been quite warm and beautiful. I’ve been making trips back and forth between here and Tokushima once every two weeks. While they’ve been quite enjoyable so far, I’m sure that once the routine sets in, they’ll become more of a chore. It’s definitely worth the trouble though. I’ve something quite nice waiting for me on the other end of every three hour bus ride out of Ehime.
Also, I’ve started a new project on my message board. Take a look at the introduction if you’re intersted.
Visiting Tokushima
Feb 10th
I took my second trip back to Tokushima since the new year. As I used to frequent the onsen attached to the hotel, I decided to stay at the Sunroute Hotel these past two times. It’s a great place to stay and it’s around the same price as other comparable business hotels. Even though I do make it back to Tokushima on a fairly regular basis, it’s always nice to go back. As much as I do enjoy living in Ehime, I have to admit that I do miss the good old Awa Prefecture.
I’ve put up some photos from last weekend. Take a look in the ‘Photo Gallery’ or on my Flickr feed.
Awa-Odori 2008
Aug 18th
Despite my ‘best efforts’ I’m afraid I didn’t post this past July. For the two or three of you who actually keep tabs on this blog, I’m sorry. I’ll have two posts for you this month! Needless to say, things have been quite busy these past few months. Come to think of it, things have been quite busy since last April.
That being said, this year’s Obon vacation was certainly a welcome one. Although I wasn’t able to dance this year, I had a really great time visiting the festival on the first a second evenings. The first evening I went out with three of my coworkers. We ate at a small, out of the way ‘izakaya’ and had a really nice dinner followed by dance… followed by drinking. It was really nice to actually be able to watch and experience the festival as an observer rather than a dancer. I must admit however that I did feel as though I should have made the extra effort to dance this summer. Definitely next year. I’ve updated the photo gallery with some pictures from those two nights; one night with the staff, and the other with Mari-chan.
I’ve also another post in the works regarding a three-day trip I took to visit a friend of mine in Tottori. I’ll have that post up as soon as I can muster the energy to reformat the pictures. I hope everyone is doing well!
