"Well somebody's got a case of the Mondays"

Ok, a quick update...

Friday night I went to a bar in Kyoto with the Jets. It was good fun, but i MAY have had too much to drink again. We met some people who took us for breakfast in the old city. Kyoto's a really beautiful city, not at all like Osaka. We met some people living in Kyoto who took us to a restaurant with breakfast, which was good.

Saturday, Steve and I went to see Oliver Twist in Namba. I didn't like it and am starting to think I might hate all British orphans. In fact, despite the $15 admission fee, I convinced Steve to leave mid-way through with me to go across the street and eat chili cheese fries at Wendy's. That's right, I found a Wendy's in Osaka. It's not quite like back home, they don't even have JBCBs(Junior Bacon Cheeseburgers), but hey, it's still Wendy's.

And then, suddenly, my weekend was over. I had agreed to work Lee (from work)'s all-day Sunday shift. It was exhausting. After work I went for steak dinner with my co-workers. The "German Bar" in the train station was having a sale on steak: just 630 yen. But with steak came two beers and a chocolate sundae and I regretted going... money is getting very tight and pay-day is more than two weeks away!! I can't wait to be off "probation" and actually get the chance to save some cash. Well, at least I'm learning...

All last week I watched the movie X-Men during breakfast and finished it on Friday. I had bought the video a while ago for $3. Saturday I found X-Men 2 also for $3 and have started watching it today. Did you know that the third X-Men movie is coming out in May? I can't wait. Would you like me to keep talking about this?

For the past couple of days at school, I've been growing tired of the "lessons" and have started playing a game with the students. I tell them four things about myself, one of which is a lie. They have to formulate questions about my statements and in the end have to guess which one is a lie. My standard truths are usually:
1) I have acted in three movies: a Canadian movie, an American movie and a Japanese movie.
2) Japan is the 26th country I've visited.
3) I weighed 120 kg when I was a teenager.
They usually find them all equally unbelievable, so I usually throw in a lie that would be really hard to disprove, like "I am a certified scuba-diver", "I visited the Middle East with my family" or "My mother was born in Switzerland". I have been asked to say something in Swiss, at which point I just say some gibberish. One time they asked me to give them my favorite memory from Egypt and I told a vividly beautiful story about the Pyramids at Giza at sunrise, but they didn't buy it. Sometimes the students just don't get the concept altogether and ask me questions like "What is your favorite movie?" But usually it goes over pretty well and the students are divided among guessing that each of the three truths are the lie.

Ok, I'm going home to bed. Happy 24th Birthday Aaron Woodyear (I'm going to keep up with that whenever I can remember). I'm going to leave you with a restaurant sign from Dotonburi...