letter from Jesse

Many of you may have received emails from Jesse via Japan, but unfortunately they were all in some kind of gibberish language… I’ve managed to get a draft from his blog and this is what he wrote:

Hey guys, I’ve been in Japan now for about 5 hours. All I can say is it is freaking crazy here. So far I’ve seen a bar called Jesus Christ, a gothic clown, a bunch of those weird casino arcades that you always see in the movies, and all of the taxi cab drivers wear tuxedos (as far as I have seen at least). I’m a bit tired because I have been up for more than 24 hours: when my plane ticket said I was arriving in Osaka at 4:55, it was Osaka time (obviously) but I didn’t put into account that meant almost 3am Toronto Time!!! The flight to Dallas was good because I had a whole row to myself, and got to sleep most of the time. At the Dallas airport, I sat beside an old Texan couple who sounded more incoherent than Boomhower from King of the Hill, to match the stereotype, the woman kept referring to someone named Peggy Sue, and a hound of some sort. I then sat beside a guy from Thailand who talked for about an hour about his love for Poker, based on that conversation I tried to sleep the rest of the flight so as not to have to engage in any further conversation. I also ended up watching all of the in-flight films available: Walk the Line, Pride and Prejudice, and The Greatest Game ever Played. I liked the first two although I’d already seen them before, but that last one was pure bullshit. Once I got to KIX, I had to take a bus to Osaka, which was about an hour away from the airport. Once there, I met up with the guy who worked for the housing agency that got me my apartment. He was alright, but at that point I just wanted to go to bed. However, he showed me around the area of my apartment… it’s pretty cool. There’s a long street half a block from my place that has a bunch of food and bar places. Oh and the street is called Friendly street. That’s where I am right now actually, it’s 11:02 pm here, and I almost didn’t get to write you guys this message because the guy who worked here couldn’t comprehend what I was asking for. He kept saying Japanese when I asked him if the computers had English so that I would understand. So I originally left, but came across a white dude on a bike that I flagged down; he told me that the programs are almost identical to the English versions, so I would probably be ok. However, I am having trouble seeing where the buttons are on the webpages and the keyboard has like twenty other symbols between the commas and asterisks. So I keep hitting something that switches the English letters to Japanese. Oh, my apartment is nice, small but that’s to be expected, I took some pictures of a couple of things, but have decided they are too bland to be worth putting up. Stay tuned for some better ones shortly. Interestingly enough, my room in the apartment is bigger than the one at home in Canada. The bathroom is also about the same size, so I don’t know what the big fuss is about. Here, there is a gas valve for heating the water in the kitchen and the bathroom that you need to light each time; I thought that was pretty interesting. I’m sure I’ll die of carbon monoxide poisoning by the end of the year (knock on wood that I don’t.) Oh, I live on the same street as all of the “men’s clubs” according to the housing guy, he said there’s also a lot of good bars on the street as well… don’t worry though mom, the seedy part of the street is on the other die of Friendly Street, so I’m sure nothing will happen. However, with the being said, I probably won’t have to leave the two block radius around my house to have a good time for the rest of the year! I hope you guys can get this message in the format that I wrote it. If not I hope you at least get part of all: I’m thinking of all of you and hope that you have a really good year. I’ll talk to you soon.

P.S. I can’t wait for garbage day so I can get my own computer. Peace out kids.

-Jesse