updated Thursday, September 07, 2006

The best and the worst of Japan	Student Slips	Subways	Link to  ENGRISH.com
Great Hanshin Earthquake	Osaka	My friends
Sight seeing              Sumo	My work

I live in Osaka Prefecture in Japan. It is in the Kansai region which is also known as the Kinki district. ( Note: There is actually a "Kinki University." Honest ! ! )

I first arrived in Japan in March 1991. I stayed with the Arai Family in Toyonaka, Osaka. I had met Yoshi in Pennsylvania almost two years before when he brought a group of homestay students to my home town and I drove bus for them as they went to see various sites. Soon there after I found a job teaching English with NOVA I.C.I. I am still employed there, in Osaka prefecture. In my time here I have been able to visit Tokyo, Sendai, Kyoto, Nagoya, Kobe, Hiroshima, Okayama, Nagasaki, Niigata, Kanazawa, Mt. Fujii and the islands of Awajii and Shikoku.

Yes, I was here during the Great Hanshin Earthquake in January 1995. It was singularly the most frightening event of my life. I was living on the 8th floor of a 10 story building at the time. I was up reading a Computer Shopper Magazine as the room started to slowly oscillate. I had been through several quakes before and was only moderately alarmed. The suddenness of it was the reason for any fear that existed at that point. Then it was as if someone just reached out and turned up the volume on the quake machine. Everything began to jerk more violently than any quake I had ever felt before. I jumped up off of my couch and stood in the doorway, as I had heard many times before. Again instead of dampening out to nothing the intensity was turned up another notch. I remember thinking " I am going to die. The top of this building will surely sheer right of and I will plummet to the ground!" In fact, at the time, I was so scared that I was not even able to scream or make any sound. Before any after shocks could come, I raced down 8 flights of stairs to the street, where I met a girl from the 6th floor. She uttered one single word. "Kowaii." - Scary.

In most cases, if you are coming to visit Japan, the scariest thing you can expect in Japan are the prices of clothes, and rooms.