Parking garage baby octopus

Ok, so I guess I don't really update that often, but hey not too bad considering I don't actually have an internet connection. However, I do have a crazy cell phone that does a million different functions that are difficult to understand because it's in Japanese. The camera attached to it is as high quality as my last digital camera, which was only 2 or 3 years old i think. Also, this cell phone was free with the contract because its a year old model. People love them cell phones here. (You can email me on my phone at "agitlin1@ezweb.ne.jp")
There's also some kind of cutesy culture here that is weird and hilarious. For instance, the parking garage in the city hall, a huge modern bureaucratic center that is the tallest building in this whole area, is split into different sections that are each designated by pictures of cute little baby animals. So one can park in the baby rabbit section, puppy section, kitty section, octopus section... etc. I think something like that would be difficult to find outside of a childrens theme amusement park in the rest of the world.
Its weird to think that I'm in Japan, and sometimes almost easy to forget. Most of the people I interact with are those on my program or on some sort of similar program. Its incredibly interesting hanging out with Australians, Brits, New Zealanders, Americans and even a small handful of people from other places like Scandinavia, Italy, and India. But I don't really know many Japanese people besides my odd downstairs neighbor, my unhelpful supervisor, and sort of the english teachers at my school. My host family too, whose kids i happily ran into the other day on the street. I biked around with them and became rather late for work, but I think it was worth it. I suppose this situation will change as of tomorrow, when i will actually be going to my school full time. Still don't know how I'll meet any japanese people who are actually my age though...
In other news I did get to my first rock/punk club in Japan this past weekend, thanks to the kindness of a friendly and drunk bartender. Thankfully I'm a big music dork who could name a few Japanese bands, and talk to him about some somewhat obsucre american bands. Between his broken english and my broken japanese we talked over noisy music for almost an hour i think. He took me and a few other people into some club nearby, which shared the same dingy smokiness of any other rock club, but also had that touch of odd cleanliness that exists in most (not all) of Japan.
The next night was "welcoming night" at the beer garden (nomihoudai, all you can drink) to celebrate the final arrival of everyone who will be teaching starting next week. Also to put our first paycheck to good use. Its funny that my first paycheck put more money into my bank account than i've ever had before. I'm sure i'll spend all of it relatively soon though, as i would like a real digi cam (250ish?), elec dictionary (also 200-250ish?), more food, a better bike (which thankfully i can acquire cheap), an internet connection (50/mo?), a weekend in tokyo(who knows...), and maybe some more art supplies... All told, thats what, a thousand ish dollars? Probably more when you add random stuff. Add my rent and utilities and thats more or less my paycheck (with some room to spare thankfully). Oh well hopefully after this first month i'll be able to actually save a little up. definitly going to want to travel sometime...
You may have noticed the drinking theme of the weekend I just described. perhaps this is the little Jew in me, but I can't keep up with a lot of people, especially the UK folks who seem to be able to down an unbelievable amount of booze. But probably the last thing I need to learn how to do in Japan is ingest a ton of alcohol. In fact, I probably should be studying Japanese right now instead of rambling about nothing... Feels good to get some things down though, even though this would undoubtedly bore any reader to no end. Sorry!
Forward any complaints to me, and I'll see what I can do. Over and out.