...and we're back!

Yes, it has been over a week now since I've had internet and been able to post on my blog.  Not my fault, let me tell you.  Lucky for all of you, I've been keeping (semi-)detailed records of all of my fun in a ready-to-post-on-blog format.  Rather than overwhelm you with blog entries though, and seeing that I probably won't have as much excitement and fun in my life now that I've settled in and all of the summer festivals have ended, I'll post one old entry each day until I've used I've used them all up.  Hopefully, in the course of a week or so, we'll be all caught up and I can write new entries as time allows me (actually, since I only work 35 hours a week, most of which is spent sitting at my desk, I will probably almost always have time).

You can spoil the endings of my stories/get an abridged version of what has happened to me by looking at my Facebook albums, which I will post very soon.  Trying to post photos on this blog is way to cumbersome, so but I'll try to include links to photos when/where it is appropriate.

A side note on photos:  though my students, or at least the ones I've met so far, are hilarious and adorable, I'm not permitted to post photos of them in public spaces on the internet.  Probably I won't post them at all, even on more secure sites like a password protected Picassa album (they exist, don't they?) or Facebook.  If you do want to see pictures of my students in a non-pedophilic way, you'll have to ask me directly.

Here are some photos that I just have to share now:

This is Takahama, namesake of this blog.  The 'hama' part means beach.

Not actually the primary way of entering the beach, but I wish it was. 

Yes, this is where I live.  Rather, it takes me less than 5 minutes by bike to get to the beach from my apartment, and less than 1 minute from my workplace.  Off in the distant waters are dolphins, and there are octopi and sea urchins that live near the jetty you see in the first picture.  Yes, go ahead, be jealous.