Japan

This will be a short post that explains how I my downhill path towards throwing my life way to video games began. The pictures below are of an amusement park in Kumamoto called Greenland.  Perhaps just "Greenland" is not the proper name, but I do know that it is referred to as Greenland.  So Greenland it is. I'm not an expert when it comes to amusement or theme parks, but I wouldn't say Greenland is a particularly great park.  There are rides here and there but something doesn't seem cohesive about the park.  It seems as though the park was originally built much smaller while rides and new areas were added on over time.  Many of the rides and attractions are outdated and something about it seems very, strange. So how did this start my downhill path? Take a look at the picture below. When I saw this view it reminded me of a game that I enjoyed very much as a kid, Roller Coaster Tycoon.  Then it hit me, Greenland is exactly what Roller Coaster Tycoon was

Once again, I have failed to update my blog in a timely manner, so these posts reflect events from about a month ago. There's nothing much to say about these pictures so I'll just post them for enjoyment with captions for any of interest. Cosmos happen to be the city flower for Iizuka.  They are grown in fields and are a pleasure to the eye. this girl is in the way of my picture of soft cream.  Though something interesting to note is the black color of the ice cream.  It's representative of coal, as the chikuho area was once a prosperous coal mining location. A yamakasa in Kanada, not Canada.

A while ago I experienced something that that seemed new but authentic.  I visited a neighboring city that probably isn't well known or known at all amongst people outside of Fukuoka Prefecture, Nogata (直方市).  Nogata is approximately 20 minutes away by car (and 30 minutes for by bike on a good day).  I didn't think there would be anything interesting to the city, and to be honest, there isn't much for a tourist.  It's a city where people live.  However, a Japanese walking guide book had a suggested Nogata route, so Andy and I decided to give it a try. We first went to Taga Shrine because it had a place to park.  It was along the route and we thought it would be a good place to both start and finish.  It's a surprisingly large and well-kept shrine.  The parking area is large so it seems that when built, it was hoped to have been a major tourist destination.  It was however, empty.  It was a National Holiday and there were only 2 or 3 others there.  It's

Time has flown by once again.  Life seems to be a collection of events.  Imagine the movie Click  (you know, the one with Adam Sandler).  He only lived in the moments that he wanted to and fast forward the parts that seemed uninteresting to him.  I feel, in a sense, that's how I live my life.  Every so often there are good events and moments that come along, and everything in between is just treated as filler.  Maybe we all tend to live life like such.  We countdown towards something important and are too distracted by looking forward to the future, that we don't live in the moment.  I suppose it's fitting that my school's English Course motto is "seize the day".   carpe diem.   But can we really live life that way?  There are some days at work where I have no schedule.  I try my best to occupy the time with meaningful activities or tasks, but at the end of the day, it seems and feels as though it has just been wasted.  Perhaps that's my fault for having a