Yeah, that's right, getting the hell out of the Otake-cho ghetto. When I was sick with a sinus infection a week ago for the 5th time since coming to Nobeoka, one of my JTEs mentioned that my pred used to have allergy problems from the mold in my apartment. He then asked me why I didn't move? My response was something like, "You mean, I'm allowed to move?"

Turns out yes, I am. He helped me find an apartment in another set of teacher housing on the other side of Nobeoka. The new place is MUCH newer and nicer...for one thing, it has a water heater...yeah, I know, crazy-luxury, right?

There was a bit of trauma since we will be the first non-Japanese teachers living there (damn foreigners might do crazy things, you never know!), but it's been resolved and we will be moving next Tuesday. Woohoo! (incidentally, one of the biggest reasons given to deny Chinese people apartments is "They use a lot of oil in their cooking, so it would mess up the walls." Japanese people pretty much hate all foreigners equally, it's not an American thing.)

Between that and the bed I'm buying from another departing ALT, and it will almost feel like I have a real life! Maybe if I can quit being sick all the time, my mood will improve too...the damned drugs fuck with me.

Beautiful beaches, stunning mountains, warm weather...and bugs. Lots of bugs. Big ones.

In Saturday night's case: Poisonous ones.

So I'm chillin' with friends in the living room, getting ready to go to bed, when I look down at my leg and see this crawling down my pants leg!

I admit, I freaked out. It wasn't quite up to "scream like a little girl", but we were definitely in the "get it the fuck off me NOW!" state. Vickie ran and got a shoe, and brushed it off me...and it promptly scuttled under the futon. Of course, when we lifted the futon up to find the thing, it was nowhere to be found.

Why is it poisonous centipedes only crawl under your mattress 5 minutes before you're going to sleep?

We pretty much tore the apartment apart, but couldn't find it. Current military intelligence suggests that it crawled down into the space between the tatami mats on the floor. Based on that, we deployed WBDs (weapons of bug destruction, aka, bug spray) and went to bed, with no evidence of the enemy's destruction.

....GREAT.....

Sleeping Saturday night was an excercise in willpower.

Sunday morning, as I was getting a towel from the closet, I saw the blasted thing, resting on the track for the closet door. I think the poison must have gotten to it, 'cause it was moving *much* slower than the night before. I smushed it flat with a shoe, and then stood on a battleship with a big "Victory" sign hanging behind me.

That's always a bad plan. Today, after doing further research, I have discovered that mukade mate for life as pairs....so when you find one, there's a VERY good chance that it has a pissed off widow trying to come to terms with bereavement.

This by the way, is the true definition of "terror."

This post will be extremely long, and will contain MANY images...so, if you don't care, I suggest you skip.

If you have problems seeing the pictures (sometimes some of them aren't showing up and I don't really know why... then please go to the gallery directly:

http://www.pinatagod.com/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=2952

( Daily Life - Part #1 )