Gamba Osaka!

Well I just got back from the rain soaked game of Gamba Osaka. It was a great game and I'm sure all my friends had a blast. The fans are very crazy and they sing pretty much all the time. Pre-game, first half, halftime, break,after the game, all the time!!! I took loads of pics and videos so I hope you enjoy them. Have a great day and I hope you are all doing good. Take care and be safe.

vince

p.s. We won the match 1-0, on a 90th minute thrilling goal. Good times!!! :) see you

Soccer time *get your head in the game mate*

Hello everybody, right now my free internet is back up so I can make some phone calls.
Today we are going to the soccer (football,footy) game between Gamba Osaka and Oita Trinita. For those who don't know about the J-League go to the website I am really excited to go today. It will be my friends Tom,Jon,Becky,Allie, Jayne and I. Should be fun and we are staying in the crazy fan section. I will leave my place in about an hour. It will take about 1 hour to get to the stadium. Well I will be back later with some pics and videos of the game. Take care everybody and I hope you are doing good. Miss you

...vince in japan


by the way i really love this song right now in japan

Im so "yaki"

Hello every one. I hope this evening or morning finds you well. I just arrived home after a splendid dinner w/Fumiko. As marvelous Marcel would say... oh man! That was some good food. I had a plate of amazing Yaki Soba. mmmm

Well today was interesting at school. It was about 2:30pm. I was chattin up the new teacher, she is really funny. Anyway, we didnt notice but we looked around and there was no one in sight. Apparently they forgot to inform the newbies that there was a staff meeting. So we were there talking for ages while they were having the meeting. Mind you, I dont have to go to the meetings because I have no idea what is going on. So I was able to go home about
3pm. It was cool! thats Japanese organization for you. haha... that was my interesting news of the day.

Last night I was watching horrible japapese pro wrestling...yeah ill just stop there.

So yesterday I managed to get a group of people together for the Gamba Osaka soccer match. I had to buy the tickets. It will be jon,tom,becky,allie,me,and i think Fumiko will go. But she will probably bail. So expect pics and vids soon. The match is on saturday night! So excited!!

Well thats it for tonight Im heading to sleep. take care and comment to let me know how you are. bye bye

uncle vince (yay!!!)

Halo 3 Review from Gamespot!

At the Grind

Well I'm at work right now. This morning was pretty nice, and cool. Which is very much welcome after the last two months!! WOW I've already been here for two months. Time really flies and maybe it's going too fast. I don't have any classes this week because the 2nd year students left on a trip to Korea. And the 3rd year students are having exams this week so basically I will just stay in the Teacher's Room all day long. My students will come here and talk for a little so it's cool. Tom and I are trying to get tickets for the Gamba Osaka soccer game coming up this Saturday. They are Japan's top team in the J-league, it would be so cool to see a game!!! Well I think this is it for now. I might be bored later on so I might post more later on ok! See you

hello everyone

Well having no internet really blows! I have to send this post on cell phone right now! Anyway enough of my whining! Today was awesome at footy practice,I knocked in my first goal today!!! Then about 10 mins later I scored another! hell yeah! That might not seem really amazing but if you see these guys play, its a big deal to me! That made my day...er...night. After the lads and I went to Tin's Hall for a burger! Tins is pretty good place that serv
es pretty decent western food. I'll get a photo next week. I also have pics from the work party on my camera I will upload at work tomorrow. That night was great. Imagine 25 Japanese and me. haha ...yeah ^_^

I'm a bit bummed now because Halo 3 came out today (usa, 27th in jp). I missed the camping outside like a freak for a game! haha oh well it will be worth the wait! well I guess this it for tonight, I will post in the morning at work k. Have a great day where ever you are.

oh and if you want to get a hold of me easy email me here. vnovoa@softbank.ne.jp

またね bye bye

oh the pics i took on my cell this saturday. one is my train station, the other is the crazy Dotonbori area by the river. So many people...good times

Today is Happy Time!

Ok first off just want to say sorry （ごめんなさい）for not writing much lately. As you may know already, the good ol days of free internet are gone for me at the moment! :( So currently I'm waiting for Yahoo! Japan to come to my aparment and connect me. The earliest they will come is OCT 17TH!!!! Crazy!!! So that really sucks, so I have to use the internet here at school. Anyway....

So tonight should be fun. I will go to a party that some of the teachers and I are throwing, and as you can see from the flyer it's called HAPPY TIME!!　（すごいね） It's a long story behind the infamous Happy Time crew but basically during the rafting trip they asked me how to say cheers in English! Of course it's cheers, they didn't understand that word so I broke it down to happy times.... and that is that...

There will be about 20 people from my school there, and I hope it will be fun. It will be at a Korean BBQ place. Yes I know it's not as good as RUDY'S BBQ back home but whatever.

Right now I'm eating my cheap sandwich that I make everyday. They are actually pretty good damn good though and they fill me up. And they are fairly healthy which is good. There is so much food in Osaka. You know that Osaka is known as the Food Capital of Japan（日本）. There are so many wonderful things to eat here. One of them is Okonomiyaki. Which is basically a Japanese omelet with various things inside like Squid, Pork, Veggies etc. I usually eat 2 a week, but this week I'm cutting down because it's a bit unhealthy but damn good let me tell you that!!! If any one comes to visit they should bring a good appetite!

Soon there will be a party for the footy team. I am looking forward to that too. And next Saturday the 29th I want to go see some funky house party at a club called Noon. I hope I can get some people to go with me, I miss funky house!! Well that is all from me at the moment. I wont have internet at home this weekend so I might not be able to post till Monday. I can post from my phone but it is a hassle. I hope you everybody is good I miss you all and take care of yourself!


*lynn and mar ~ hope you guys are doing good miss you all a bunch. will conference call when I get internet like in a million years! and mar, don't get too good at Halo 3 since you will have a big lead on me!!!
*Family, I hope you are doing good, leave a comment or something to check in. Hey Paul how are you!!!???
*Christian - thx for the myspace message keep in touch
*Danny in Vegas ~ Miss you brother, any news on the weddin? oh and do you live in Cali now??? hahah
*Millie and Jigga - damn I freaking miss my dogs :(
*June - giving u a shout out !! 最近、どう？
*miko - i miss lil buddy how is he!? oh you too hahah ^_^
*Manny - please don't kill your students ok, let me know how you are doing
*UTEP MINERS - PLEASE DONT LOSE TO THE DIVISION 2 SCHOOL THIS WEEK!!!! PLEASE!!!
*Moe's Mexican Restaurant!!! - PlEASE SEND ME A MOLE PLATE AND A dozen TORTILLAS!!! HAHAHA



thats all for now take care, oh and if you were wondering what the hell that mushroom guy is he is the mascot for NTT Docomo Cell Phone service. It's cute I guess... bye

At the office

So im at school right now on my cell phone writing this blog. Im sending some pics from my phone that I took yesterday at the biggest building in Osaka. Oh by the way i think my free internet days are done. Really sucks... I should be getting my internet in a month it takes forever. Be back soon... peace

Welcome to high school

So currently I am home watching some (dare I say) Women's World Cup action right now. I was pondering on what to write today. I will give you a rundown of my class schedule. I currently have 15 classes. Three of these classes are *ichi-nen sei (freshman). I have three *san-nen sei (seniors) classes and one *ni-nen sei class. I also have a PTA(parent teacher association) class on Wednesday afternoon. All in all I have some pretty good students. Many of my students have very little English ability so you could imagine our conversations. I have learned the wonder of gestures.

Today I had a class of ni-nen sei. Last week my JTE and I gave them a small English quiz, which involved filling in blanks of sentences. For example *On my summer vacation I _____________________. We checked grammar and spelling. For a reward to the two highest grades, we told the class that those two students will get to chat with me outside in the hall for 15 minutes, while the class goes over the quiz. It was great to hear the gasp!!!! of the students when they found this out. I know for sure it will be a motivator to do well in class. The students (especially the girls) were so jealous of the two students that were picked. I'm hoping to do some more cool things like this soon.

I made up a somewhat crazy idea to do with all my students today. I wanted to incorporate music into my lessons. So I decided that I would create a cd with about 12-14 songs on it. I would make copies for all the students. I want to make an English challenge for them. I picked all American music and not very popular music that is fed to them on CRAP MTV!!!! Every week I will give them a song to listen to. I will first write the name of the song on the board. I will then have the kids write a short description of what the song is about. Afterwards I will give them the lyrics with certain words blanked out, for example verbs, adjectives, compounds, nouns ETC. I will give them all week to listen to the song and try to fill in the blanks. They will give them to me in the teachers room or class. The person or persons that have the best score each week from each class will get a treat (of some sort). I really hope this goes as planned. It will be tons of work for me but I think this will be a great opportunity to do something fun. It will also give them the chance to hear new and good music, but challenge them in listening and comprehension. Let me know what you think!! I'm excited, I have about 3 weeks to prepare everything so it should be all good I guess. If it goes well I might want to create a music exchange club or world music club. To talk about music, and listen to new and undiscovered music from around the world. Damn I have so many ideas haha

Today is the first day in Osaka that it has been raining as hell all day for me. Riding back home from school was interesting because I was getting drenched while every one else on their granny bikes (with umbrella holders on them) were good. I didn't care though, I like rain! I'm from EL PASO!!! :) Speaking of bicycles, when I first started to ride my bike, I would try and be all courteous to my fellow bike riders and let them pass and such. Now I just fly by all the grannies and tell them to move over in English. It's actually quite funny. I'm trying to think of how to make a video of my bike ride to school in the morning without the risk of destroying my camera. Anyway, I hope this blog finds you all well where ever you are. I'm starting to get the hang of the whole BLOG thing. For some more antics visit my friend Patricks blog (the link is in the right side). Have a great day and I will talk to you soon. Comment please if you wish. Ja-ne bye bye

Back from Footy and Dinner!

So today was absolutely smashing! Well everything except the fact that UTEP lost even though they were so dominant in the first half... anyway... I left the apartment at about 10:15am. I had to go to Kyobashi station to meet up the guys. Once there, we went to the soccer field. It was very far, about 1 hour away from my house. It was in the mountains and it was surrounded by green. It was really nice. There were 4 teams. The Osaka JET team, the one that I'm on. Then there was REAL Osaka, Jimmys/Murphys, and a Japanese team. We played a tournament. We played two 15 minute halfs, and it was great. I was really dead in the first game because I really didn't warm up. We had a draw on that game. We destroyed the Japanese team and then we lost to REAL Osaka because of silly penalty kick and lucky passes. All in all we played really good. I don't think I played very well, but I am still learning a lot. We started at about 12 and finished about 4:15PM. Afterwards we all took a taxi back to the station and parted ways. I had a great time, and the guys are really nice. Always helpful and supportive while playing. I was able to practice on my strikes and I was happy after everything. When I got home I had a shower and met up with my friend Fumiko. We went to this "Italian" place called Pomodoro in a mall with a ridiculous Sonic the Hedgehog type name.... "Diamond City". It was pretty good and then we went to the book store. I finally bought a Japanese study book. Damn I was happy to get that!! Then I helped Fumiko buy a English study book. Then we parted ways. I made record time coming home on my bike. I destroyed my past time of 15 mins and made it back in about 6 mins. Thanks to running red lights and various illegal bike maneuvers hahah. Basically today rocked and it made up for the crap day I had on Friday. I'm going to wake up at 4am because I want to watch USA vs. Brazil in soccer. I have to do this a lot now because all the games live are at such a strange time here. It's all good though. I'm looking forward to the week coming. I really don't know why I am but I am hahah. Well I posted some photos of us playing footy and our Pink Jerseys. haahah good times... Take care and leave some comments if you wish. See you :)

Getting ready for footy!

Sorry folks for not posting anything lately. I really haven't done anything worth posting the last few days, work...eat...work...eat...yeah that's pretty much what I do. Right now I'm listening to the "Countdown to kick-off UTEP show" online. It's pretty funny that I keep up with college football over here. I woke up at about 4am to see some games. It's quite fun to do it actually. Last night I went with my friend Sarah(new zealand) to go watch the.......Rugby World Cup.......New Zealand is supposed to be good. So I went to a bar and WOW it's full of Aussies and New Zealanders... Everybody assumed I was from there so I would pretend like I knew what was going on. It was quite funny. I left pretty early because TODAY is Soccer time! We have a tournament at 12pm - 4pm. Should be pretty fun, the only problem is that the high is going to be 38c today (almost 100F)!! So that should be interesting to see how I hold up. We had a good practice on Tuesday so I should be ok. Tonight I'm "supposed" to go to eat with a couple of friends but I wonder how I will feel after footy today. Friday night I did absolutely nothing. It was so boring! Everybody had to work on Saturday, so we all kept a low profile. It was my first (of I can assume many) boring Friday in Osaka. I'm taking my camera to footy today so hopefully I can get some pics up tonight. Well thanks for the comments, talk to you soon.

..(marcel) Wow, I'm glad that you finally let your emotions out about my BLOG! haha (you too mom)
..(lynn) Don't worry about my song on myspace, it's just a good song that I like. haha no message involved there ;)
...(manny) how was that real pizza !!! GRRRRRRRRRR........ :(
....(random people that look at my blog in south america) HOLA! and Tudo bem!!

Game Fixation

So I have been dying to play a video game lately. So I went to Amazon.co.jp and I found the game that wanted to buy its the new one called Bioshock. I was about to buy it but then I saw the price of the imported game. 8,000￥！！ In US Dollars that is about 75 bucks for a pc game! WhOA!!! So I think I will wait for a while and see if I can get it some other way. Right now I am so bored at school, I only had one class today and it was the first class in the morning. I have nothing to do and have been reading "The Motorcycle Diaries" and some Texas history books all day. Yes I know the hard life of a teacher in Japan. I should be studying Japanese but I am too excited because I get to play some footy with the lads tonight. I get to try out my new boots that I bought. Anyway I am just blabbing on. On a completely random note, hey mom I used the foreman grill again yesterday for some salmon, and damn it was good. So thanks again. Thanks to everybody for the great comments they are greatly appreciated, it's nice to know that some one is actually reading the things I write here. I like this because I really cannot tell anybody anything here because they just wont understand me. It really is horrible when you want to talk to somebody so bad but there is nothing you can say beside hi how are you. I was thinking earlier maybe they are thinking the exact same thing. Maybe they want to talk to me but they just feel bad about their English ability as I do with my Japanese. Well that is philosophical thought process for the day. Hope every one is well. Oh and this is for Manny for saying Go Cowboys!! GO GIANTS!!! haha see you

Oh by the way, I will try to put some videos up later but it takes forever to upload them to blogger... :(

My birthday! (and osaka pub crawl)

So yeah right now I'm watching a UTEP football game in my apartment online live right now. It's pretty strange to see a game all the way in Japan. I'm happy though.

Ok well if you didn't know already today is my birthday. It's pretty weird not being home for my birthday but my friends helped me out. Last night was the 2007 Osaka JET pub crawl. We started about 11pm at a place called Hawaiian Umiya in Shinsaibashi. We got a free drink and I rang in my birthday there. I'm going to post some of the pics here, it was all good times and people here are really friendly. I will post some more stories soon but just enjoy some pictures. Talk to you soon and leave some comments. Oh and val thanx for the comment :D hope ur doing good in Htown. See you :)