Over a week went by and not much happened photographically for me last March, it must have been the end of winter rainy season! From my memory it was a very busy time, but in the middle of all this busyness, there was a happy few hours spent in Osaka catching up with a fellow Aussie expat also named James. He was in Osaka to collect his Alien Registration Certificate (aka "Gaijin Card").
Neither of us are the type of "expat" who's been sent here by some company on high rolling salary, living in the best places in town, rather we are both people who came here by our own choice and money, living very simply while we are at it.
I'm living in a 50 year year old house on 70 square metres of land in Kyoto. He was at that time living in a share house with a number Japanese 20s to 30s year olds in Nagoya. We both have a desire to live here in as local way as possible, trying to learn the language and culture while we are at it.
Well, he was only fairly new in Japan at that time, so there was a lot to talk about how to survive the life here. He's also got an IT background, so it we chatted quite a bit about the latest in programming languages and developing web based applications. So it was a good few hours in Osaka, but then I had to get back to Kyoto to teach a class. This snap shot was taken on the way back home.