A quick rundown of Alf's visit:

Last Friday he visited my work and confused a lot of my students. It was nice to have him around but I have a feeling that they weren't so prepared for alf in all his alfness. My favorite of the day was when we both tried to explain the US election system. The system's a mess anyway, but i'm sure we totally freaked everyone out with our convoluted explanations. THese were high level students, probably the best class at my school, but at the same time, it must have been hellishly confusing. Afterwards we went out for conveyor belt sushi- a fabulous Japanese taste treat- and then to a bar where we met a drunk and friendly Japanese couple out on their second date and we watched the guy drink himself under the table as he tried to keep up with 4 sober gaijin guys. Humorous and a little strange.

Saturday was spent hanging out and watching the Canadian amateur hockey champions get slaughtered by their russian counterparts. It was an 11-1 rout for the Russians. Fortunately we saw some good fights, that at least was entertaining. Afterwards we went bowling and slept over at Lara and Shanes for the following day's ski adventure.

Sunday we spent at my favorite ski resort, Nozawa Onsen. I've got some great pictures of alf falling on his ass, face side and head that should amuse me for weeks. Jennifer is getting pretty good with the ol' snowboard. Not ready to go pro on the half-pipe yet, but pretty close. Shane and I got lost and had to get picked up by a ski patroller when the lift shut down. Pretty annoying really.

Monday alf spent sitting in front of the computer, no breaks.

Tuesday we went around downtown to Zenkoji, the big temple in town. It's pretty cool, but still just a temple. Alf went to buy some chopsticks for his girlfriend as a souveneir and the store we got them at didn't have enough cash to break his 10,000yen bill, so as it happens, i bought his girlfriend a present.

Wednesday we spent hanging out at the Monkey Onsen. Hopefully, i'll have some good nude pics of alf in the onsen. The best part of the day was when two monkeys started attacking eachother mere feet from shane's bare wet ass. Pretty cool, one of those stories to tell your grandchildren.

Alf spent Thursday also hanging out and playing games on the ol' computer. After work we had a Guys Night and Shane and Ronnie (the other two guys that i hang out with) came over and drank beer, told stories and we played some epic slime volleyball battles. Overall, time well spent.

Alf's final japanese experience here was watching a shitty japanese nija movie that seems to have been closely based off of a Playstation 2 game or a crappy anime movie, complete with the meaningful stares, silly dialogue and a nonsensical plotline.

Yesterday Alf and I biked to the train station at 5:30 in the morning so he could get to Osaka in time for his flight. A word of advice: If you're going to visit us, fly to either Tokyo or Nagoya unless the ticket elsewhere is like $200.