Ahhh... Friday... I really like having a job that ends on Friday, though it was nice to have my Mondays free when I worked Saturday. No public office is open on the weekends here. So having Monday off made going to city hall or even the bank a lot easier. Now I have to take a day or half day off for something important like my alien registration card or sending money overseas. Speaking of which, I'm going to be taking next Thursday off to go take my driving test...again. Because Japan doesn't recognize a Texas Driver's License as "good enough," I have to convert my license to a Japanese one by jumping through three hoops. The first two are relatively easy: eye exam and ten question written test. The reason I say relatively is because the written test is only easy if you can understand the English that they use on the test. It was not written by a native speaker, I can assure you of that. Luckily I can read enough Japanese that I could compare the Japanese and translated English question. I only missed one. The big and difficult and 面倒くさい(annoying or troublesome; mendoukusai) hoop is the practical test. It's not really a driving competency test; it's an obstacle course. And everyone I've talked to about it had to take the test at least two times. It's strict to say the least. But the most annoying part is that if you fail, you have to go back to the end of the waiting line. Which means two or three months before your allowed to try again. I took my first test at the end of December and get my second try on the first of March. I've never been very good at tests, and I'm worried that I'll have to take the test three or four times...meaning that I won't have a license until the end of summer. (T_T) But who knows, maybe I'll get a nice test guy who goes easy on me. 頑張ります！　(Ganbarimasu!)

The picture is a pretty view of the pink mountains and the moon that I took last month.