My Lovely Friend Daikyu

Okay, daikyu is not a person, it is Japanese - 代休 - for "substitute leave".
Although I may rant and ramble sometimes on how busy my weeks can get, and sometimes I DO work 14 days straight. Every hour I am scheduled to work beyond my normally scheduled 40-hour work week, I get substitute leave. I have to use this daikyu within 4 weeks of getting it, so I can't save it up and take a month off, but I also can't let myself burn out for too long before it forces me to "use it or lose it".

Yes, it's true.

In the last 2 weeks, I have worked the equivalent of almost 3 full days of work when I was supposed to be at home playing video games or on a mountain snowboarding. But let's be honest here, some times when I work on a "day off" it takes place at an event where I get to participate, eat, sometimes drink, and MC/flex my interpretation chops in English and Japanese; I love that, and on top of it all, I get daikyu.

Taken "at work" last Sunday

So what am I doing with this substitute leave? I am going to HOKKAIDO!
Well, to be specific, I am taking a week off work, and only using one day and 2 hours worth of actual, paid leave for the following three reasons:
1)I need to go to Osaka to renew my passport.
2)There are DIRT cheap airline tickets from Kobe (a quick train from Osaka), with direct service to Sapporo, the largest city in Hokkaido (and YOU thought it was just a random name for BEER!).
3)When I get back, Hiroshima is hosting the first annual "World Snowboarding Competition in Hiroshima", so I will probably have a lot to blog about when I get back.

Yeah...that's not gonna cut it anymore.

Hope you enjoy the blogs to come, and don't forget to vote on my poll (top-right).
Kthxbye!