Do you love liquor?

Originally uploaded by gabrielsond.

I’ve lived quite a few places in my life so far. I have been working on this map for a while now, trying to remember as many places as I could. I have intentionally left a few places off this map for privacy, including my current address, but this is 90% complete.

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GourmetCity
I’m pretty sure this grocery store was called something else when I lived there. It was a nice market, although a little more expensive than Super Tamade, and they had a better selection of beer.

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Post Office
Self-explanatory

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Dog Building (わんわん)
I love this building. I don’t actually know what the whole building was used for, I think they had kennel services. The main floor had a large area where dogs could meet and each other and play and where people could watch.

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Entrance To Dotonbori
Dotonbori (Doutonbori/道頓堀) is a pretty famous street in Japan, particularily Osaka. It’s only a couple blocks from where I lived and you could see the neon crab from my balcony at night.

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Photography Shop Gone
Warning: This post will not stand the test of time.
As of August 2008, you would see a construction site on this corner that led from a main street to the street connecting to where I lived. This corner used to have a two story building on it with a little photo/camera shop at street level. The store was old and out dated. Japanese electronics shops are flashy and show all the latest models of cameras, etc. but this store was dusty, dark, and only had some somewhat old pamphlets for digital SLRs.

I needed to get some ID photos taken for something so we decided to try to support a neighbourhood store but the shop owner wanted 3000 yen for 2 photos when I could get them done at a photo booth for no more than 1000 yen. I knew his business was not long for the world in an ever changing Shimanouchi.

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Secret 7-11
I often stopped at this 7-11 on my way to school to pick up ice coffee and curry croquette. This 7-11 is kind of hidden in a shadowy part of the hotel, although they do have signs on the street to direct people.

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Korean Consulate
This was my goal on my first trip to Japan, which lasted less than 8 hours.

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I already made a couple of posts of places in Osaka on Google Maps’ Street View:

• My Japanese Language School (EHLE) On Google Maps
• My Flat In Osaka On Google Maps Street View (Kind Of…)

And there will likely be more because I dig maps and I want to mark places that I remember before I forget.

Here are a few other places near where I used to live:

Super Tamade
We bought almost all of our groceries from this store. I could hop on my bike, go to the store, and be back in under 10 minutes. It was very, very convenient.

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This is the “mansion” that my sister-in-law lived in; very nice building and also very pricey!

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Central Osaka Baptist Church
This is the church that my wife went to and where we taught English together.

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My wife and I translated the menu for this Chinese restaurant from Japanese & Korean to English. The previous English menu was unusable

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The Street View on Google Maps Japan does not go down the street where I lived in Osaka, but you can still see the top of the building from a corner nearby. Since I lived on the top floor (10th) I count this as being visible It the tall brown building in the middle:

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Here are some photos from the flat:

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

I just found out that Google Maps Japan has Street View and has a nice selection of streets in Osaka that I remember well. This is the Japanese language school that I attended for a while in 2005.

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I often bought breakfast/lunch from this convenience store. Mmm, prepackaged curry croquette.

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I’ve done a lot in the last 10 years. Maybe that’s why I’m so tired. Heres my last 10 years in a few quick notes:

• 1997/1998 - Moved to Monterrey, Mexico. Taught English, drank tequila, etc.
• 1998 - Moved back to Saskatchewan, Canada.
• 1998 - Moved to Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Started school at DeVry
• 2001 - Earned my BSc. in CIS.
• 2001 - Moved back to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada for a few weeks to hang out with friend and family and enjoy my freedom (for a couple weeks)
• 2001 - Flew to Vancouver for a few days to get my Korean E-2 visa. Watched the fireworks festival from my hotel room.
• 2001 - Moved to Seoul, Korea. Began teaching English to kids 4-15 in Daechi-dong
• 2002 - Day trip to Osaka, Japan for a Korean E-2 visa run. Insanely quick trip…
• 2002 - Moved to new flat in Seoul, Korea. Began teaching Adults in Jongno-gu
• 2002 - Married my wonderful wife, Sanghee, in Busan, Korea
• 2003 - Backpacked around northern/central India for a month with a group of Koreans for my honeymoon
• 2003 - Took Sanghee to Canada for the first time. Travelled around Saskatchewan and Vancouver for a month.
• 2004 - Moved to Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. Worked part-time at SaskTel. (Will never live in Regina nor work for SaskTel again!!!)
• 2004 - Flew back to Incheon, Korea on a stop over before moving to Osaka, Japan. (Never left the airport, was only in the country for 6 hours or so).
• 2004 - Went to Saipan & Guam for a week. (Spur of the moment vacation with my in-laws after arriving in Korea.) Parasailing, jet skiing, etc.
• 2004 - Flew back to Incheon, Korea on a stop over before moving to Osaka, Japan.
• 2004 - Moved to Osaka, Japan. Taught English illegally, went to Japanese language school, drank lots of sake, ate lots of great Japanese food, paid too much for rent, hung out in the coolest areas in Osaka, visited Osaka Castle weekly (if not more frequently). One of the best and worst times of my life.
• 2005 - Moved back to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. Got a great job as a programmer for a small telecommunication company within a week!
• 2005 - Bought a car and a house in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada.
• 2006 - Got another great job as a programmer in Saskatoon (I’m still there)

Of course, things have happened in between and since 2006 but things have slowed down A LOT from what I was used to and the things that do happen don’t seem very exciting any more. I’m a pretty laid back guy but I like to experience new things but Saskatchewan and, to some extent, Canada are not great place for such experiences.

I was inspired to write this post because of wherethehellismatt.com. I watched his videos and read his FAQ and I felt hopeful again. Now, I think I need to see the world more and I realize how important it is to me.

Perhaps I have been spoilt or lucky, maybe both, by seeing more of the world than most people during my short time here. However, it has changed me for the better. I have a hard time calling anywhere “home.” I live in Saskatoon and I was born here, but it just feels like another place I have lived and not like where I belong. I have felt more like I belonged somewhere while sipping chai and smoking a beedi in Jaisalmer, India or riding my bike through streets of central Osaka, Japan. These are just two examples but what I am trying to say travel has opened my mind and allowed me to find things about myself that I would have never realized had I lived in one place like most of the world does and it scares me to think I am getting myself dug in to a life that I find dull and unimportant. I really need to get going (for my own sake)…

I was watching TV while letting the flickr slide show for Osaka (大阪) run on my laptop. I kept on seeing picture after picture near Dotonbori (道頓堀).

I never really thought much of it before. I mean I knew I lived in a good part of Osaka but I never spent much time thinking about it. I guess I was too busy with real life. Yes, a few people who live in Shimanouchi (島之内) have real lives. Now that I think about it, the life I had was really, really amazing yet still awful. I tend not to think about the bad sides and remember just the good.

I highly recommend anyone to live there if you have the chance and the budget. It allows for some amazing experiences and unique perspectives. Although, I would never live there again.

I was just going through some old photos on flickr that need to be geotagged. I found a few photos from my trip back to my old neighbourhood after not being back for roughly a year and a half. The old parts of the neighbour hood had been completely demolished and there was now a large metal construction fence around a huge area of land where much of the neighbourhood used to be.

This was a shock for me at the time even though I had been living in Seoul for nearly 3 years and I thought I had grown desensitized to the constant reconstruction. However, this had fundamentally changed what I had first recognized as “Korea”. The market was not nearly the same as it used to be and that is where I have some of my earliest memories from. It was kind of like losing a memory

The point that I am getting at is that some places move very quickly. However, some places also move very slowly.

I have been in Saskatoon for nearly three years now. I was born here. I have lived here for longer, but not by much, than I have anywhere else in the world. I will always love it, but I am tired of it. It made me realize that hardly anything has changed here in 3 years let alone the last 15 months like I had experienced in Yeoksam-dong.