Adventures of Shu

2007-02-22T20:24:00.000-08:00

Aaron Jones

2007-01-14T06:04:00.000-08:00

Hey does anybody know Aaron Jone's email address?

or...

AJ, email me your email address. I will be around when you are in Japan. I"m going snowboarding the weekend of Jan 27/28 but Feb 3/4 I don't have plans.

Hit me up.
-shu

Fuuuunny

2007-01-11T20:42:00.000-08:00

Here's a funny clip about eating sushi in Japan. Subtle humor.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCpbBVthD7o

If the link doesn't work, search for: "Japan Culture Lab Sushi" on YouTube.

Enjoy

Ake Shin Nen Happy!!

2007-01-09T06:37:00.000-08:00

Check out the tallest bldg in the world exploding with new year's festivities.

... tight. Starts off with a bang.

taiwanese update

2006-12-29T20:49:00.000-08:00

hey y'all,
i finally found a fast internet connection and will post a quick write-n-run while i have the chance.

JAPAN
So my brother Dan came out to visit for a week in Japan and we had a blast, running through a high-speed tour of Kansai. First we went to Kyoto, had a tea ceremony with a Maiko (young Geisha), which was awesome. Then we went to Kiyomizu Temple and ran into these two old Japanese ladies that were at the tea ceremony, who we ended up having Okonomiyaki with (random, right).

Day two we went to Kinkakuji and Ryoan-ji, the first the famous golden temple of Kyoto, the second the famous Zen garden of Kyoto. After Kyoto, we headed back to Himeji for Okinawan dinner with Ayame (she and her guitar class gave us a special performance of Sha-In, Okinawan traditional folk music guitar), and we met these two guys from the Kinoshita Circus (which is in Himeji until mid-January). It was wild talking to this one guy, he is the wild-animal trainer for the circus and works with tigers, lions, elephants, etc. on a daily basis. He had really big hands! Ayame and I are going to see the circus show on January 8th. It's gonna be cool.

After spending the day in Himeji walking around the castle, eating eel lunch, we headed home where Dan cooked awesome homemade pizza and we lounged around. The day afterwards, we headed out to Osaka to meet Markane for yakiniku and an all night Warcraft session. It was awesome. The morning afterwards we scrambled to get to Kansai Airport, and off we flew to Taiwan.

Taiwan was an awesome time with Dan. We chilled with my Dad a bit, and hung out with an old friend of mine from SF that moved back to Taipei, and even my crazy uncle Da JoJo, who is like the Chinese version of the Marlboro Man. We ate tons of good chinese food - dumplings, noodles, street stalls food - the best was HAO DA JI PA "big huge chicken steak," dim sum, and more dumplings, homemade wontons, and a bunch more that I'm forgetting. We managed to get in a bunch of shopping and hit a couple of night markets, and saw a bunch of new parts of the city that we hadn't explored before.

Anymore that's all I got for now. It's 5am and I've just come back from the NYE fireworks from downtown, they lit up the tallest building in the world - Taipei 101, it was AWESOME... pictures to be posted later.

g'night y'all! happy new year. i sure am looking forward to a kick ass 2007.

love,
-m.

Recently

2006-12-19T16:40:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the deliquency in posting, Life has revvvved up to manic pace again. Here's some of the stuff that's been going on:

I went to Universal Studios, Japan (in Osaka) with Kanako and Momo-chan from my school. It suuuuucked! It was cold and rainy, and we had to wait 2 hours for the Spider Man ride (which was cool), so we only rode 1 ride the whole day. Boooo. I could see how USJ would be cool for Japanese people, with it's American-like villages and facades, but it fell on deaf ears (and eyes) with me. I was like, um, "so what, a brownstone, a parking meter, an American flag." Otherwise, it was pretty okay.

Here's the calligraphy club, we're hanging out after the big culture festival, where we had showed off some of our badass penmanship. Calligraphy isn't the most popular club (in fact, I think it's the least) in school, but the kids are cool and we have fun. Most of them are from the special education class, which I don't get to teach, so it's nice to hang out with them once in awhile too.

Kerosene heaters that we use at school. It's soooo cold lately! Ah, the sweet sweet embrace of the Kerosene fumes. Makes my head all swimmy.

Maikeru sensei's desk at school.

Ugh... sick.

2006-11-26T15:40:00.000-08:00

I hate being sick... I came down with a cold on Tuesday last week, and came home early from school to sleep it off, but it got even worse on Wednesday so I called in. On Thursday I rallied and went to Kyoto to see the leaves changing and hang out the Janet, her friend Wynne, and my buddy David, who was visiting Kansai for the long weekend vacation.

After talking all day and walking around in the chilly early winter air, I felt like crap when I got home and decided to take it easy on Friday. My voice was getting more and more hoarse, and on Saturday I went to the doctor's office.

(according to the Internet, this is what my throat looks like right now... totally closed and swollen)

Guess what? I've got laryngitis, as well as a mean cold. So I had to skip the trip to Koya-san (buddhist temple overnight stay), and also didn't get to go to Osaka this weekend.

Sucks!!! So I have been unable to do anything for the last week (stayed up all night coughing last night, so I called in today so I can try to beat this cold/get my voice back).

Ugh, I hate being sick, and I'm bummed that I missed out on a good part of David's trip, and that I can't do anything when I'm sick. On the upside, I don't mind missing school though! Okay, back to bed for me.

Kyoto

2006-11-26T05:17:00.000-08:00

So last week on Thursday, Janet and I went to Kyoto to meet up with our friends David (visiting from Tokyo) and Wynne (from Wakayama). It was such a cool day. First we went to Fushimi Inari shine, which I had never been to before, and then over to Kiyomizu-dera, to check out the leaves changing.

Here's the explanation sign in front of the main gate. Fushimi Inari is a shinto god of grains, and since in the olden days wealth was measured by rice, the god has associations with wealth and prosperity. Since Kyoto is a world famous tourist destination, most of the stuff is bilingual, which makes it nice for me to understand what's going on.

Janet and David, in lovely sepia tones.

So this shrine is famous because it has thousands and thousands of these "torii" gates along the path. It's actually quite a hike, we were stomping around the woods for nearly two hours, and we didn't get to cover everything. Every inch of the path is covered by these gates, so it's really beautiful to see. According to Janet, the chick from Memoirs of a Geisha was filmed running through the gates (dunno, my bootleg version is unwatchable, as I bought it in Shanghai and it's dubbed in Russian... go figure?!).

Torii upon Torii upon Torii.

Here's us, actin' a fool at the top of the mountain.

Once we started getting into the more heavily wooded parts of the mountain, they had these cute signs for "entertain your dog by putting out a fire," or "wearing funny hats makes my dog laugh at me." Or something...

This is typical at the entrance of shrines and temples in Japan, there will often be a hand wash so that you can "cleanse" your worldly sins and purify yourself before you enter the holy area, through the symbolic hand washing. The red bibs are actually to do with abortion (the god of unborn kids? I dunno), I am a little fuzzy about the exact meaning but I think that because abortion is used as a form of birth control in Japan, you see a lot of statues with these red bibs hanging out.

So the fox is the messenger of Inari, and there are a number of fox statues throughout the grounds. The fox, or "kitsune" in Japanese, is believed to have magical powers and can sometimes assume human form. Foxes are associated with benevolent trickery, which is kind of like Native American folklore too - I wonder how foxes throughout the world have this reputation?

Here's my artsy lantern/shrine shot.

On the way back through downtown Kyoto, there was a company doing some sort of exhibit for their new product, and had hired a Geisha to sit in a tent and get photographed by tourists (yup I'm a sucker too). Geisha in Kyoto proper are called "geiko" in the local dialect, and "maiko" (underage geisha). I'm lucky enough to have seen a few in Kyoto, but to even catch a glimpse is like seeing a shooting star - quick and fleeting.

BUT, the ladies can rent costumes for the day and get their faces painted. I see this quite often and the girls usually get dressed up and walk around Kyoto a bit and snap photos. I snuck my camera in on a photo shoot - I doubt that real Geikos give the peace sign when they are being photographed.

Here's us in front of the famous Kiyomizu-dear ("Pure water temple"). That's Wynne on the right. She can speak Japanese, Cantonese, Mandarin, and English all with equal fluency. Isn't that rad?!

The temple was a mob scene when we got there. I've been there 4 other times (it's one of the most famous sites in Japan, and everybody always wants to visit... with good reason, it's beautiful). The fall "kouyou" season, when the Japanese maple leaves turn colors ("momiji") and it's really pretty. Unfortunately, we picked a national holiday to go, so it was butts to balls at the temple - not exactly the peaceful mountainside setting one hopes for, but entertaining in its own way.

My artsy shot.

Here's a panoramic (ish) of the temple. It's famous because it's such a large wooden structure that is supspended off the side of the Eastern Kyoto mountains. It's got a great view of the city skyline and the maple trees below are nice too. Too bad I was shooting with my crappy old camera, next time I go I'll try to get a better shot.

Here's David and Wynne lookin' silly, bringing luck on themselves by "bathing in incense."

So one of the famous parts of Kiyomizu-dera is this rock. There are actually two of them, in this courtyard area off the side of the main temple grounds, and the are technically called "Love Stones." Japanese lore states that if you can walk from one stone to the other with your eyes closed, you will find true love (or something like that, I wasn't really paying attention). If you need help to get there then you will need help to find your true love (again, or something like that, wasn't paying attention). This place is always mobbed with young people who are bumping into each other in their attempts at finding true love. Is that some kinda metaphor for love I just made?

by planet_janet
(photo credit: Janet)
Here's me, getting ready for the attempt. The place was so super crowded, I ended up trampling a couple of people in my attempt to find true love. I had the right path for a bit, but in the end veered off and ended up waaay off course. Modern day cupid, David, had to steer me back.

The temple is named for the pure mountain water that runs off of it, hence the name. Again, you can bring luck/fortune onto yourself by drinking the water that runs from the mountain. Funny thing is, it was so crowded, I saw a lady whack a kid with the metal pole (on accident... maybe) right after they had both finished drinking. So much for good luck!

The area surrounding Kiyomizu-dera is full of old style Japanese gift shops with all kinds of curious. This one is for mochi-sweet bean snacks. (photo idea credit: Wynne).

Here's a night shot as we are leaving the area. Nice, huh?

...for more pictures, check out Janet's collection at http://community.webshots.com/user/planet_janet.

Chillin' with Taku

2006-11-14T06:27:00.000-08:00

I had a cool day today - I got into school and found out that 2 of my 4 classes for the day were cancelled (aw yeah), so I had a chance to study Japanese all day, which I haven't been able to do at school since maybe September. It was cool! Afterschool, I went to the gym in the first time since I'd like to admit, and then met up with Taku for dinner after the gym.

Taku is graduating from university this year and is thinking about his plans - he wants to leave Japan in about a year and go travelling, so we were talking about options and hanging out. His family has an awesome restaurant in town, so I ate a ton of food there and am ready to pass out.

I also handed in my application for the "leaving JET" and going home conference - it's in Yokohama (just south of Tokyo), in February sometime. I'm not sure if I want to stay another year (teaching is getting really old) or if I wanna resign (17 weeks of vacation and a free apartment - can't shake a stick at the benny's). More to come on this one... big decisions in the air!

You know you live in Japan when

2006-11-13T04:51:00.000-08:00

This is the stuff that's for sale at the grocery store. Looks tasty!

Mmm, glad they have the octupus tentacle, it's a real impulse purchase.

Kim-sensei models the squid in aisle 3? Or is that cuttlefish? Is that the same thing?

So I was on my way home tonight, I had just finished teaching an adult English class (Kim dropped in to help me out, guest speaker, rock on Kim), and we popped into the local supermarket to get some ice cream. Taking pictures of the funky stuff made me realize that I've been taking Japan for granted lately. All the weird and abnormal stuff has gotten to be normalized and it doesn't really shock me that much that there is every possible sea creature in my local grocery, or that people are bowing and apologizing profusely all the time.

I've been wrestling around lately with the idea of signing on for another year or not. I'm on the fence - the job is starting to feel a bit like that movie Groundhog Day, where Bill Murray has to repeat the same thing over and over. I think though it's because I've been broke and haven't done any big travelling, and my camera has been in the repair shop so I haven't had the inclination to look closely at things with a thoughtful eye. My friend Ross has a blog (A Surface Below) which aims to do just that - look deeper at things, and I think that actively doing it as an observer gives you a much keener appreciation of things.

Anyway, I'm making a new resolution tonight to start appreciating Japan again, and get back on the travel/photography/writing tip. Will keep you updated ;).

... plus playing less of World of Warcraft will help too. Man that game is the devil!
-m.

Sunset

2006-11-13T04:45:00.000-08:00

Here's the view from today, biking home today.

It's gotten butt ass cold in the matter of a week, man that season change came hard! I went from wearing flip flops, a t-shirt and jeans last sunday... to busting out the wool socks, down comforter, and scarf and gloves. Jeeee-eez!

The Return of the Aoki Clan

2006-10-23T08:23:00.000-07:00

Two weeks ago, I met up with Aaron Jones, his wife Hiromi, and super cute and cool kid, Beau. You may remember them from their last year's visit (the crazy underwater ninjas that ate raw octopus on the beach). Bummer that my camera was out of order this time around, but I had a good time hanging out and seeing them again.

(I managed to snap one with my cell phone... Check out this Handsome Stud. What's up ladies?)

So this year we had a more mellow time, we met up in Kyoto, and had lunch with a couple of friends of Hiromi's, who were really cool! We had a picnic lunch at a temple, and strolled around the grounds. Hiromi's friend is a travel writer, and he was really knowledgable about the area. Afterwards, we went to a sushi restaurant in downtown Kyoto, which was one of the best meals I've had in Japan. Definitely top 10 of all time.

We had this awesome blowfish dinner: everything had blowfish in it - the appetizer was Blowfish skin, lightly fried, the sashimi course (oh man it was awesome - octopus, sea urchin, blowfish, squid, tuna... all super fresh and great), deep fried blowfish (kinda like fish and chips... for rich people) for the pre-main, and an awesome blowfish "nabe" for the main. Nabe (pronounced "Nah-Beh") is a wintertime dish, it's basically a hotpot in the middle of the table, and you add meat, vegetables, tofu, and noodles to it. Afterwards they take the broth and make a rice-soup for the final course. Oh man you better believe I passed out after that meal.

Anyway, all I could think about during dinner was the Simpson's episode where Homer eats the wrong part of the blowfish and thinks that he's going to die. Ha man I love the Simpsons, and man I love blowfish, and man I love it when the Aoki clan comes to town. Thanks Jones-san!

Wanna go to the Pants Party?

2006-10-21T08:40:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago, I went to the Himeji Fighting Shrine Festival (Himeji no Kenka-Matsuri), which was a wicked fun day out in the sun, watching naked dudes carry and crash giagantic, heavy shrines into each other. There are a lot of festivals this time of year because of the rice harvest and the seasons changing, the Japanese of olden days would carry these shrines around their rice fields so that the crops would be blessed and the local god of the village could take a tour of the land. It's a total contrast to the ceremony I went to last year, which was somber and religious - this one has more of a carnival atmosphere with lots of food/drink stalls, and tons of tourists - they even sold tickets for stadium style seating!

Here's some pics, courtesy of Sara Revell, since my camera has been out of order:

This was the scene of 99% of the dudes at the festival. They had been drinking all weekend - getting ridiculously tossed, and having a ball. The thongs they are wearing are more casual versions of the ones sumo wrestlers wear, and are called "fundoshi." I bet you the sunburn takes the fun right out of the fundoshi (sorry, I had to).

I dunno how many, it may have taken like 50 or 60 dudes to lift and carry one of these things. I'll post my shots later, and you can see the agony on their faces as they are straining to avoid death by 2 ton shrine. After they hoist them up, while chanting "YOOO-YA-SA!" (it's supposed to power them up, like the mushroom in Super Mario), they crash them into the opposing team's shrines, in an ultimate display of Japanese manhood. As if the funny underpants weren't enough.

East meets West. Nobody told me abou the dress code!

Even the kids get into it.

I love the look on this guy's face. This is during the lunch break, all the shrine-bearers take lunch and lounge around for awhile, and re-whet their whistles for the final showdown.

... You know it just occurred to me how similary this festival is to the Folsom Street Festival in San Francisco. FSF is a bondage/S and M/kinky sex festival in San Francisco, and it's basically throngs of dudes dressed in leather chaps, harnesses, exposing their bare asses and getting ridiculously hammered all day. I guess Japanese and American culture aren't so different after all!

Gakko-Enkai

2006-10-21T08:22:00.000-07:00

Gakko-Enkai is Japanese for "school drinking party," meaning that you go out and get smashed and stuff yourselves with your co-workers from school. I've been doing this for the last two days and man my liver is starting to hurt! Enkais are common culture with Japanese co-workers, especially at the "salaryman" level - they'll often go out with co-workers, clients, etc. on a weekly basis. Since school teachers are super busy, we only do ours about once every few months. It's a great time, because the teachers that never speak to me are super chatty after they get a few in them.

On Friday, I went out with my Junior High teachers, about 12 of us, to get "tabehodai" (all you can eat), and "nomihodai" (all you can drink for 90 minutes), at this yakiniku place. Yakiniku is Korean BBQ, but with a Japanese name. They have grills in the middle of the table and they bring out plate after plate of meat, veg, meat, meat, and more meat. It's awesome, it's like the 4th of July, but everything is bite sized and there are a bunch of small sauces to dip the meats into. Yum.

I sat across from Enoki Sensei, who I have never had a conversation with in my life... so, to break the ice I asked him how to read a Japanese character that was on the menu, and he responded in Engrish! Not only that, but we chatted throughout the entire meal, we talked about snowboarding (he's a bigtime skier), being married (he hates it), students (the kids are always talking shit), American beer (I explained that the big companies are crap, and that I would try to get some Newcastle for him), and other stuff that drunk people chat about. His favorite phrase was "Maikeru, speed up, speed up" as he pointed to my beer and then his watch, indicating that we should drink as much as possible during the nomihodai. I was like "Dude! I didn't know you spoke Angrish! We should'a been hanging out a long time ago!!" He and I are planning to go skiing/snowboarding together this winter. Cool, huh?

And... tonight, as I was walking back to the train station after frisbee practice, I ran into the principal of one of my Elementary schools and a couple of teachers - they were going to dinner and invited me along. This was a "special dinner - Kagoshima style," which is the prefecture that my principal is originally from. As we sat down in the restaurant, he explained that the house he grew up in also had a chicken farm on it, and that people from his neck of the woods eat every part of the chicken - from the rooter to the tooter! SO, I had my 2nd experience of raw chicken tonight, liver, heart, and a bunch of random parts that I couldn't identify but were super chewy and tasty occasionally. It was weird, but kinda fun. We had a bunch of other courses, chicken for the most part, and a special Japanese potato-liquor called "Sho-Chu," which is like whiskey, but not brown. It tastes like crap, to tell you the truth, but it was cool hanging out with this old Japanese dude hearing stories about back in the day.

Anyway, that's it for me. I gotta go, I think I got the runs from the chicken!

Bo-ru-rin-gu

2006-10-09T05:23:00.000-07:00

I went bowling last week with 3 of the teachers from school. Man did I get my ass kicked! I bowled an 86 (alltime low score) and a 126 (meh), compared to a whopping 176 and 165 from momo-chan (means "little peach"), the school nurse. WTF?

Momo-chan, rubbing it in my face that she beat my ass. "Go home and practice, Maikeru. You need it."

That's Hagitou-sensei on the left, and Shirai-sensei on the right. Hagitou-sensei is a PE teacher, and she beat my score by a healthy margin. Shirai-sensei and I teach English together. We tied.

Man I gotta get some more practice in before I embarass myself anymore. I can't believe I lost!

Sports Day

2006-10-09T04:25:00.000-07:00

Here's some pics from Sports Day at school. Finally got them uploaded. It was funny to see the Sports Festival the second time around, it's still interesting but it's the first of my "repeat" events going into the second year of being here. It wasn't that big of a deal to watch the events this year, I actually ended up horsing around with the kids all day. It was cool!

This year, the weather forcast was for rain, so we made these "Tero Tero Bozu," which you are supposed to hang in the windows to appease the weather gods to give us sunny weather. This one is mine. Cute, huh?

This is a 40 man, 20 leg race. This is one team, and they all have their legs tied together. They all have to cross the finish line, and usually there are some pretty spectacular wipeouts, followed by the prone person being dragged by their feet across the finish line. Ouch, talk about some wicked road rash.

Here's the fighting event again. Man this one still freaks me out, thank god no kids cracked their skulls open this year. Man, look how high that kid on the right is!

My artsy shot of the mucade race - the one where they tie their legs together and run like a Japanese centipede.

This is Saori! She is a 3rd year and captain of the tennis team. Super smart and nice girl. She's carrying a spear that has all the ribbons that the school's tennis club has even won.

Here's Imoto (l) and "Perfect Body." I keep forgetting Perfect Body's real name, but that's his favorite English expression. Imoto has a dimple in his chin, and so his nickname is "ketsuago" - literally meaning "ass-chin." Kid are so cruel.

Here's my boys! On the left is Takeomi, who is a big loudmouth 3rd grader. He has a great sense of humor and is funny as hell. One the right is this dude named "Shu" (!!). He is also a 3rd grader, but his girlfriend is in high school (and taller than him). He's pretty much the stud of the school, all the girls love him (of course, he's named Shu).

My boy Kazuki. He's another 3rd year and captain of the soccer team. He learned all of his English from hip hop records and our typical conversation goes like this:

Kazuki: Maikeru, what's up?
M: Nothing what's up witchu?
Kazuki: I-mu just keeping it real.
M: Oh cool. How's the hip hop?
Kazuki: H to the Izzo, V to the Izzay.
M: Cool man, see you Kazuki.
Kazuki: Peace out Maikeru.

Cool, huh?! He's one of my favorites.

This is Ai-chan, she is a 3rd grader, captain of the Kendo club. When she was in elementary school, she won the All Japan championship in her age group for kendo. That's Japanese fencing, where they wear the armor (what she has on) and helmets, and practice samurai swordsmanship. She wants to be a cop when she grows up so she can teach Kendo to people. She's badass.

Here's the two class clowns of the school, Fukumizu and Sho. Sho is a bully and a jock, and dumb as rocks, but he really loves reggae music and tries really hard in my class. He was a big screwup until the Sports Festival, when he got elected to lead his group (purple team), and then became really responsible and a good leader. Now that sports festival is over, he's back to old tricks again. Gotta love 'em.

Here's Sho's little sister, Misuzu. She's super smart and really funny! She kinda looks like Sho with a wig on.

After the sports festival, we had the big teacher enkai (dinner/drinking party) again this year. The all got really wasted and acted crazy - I on the other hand, exercised restraint after last year's debacle and decided to take it easy. The got so drunk this year that they accidentally dropped 65 year old Principal Ikeda on the ground when they were trying to human trampoline him. Jesus!

Even Habatan made a guest appearance, that's Nakae-sensei in the suit. He's a new teacher this year and super cool. We've chilled a couple of times and his English is pretty good. Funny guy.

Dragon Slaying

2006-10-09T04:06:00.000-07:00

Man I'm slaying dragons, fighting bad guys, and collecting gold again. Friggin' Markane installed this game, called World of Warcraft on my computer about a month ago and I'm HOOKED!

I have always played video games as long as I can remember, Dan and I even had a Commadore 64, we used to rock out "river raid" and "godzilla" back in the day (man did I just date myself or what).

Anyway, this game is interesting because the level of detail and sophistication in the game - it's a multi-player online game, so you're playing with and against other nerds and 15 year olds from all around the world. They've even recreated EBay within the game, and it's extent is so far reaching that people will actually use real US dollars to buy stuff from imaginary characters within the game. Talk about fantasy creating reality.

The damn thing has me sucked in like a wet dry vac. The funny thing is, that there is a ridiculously high rate of addiction for the game, since technically, there is no 'end,' it just keeps going on and on, just as life would. There's numberous websites dedicated to people who want to quit (yes, I've read them), and even support groups for friends and families who want to do an intervention. The funniest thing is that South Park has even made an episode about the game (go to youtube.com and search for "south park warcraft" and you'll see some funny shit).

Anyway, if you're wondering why I'm not emailing you back, playing sports, blogging, studying Japanese, or leaving the house, now you know why. Now leave me alone, I gotta hunt down the renegade Trolls that keep attacking the villagers. Ahh sweet sweet videogames.

A perfect weekend

2006-10-09T03:51:00.000-07:00

Man I love the Autumn weather here in Japan. "Akibara," is what the Japanese folks call it, and the literal translation is "sun shining on an Autumn day." What that translates to me is, good forkin' weather! It's sunny but not too hot, just enough to warm you when your standing in the rays, but there isn't a drop of humidity in the air. It's got a slight breeze to it, enough to ruffle your hair, but not enough to make your eyes sting or anything like that. It's GREAT!

So, in the spirit of good weather, I had an action packed 3 day weekend. On Saturday, I did yoga at home, and then went to Himeji for frisbee - we had a practice game against the Okayama University team. Usually about 15 people turn up for our practices. Okayama alone brought about 35 players, and all of them were really awesome (I found out later that this is the team that took first place at the beach tourney I went to last spring)! We ended up playing for 4 hours, the runs were so good.
It's about a 2 hour drive, so it was really nice that they came down to play us. Otsukare sama deshita! (Thanks for putting in the hard work!)... BUT we were lucky to have height and home advantage, and in the end we spanked them and sent them back to the dorms.

Yesterday I finally got a chance to go to the yoga class in Tatsuno, which took 30 minutes for me to reach by bike, but it was in this really cool athletic area called a "budo-jo," which is a traditional Japanese room used for karate, aikido, kendo, and other ass kicking martial arts practice. It was kinda weird doing asanas and meditation in this room where typically people are beating each other up, but after clearing out all the junk from my brain, it was really relaxing and I had a good session.

Afterwards, I went to Ayame's birthday party in Himeji, where we all stayed up until 5am hanging out and celebrating. Ayame is such a rockstar and has a hard liver man! I watched her pound down martinis like she was drinking coca cola. Atta girl. Needless to say, today was a little slow, and Markane, Quappa, and I went to Ako in the afternoon to have Okonomiyaki and for a long drive along the seaside.

It was a good weekend!

Fuji

2006-09-20T02:14:00.000-07:00

So in July, I climbed Mt. Fuji with my friend Zainabu and her good friend Iona. For our trip, we took a bus from Fujinomia city, at the base of the mountain, up to the 5th station around dinner time. It's about 1/2way up the mountain, as far as the road will go (the rest you hike). Even starting at the middle, it still took a good 24 hours to complete the hike.

We started our climb at 8pm in the evening, just after sunset, hoping to summit the mountain at the same time the sun comes up (I'm pretty sure there's a Japanese expression that goes: "if you see the sun rise from the top of Fuji, you will have prosperity or wealth or straight teeth..." or something like that). The wind was blowing pretty fiercely and it had been pouring rain the entire week. And it was pitch black out. Cool, huh?

(Iona takes a breather)

We managed to get from the 5th to the 7th station by 11pm, and the winds were picking up to a dangerous level. We were twisting our ankles pretty bad on the volcanic rocks because all we had to go by was our flashlights and headlamps, so we decided to turn into a warming hut to get a few hours of sleep and let our bodies adjust to the elevation. It turned out to be the right decision, as rain started to pour throughout the night, until the very next morning.

Realizing that our goal to see the sunrise was impossible (the rain, and we were already exhausted), we stayed in the warming hut until the next morning (about 7am).

(Zainabu does her best Mr. Miyagi impression. The warming huts were open loft/bunk bed style, just a couple of huge rooms with enough space to sleep about 100 people).

When we emerged from the hut, it was full blown daylight, luckily, the rain clouds had blown over! We hiked the rest of the day with blue skies at our back and nice weather. It was cool because you could see everything on the way up (and down). There was even patches of nevermelting snow (this is in the middle of muggy hot July, mind you), which gives you and idea of how cold it was.

(Shrine gates were periodically placed along the path)

(Here's the view from above the cloud line)

Yay! After Hiking for 7 hours, we made it to the top. Sitting down never felt so good.

Here's the shrine that was at the top of the mountain. I saw a priest up there performing some kind of ritual too. I didn't get a chance to talk to him, but I think he lives up there at the top! These guys with the soccer jerseys hiked at the same pace that we did, and ended up being our trail buddies for the day. You see quite a few people on the trail, and it's especially cool at night because all you can see are the lights from their flashlights, so it looks like a bunch of ants winding up this big hill.

Here's a map of the huge crater at the top of the mountain. The wind is going so strong at this point you have to yell to talk to each other.

Me and the Z, clownin' at the top.

Thank god.

So we hoofed it back down the mountain after being at the top for about an hour (it was cold, we were tired), and had to run down the bottom half to catch the last bus leaving from station 5. I've never been so happy to take my shoes off in my life.

You hear a lot of bad press about Fuji through the grapevine - how cold it is, how the altitude sickness will get you, the crowds of people, and how ugly the hike is. While I think this is partially true, I think that it's all about how you approach the hike. It's a bitch and can be monotonous at times, but I had a good experience. I definitely will never do it again, but I highly recommend it.
_____

So my buddy Doug lived in the town of Fujinomiya (he's gone home to SF now) and he gave me the grand tour the day after the climb. Fujinomiya is famous for 3 things - Mt. Fuji, The Fuji Shrine, and Yakisoba (fried noodles). That's what the sign says!

I can see why the town is famous for noodles. They were awesome! Check out the chunks of octopus in there, and the fish-flakes on top, mmm.

Here's the side view of the Fuji Shrine. It was so nice to be back in the hot weather after the freezing cold at the top of Fuji.

Watch out for the...

2006-09-20T02:03:00.000-07:00

Speaking of good oral hygine...

Complimentary hotel toothpaste in Taipei, found by Nikster. Subliminal Message?

Nagaii!

2006-09-19T03:58:00.000-07:00

Oyashirazu o nukitta... that's Japanese for I got my wisdom tooth pulled! Man check this fucker out, the roots are super duper long!

Man I finally found a good dentist in Japan. This dude not only is cool (he like The Beatles, Rolling Stone, Jack Johnson, and I've got him listening to Phish now!), but he's got the most tricked out dentist office I've ever seen. You know those Asian kids that have the lowered Honda Civics with the big spoilers, awesome custom wheels, lights, sound system, etc...? He's like that, of the Dentist set.

Anyway, it got me wondering about Japanese people and how some of them have really jacked up teeth, especially here in the country. I asked about it, and some people seem to think that the parents think the kids are "cute" when they've got a mouthful of stalagtites in the cave, but I think the trend now is moving towards proper dentistry (ex: my new school dentist, a lot of my kids have braces now). Hm, something to think over.

In other news, fall is finally here! The weather is beautiful, sunny, and big puffy clouds with awesome sunsets. Fall is Japan is the shiiiiiit!

Tata-ite, Kabu-ite, Janken-HOI!

2006-09-15T05:21:00.000-07:00

Here's an old post that I wrote for JD's blog... okay okay, so I'm busy, but at least you get some new stuff to read!!

------
Two things that Japanese kids love are:

1) Janken (rock paper scissors, taken to an unbelievably new heights)
2) Head Bopping

Well, they've finally managed to combine the two into a game of fierce gladitorial combat, and it's called "Tata-ite, Kabu-ite."

Basically you rock paper scissors, and the winner takes a swing, while the loser has to cover their head with both hands. It's a quick game, and the object is to 1) win the Janken, and 2) swing fast and hard so that you can whack the other person before they move into blocking position.

It's hilarous to watch, and even more fun to play. You can see where games like "Street Fighter" and "Tekken" got their inspiration from! My 9th grade girls taught me the game today, and boy those bitches opened up a can of whoop-ass. What a slaughter! Wait'll next week, I'll teach them the "slaps" game from America and then we'll see who's bopping who...

JET Photograph Submissions

2006-09-15T00:31:00.000-07:00

"Yozakura" Himeji Castle

"The Wishing Tree" at Fujinomiya

"Cherry Blossoms" Tatsuno Cherry Blossom Festival (note the cherry blossoms in the trees, the cherry blossoms in the kimono, the cherry blossoms in the 'obi' (kimono belt)

"Hai, Chee-zu!" Kamioka Elementary School, Tatsuno

"Himeji-jo" (damn this one looks just like a postcard!)

"Mukade" Tatsuno Higashi JHS (My school... mukade is Japanese for 'centipede')

"Neko-chan" Arima Onsen (hot springs), Kobe

I sent in a bunch of photos for the 2007 JET calendar and other various publications. I think they're damn good, so I'm putting them on the website. I've posted most of them before, but here they are again. The cat, the ladies at the cherry blossom festival, and Himeji Castle are my 3 favorites.

Back in the Tats

2006-08-31T03:33:00.000-07:00

Just got home, unpacked, and showered after a 24 hour commute. Left San Francisco last night in a swirl of emotion, stoned haziness, and near gut-bust from San Tung's famous chicken wings. Man this flight is brutal and I am beat up tired. A couple of cool things that happened were: 1) during my layover, I got a massage in Taiwan from a blind dude who could speak chinese, japanese, and english, so we practiced, and 2) I ran into a guy from the JET Programme in the food court (Gavin), and we had beef noodle soup together for breakfast. He spent the summer in New Zealand and was just getting back, I guess he had an 8 hour layover in Taipei airport but they kicked him out overnight (whoever heard of an airport closing overnight?!).

I had an awesome trip back home. It was so good to see everybody and hang out (and sorry if I missed anybody - Mari, Shin, Gordon especially, you're first on the list for next time).

I gotta pass out I'm delirious from the exhaustion, and I gotta get up for school in the morning. Back to the 3 speed bike.

I'll upload pictures from the last 2 months this weekend and try to catch up a bit on the ol' blog... that is, unless I go to "Tennis Camp," which I got an invitation from this retired dude from my Chinese class invited me to. Cool, huh?

Life at 38,000 feet

2006-08-08T19:20:00.000-07:00

Man technology is amazing! At this very moment, I'm sitting in a big flying tin can that's cruising 38,000 feet above the Pacific Ocean and using wireless internet! Can you believe it? That's pretty amazing.

So we've spent the last 4 days in Taipei, which was awesome, as usual. One of my favorite things this time was cruising around the Shiling Night market, trying all the different types of foods (This store called "Really Big Chicken" was my favorite 'Hao Da Da Gi Pai"). Taipei is an eater's paradise. There is so much good food there for really cheap, ranging from the night-market street stalls, to super fancy old school chinese restaurants. Ah god it's going to be hard to go back to bland and tasteless (and overpriced) Japanese food after this month.

Taipei is such a great city. It has a really interesting mix of moderinty and underdevelopment. The climate is sub-tropical, so everything there feels alive - there are trees growing everywhere, and green is totally abundant. My favorite is all of the Banyan trees, which gives the city a mysterious vibe, kinda like New Orleans. The people there are awesome too! Certainly not as quiet or subdued as the Japanese, but not as rude and socially revolting as the mainland Chinese (fewer smokers, spitters, pushers), they have a certain charm about them. Since Taipei is such an international city, many people speak English, and few people freak out when they encounter a foreigner (nor do they try to hustle them, like in Dehli or Phuket, or Shanghai). People actually stop to help people on the street. They are as courteous as a chinaman can get, I would say.

I'll post the pictures from my when I get back to Japan. I would definitely recommend Taiwan/Taipei to anybody that is visiting Asia - it's such an awesome place with cool things to see and do, great people, and awesome awesome awesome food.

On The Run

2006-08-03T13:18:00.000-07:00

Whew. Life has been moving at a manic pace the last two weeks. After "Closing Ceremony" on July 20th, I made my slow way up to Tokyo Orientation (I was an orientation assistant this year), stopping along the way to hike Mt. Fuji, check out the remote town of Shimoda on the Shizu-Hanto peninsula, and visit a giant Buddha statue in Kamakura. After arrving in Tokyo, I was up and working from about 7am to 3am for 5 days of mayhem, and then I came back to Tatsuno to have a hurried sayonnara/birthday party with Markane, and I just finished an all night packing job.

The cab comes in about an hour, I gotta wrap up some last things and then it's off to Taipei for 4 days to see my Dad and Grandfather, then 3 weeks touring around California and Michigan. Whew!!

A shitty thing happened...

2006-07-19T05:30:00.000-07:00

I found out last week that my next door neighbor from my hometown, Shanna Putnam, passed away. She was headed home to Chicago from Potsdam (my home town) with her husband, sister Kerry, and dog, when some fucking asshole, who was driving down the WRONG SIDE of the highway hit them. Both cars were going around 70 mph. I read an article a few days later, and a cop that showed up on the scene described it as the worst accident he's seen in 25 years.

What the Fuck?!

Shanna and I are the same age - she was the coolest and most down to earth girl in the history of next door neighbors. She was super kind to everybody, and had a great life going for her. I'm at a total loss to comprehend how such a terrible random thing could happen and instantly change somebody's life. It really sucks.

Anyway, I hope everybody is appreciating the people in their lives and appreicating being alive and being able to enjoy life. I hope people are cool to each other and try not to take things for granted, I know that I personally get caught up in how hectic and busy things can get and can lose sight very easily. I'm not really the praying kinda dude, but I'll still be sending my thoughts and prayers out to Shanna's family.

Life man, sometimes it just up and kicks you in the balls when you're looking the other way.

Ultimate Frisbee

2006-07-19T04:40:00.000-07:00

So I picked up a new sport when I moved here last summer - Ultimate Frisbee. You may be thinking a bunch of hippies on the beach, smoking weed and having a lazy throw around (at least that's what I thought I was signing up for) - think again! It's the equivalent of doing wind sprints up and down a basketball court for about 40 minutes straight. I played in two tournaments lately, the Asagiri Beach Tournament, near Kobe/Akashi, and the Tajima tournament up north. Here's the pics:

My Team: "X-Force Alpha Super Cream Monkeys (I think that's the name)" we took 5th out of 20 teams in the Tajima tournament. Not bad!

The big group photo from the beach tournament. It was a good time!

I actually got super banged up from playing on the sand - big roadrash on my leg, and cut up elbows from diving around. It's so much harder on your body to play on sand!

So the cool thing about this game is that there are no refs, and there is a really good sportsmanship feeling about the game - the teams do their own officiating, and then they each do a (silly) cheer for each other after the match. Some teams even award the other teams with gift prizes (I got a bottle of booze from a Tokyo team at Tajima!). It's cool because you get really amped up during the game, but afterwards it's just good times.

Tajima was a two-day affair, and they had a big BBQ after the first day. It was drizzling the entire day, so the grass was nice and wet - you could do diving catches and slide out without getting banged up (man it was fun). SO, the BBQ was on the side of a ski resort, and after the eating was over we took the trays and hiked up the hill and had sled races down the hill. It was a bad idea, but really fun, unfortunately one of the guys on my team, Charlie, slid into the guard-rail and busted his rib and had to be taken to the hospital in an ambulance. Bummer!

My buddy Ben, his acid is about to kick in. Whoa dude, look at that tree melting!!

That there hill in the back is the one we did'a slide down. That's the crazy Kiwi, Luke, on the right.

My buddy Zack, from Texas and his Japanese gimp. Makoto (l) and Yoshi (r) from my team.

Frisbee is a cool sport with some cool folks, and they have games in some really cool places! I'm psyched I started up playing, it's a good time.

Buckets o Hikkuri Gaesu

2006-07-19T04:12:00.000-07:00

It means "It's pouring buckets," and is the equivalent of the English "It's raining cats and dogs," which is what it's been doing non-stop for the past 3 days. My laaaws!

So, because of the rain, I've been doing two things, mostly:

1. Reading: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and picking up expressions like "Well doesn't that just dog my cats," "Gimme a chaw 'v ta-backer, Jimmie." Man that Sam Clemens is a sharp writer.

2. Studying Japanese "Koto-waza." These are funny idioms that make Japanese laugh when I use them (like the 'It's pouring buckets."). I also like "Goma Suru," which literally means to grind sesame, but the idiomatic meaning is "ass kissing." Ha!

I've also been watching the river on my bike ride to school - it's rising exponentially every day, there was even a heavy rain/flood warning today and school was cancelled. It's already spilled over the first stone barriers and is slowly creeping onto the athletic field next to the river. I wonder if it ever floods over onto the road?

Exciting stuff, I know. The rain has (luckily) cooled things off a little bit, but it's supposed to be sunny again starting Saturday, just in time for my climb (I'm headed to Mt. Fuji next weekend to stand in a line with 3000 Japanese people, waiting to hike 7 hours up a big hill).

Zhong-wen

2006-07-10T07:42:00.000-07:00

"Zhong-wen" is Chinese for "Chugoku-go."
"Chugoku-go" is Japanese for "Chinese."
"Chinese" is English for "Zhong-wen."

I went to my first Chinese class tonight, and this is how my brain felt the whole time. What a mess!

It started when last Saturday, I went to a Sayonara Party held by the Tatsuno International Association, for the JETs that are leaving our town. It was an afternoon tea and snacks party, and the members are mostly older folks who are retired and have the time to cultivate hobbies like English, travel, Tai-chi, Flamenco guitar, etc. They are a pretty cool bunch of people.

Anyway, I ran into this retired Japanese guy named Dai, who speaks pretty good English, and he and I get talking and it turns out he studies Chinese too, and invited me to join their class! The dude even hooked me up with a ride (it's 20 minutes away in the next town over). Man it was fun, but a little crazed because the other 3 students (Dai, and these other two older ladies who don't speak English) are beginners, and so most of the explanations are in Japanese. In addition, they all can read and write Chinese charactres (Japan's writing system is based on the Chinese one).

Since I'm a beginnger in Japanese, and am just starting to study the characters, it got to be a little hectic at some points! I was having to translate the Japanese explanations back to English to get the full meaning of the Chinese. Whew! It's a crazy to learn a second language when you can hardly understand the first one. What the f?!

Anyway, that was the cool thing that happened to me today. Now my brain hurts.

Funny Shit

2006-07-10T00:11:00.000-07:00

Oh man this is some funny shit:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrJSMxRPzPU&search=japan%20

The Mushi-King

2006-07-04T07:43:00.000-07:00

Speaking of crazy things that people buy... I came across this lady in front of the train station the other day. She wouldn't let me take her picture, but she said it was okay to photograph the merchandise - she was selling the HUGE Beetles for about 8000 to 10,000 yen (about $80 to $100 bucks).

What?!

I interogated her and found out that in Japan, beetles are quite popular and people will pay TONS of cash for them! I see them a lot at my elementary schools, there is usually a beetle or two in the back of the classroom, in a little plastic cage with some rotting wood or tree sap. Freakin' cool!

Here's a close-up of the little critters. They are about half the size of your hand. Ewww!

They've even taken it a step further, with this videogame for kids called "mushi-king" (king of the insects). It's a combination card collection game (think Pokemon, or Magic), and a videogame. From what I gather, you collect cards and your beetles gain strength and you can fight them against other beetles with the machine. Talk about crazy!

I guess insects, bugs, and beetles are a big part of Japanese childhood, on my way home lately I always see the kids rooting around for bugs and critters, chasing stuff with nets. Wackos.

The other thing I've noticed is how many spiders there are, hanging out and looking menacing. We went for a walk the other day around the neighborhood, and came across this guy:

Holy bejesus it was unsettling. People around here don't really clear the spiderwebs, and I even heard it was considered unlucky to slay one... this country is nuts!

You gotta be kidding me...

2006-06-27T02:55:00.000-07:00

Man this country is crazy sometimes. Ever since I was a kid, I used to eat watermellons in the summertime. They were so damn cheap, they used to leave them in a big bin outside the grocery store and people would just grab one without thinking as they were shopping. We would even jack them from the bins sometimes, after the store was closed!

Not in Japan! Check out this watermelon:

6000 Yen is about $52 bucks, US. $50 bucks for a watermelon, are you on crack!? (and it's not even that big!!)

Awaji Soccer Tournament, redux.

2006-06-26T21:56:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, my soccer club played in the Spring Awaji Island soccer tournament. The "A" team took 2nd, and my team (The "B" team) came in dead last, we didn't even score a goal the whole time. We were having such a good time though, it could have mattered less. As an added bonus, we got to watch some really awesome soccer!

AC Hyogo, a bunch of classy fellows.

The backdrop was great - mountains to one side, ocean on the other. Nice green grass fields, a rarity in Japan (for some reason they salt down most of the fields, so that no grass grows. Weird, huh?)

Man it was so hot! Here's Alex (from England) giving our team a pep talk at halftime. The gal in the middle is Pumla, from South Africa. She plays for the girl's team, who took first for the girl's tournament, and her man Curtis plays on my team. (71 - Haight and Noriega, what's up).

On the second day of the tournament, we showed up and the junior kids from Awaji were having a tournament too. Turns out, a bunch of them were Micah's students, they got a big kick out of seeing him. Cute, huh.

The Awaji Soccer Grounds were originally made for the England team to play on in the last World Cup, so they pictures of the British players all over the place. Markane, Taku, me, and Beckham.

Another cool thing was that this time, we had student teachers at my school, who were teaching for 3 weeks. Taku (guy in middle, above picture) is one of the English student teachers, and really loves soccer, so I invited him to play on our team. It was cool because I got to hang out with him outside of work. His family actually owns an awesome Teppanyaki restaurant in Tatsuno, which we've eaten at a couple of times already.

I had a great time playing soccer. Even though I'm still learning the game, I've got to hang out with a lot of cool people and have a load of fun!

Habatan Train

2006-06-25T08:04:00.000-07:00

So my prefecture, Hyogo, is going to be the host of the 2006 All Japan Sports Festival (each town in the prefecture will host a major sporting competition with teams coming from all over Japan. Cool, huh?).

Anyway, to gear up for this big event (it's a big deal), about two years ago the precture created a mascot, named "Habatan." Habatan is this cute yellow thing, which is actually supposed to be a phoenix (because Kobe was almost destroyed in the Hanshin Earthquake in 1995 - 7.2 on the Richter scale, and has had a miraculous and speedy recovery - being in Kobe, you couldn't even tell there was one of the alltime worst natural disasters there, 10 years ago).

Personally, I think Habatan looks more like a cross between a pee-snowman and a chicken, but that's just me. Regardless, he's damn cute!

So in the spirit of the games, Japan Railways has wrapped one of the local trains. The kids call it the "Habatan Train" and get all excited whenever they have a sighting. It pulled in when I was waiting for the train the other day, so I had to snap some pictures. Cool, huh!?

That's the official logo on the front of the train.

Habatan doing Judo. How cute!

How's the Weather?

2006-06-25T07:38:00.000-07:00

My students are funny. I was teaching the 4th graders about the weather this week, my first time doing this lesson. I had cards and gestures made up for all kinds of 'typical' boring weather - cold, hot, rainy, snowy, etc. As soon as the lesson starts, one of the hyper kids says "Mai-KE-ru! What about typhoons, and toradoes, and thunderstorms?!" So I think, cool, I'm going to roll with it. I start drawing the disaster weather on the board, and teaching the gestures. They get a big kick out of it, and then I say "Hey kids, what's the worst weather?"

... and the hyper kid goes "GODZILLA!!"

which, of course, makes all the rest of the monkeys crack up. Funny huh?

Anyway, the rest of the conversation practice went like this:

Me: "Hello, Ryusuke"
R: "Ha-ro, Maikeru"
Me: "How's the weather yesterday?"
R: "It's thun-da-stormu."
Me: "How's the weather today?"
R: "It's to-nay-do."
Me: "How's the weather tomorrow?"
R: "IT'S GODZILLA!"

Man these kids crack me up. Only in Japan can Godzilla be a weather pattern.

Summer Days

2006-06-12T05:52:00.000-07:00

Sweeeet! Summer is here! Lots of time for playing outside, not so much time for blogging... I did take the momma cherry for a spin through the neighborhood the other day to see what condition my condition was in...

Random Gate in the middle of a bunch of rice fields. Usually, these gates denote that you are entering a Shinto Shrine. Check out the farmers working the field!

Love summer.

I-tai!

2006-05-29T03:33:00.000-07:00

Itai (pronounced ee-tye), means "ouch" in Japanese.

We had a soccer game yesterday and last night I started getting wicked ankle pains. When I was limping around the office this morning, the school nurse bandaged my ankle for me and then gave me a cookie.

School rocks.

Doofing Around at Elementary School

2006-05-22T06:17:00.000-07:00

I did double duty last week at Elementary School. Man I those kids are so cute and such devils. They wipe me out every time, but every time I see them they get so amped and then they get me amped and I always end up giving 110% when I promised myself I would only give 70% so I wouldn't get so damn tired. Little Monkeys!

On Wednesday, I had the day off so I went to Elem. with Markane. It was fun riling them up into a frenzy while Markane was trying to maintain order. Check out the cheeks on chubs!

I dunno how the kids can eat this crap. It's the same every time - a bowl of rice, a bowl of soup (usually a comination of veg, seaweed, and tofu). And my favorite... "mystery plate!" Check out the fish-puree shaped into a ring things! Can you spot the grey "konyaku," which is undescribable in taste or texture. EWW!

"How not to pee all over your shoes." Uh, you know those are daisy-dukes, right dude?

See the tricky thing is with these kids, you think "aw, so cute, how nice..."

NOT SO!! They are wild Monkeys! As soon as you turn your back (or when they are eye level with your crotch) they will go crazy on you! Beware!

Case in point. Cute one second...

... demons the next.

Here's the King of the Chameleons... This guy in the middle is probably the cutest and most adorable kid in all of 2nd grade... and he will bash the shit out of your nuts and butt the second you drop your guard, all the while laughing like it's the most hilarious thing he's every seen in his whole life. Fucker!

My favorte class of 3rd graders. I think I threw out my back giving them all airplane rides after lunch. At one point they were piggybacking each other, and then jumping on for a piggyback ride unbeknownst to me... little shits.

Ah Fridays, they'll be the death of me yet.

India

2006-05-21T07:30:00.000-07:00

India pictures from December... sorry it took so long...

http://www.kodakgallery.com/Slideshow.jsp?mode=fromshare&Uc=elnpe2n.8tbw8r7&Uy=xesvyt&Ux=1

Enjoy! (let me know if you guys have any problems with the link...)

Another Installment of Ha-Chan

2006-05-21T07:19:00.000-07:00

(click on the picture for a close up)

Hazuki, my 9th grader, wrote me another love letter. This is after she found out that I had a girlfriend.

My Favorite line... "My Eyes are Ranshi" -- I looked up "Ranshi" in my dictionary, it means "astigmatic."

What?!

HA! Ha-chan (her nickname) cracks me up. Her English is actually improving!

Sumo

2006-05-19T06:04:00.000-07:00

Finally getting around to posting the pictures from the Sumo Tournament in Osaka in March. Big dudes, small seats, good times.

Sumo is an all day event in Japan. They start in the morning and go until the late afternoon/evening, with the undercard matches at the beginning of the day, leading up to the headliner as the final match. People make a total day of it and bring in box lunches, and big bottles of beer and sake. The funny thing is, the "box seats (which i deceptively got roped into buying - each box is supposed to hold four people)" are about 4 ft. x 4 ft. So picture these enormous dudes in wrestling and then all these Japanese people crammed into little tiny squares, getting totally shitfaced as the day goes on.

That's got good times written all over it.

At the beginning of each set of matches, the wrestlers come out and parade around the ring. These guys are the upper echelon wrestlers, big wrasslin' dudes wearing fancy aprons.

Each match begins with the wrestlers taking to their corners to get their minds in a zen-like state before the whoop ass commences. There's a lot of pomp and ceremony in sumo, which by far outlasts the actual match (usually only 10 seconds). Check out the chops on this guy!

Hey dude, you got some wicked camel-toe in your butt.

Asashoryu, the reigning champ. Face like an angel.

Kobe Beef at Misono

2006-05-15T06:42:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, Nikki and I went to Kobe in search of good food and good shopping. We found both. Not only does Kobe have some really sweet (albeit overpriced) vintage clothing stores, they have the world famous Kobe Beef. Oh man this is the best steak I've ever had in my whole life.

We ate at this place called "Misono," which I HIGHLY recommend to anybody coming to visit Kansai. It's on the top (8th) floor in downtown Kobe, with a tremendous view of the city.

The place is the originator of "Teppanyaki" style cooking, where the chef stands at your table (actually a hot gridle... think Benihana's in America) and cooks your meal in front of you. No silly birthday songs or 'catch the shrimp' hijinks here though.

The cows for Kobe Beef are massaged and given sake and beer to drink. They want their cows happy and relaxed here in Japan, and boy you can really taste the difference (just think, those Harris Ranch cows are standing around in their own shit all day, and that's a damn good steak too!).

The steak just melts in your mouth, like butter (or really good sushi), and the chef even makes fresh garlic 'chips' by grilling slices while you eat. Lobster tail is served as an hors d'oeuvres, and then the rest of the lobster is made into miso soup. Unbelievable meal.

I've been lucky enough to have Kobe beef three times while in Japan, and Misono was by far the best. Highly recommended.

Anpanman

2006-04-19T06:00:00.000-07:00

It literally means, "sweet-bean-jam-bread-man." Anpanman is ridiculously popular, and the kids from 5 years old all know who he is.

It's the most ridiculous character I've ever heard of, his buddies are "Curry-bread-man, and Uncle Jam" and his enemy is "Baikin-man."

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! It's hilarious!

Check out this website, it's great. It only takes a couple of minutes to surf the links and it's damn funny. My lord!:

http://www.netgeist.com/Anpan-land/Anpanland.htm

or this,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anpanman

... is this just the soy sauce talking, or is this not the funniest thing ever?

Thai-rando Pictures

2006-04-18T21:08:00.000-07:00

You asked for `em, here they are... Nikki has uploaded them for your viewing pleasure.

http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=elnpe2n.79ugark3&x=0&y=jiuv2g

Just copy and paste into your browser, no need to sign-in (just click on the big picture of the album).

Bort in Japan

2006-04-16T06:37:00.001-07:00

I've been meaning to put these pictures up for awhile... my buddy Bort visited Japan in the fall and we travelled around for a bit. Up until that point, I hadn't noticed the effect that seeing a foreigner had on Japanese people (surprise, shock, panic attack, comedy, fear), being that I blend right in with my natural camoflague. It was pretty funny!

For instance, we went sneaker shopping and the chick that was working sees Bort, starts laughing, and goes "Harro, we have foreigner sizes too!"

I just finished a job application to be a workshop presenter at the Tokyo Orientation Conference for JETs over the summer. My topic - looking like you're Japanese when you're really not. It mostly consists of how to milk it (like playing the race card to get a free trip to Tokyo).

I was reading my buddy Ty's blog, and he had an entry about sticking out (see previous entry - he's the white dude doing The Worm in Osaka). Some people don't really care for the attention ("If you stare hard enough, we might turn Japanese" - as my buddy Jon says), some just roll with it and have a great time (my girl Zainabu is like a local celebrity, even signs autographs... and her game is off the hook).

Japan is a pretty insular place, people all look and act pretty much the same, and it's interesting to see their reaction when there is something different happening.

Graduation

2006-04-16T06:19:00.000-07:00

Last month, we had graduation for the 9th graders. They are moving onto bigger and better things (goodbye sailor uniform, hello suits). It was weak sauce sitting in a butt ass cold gym for 2 hours, but it was cool goofing around with the kids afterwards. Too bad these kids graduated, they are awesome. Good luck kids!!

Here's Mina, Minami, and I forget the tall girl's name but she's wicked funny. 3 smart and cool ladies.

The kid on the left's name is Shu too! That's Kohei on the right. Neither speak a lick of Engrish but we always had fun actin' a fool.

... and waiting in the wings, are my 8th graders. Bunch of Monkeys.

Ohanami

2006-04-15T19:39:00.000-07:00

Literally meaning "honorable cherry-blossom viewing," Ohanami is a big to-do here in Japan. There are countless cherry trees planted EVERYWHERE, and the when the blossoms bloom, it looks like snow is suspended in the air.

Japanese people love this time of year probably because 1) it means the awful, terrible winter is ending, and 2) they have big picnic/bbq/make out sessions while sitting under the cherry trees.

Last Saturday, I went to the Himeji cherry blossom festival, located at the castle. While it served as a nice backdrop, it was butt ass cold and it was overcast.

The day after, I went to the ohanami at Tatsuno park/castle, which was awesome! It was a gorgeous day.

Obaa-chan (old ladies) doin' the boogaloo.

For the Tastsuno Ohanami, they have a big Samurai parade through the castle, park, and surrounding "old village." A lot of my students were in the parade! Aren't they cute?

"You have dishonored the Maeda clan with your silly photo pose."

And finally, on Friday night, I went out to dinner with my teachers and after they got nice and liquored up, we all decided to go to the castle and check out the full-moon and full-bloom.

It was sweet.

Beach Bum

2006-03-25T01:44:00.000-08:00

What's up everybody! I'm walking out the door right now, headed to Thailand for Spring Break!! 10 days of sitting on the beach, eating awesome Thai food, scuba diving, and working on my tan. Life is good!

Hope I don't get the 'rhea.

I was going to write about graduation, spring time and the plum blossoms, my trip to Kyoto, my trip to India, yakiniku (Japanese BBQ), and all sorts of really interesting stuff, but I've been too preoccupied thinking about my $5 massage and $12 beach bungalow and the grubbin' pad thai I will be mowing down on.

Stay tuned, I'll write about all that fun stuff when I get back, tan and happy.

Peace out!!
-m.

Mr. Ohashi

2006-03-14T05:27:00.000-08:00

Speaking of simple things, I ran into one of my students, Mr. Ohashi on my way to the train station. Mr. Ohasi is 13 years old and he's in the special ed class. He's super energetic and really funny, and to tell the truth, I don't see why he's in the class (I asked, and it's because he's got a low IQ and a short attention span... like all the rest of the monkeys in the regular classes).

Anyway, this kid is funny. He goes out of his way to say hi to me and was one of the only kids to show up for my English club. When I ran into him, he was watching a backhoe loader in the parking lot of the recently closed grocery store. Just chillin,' pimpin' his lowrider bicycle, and enjoying the weather by watching a big machine smash stuff.

It made me think about the simplicity of being a kid again, when you could idle away the hours and not stress out about stupid things.

For a 'retarded' kid, Mr. Ohashi sure does have it figured out. What a guy.

The simple life...

2006-03-14T03:40:00.000-08:00

So lately I have been catching myself reflecting on life and sighing with contentment, usually when I am biking home across the bridge. I pass the Ibogawa River everyday on the way to and from school.

The river has become kind of a companion to me, like the Old Man and the Sea. Hi River, Bye River. I usually stop on the way home to check the water level, the speed of the river, the color, the waves, and generally, it's tempermant and how it's doing. It's a lazy, shallow river that doesn't like to do much (insert Narcissus symbolism here, ha!).

Anyway, during one of these Garrison Keeler moments, I realized how much my life has changed in the last couple of years. It's really slowed down in these last 7 months, which is super cool! Nowadays, I get to watch the river, sleep in, travel, chill out in Zen gardens, explore castles, play sports, learn Japanese, eat weird food, and ride around on my mama-cherry bike. Life is good!

This is my view everyday. It would mellow you out too!

Ko-su Outo aka Backcountry Powder!!

2006-03-03T00:04:00.000-08:00

... a few weekends ago, sick of the rinky dink hills here in Hyogo, I took a trip to Nagano, site of the 1998 Winter Olympics in search of big mountain riding... and boy did we find it. The main ski area is a two mountain range called Hakuba47-Goryu, meaning White Horse/5 Dragons. Well deserved names considering what an epic weekend it was.

On the advice of a local snowboarder, we spent the entire weekend riding "Course-Out-o" (out of ski area boundaries), which resulted in 40 minute runs through 2 feet of fresh, untracked powder snow. At any given moment you would be cruising knee deep in snow though trees, down bowls and valleys, natural halfpipes, and singletrack runs through the woods. It was amazing!

Sunrise on the way to the mountain.

The Ubiquitous Cute Japanese Cartoon Mascots

Maikeru scouts out the terrain. "It looks dangerous over there - that's where we should ride."

Keep Out in 3 languages. I betcha that's where the good runs are!

Uh, make that 24 Variable Courses (Merle illustrating our single run of the weekend). Love that new snow!!

If any of you ever make a trip to Japan in the winter, I highly recommend a trip to Nagano - I can see why they decided to have the Winter Olypics here, hot damn!

Testu-jin

2006-02-28T18:03:00.000-08:00

So in this installment of `Required Listening for Japanese Students` I decided to shake things up a bit. The damn kids always listen to their weiner-J Pop, or their weiner Dancehall-Reggae (it`s low-qual stuff), so for class yesterday I decided that I would teach them about good old straight up Heavy Metal Rock and Roll. And who better to do that with than Black Sabbath?

It was really funny.

First, I showed them a band picture (Ozzy looking really scary) and an album cover (Grim Reaper) and explained that Black Sabbath was a band that wrote songs about Evil Things and told them about the story of Ozzy biting the head off a dove on stage. My teacher was a little reluctant to translate that into Japanese but she did... `EHHHH?!` was the reaction.

Then, I showed them how to do the Ronnie-James Dio `Devil-Hand` Metal-Power symbol (for those of you who don`t know, make a fist and then extend your index and pinky fingers, and then pump said fist into the air as you are rocking out). The kids were actually good at this, seeing as how they love to make peace signs when posing for pictures.

After that, I taught them how to Head-Bang, by doing the Devil-Hand at the same time jerking and snapping your head back and forth while rocking out. They got a kick out of that one!

Anyway, I had the junior Metalheads in rocking position, and then I qued up Iron Man (Tetsu-jin in Japanese), and explained `Okay kids, as you are listening to this, imagine a big metal robot that kills people chasing you, okay?` My teacher looked at me and said `Um, I can`t translate that. It will scare them.` Oh well.

So finally, I cranked it up full volume and lit it rip. The kids had no idea what to make of it and I think I totally weirded them out. I was sure that I was weirding them out when I started playing air guitar/drums and running around the room doing the Angus Black double leg scissor kick, but man that shit gets me so ammmmped!

Anyway, I guess kids are changing these days. I used to listen to Def Leppard, Sabbath, Guns n Roses, Metallica, Zep, and all those great rock bands when I was a kid. I blame all the TV and Internet. No appreciation for good music!

Next installment - `Essential Japanese for Devil Worship.`

J Pop

2006-02-27T06:51:00.000-08:00

... also known as Japanese Pop. Dominating the music scene like a tasteless behemoth, the Industry (capital "I" like how The Man is capitalized) churns out pre-fab music performed by pre-fab artists, which is then eagerly gobbled up by the consuming masses, which comprise a good majority of my student body.

In burning CDs for my students, I have a rule that they have to bring some music for me to listen to and tell me about it. Usually it's this J Pop stuff and I tune out after the kid is talking for about 15 seconds and start daydreaming. 99% of it is total crap, to tell the truth.

BUT... There is this one song that is SO DAMN CATCHY!! I heard it EVERYWHERE I went for and finally broke down and bothered to ask what it was. It turns out, it's the best selling single of 2005 and is called "Seishun Amigo" (Youthful Amigos). AND man, can you really snap your fingers to it.

You can see the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NOX3RrlIa8&search=Seishun

It's performed by Shuji and Akira, who are characters from a TV show. It turns out the whole damn song is a promo for their TV show! The real guys are these two dudes named Tomohisa Yamashita and Kamenashi Kazuya.

I know it's bad for my health, but I can't help. It's my J Pop guilty pleasure. Whooooooooooooooo!

Worst Kancho of My Life - part II

2006-02-24T04:30:00.000-08:00

So I saw the super-kancho kid again today at Elementary school, and he tried to pull the same shit, but I was ready for him this time!

So the little f'er came sprinting at me, and I faked like I had no idea what was going on, hand raised, ready to receive his deadly 1-2 high-five/front-kancho combo. At the last minute, I moved into blocking position, repelled his blow, and grabbed the sonofabitch.

Side-note: In Japan, there are no school custodians, so the kids do all the cleaning after their lunch. For about 20 minutes, the kids all do various jobs around the school. It's pretty cool, the kids take a little more ownership of the school and don't trash it as much as we did our schools in America.

Anyway, I put the kid in a headlock and noticed that he was riding a broom, witch-style (which he was supposed to be cleaning with). So I grabbed the broom at the front and the back (kid in the middle) and gave it a 2 foot rocket-boost into the air!

Super-broom-kancho!! Man I think his eyes almost popped out of his head. Ah, sweet sweet revenge...

Soy Sauce

2006-02-24T04:07:00.000-08:00

So one of the things that my town is famous for is The "Higashi Maru (Western Circle)" Soy Sauce factory. They make some potent ass soy sauce - I ride by the factory every morning and if the wind is just right it's so strong it can almost knock you off your bike.

On Tuesday, a couple of dudes came in from the Soy Sauce factory to give a demostration on how soy sauce was made:

"This is the soy sauce that Godzilla uses on his sushi."

Soy here's how soy sauce is made:

- Water
- Big Beans, called "Daizu"
- Weed, called "Weed"
- Salt
- Ferment for 6 months
- Serve and enjoy with your favorite fish-flavored cuisine

It was cool because my kids taught me all kinds of new word during the lesson, like how to say "this looks like diahrrea," and "this smells like diahrrea," and "poisonous mushroom" in Japanese.

Worst Kancho of My Life

2006-02-23T04:24:00.000-08:00

So this week I'm doing a teaching marathon at Elementary school - three days in a row, which is nearly Herculean, since just doing one day usually wrecks me. Since I rotate around 3 different schools, I get to each about once a month, so it make the kids super hyper and they get AMPED when they have a "maikeru sensei" spotting.

Typically, this means they run up to me and want to high five, and that's what I thought was going to happen yesterday when I saw this one kid, Yosuke. The little fucker spotted me from about 30 feet away, and ran full speed towards me with his hand in the air, as if he was going for a mega-high-five. I was in a good mood and so I let my defenses down (I usually walk around school with one hand over my junk and one hand over my butt), and while his high-five hand is distracting me, he hits me good and square in the nuts, dead-center bullseye.

Immediately my eyes started watering and I started seeing stars. Man it sucked!

A funny thing happened on the way home...

2006-02-08T01:22:00.000-08:00

A couple of months ago, I was riding the train home from Osaka. I had been there all day and had to book it to make the last "rapid express" train of the night, which I caught with seconds to spare.

The train was packed butts to balls with Japanese "salarymen" (suit types), fresh from their after work binge drinking sessions.

*Japanese salarymen/women work from wicked early until fuckin' late, and usually once a week they go out for dinner/drinks with their co-workers, and get super trashed.

Usually the last train is packed, and on the trains Japanese people (usually polite and demure) turn from Dr. Jekyll to Mr. Hyde. This goes doubly for the denizens of Osaka, who are busy "salt of the earth" types. I've been cut you off plenty of times by obaa-chan (grandma) with a well placed elbow to the midsection. The image of Japanese sardines should be conjured up here (see previous post - how to Tempura Fry Sardines).

So there I was, swaying to and fro in a sea of stanky cigarette and booze breath. The place reeked. Just as I was trying to tune out, there was a gurgling sound behind me, glug glug glug. I turned around just in time to see this salarywoman burp up a little bit of purple puke and catch it in her hand. Whew, close one lady! Too much red wine at the enkai, methinks. Then, to my astonishment (picture this happening in slow motion), she covers her mouth to stifle the mass exodus of purple used-to-be-sushi-rice-seaweed-godknowswhat-mixture. Have you ever put your thumb over the end of a garden hose? You know how when you do that, it increases the pressure of the water and the distance of the stream?

This is what happened to the lady.

Luckily, I was to her left, and avoided most of the carnage... and unluckily for the people standing in front of her. This was like watching the Japanese Train version of The Exorcist! Hoooooaaaaaaahh! This one poor guy, his entire suit changed color from grey to purple-chunk in an instant. About three people were completely doused before the shower ran dry. Gross!

Then funniest thing happened - nobody did a thing! Nobody starting screaming, "Ew gross" and the people who got doused didn't say a word. AND, nobody helped out the woman at all (I gave her tissues, and a plastic bag). It was so strange, everybody acted as if nothing happened. This other guy, who had it all down his back and backpack rode the train for another 40 minutes, just standing there as is. I know that in the US, if this had happened you would have a whole train car screaming bloody murder. Weird huh?

So since then, I've been wracking my brain on why nobody did a thing. Here's a few of my thoughts:

- Maybe some Japanese people are super polite and don't want to make the woman feel like even more of a dipshit by making a big deal of it.
- Maybe some Japanese people get too embarassed (shared embarassment?) and it's stops them from helping somebody in distress.
- Or maybe some Japanese people don't want to stand out by making a stink of it, or help somebody if nobody else is doing it.

Anyway, I'm still thinking things over, but it was an interesting experience.

Funny thing is, this Japanese guy Masa, who has an awesome website (http://masamania.com/) took photographs of the very same thing happening. I highly encourage you to check out his site, it's got some very interesting (and funny) ruminations about Japanese life.

credit to: http://masamania.com/

Well, I certainly learned my lesson on that one - whatever you do, don't ride the last train home!

Su-No-Bo-Do (Snowboarding) Japanese Style!!

2006-02-01T02:27:00.000-08:00

This last weekend was spent up in northern Hyogo (my "prefecture" - like a State (ie. California), in the US), in an area called "Tajima" at Hachi-Kogen Mountain (http://www.hachi-hachikita.co.jp/), having a forkin' awesome time people-watching the crazy Japanese skiiers and snowboarders, carving up fresh powder tree runs, and eating more crab than you can shake a claw at.

My first trip to the ski resort was two weeks previous, where I had taken a 5 hour bus-commute to arrive at 100% humidity (read: pouring rain) conditions that majorly sucked, and ultimately gave me the flu for three days (hey, I'm at the mountain, I gotta ride it, right?!). This time proved to be MUCH much better.

The trip was part of a big JET Ski weekend, so about 70 of us English teachers rented out a slopeside lodge and made a big weekend out of it. Day One was spent riding around cutting up the trees and dive-bombing Larries in a snowstorm, and then eating two dinners back to back (first was Pizza and Ramen, second was Crab Nabe - Japanese Hot Pot).

(Zainabu and I are about to wrassle for who gets the big claw. Look this HUGE plate of crabs! Between 5 people, we ate the entire thing... and 3 orders of fried chicken, a huge plate of veggies and tofu, and a big cauldron of hot-pot soup. DANG!)

(Here's a shocker - I ate way too much and am about to pass out... again. Nikster get this crab away from me!!)

After being subjected to some of the worst kareoke known to man (a bunch of old Japanese dudes crashed our hotel room and started belting songs out on the kareoke machine), I got a few hours rest, ready to take on the blue bird (super sunny and nice) Day Two. The morning was spent teaching Nikster and our friend Zainabu how to snowboard, and the afternoon chasing down the last runs of the day (our buddy John videotaped on his "follow cam" - I'll try to post the videos later, they are wicked funny).

(It's a Japanese Larry Convention!)

Japanese people love to do things in groups. Usually when they travel, it's through a travel agency that books a package tour - this was probably a "Learn how to Ski" tour group - I saw several of them on the hill this weekend, same clothes, same skis, an army of accidents just waiting to happen. It was really funny to see all of them stretching out in unison in the morning, and then going through the same exact motions when learning to ski. Snowboarding in the US is all about individuality - different art on your deck, the way you dress, the style that you ride, and here in Japan they are building a uniform army of skiiers. Cracks me up.

(PS - "Larry" is a Michelle Mikulic-ism for a lame-ass on the slopes that either 1) is sitting around and gets in your way, 2) rides out of control and gets in your way, 3) falls off the lift and makes it stop, thus getting in the way of your riding, 4) a yard-sale skiier, or 5) anybody who clogs up the lanes and somehow impedes your day.)

(Who let the skateboarder on the mountain?! (photo by Markane)

(Nikster says: "Skiing is for pussies!!")

(My Japanese riding crew: Yuka "Ninja Style" Aoki, and Markane "Ground Tricks is Where It's At" Sipraseuth)

(It's your boy - last one on the hill, closing out the mountain, riding off into the sunset...)

Can't wait for the next trip!! God I miss the free Tahoe lift tickets in SF. Mikulic and Bort you guys had better be appreciating it! Peace and think snow, - SHU.

Kyu-shoku (Japanese for "School Lunch")

2006-01-31T06:35:00.000-08:00

This is what I had for lunch today. It's a "donburi" which is Japanese for "rice bowl." This kind of rice bowl is called a "Hanjuku-don" because it's been stolen from the Koreans and then modified and enhanced by the Japanese (like so many things here).

It's rice, then stir fried beef (spicy), and then a poached egg on top. When you get the bowl, you poke the egg with your chopstick, releasing all of the runny yolk onto your rice and beef, and then you stir vigorously with your chopsticks while smacking your lips loudly. That's pink pickled ginger there in the corner (gross, I know, I threw it out).

It's quite yummy. I am trying a new o-bento (lunch box) every day for the month of February. More to come.

Engrish III

2006-01-31T03:37:00.000-08:00

Here's a "love letter" I got from one of the 8th graders today. Her Engrish is actually imroving from the last love letter!

Pet Shop in Osaka -for the relaxation of dogs gallery... What!?

"Man this chocolate tastes like...."

Gong Shi Gong Shi

2006-01-30T01:15:00.000-08:00

... that means Happy New Year in Chinese! Chinese New Year is one of my favorite holidays. Everybody gets together and on the eve of New Year, the house is cleaned so that old spirits and the past year's energy is swept out of the house, and the family bids the past year adieu, and then the next day the family welcomes the New Year into the house. Huge meals are eaten, kowtows and greetings are exchanged, and my favorite part - the red envelopes are given out to kids and the juvenile minded (that's me). Whoo!! Bring on the cash-eesh!

The current Chinese New Year exchanged by my family goes like this:

Hsing Nian Kwai Loh (Happy New Year)
Gong Shi Fah Tzai (Happy New Year)
Wan Sui Ru Ii (Luck and blessings upon you)
Chian Bow Na Lai (Now Bring on the money!!)

HA! The past few years, my New Year tradition was to go to San Francisco's Chinatown the night before and have a big huge dinner with friends, and then the next day get stinking drunk at the Chinese New Year parade through downtown SF/Chinatown. This year... I ordered a "Chinese Rice Bowl" for my lunch and am ordering Chinese takeout since I'm working on lesson plans tonight. A little anticlimactic, but I plan on making it up next year by heading to The Mainland (China, that is), or going to Taiwan to hang out with some family.

Past years have been really fun growing up - one of my favorite memories was celebrating Chinese New Year with the Chinese community in Potsdam (upstate New York, where I grew up). All the Chinese in town would turn out of the woodwork (all 10 families) and we'd have a huge dinner together, followed by a talent show. One year, Scott Shen and I dressed up like twin Fu Man Chu's and went around bowing to people and reading New Year's proclimations from scrolls that we carried in our robes. Aw yeah, the good old days.

(One of my life's goals is to grow a Fu Man Chu that's this badass.)

Anyway, Happy New Year everybody, and yes, the blogging will resume. I got a little sidetracked with this new video game I got over winter break, Explosive Diarrhea from India, my superhot girlfriend moving to Japan, trips to Osaka and Kobe, and of course it's snowboard season (videos to be posted!!). Thanks for all the emails checking in and demanding more misadventures, I'm surprised that people are actually reading this drivel! Just goes to show, a little T&A and you can sell anything.

Christmas Card Lesson

2005-12-12T09:50:00.000-08:00

Kitty-chan wishes you a Merry Christmas!

You know, the students really crack me up. Today I did a lesson on Christmas and the meaning of it and blah blah blah, and for our activity we did home-made Christmas cards. There were some really funny ones!

The boys usually drew really screwed up pictures, like an anorexic Santa with crazy eyeballs and face saying "Do you want Present?! How about wakame and meron pan (seaweed and mellon flavored bread)?!?!" Then you open the card and it says in big letters "ARE YOU HAPPY!?" Weird and totaly non-sequitor. But funny.

One of the most popular questions from my students is, "Do you have a girlfriend?" and when I answer, "yes, I do," the usual reaction from the boys is to start airhumping (see previous entry, Haado-Gei), and the girls usually start squealing and run away. So anyway, after class today, a couple of the girls came up to me and gave me Christmas cards, to give to Nikki for Christmas. Cute, huh?

That's me on the left, Nikster on the right. Supposedly.

This one is my favorite. Open up and...

Funny, huh?! The mustache would be more realistic if it only grew on the sides and not in the middle. The buck teeth have got to go. Clever kids...

Aki-Matsuri... Autumn Festival

2005-12-08T04:58:00.000-08:00

Fall is a really awesome time in Japan. The weather cools down and it's a comfortable autumn temperature, great for doing just about anything (so sayeth the Japanese). The leaves start to change, and being in the countryside there are a whole lotta trees, so it's very scenic and beautiful.

The coolest events in the fall are the Aki-matsuri's (lit. Autum Festival). This year I had the chance to attend two very different events - one, a serene, traditional religious ceremony, and the other a raucous drunken melee.

I was invited by the Vice Principal of my school to the religious one - in addition to being the VP of my school, his weekend job is farming - his family owns a large area of land that he "cultivates." Cool, huh?

("Oh Kyoto-sensei, how was your weekend? Ah, it was no good Michael, I had to cultivate my land this weekend.")

It turns out that his cousin is the local head priest of the area and so he invited me (and Markane and Nancy, two other JETs in this area) to get the VIP experience. It was cool! The ceremony we went was meant to welcome the local god to come out of his shrine and survey the ripening rice, and give the farmers a blessing for a good crop.

Under the full moon, and we marched with a big group of farmers (wielding big huge cool lanterns) to the temple.

At the temple (we got to sit inside, right next to the actual ceremony area), the priest sang songs and recited prayers to move the "essence" of the god from the temple into a "portable shrine," which was to be carried out around the area's farms and land in the next few days.

It was a really great opportunity to witness the development of culture - that a traditionally agraian society still carries on the ritual of times past (I mean, you can buy the stuff in huge bags anytime at the store, and ironically, this year's rice crop was early so it had already been harvested before the festival). That's such an indicative example of the duality of Japan - beautifully traditional while at the same time ultra modern.

SO... a couple of days later I attended another "Aki-Matsuri" in Mitsu-cho, which is a small seaside fishing village where my friend Zainabu teaches. The festival was also at night, and it was pretty much a bunch of really wasted Japanese dudes (it seems like everyone in town had been drinking all day), wearing hapi coats (those little jackets), and thongs made of thick white rope. They were carrying huge bamboo poles and smashing the shit out of these enormous lanterns in front of the local temple. It was crazy!

(October's cover of Kansai Time out, a local English magazine. These guys are carrying a portable shrine, which is a really popular thing to do at this time of year. Man I bet the rope burn really sucks!!)

Literally called the "lantern beating festival," they would hoist a gigantic lantern up and run laps around it, and then all of a sudden they would all come together and start beating the hell out of the lantern. Some of the dudes even set fire to them, lit fireworks, and stomp them into little bits and pieces. Very different from the previous Aki-matsuri, huh?

The meaning of this festival was to scare away evil spirits, and I'm sure it worked. When I was shooting the photos that night, there was a ton of dust flying around in the air from the dudes kicking up the dirt.

Initially I had written it off as just dust, but Nikki pointed out that sometimes these random orbs pop up in pictures because they are spirits that the camera catches... cool, huh.

Elementary School

2005-12-06T09:35:00.000-08:00

Elementary school students love horsing around, especially when there is a camera involved. I brought mine with me on Friday to show a fellow teacher my pictures from my recent Taiwan trip (blog entry coming soon...), and the kids were all like "picture please!" So we had a little photo session...

The view from above...
...and below
... and up the nose.

This is a mentally handicapped girl named Kana, who can't really speak that well. She's also physically challenged and has a hard time walking, so I give her extra high-fives and piggyback rides whenever I go to her school. Now every time she sees me, she comes sprinting and gives me a big bear hug. She was a little too over enthusiastic on Friday, the little f'er headbutted me in the nuts 'cause she was running out of control. Thanks a bunch, Kana!!

Maikeru sensei, the human jungle gym.

Making a difference, one Shu at a time...

2005-11-29T01:51:00.000-08:00

Hey Y’all,

This Christmas holiday, I’m volunteering to go work on a volunteer project in Andhra Pradesh, India for 10 days. The area I’ll be going to is very poor and depressed, and also was heavily affected by last year’s Tsunami. That said, the Indian government doesn’t give a lot of priority to helping these folks who are viewed in a lower social caste, so there is a lot of work to be done.

While in India, the main goals are to teach and work with the villagers on creating better living conditions. I’ll also be teaching English and working in medical camp, providing free healthcare to the needy.

Here’s the website for more info: http://www.go-mad.org/projindiarelief.php

Cool, huh!?

So the group I’m a part of (Go M.A.D. “Make a Difference, mostly comprised of teachers from my program) is fundraising so that we can make a donation to the village at the end of our period of volunteer work.

SO… I’m hitting you guys up to help me out with this – “anything helps” (I feel like I should be on Market St. in SF with a cardboard sign), so break off whatever you can and if I can smuggle some cool souvenirs out of India, you’ll be first on the list.

You can either donate through PayPal – send to my email address, shu.mike@gmail.com, or email me and I’ll give you deposit instructions to an account that I’ve set up with Wells Fargo. Make sure to leave your name and address and all that good stuff too.

Thanks in advance, it’s people like you that make the world a better place
(Aw I think I just shed a tear).

Love you guys!!
-SHU.

Awaji Soccer Tournament

2005-11-20T03:58:00.000-08:00

(My JET Intramural team)

So in the spirit of trying new things, I joined the JET Intramural soccer team of my prefecture, and have been practicing with my team and also with my students. It's cool because the worst students in my class are usually soccer players (they are the dumb jock equivalent), and they really get all jacked up and happy when I come out to practice with them (and they get a chance to try out all of the dirty words they know in English). I've even noticed that some of them are behaving better in class and actually trying harder!

This weekend was the Western Japan Intramural Tournament. It was located on Awaji Island (a small island, in between Honshu (entry city is Kobe) and the next island to the south, Shikoku), on the training fields that were built for England's team during the World Cup. JET/Intramural teams come from all over Western Japan, and the winner of the tournament (not us), goes to the spring Championship in Saitama (and they get to play in the Japanese National team's superdome, cool huh).

(This is the grounds that we played on - mountains in the background, nice manicured grass, and ocean views on the other side. Niiiiice.)

My team was "AC Hyogo," which was the social/"B" team of our prefecture, made up of mostly the beginner players (our "A" team, was mostly big, fast, experienced Brits). We actually never played together as a team before, and it really showed in this tournament!

Overall, our tournament record was 1-3 in round robin play, and we lost the first game of actual seeded play (we won the first game but never succeeded in scoring a goal the rest of the weekend). BUT, it was awesome fun and I managed to score a goal in overtime in our winning game (sweet), got rugby tackled by a big Aussie dude (it sucked, I was seeing stars for 2 minutes), managed to dish out my share of punishment, and came home with lots of bruises and a twisted up knee (sucked walking up the stairs when I got home).

Soccer is fun! I wish I had played in High school! I'm going to keep practicing with the students and JET team and hopefully go out for the A team next year, but for now I gotta ice down my knee, it looks like a big grapefruit. Yikes.

Oh PS, DJ Jeno started his own radio show and is archiving his stuff: http://www.djjeno.com/noisefromthevoid.html it's freakin' awesome music, very ecclectic and cool stuff.

Okay, that's it for tonight. Peace, -m.

Arima Spa and Japanese Bath Houses

2005-11-15T04:54:00.000-08:00

(The ubiquitous Japanese "in-come" cat.)

So one of the favorite Japanese past-times is getting completely butt naked in front of a bunch of strangers and soaking in hot baths to relax (sorry ladies, it's men's and women's separate).

Usually you enter these things, put your stuff in a locker and swap out for a tiny towel and some slippers, and then you go into a shower area for the scrub down (Japanese folks get totally clean BEFORE getting into the bath - it's only for soaking). After that you usually have your choice of different tubs, baths, saunas, steam rooms, etc.

Since I've been here I have been to a variety of them, from crappy capsule hotel and backpacker hostel ones, to really sweet set-in-nature, zen garden, healing water types.

One of the best ones I've been to (and one of the most famous in Japan) is at Arima Spa, which is a suburb of Kobe, about 40 minutes from where I live. There is some sort of natural hot spring that runs through the ground there, and there are even little baths that just pop out of the sidewalk - literally you can be walking down the street, stop, take off your shoes, have a seat, and start soaking! Cool, huh.

(Walking is tough! Ayame and I decide to have a soak in the middle of the street.)

The water there is well known because it's got lots of iron in it, which apparently is good for the skin and muscles if you soak in it. It turns the water an opaque, rusty red, and you smell like a rusty pirate sword after you get out. Also at the same spa they had a bathtub that was full of tea water! You soak yourself in this scented tea water and it kinda gives you a buzz. They also have all of these crazy waterfalls that you can stand underneath and the water pressure falling gives you a massage. Rad huh?

So afterwards they have these lounges for you to relax and chill out in. Usually they have massage chairs and you can even hire on a masseuse right there on the spot! They also have all of these beverages you can have - the traditional post-onsen drink of choice is this really awesome coffee drink that comes in these minature milk bottles - and I guess they used to have this old school commerical, so now you're supposed to drink the coffee in the special pose:

(Me and Masa strike a pose.)

Anyway, they're loads of fun until the old dudes start lettin' 'em rip in the water, then the writing's on the wall that it's time to go. Yokorassho!

Fish Fry

2005-11-08T01:57:00.000-08:00

I had a cool day at school today! During my free period, I made a guest appearance in the home-ec class and they had a bunch of oba-chan's (old ladies, grandmas) in as guests to teach the students how to tempura fry sardines. Here's how you do it:

1. Take the sardine in one hand and with the other hand, snap the head off, just below the gills. Pull down toward the stomach and the guts and stuff should follow as the head comes off.

2. Stick your finger down new orafice that you've made and "open" the fish via the belly. Like a reverse zipper. Spread the fish open so it's like a fillet. Rinse the fish so the guts and stuff are outta there.

3. Massage the spine and bones so that they start to separate from the meat. Gently pull the spine out, and set aside (you will fry it later too, and it's crunchy, like a skinny french-fry at McDonald's).

4. You should have a nice looking fish fillet now, which you dip into tempura batter. Also sprinkle tempura batter over the fish spines.

5. Deep fry to desired cholesterol level. Remove, and enjoy!

I have to say, it was a pretty cool experience. Unfortunately, my hands were too covered in fish guts to take any pictures but I will try again at home and make sure to document the experience. I was a little apprehensive about eating the spines but man they are pretty damn tasty (and crunchy, in a nice deep fried fish bone kinda way).

YUM!

Remind me someday to write about the time I visited Dan on the cattle ranch and we slaughtered a cow. Talk about gross (but damn those were some niiiiice T-bones)!

Halloween

2005-11-01T07:56:00.000-08:00

I had my first English club today. A whole 3 students showed up. Nice to see that English is so popular at school. Usually I only get the office ladies who hit me up for the free English lessons.

In the spirit of Halloween I taught the kids about Jack-o-lanterns and we carved a pumpkin. That's Ohashi-kun, Mimura-chan, and Uguchi-chan.

I got a love letter from one of my students today! I am always teasing them about writing love letters to each other during class, and so after class today I was accosted by a gaggle of 13 year old girls. It's funny because the English that is really popular is mostly from pop songs, so the kids all end up sounding like they are on soap operas. "Are you free this afternoon?"

Engrish

2005-11-01T07:20:00.000-08:00

Love Hotel in Osaka.

"...like a Japanese cowboy, like a brother on skates, like a blizzard in Georgia, or a train running late..."

I bet Hera and Cass are dying for a pair of these jeans. Ha! Note that they are nearly $170 too. Free pair with purchase of a souped up Honda Civic.

Ge-re-pi

2005-10-28T02:33:00.000-07:00

So I was teaching The Beatles to my 7th Graders this week, and we were using "Let it Be" for a listening comprehension exercise (nice, slow song, not too offensive, right), and boy did they comprehened.

There is this one class in particular, who has three of the most mischevious boys in the 7th grade, and when we got to the chorus, they started singing along with the recording! Now picture me, standing up at the front of the classroom, pleased as hell that I'm finally getting these naughty boys to really participate, and I start singing really loudly with them too - "LET IT BE, LET IT BE, OH, LET IT BE" and they start laughing, and singing even louder! Now the class is having such a great time, that EVERYBODY in the class is belting out the lyrics, and I turn, with a big huge grin on my face, and catch the eye of my Japanese English Teacher, who has turned bright red and looks like she wants hide behind a desk.

I walk over to her and she says, "Maikeru, they are singing "Ge-Re-Pi," which means "I have diahrrea, in Japanese!"

Fuckin' kids. So damn clever.

"Picture words of Wisdom, Ge-re-pi!"

Bab Mah-ri

2005-10-12T06:10:00.000-07:00

A funny thing I saw when I first came to Japan was a whole lot of Bob Marley T-shirts, ie: "Listen to Bob Marley" BUT what I saw even more of, was pot-leaf and cannibus apparel and accessories. A really popular one with my students is the pot-leaf pencil case, with the Jamaican flag's colors for the background.

What's even funnier, it turns out that a lot of these kids don't know the "imi" (meaning) of the symbol!! It's a pop-culture symbol and a lot like when you see Americans running around with Chinese/Japanese writing on their clothing/possessions/tattoos without reaaaally knowing the meaning.

Anyway, of course, me being me, I had to school them and set them straight. So I decided on an introduction to Reggae, Jamaica, Rastafarianism, and what better to do than a listening exercise to some Bob Marley songs. Cool, right?!

What's even cooler is that in each of my classes, I offered to swap music with my students - if the liked the Reggae (and it turns out that Reggae/Dancehall/Reggaeton is really popular with the students), I would burn them a CD in trade for some fresh Japanese tunes. So now, I've got a huge stack of CDs to listen to and have been having some pretty cool discussions on the real meaning of some of the Bob Marley tunes (love that Mellow Mood, daaaarling).

Teaching is COOL!

(Now I just gotta figure out how to see a man about a horse in these parts. Sheesh!)

The Basics

2005-10-06T08:17:00.000-07:00

Ye Olde Mansion

So I was writing an update email to my friend the other night and realized that I've never given the basic lowdown about life in the Inaka (country). I know, it's a cheap one-off for a blog post but hey, you're still reading aren't you?

>So here's the scoop (copied from email):

Yeah I have 18 classes a weed (~Ha! Freudian slip~) at my main chu-gakko (TatsunoHigashi-chu), and 5 classes (+1 lunch) at shogakko (elementary school) every friday (rotating b/w 3 schools). It's a buttload, but luckily I'm making lesson plans at chugakko (JHS) that I use for all the grades (this week is do and don't pictionary). I get a lot of autonomy for lesson plans, so that's cool, and the JTEs (Japanese Teacher of English) I work with are all very good.

The kids in chugakko are good - ichi nen sei (1st year) are genki, while san nen sei (3rd year) is like a graveyard. Ni nen sei are about 80% genki (lively), 20% tombstones. It's funny because it's the san nensei that love to talk outside of class (mostly about sex and sports and music - both guys and chicks). I'm still figuring the whole teaching thing out, but I do enjoy it when it goes well and am not taking it so badly when it crashes and burns. live and learn.

Housing situation is great! FREE rent, and it's probably the nicest JET apartment in the area (so I hear from the senpai JETs and my pred) - 2 tatami rooms (6 tatami each), a big kitchen (with a computer desk, small table), big bathtub/shower room, western toilet (heated seat....yesssssss), and two decks (i live on the 4th/top floor of an apartment building - "mansion"). I bought everything from my pred so when I got here I had satellite TV/dvd/vcr, every kitchen appliance imaginable, a double bed, 3 futons, pullout couch, etc. I'd hardly say i'm roughing it. The nearest train is 10 minute bikeride, and then it's a 25 min local train to Himeji.

So Tatsuno is 30km west of Himeji, in Hyogo prefecture. So that means I'm 40 minutes from Kobe, 1 hour from Osaka, and 1.5 from Kyoto (all by shinkaisoku (rapid express) train). It's about 40,000 people, and has some minor towns around it (as of Oct 1st, we just merged with 4 other towns to form a larger Tatsuno-shi, so it's even bigger now). The claim to fame here is the soy sauce factory (tatsuno famous light colored soy sauce for somen noodles), the akatombo song was written here, there is a leather factory, and a big samurai castle/merchant village/samurai village. Soccer is really popular, my boys team won the all-japan championship this year for JHS. It's like living in a suburb, but with rice fields sprinkled here and there (and here, and here, and there). It's a beautiful town, the Ibogawa river runs through the middle and the town is circled by small mountains all around. Makes for some awesome sunsets (and sunrise - when all the fishermen are in the river it's pretty cool to see).

The JETs I've met here are really cool - there's a handful of locals and then the Hyogo JETs all hang out. I've joined the JET Ultimate Frisbee team and the social-soccer team. The prefecture has sister-city/states with Perth in Australia (lots of crazy Aussies here), and Seattle in the US. As for Japanese people, they have been super kind and really cool! I hand out with a variety of local people - an old women, young people, ex-teachers, recent college grads, my hair-stylist, people from the gym, etc. Lanuage ability varies but we usually find a way to communicate.

I'm keeping busy. I've got calligraphy club on Monday and Wed, Karate on Tuesday, English Club Thursday, and Japanese tutor on Wed night. Weekends are left open for travelling and frisbee team practice, and I'm debating about adding Kendo to the mix or waiting until next term. I'm teaching yoga on occasion, and when snowboard season starts up I'll be on the slopes as much as possible (my board is shipping out at the end of this month).

I've got a momma-cherry (as the 3rd year JET in my town calls them) bike - 3 gears, big basket, a bell and a luggage rack. Pretty sweet if you ask me. I'm getting around alright without a car for now, but ask me again during the winter and my answer will probably be different then!

> So that's the basics. More funny stuff to come. Gotta hit the hay now, big day of raaaaku, paapa, shissas tomorrow. Oyasumi nasai (goodnight!).

Japanese Comedians

2005-10-01T20:18:00.000-07:00

So the area of Japan that I'm in is called the "Kansai" area. Amongst other things, it has three awesome major cities (Kobe, Osaka, and Kyoto), and is home to the Hanshin Tigers (Japanese League Champs of 2005), wicked tasty and interesting food, and a special dialect of Japanese, called "Kansai-ben." So far, I've figured this out about Kansai-ben:

1. It has different ways of saying the same thing in standard Japanese, and it has a lot of funny sounds in the lexicon, giving the speaker the ability to really express the tone and rhythm in their language.
2. It gives the listener a more interesting listening experience because of all the slang and percussive words.

A lot of times, just sitting in the teacher's room, I'll listen to one of them telling a funny story and although I can't understand a word I'll still laugh as hard as the Japanese people because the delivery alone is so damn funny.

So anyway. The Kansai area, and especially Osaka, produces a lot of Japanese comedy and entertainers that are quite popular in Japan. I found out about some of the most popular ones because my students (all grades, all schools), and a lot of my friends will imitate and parody the comic behavior (kinda like how we quoted Chappelle all the time last year).

One of the most popular is this dude, Haado Gei (aka "H.G." or "Hard Gay"). It's a double entendre - as a loanword (borrowed from another language) it may be interpreted as "hardcore gay," but "gei" actually means "art" in Japanese (therefore, hard/extreme 'art'). His main schtick is:

1. Dressing up like a 2005 member of the Village People - all black leather - vest, studded cap, supertight hotpants, and big motorcycle boots, elvis sunglasses.
2. Acts of random "social improvement" where he helps (wanted or unwanted) people on the street.
3. Outbursts of "whooooo" and mid-air pevlic thrusting.
4. Ironically, he is totally straight and his gay-parody is benign and not meant as slanderous toward leather and S&M dudes.

I think it's hilarious (my students certainly think so) and really random. The video (link below) is a must see. WHOOOOOOO!

Here's some good links for further exploration:
To see him in action - http://www.ifilm.com/ifilmdetail/2676613?showw=no&refsite=6721&htv=12

You can find a bittorrent link for a better quality version and an explanation of the video here: http://blog.kung-foo.tv/archives/001535.php

WHOOOOOOO! (next time: "JUNGA-JUNGA!")

Lesson Plan Suggestions...?

2005-09-30T09:13:00.000-07:00

My whimsical witnesses and creative comrades. Looking for some suggestions from the best of the best so I thought that I'd turn to you...

You probably won't be surprised, but I taught Bob Marley as a lesson this week. I did a short intro about Jamaica, Rastafarian-ism, the Cannibus symbol (it's prolific with the kids in Japan, albeit the meaning is lost in translation) and Reggae.

Then we listened to a few choice Bob Marley cuts (No Woman No Cry, Mellow Mood, Small Axe, Redemption Song), and then did a worksheet to fill in the blanks of a song... and then I told the students if they liked the music, to come see me after class and I would burn them a Bob Marley CD, as long as they bring me some cool (Japanese) music they like. Not to shabby, so far I've had 6 hits (I'll post the music reviews later... some good, some trash)!

Anyway, the teacher liked it and told me that for the rest of the year I can plan whatever I want to teach, and I don't need to follow the textbook. Hell yeah! Open license on the curriculum. Niiiiiice.

So, I wanted to see if you guys had any suggestions? Be creative. Use your Imagination. The goal is to get them excited and have fun. We're talking 13-15 year old here.

Thanks!
-shu.

Kids say the darn'dest things

2005-09-30T08:56:00.000-07:00

In the spirit of trying to update more often, here's a quickie...

Things the kids say the most:

- Do you have a girlfriend?
- That is Mistah No-Hair (referring to a balding teacher walking by)
- Do you play sex?
- Ha-ow ah you? (In response me saying:"Hello, how are you?" A: "Ha-ow ah, you?")
- Why are American girls so tall? Do they eat a lot of Hamburgers?
- Do American girls have "Boin?" (Onomonopia for "boing" - supposedly the sound big boobs make when they bounce)
- Maikeru, sticker please. (I give you stickers in class for good performance. Now they hound me for them 24/7)
- Do you like to drink? Are you an alcoholer?
- What's your size? (as they point to my crotch)
- "Aium dis bigu (about 1/2 inch)" (is what they say, when I return the question and point at THEIR crotch).
- Do you know "HG?" (HG is a Japanese comedian that is dressed up as a leather daddy with short pants and a studded vest. He air-humps profusely. HG stands for "Hard Gay"). The question is always followed by a happliy humping student and his cheering companions.

Kids... gotta love 'em.

Engrish

2005-09-24T18:35:00.000-07:00

There is an anti smoking camaign out right now that has these really funny anecdotes. This is a new one I saw on the train the other day.

Sex Machine Korean BBQ. What else do you need to know?

Tatsuno East Junior High School Sports Festival

2005-09-23T18:48:00.000-07:00

Here's something that would never happen in the US - the first two weeks of classes were cancelled so that the kids could practice for this thing called Sports Festival. Sports festival is something that every school in Japan has, and is a big community event - the parents come out for the whole day and the kids reherse forver for it. It was started about 100 years ago in schools, and was adapted from military training. I gotta admit, the kids are really tough and take a beating - both during practice and the actual event. I saw so many broken arms, wrists, ankles, legs, by the time of the actual event, it totally looked liked the aftermath a big battleground.

The students made posters for the event and hung them up around the school for the parents and townspeople to check out before the event started.

This one was my favorite. Note that in Japan, the sun is red, not yellow.

The students form 6 teams - Pink, White, Red, Blue, Green, and Yellow. Each team has a mix of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd year students and a guy and a girl captain from the 3rd year. It's a very competetive event and the student leaders and council plan all summer for it, and then the students practice the entire two weeks for it.

Cardboard Races - The first event was a cardboard relay race:

Put four in a box, two backwards, running fast as possible.

One sitting on the cardboard, two pulling.

Mucade Races - Mucade is Japanese for "Centipede." For this event, the students for teams of 8-10 and all tie their legs together, and all attempt synchronized running:
When it works, it looks really impressive and the students really haul ass.

But... if they are slightly out of synch, which often happens when the students are hauling ass at top running speed:

... you end up with a pretty bad trainwreck (the guy in front usually gets it the worst).

Next event was the Tug of War. All teams at once, with multiple ropes, so you either get some very fast finish mismatches, or...
...some really big battles with students pullin' tough.

Mounted Horse event:
This was a crazy event! It's supposed to simulate on horse hand-to-hand combat. Three kids make the horse, and the rider is on top, wearing a hat of their team's color. The object of the game is to knock off as many of the other team's hat without getting yours knocked off.

The girls all had to wear gloves to protect their nails and keep from gouging each other's eyes out.
Yusuke, my supervisor's son. His team (pink) ended up winning the entire Sports Festival.
With the boys, as soon as the whistle blows it's a totall melee. The teachers have to get into the mix and we "spot" the kids, as usually a few of them get decked so hard they fall off their horses. The girls, however, is the complete opposite - as soon as the whistle blows, the majority of them scramble to run away from each other, resulting in the few aggressive girl-horses picking off hats if they can catch the others.
I heard of one year during this event, one of the kids fell so hard that he got knocked out cold with a concussion. With as rough as this event is (as well as the Mucade Race) it's just a total lawsuit waiting to happen, you'd think, right?! Wrong. Not in Japan. As for the kid who got knocked out, his parents came to the school and made a formal APOLOGY for their kid not being tough enough to fight in the crazy hand-to-hand combat!? Talk about absurd! My guess is that since Sports Festival is viewed as such a pastime that they saw it as totally normal for their kid to be clocked so hard.

Team Spirit Routines:
The final event of the day was a team-spirit routine, where each team came up with their own performance and unveiled it to the school. There are certain rules (can't purchase anything, but you can make things - usually drums, flags, costumes, etc), and it's a big deal because this event scores the most points and so the students have spent the most time rehearsing in secret. They even have a panel of judges to score the event!

After the sports day, the teachers had a huge party called an "enkai." Man these Japanese teachers know how to party. We went to this awesome restaurant with gorgeous food and man these teachers drank like fish. During the enkai, you get these really small drinking glasses, and you're not supposed to pour your own drink - you are supposed to pour for other people while saying "otsukara sama desu," which means, "thanks for your hard work." Then you pour them a drink. This all starts of relatively tame but you end up drinking a lot really fast because of these small cups and everybody is going around thanking each other (with the intention of getting each other bombed).

Since I'm the new teacher, everybody was out to get me wasted - we had to do skits after the dinner and I was supposed to be giving an English lesson (boy what a trainwreck that turned out to be).

Man these teachers are wild! In addition to the human trampoline, the teachers had rolling somersault competition, and TONS of karaoke. Can you imagine this happening at a work party back home?

More Engrish...

2005-09-12T07:28:00.000-07:00

I bet the line is out the door.

It tastes better than it sounds. Like chocolate covered popcorn bars.

Dude Sapporo was running a promo advertising "Chicken and Beer" and it actually had a picture of the chicken on the can!! I couldn't resist.

Elementary School

2005-09-12T06:53:00.000-07:00

"Maikeru-sensei and the Crazy 88."

So I had my first full day of teaching on Friday, and it was SO COOL! I taught at Oyake Elementary School, which is the biggest one in my town (about 800 kids).

In the morning I taught two first year classes (5 and 6 year olds) how to play rock paper scissors in English (it's super popular here - the Japanese call it Janken and have taken it to mindblowing levels. I would not be shocked at all if Japan tried to get rock/paper/scissors nominated as an Olympic sport). Man these kids were WILD (well it didn't help that I got them all wound up either). Yes, I got koncho'd (twice) and my bits and bum groped by a gang of 5 year old chicks and dudes but I just couldn't get mad at those little fuckers. The were so damn cute.

"Hey buddy keep your hands where I can see them" (1st Grade)"

"Dis is Engrish for See-sors!" (1st Grade)

"Yokoso Maikeru Sensei - Welcome Michael-sensei" (5th Grade)

After those two classes I switched up to fifth year classes (10 and 11 year olds), with some self-introduction bingo. I know, it sounds lame, but the kids really get into it.

One kid announced that "My name is HANDSOME BOY" and his favorite color is "GOLD, the color of money!" Another kid said his favorite animal was "pen-iss," and like the dumbass that I am, I started laughing, forgot that I was the teacher and not the bad-influence uncle, and corrected him without thinking first; "no buddy, it's pronounced "pEE-nis." After that the whole class started screaming PENIS!!! at the top of their lungs. Damnit!

Lunchtime in the classroom - the kids serve each other and wear these smocks and masks and don't spill a single drop of food. (5th Grade)

Anyway, it was awesome and I had a blast. Fridays are going to be so cool!

"See you next week!" (5th Grade)

They call them Typhoons in the East

2005-09-06T06:04:00.000-07:00

The etymology of the word typhoon comes from Chinese, "Da Fung," literally meaning "big (f'in) wind." That's what is going on outside of my 4th floor apartment right now as huge howling gusts are roaring past right now. I expect to see random shit (bikes, cows, small Japanese people) flying by my window at any moment. It poured rain all day yesterday (and yes, I did bike to school in the deluge, soaking myself in the process, oh joy). Today, the rain broke and the clouds have been whipping by all day, kind of like when the fog comes in back in San Francisco, but on a bigger and more ominous scale.

But, on the upside, if a typhoon comes (and it most certainly is) class is cancelled (yes!) but I still have to go to school (no!). At least it will provide a much needed respite from a rockstar weekend.

Softball Tournament in Ono (40 min north of Tatsuno):
(Man it's like the Asian version of Where's Waldo. Your boy 2nd from the left)... We are the Champions. Mr. Ono (1999 Raquetball Silver Medalist, seniors (over 40), Yuki, the dude from the gym, Markane from Seattle (another JET who works in my town), and yours truly amongst the other ringers.

I spent the majority of Saturday playing Softball with the Tatsuno Board of Education team. Every year, there is an all-prefectural (state) tournament, and every year, Tatsuno wins the tournament. Why, you ask? Because they stack the team with local athletic heroes, employees from the municipal gym, and a couple of random American imports (kinda like real Japanese baseball!).

We pretty much rolled through the tournament with a bye in the first round, a 12-2 rout in the second round, an 18-3 massacre in the semi-finals (I had a single, and an RBI, sweet). We finally met our match in the final round, playing the home team from Ono, who had a wicked fast pitcher, and good batting and fielding. It was a tough start, with Ono looking good 2-0 going into the second inning, and since we had played slo-pitch the whole day it took a bit for our team to adjust to the speed. Luckily our team had rockstar batting, a few lucky breaks and amazing fielding we were able to take the wind out of their sails in a hurry. Kudos to Markane for being walked, hit with the ball, and walked again for the catcher's mitt interfering with his swing (talk about lucky!!).

Final Score. Tatsuno is the kanji (Japanese writing) on the top. 2005 CHAMPS!

Osaka:
If softball wasn't enough, after getting home I headed into Osaka (about 1 and 1/2 hours from Tatsuno by express train) to explore the city and check out the nightlife. Osaka is the second biggest city in Japan and it's really really cool. It definitely feels more like American than any other place I've been to (except for Tokyo) with it's western stores, fashionable city-folk, and lack of rice fields.

After checking into the hostel (which was in the Tenderloin neighborhood of Osaka, but hey, what the hell it's only $20), we headed to Shinsaibashi, the younger and hipper neighborhood. A friend of mine was DJing at a club there, so we kicked off the night there. On our way in between venues, we passed some b-boys breakin' on the street street. Thinking of you lovely folks at home, I asked if I could snap a few photos. Sure no problem. At the same time, two of my JET Teaching buddies (Tyler and Jeff) are with me and they roll up too. Now these guys look really American, and when I say American, I mean they are white-boys in polos, jeans, and flip flops. And funny as hell:

So one of the Japanese breakers gives these guys the up and down and says (in a tough, thick, kung-fu accent):

"Whai don't chou do Samsing (something)?"

And I'm thinking, oh boy, some shit is about to go down. Jeff and Tyler (with Asahi and Sapporo to help) give each other a big American grin, get down on the ground and bust out with THE DOUBLE WORM! It was so funny, even the tough dude cracked up.

Didn't you see Ty in"Breakin'?" Oh so fresh.

So after that, Ty gets off the ground, turns to the dude, gives him his best Bruce Lee sneer, and says (also in a thick, kung fu accent):

"Why don't YOU do some-sing?"

So, he did:
They call him Turbo in Japan.

Yeah, pretty sick.

So afterward more wandering around, we ended up at an all Japanese nightclub with everybody looking totally glamorous and stylish, boogy-ing until about 5am. They played some eclectic mixes, from totally poppy candy raver stuff (there were even kids with glowsticks and everything) to totally dirty nasty hip hop, disco, funky house/breaks. Good lightshow and sound system. It kinda reminded me of 1015 Folsom, um, but with more Asians (if that's even possible) and less trash and people doped out on E. The Japanese really know how to get down and have fun, it was super good energy in that place... or maybe because Ty was re-enacting the worm on stage with a big posse of Japanese chicks in tow.

Night at the Roxbury.

This guy looked like how I felt at the end of the night. Takushi o onegaishimasu! (An honorable taxi, please!)

So the next day was spent in a hungover daze wandering around Osaka, with two of the highlights being the Hello Kitty Museum:

"er, the catnip... it's not mine."

...and of course, the ubiquitous:

"Makudonarudo Hanbaagaa" (yes Harmer, the Cheeseburger tastes the same)

Okay! The rain is coming down hard now and I think i can hear Mothra approaching in the distance. Love you and miss you all. Peace, -shu.

More Engrish...

2005-09-02T07:54:00.000-07:00

This is at my favorite Ramen place in Tatsuno. I can't read the menu (it's all in Japanese, no pictures), so I have been pointing randomly and trying something new everytime I'm in there. The waitresses are kind and are humoring me so far, but I accidentally ordered some kind of raw beef as a side for my noodles the other night. Anyway, as I was finishing up these four sararimen (salarymen - office workers) came in and all sat down in a row. They dressed, looked, and even gestured all the same!

Oh yes. And more.

Himeji Castle

2005-09-02T07:36:00.000-07:00

Imagine hordes of Samurai sieging this castle... well it actually never happened, but wouldn't it have been cool?

Himeji is the closest "real" city to Tatsuno. It's about a 20 minute train ride and has totally been my saving grace. It's got restaurants (I even found a Mediterranean Restaurant!), decent shopping (some cool vintage stores, record shops, and the shoes, my god, the shoes), and a big huge castle looming over the background at all times.

Since Himeji is my gateway to the rest of Japan (transfer here for Kobe, Osaka, Kyoto, and Tokyo), I've been here a few times. One of the best visits was the tour of the castle, which is about 9 stories high (and each floor is about 25' high), has a huge garden/moat area, and a cool period museum in it:

Check out how small the people are compared to the castle. I nearly passed out climbing to the top of the main keep.

The coolest part was, the day we visited the castle, they were setting up for a concert on the castle grounds to happen that night (cool). Unfortunately it was a J-Pop show (lame), so we didn't buy the 5,000 yen ($1 = 100 yen) tickets. Nonetheless, how cool would it be to see Phish play Himeji Castle?! "Yah bro I ate some heady ganja gooballs at the castle show and I totally thought I was, like, in a samurai movie man." I'm going to see what it takes to book the castle grounds for the night. Maybe we can get Supreme to DJ, eh?

Beware the Kancho!!

2005-08-26T08:54:00.000-07:00

So they told us about this in our teacher training. The first kid that tries this on me is getting the Wedgie of a Lifetime!

For more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kancho

Love that Engrish

2005-08-26T08:48:00.000-07:00

This is in the "Import Foods" isle.

It's a Milk/Sports Drink. It looks like Really Really Skim Milk, and is pronounced "Cow Piss" HA!

I hear the Hyphy Bar is very popular too.

This is where the Vice-Principal of my school took me for lunch on my first day. Omen?

It's a take-your-shoes-off society, and then they have separate slippers/shoes for every area of the house/business. I want to get a pair that say "ass kickers."

Yashiro Prison

2005-08-26T08:34:00.000-07:00

We had a training session in Yashiro, which is in the "inaka" (that's japanese for middle of f'in nowhere). They literally locked down the place at 11pm ("lights out"). It sucked.

BUT the highlight is that the dudes that worked in the kitchen happended to be killer musicians and they played not ONE but TWO nights of rockin classic rock covers. Reminds me of 93.3 The River, in Engrish.

Man I can't get enough of these Japanese Rockabilly Elvii.

Takahama Village, Sea of Japan

2005-08-26T03:34:00.000-07:00

"Uh dude, I think you need to get that checked out, you got some funk growing out of your hand..."

Okay so here's a new experience, right? I just got back from Kyoto, which is about a 2 hour train ride north/east-ish from Tatsuno. I met up with Aaron Jones, my old boss from the radio station in SF, who is married to Hiromi Aoki, of the crazy Aoki clan of Kyoto. Man these are some badass motherf'ers!

Hiromi and Aaron are visiting Japan and so I decided to join them and trek up to Kyoto. Aaron had told me "cool dude, we're going to go deep sea fishing with Hiromi's brother." Talk about lost in translation. I'm picturing a boat, some fishing rods, some lawn chairs, and a big cooler of beer. A nice day of relaxation. What he should have said was "Dude, we're going to go diving into some killer waves and razor rocks with a band of underwater Ninjas!" That would have been waaaay more accurate. Add the fact that the main diving in-law dude, Yusuke, speaks ZERO Engrish and you've got serious shit going down.

Now I'm no newbie when it comes to scuba diving and snorkelling but man let me tell you this was some hairy shit. We got into the water and the four other Japanese people (YuSUKE, his wife, and Hiromi's other 2 brothers - YuHEY and Tadahiro) just take off swimming and don't say a thing to us. They start swimming toward this stone arch (over on the right):

This picture was taken as the tide was going out, after all was said and done. When AJ and I went through there you'd think Godzilla was emerging to take down Tokyo, the waves were crashing so hard against the rocks. Under the water there are these wicked sharp rocks, so as the tide is crashing in, the water level rises and falls, giving you the feeling that you're playing a sinister version of Super Mario Brothers where you have to dodge the sharp rock and tidal wave traps (I can see where the Japanese get their inspiration for Nintendo now)!

After braving the opening, we were pretty much in the open ocean and the huge swells, which ironically was actually a big improvement! After adjusting to the hairy conditions, AJ and I basically swam around, diving occasionally to pick up rocks that we thought resembled oysters, while Yusuke filled the catch bag with all sorts of sea creatures, including an Octopus (!!!) that he wrangled out of its cave. Pretty badass, right?

(Jones-San! I've never seen you so happy to be on land!!)

So after two hours of diving and braving the Sea of Japan, we returned to the beach to get treated to a barbeque, Japanese style. Check it out:

Yusuku busts out this hibachi gril from his mini-van and cooks everything (except for the Octo, we ate that raw) that he's just caught and it seriously was one of the best meals of my life.

A boy and his Octopus (L-R Dr. Octopus, Yusuke, and his wife)

It was an awesome experience and we totally earned our lunch that day. Afterwards, we went to an onsen to get our relax on(it's a natural hot springs spa. Funny thing is, it's separated dudes and chicks, and everybody just goes commando style... but that's another story altogether).

Tokyo Bound

2005-07-18T22:26:00.000-07:00

Just a sneak peak of what's to come - the "Tokyo Rockabilly Club..." Raucous Dancing Machines come from the future to rock-your-socks off.