Chillin' with Taku

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

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

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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...

Speaking of good oral hygine...



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

Nagaii!

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!

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

"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

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

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

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...

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

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.