The Soccer Tournament and my Weekly Schedule

Hello.

This past weekend I went to Nagano for the JET soccer tournament. It was open to all of Eastern (Northern, in Actuality) Japan, hosted by the JET community. Each prefecture sends its team of JET Men and Women, and they soccer it out against each other and other teams, such as the British Embassy (who, true to stereotypes, kicked ass and made it to 2nd place), Gaspanic Bar employee members, and the random Canadian team who flew in and destroyed us in the first round. At least they were nice about it, eh.

So, my team, Aomori United, never practiced. Hey, it’s sort of hard when people live 2 1/2 hours away. Unfortunately, we had a really hardcore couple of people on the team who couldn’t let go of the fact that we were just in it for fun. Well, I think they let go of it after we lost the first 3 games. Over the course of those games, though, our team pulled together and got a lot better. Good enough, in fact, to beat the Gifu team in the first game on Sunday. Ok, I should probably also admit that we had our secret weapon, a Japanese guy who actually plays soccer, arrive that day. Eh, I’ll take it. The girls team kicked ass this year, taking the 3rd place trophy and 24 rack of beer.

To get to Nagano, a good 10 hour drive away, we hired a bus. I actually thoroughly enjoy long bus rides, so I had a good time talking with people, relaxing, and trying to sleep. On the way back, I even played Mario Kart with some people on their DS’s. On the way back, though, I didn’t make it home until 3:30 am, and I had to get up for work at 7:30 am. I was surprisingly chipper on Monday, but these past couple of days I have really felt my sleep debt.

Not much happened aside from soccer-playing. The hotel we stayed at was pretty good. They had a celebration one night- it was like being back in America. Everyone in the place was a foreigner. They even had a makeshift club set up. It was really cool, some of the people actually break-danced! Honestly, that’s about it, not much else happened.

Actually, I did run into my friend Chris from Gifu, so that was cool.

Monday I hung out with Grahame in Oirase. We went to Shimoda mall for dinner. Since I was hungering for something American-style, I went with the double big-mac at McD’s. I knew looking at it that it symbolized a reduction of 2-5 months of my life, but I couldn’t resist it. Oh tasty double big-mac, with your beef patties surrounded by layers of delectable cheese, why must you taste so amazing? It felt like someone shot me with a bear tranquilizer. A delicious, artery-clogging bear-tranquilizer.

I also got a 1kg bag of Kellogg’s Corn Flakes at the foreign food store there. And some real pasta sauce. Go America.

Since I don’t have much about the weekend, I’ll write to you about some of the clubs and activities I’m doing.

On Monday nights, I have Shorenji Kempo. A type of martial art I joined last week. It was a good first night, and it’s somewhat similar to the Shaolin Kempo Karate I did back in the US, so I’m able to pick up on the movements very quickly. The students are very friendly, and I think I’ll continue going on Mondays.

Tuesday nights I have Japanese class. There are a ton of international people from all over the are who come. I’m in level 2 out of 6, but I am bumping up to level 3 next week. Level up! After class, all of the JETs get together for dinner. We usually alternate between the Golden Palki (a middle-eastern restaurant I talked about in a past post) and Takko’s, a sort of Hawaiian diner-ish place that has been rumoured to have been a love hotel before changing hands.

Wednesday night I have mandatory hang-out time with a small group (maybe 6 or 7) Japanese people. They are all previous NOVA students. NOVA is a private English conversation organization targeted at adults. It’s famous for closing down a few years ago, pretty much dumping all of it’s employees, leaving them jobless and having to pay for their own ticket home. It’s somewhat frustrating because the people back home who know this automatically think the same could happen to JET. If they did the research and found out JET was a government program and read up on it…but that’s just a little pet peeve of mine. Anyways, the group has a pretty good level of English, so it’s really fun talking to them. They are also from all walks of life (we’ve got a Japanese Teacher, a Port Worker, and so on), so it’s great to get their view on things. I’m going to make them PB&J sandwiches this week to see how they like them. I also have piano lessons this day that I’ll start up once I get my digital piano.

Did I mention I’m buying a digital piano? I’m wicked excited! I’m looking at the Yamaha YDP-160. It’s got digital graded hammer effect (so it feels more like piano, the bass keys are slightly harder to push down and the weights used are realistic), the sounds are sampled from a piano played at soft, medium, and hard strikes (the wavelengths slightly change depending on the volume and strength of a player’s strike, and this simulates it much better than just one sound sample), and it comes with a sustain pedal that can half sustain (many times digital pianos do all or nothing sustain, but for things like Debussy pieces, the half-sustain is great for that dreamy sound). I’m looking at some today, and I’m hoping to make a purchase after comparing prices. I really can’t wait.

Thursday nights I have (or should I say had) Capoiera class. This is the coolest class and the saddest one I have to give up. We practice for an hour and a half, and then we “play” (they don’t use the word “spar” because you don’t actually fight) with the master. How does this go? He jumps around, does some handstands that transform into kicks, dodges your attacks by flipping backwards or falling, only to land on his hand and put the rest of his body parallel to the ground. It’s wicked fun! The only problem is that I don’t have the time for it. I don’t have any alone time to myself, and that alone time is something that I need to thrive. I figure that, since I’m only going once a week, and I’m already ridiculously inflexible, it will take a long time to get to where I want to be, and it is the best one to give up. I’m not happy about it, but I recognize that I have to do it.

And that’s the end of my week. Good times, eh? There’s certainly enough to do around here, the problem is that it’s too much! There is so much I want to do, and think I would be good at, and not enough time- not nearly enough. Arg, a little frustrating.

This weekend is the Culture Seminar, then I’ll be camping out in Hashikami mountain with Nick, Paul, and one of Nick’s friends. I’m looking forward to it. We’ve also got Monday off for a holiday. Woohoo!

Even further ahead, I’ll be traveling to China around Christmas time. Oh, you poor goyim with your family obligations might not understand what exactly this means, so let me break it down for you. See, on this public holiday, my brethren and I do not put flammable forestry, bedecked with electrical, heat-emitting lights and hollow metal balls just waiting to be turned into deadly shrapnel, in our homes. Nor do we place presents beneath these death traps. Instead, we order Chinese food and go to the movies when no one else is there.

Flash forward to Christmas 2008. I will not be ordering American-style Chinese food. I will be eating 100% AUTHENTIC CHINESE CUISINE, in CHINA. That’s like, a 300% increase in awesomeness right there! Now, if I watch a Chinese movie, in China, while eating heavenly Chinese food, I get at least a x3 or x4 score multiplier. Ladies and gentlemen, I will have reached the pinnacle of what American Jews can only dream of. My facsimile of this time-honored tradition will, in fact, be greater than the original. I can’t wait.

A small Random Japan, just for you.

1.) Japanese people, much like the Singaporeans I observed, always back into their parking spots. Whether it is a home, at a store, or even when you can pull straight through.

2.) There is an office worker in training who was just hired. He is 18 years old, and I'm pretty sure I scare the crap out of him. I try to start a conversation in Japanese, most of the time I even just stick with a "Hi," if I'm feeling lucky, I'll even put in a "How are you?" but he just sort of looks away, or bows and runs away if I'm saying something especially threatening (eg. the latter of the 2 questions).

3.) My superpower needs to be the ability to create cameras out of thin air. We just got back from a fire-drill. Fire-drills here are a little different from those back home. After evacuating the building, we all stood around an iron shelf that the firefighters filled with gasoline and lit on fire. They then showed us how to use the fire extinguishers. They then had audience participation, relighting the fire about 7 times for different people to extinguish. Then they took volunteers. Of course, my coworkers wanted me to give it a try, so in front of the entire building (I'm gonna guestimate about 150 people), I extinguished a fire. They even applauded too.

Afterwards about 4 different people stood up and gave speeches. You can't have anything happen here without a speech. And then we all piled back into the building.