I passed my coworker walking home from the office tonight at 10:17pm. Yeah.

Uninspired Post Written by a Tired Worker on Friday

Good evening,

So, another week has passed, and here you are, reading my blog, wondering, "what could Greg have possibly done this week?" Well, you came to the right place, 'cause I'm here to tell you.

Last weekend was fun. What did I do...uhhh

Ah yes, now I remember. Friday night I went to Wade's place to hang out with him, Paul, Tina, Natalie, and Erin. It took me about an hour to drive what should have been 30 minutes, but I'll get into my "Japanese-drivers" rant soon and spare you now. We played Left 4 Dead until the girls arrived, and then we watched Batman: The Dark Night. Wicked fun, and it was my first time seeing Wade's place. Afterwards, we hung out for awhile, talking and eating Wade's Starbursts.

Saturday we had lunch at the Viking (all-you-can-eat) Yakiniku place. I'm pretty sure I covered our table's tab, I had huge bowls of meat, and was still eating long after everyone else had finished. Afterwards, I did some errands- Yamada Denki (the electronics store) and so forth, the gym, and then went to Paul's house to hang out that night.

I got there and we played some more Left 4 Dead. Then, Paul, Nick, and I, met up with Tina downtown, and went to see......Paul's girlfriend! Yes, Paul (or Po-ru San, as he is called at school), has a Japanese girlfriend. He has been reluctant to introduce us to her, but we were finally able to convince him to take us to the ramen shop she works at. We went to the shop, ordered some ramen, and tried not to be stereotypical Gaijin fools. So, we were able to look at his girlfriend, but we were unable to actually speak with her until we paid for our meal. It was really only enough for a quick (my name is blank, I'm from blank), but still, it was good just to see what she looks like.

We headed back to Paul's, played some more vidja-games, hung out, and then went home our separate ways.

Sunday I cleaned my apartment and skyped. Seth came by that night and we cooked dinner (beef and broccoli) and played some RE4. We also moved my piano into my heat room, and, wow, suddenly I've been practicing again. I feel bad for my teacher, who had to endure my not-practicing for so long, because my piano was in one of my cold-rooms for awhile.

I suppose I should explain to you "heat room" and "cold room." They are pretty self-explanatory, but, my "heat room" is comprised of my kitchen, living room, and bedroom. These rooms are all within range of my heater, and I close the doors to the non-heated areas to keep the heat in. It works quite well. The "cold rooms," are those not heated by my heater, and therefore are useless to me except for the occasional run to the bathroom.

Wednesday night, Paul hosted a movie night at his house, and we watched the movie "Old Boy," which I highly recommend. It's a Korean movie. The only part I cringed at was when the main character eats a live octopus, and you can see the tentacles squirming and sucking all over his face. Even when the character falls face-down on his plate because he "passes out," the tentactles are still all squirming outside his mouth. Since I already hate that part of octopi, I was engrossed- I had to watch it, but it's something I could never do. It was so delightfully freaky that I had to watch. Unfortunately, the disc skipped about halfway through, so I still don't know what happened to the guy! NO!

We also played Mario 3, which is only the best game ever invented. I either scared or impressed people with my insane (read: encyclopedic) knowledge of the game and all of the secrets in all of it's levels. Either way, we almost beat the game that night.

Afterwards, I went to the onsen with Erin and Tina, since my shower is broken. Oh, funny thing about my shower...it's broken. Actually, not so funny. I've been going to onsens almost every night. So, we went to Gokuraku, an onsen close to their area, and the best one in Hachinohe. We got post-dinner dinner there, and then onsenned. It was good, and on the drive back, Erin turned 27!

Last night was boxing with Matt and Joe. It's always wicked fun, and I can't wait to box again. Matt bought some pads and gloves, so we practice at Body Park in Nanbu. It feels really good to hit something and practice martial arts. I just want to go again.

Here's one from the past. At one of my middle schools, I asked a student "What three foods do you like?" His answer:

"I like cheese. cheese- cheese- I like- umm...cheese, i like-chee-cheese, and...eto...cheese, cheese..." This literally went on for a good 4 minutes, until the teacher had to interrupt and say "how about ramen and tempura?"

"...ramen and tempura..." Ok. Well, it was much funnier when I was actually there.

Somehow I've gotten the newkid to smile at me, like we are sharing this inside joke. I don't know what the inside joke is though, and I'm not sure what he means when he briefly smiles at me. Best case scenario, he is observing me to make sure that I am worthy of receiving his 10 billion dollar check...now! Guess not yet. Worst case scenario, he is smiling sadistically, thinking about how I won't figure out he's an axe-murder until later tonight. I'm hoping for the former.

Regardless, I think this is a good move forward. It means that, perhaps, he is less afraid and more willing to...not be afraid(?).

Ah, this Monday I went to Shorenji Kempo, that karate class I've been taking, and I told them that I was quitting. It's sad, but true. I'm not learning much, and it's just not that fun or practical.

Hmm, what next? What else? This weekend is here. I'm going to Erin and Crystal's joint b-day party and karaoke. Should be good. Tomorrow I'll be snowboarding at Okunakayama. That's about all I've got planned for now.

I forgot to mention that I just came back from calligraphy. I was supposed to write a wish (in Kanji) on a piece of paper in Japanese calligraphy. The English teacher wrote out my wish (for happiness and health for my family), and I practiced a few times before getting on my knees (which hurts, fyi) and calligraphy-ing it. Unfortunately, on my official run-through (on the official paper and everything), I wrote in the wrong order. Ms. Kamiyama came to the rescue, my wish was changed from happiness and "health for my family" to "I wish to be a safety-driver." Not a bad rebound, I daresay. Now, this anzen unten hito is going to sign off. Work is done for the day and I'm going home.

Good luck, and please, be a safety driver.

First Post-Korea Pre-Next Week, After "Adult Day" and Snowboarding Post

Welcome back, everyone.

Sorry to have deprived you of my blog posts for so long, I had quite a great winter vacation. I’m back from South Korea! I forgot to mention that I was going to South Korea in my last blog post. So here is your late notification, I’m going to South Korea. And I’m back, safe and sound. It was an amazing trip, from December 16th to December 30th. On the 30th, I arrived back in Tokyo, and stayed there until the 1st. There’s so much to write about, and so much that I did. I'm going to avoid that for now, because knowing the way I write, it will take the rest of this week just to get it down in the blog.

Instead, I'll catalogue the interesting points of what has happened since I've been back in Japan, and try to do Korea later, in my free time.

So, there are two new office workers. There's an 18 year old male who I'm sure I've complained about before, and will continue to complain about now. And there's a 19 or 20 year old female who just recently joined us after the winter vacation. Let's explore their role in the office.

First, the female, because her job seems much more understandable that the male's job. She has a binder. From this binder, she reads and types things in the computer. Sometimes, she'll copy things at the copy machine. This is the extent of her job. Oh, I almost forgot, she also has the privilege of turning the lights on and off in the morning and at lunch time, lucky her! On account of her actually doing something, I'll let her off the hook of my criticism. Also she will actually speak more than 2 words to me, that also counts in her favor.

Ok, let's get started with the guy. I don't know where to begin. Actually, I know exactly where to begin. I'll begin with his favorite activity, sitting in his chair and doing nothing. Yep, in an office where sometimes a coworker will close their eyes for 10 minutes during the middle of the day and do nothing, he manages to make them look hardworking. He'll sit in one position, look around with those alien-shaped eyes (Note: I am not making fun of the asian almond-shaped eyes, which are totally cool and fine by me, I am solely criticizing his poor genetic make-up when it comes to facial features). Sometimes he'll stare at the clock. How do I know that he's staring at the clock? Because it's directly behind him, and he has to turn his body 180 degrees to stare at it. For extended periods of time. Every once in awhile, he'll staple something, which I'm sure is the highlight of his day. One time, he was in the lobby, and I spoke with him. Sorry, *to* him. Here was our conversation:

"Hello, how are you?"
silence
"Where did you eat lunch?"
"Upstairs"
"Oh cool, what did you have?"
alien-eyed look
"A bento-box (Japanese traditional lunch box thingey)?"
"Yes."
"Ok, well, I'll see you later."
Silence, possible UFO transmission back to the mother ship.

Am I being a little rough on him? Probably. Does it matter? Not particularly, he won't find out about this website and can't read English. I don't actually feel strongly negatively towards him, but I thought this might be entertaining for you, my precious reader.

So, anyways, onto this weekend. Saturday was Skype-athon day. I spoke with no less than 4 people, and even my old kiwi flatmate from when I was in NZed. It was really great to catch up, and that accent is pretty rockin'.

Sunday I went snowboarding for the 1st time at Moya Hills (or, for you Japanese speakers in the blogosphere, Moya Hiruzu). I drove down with Laura S, Karesa, and Eric, who never fails to crack us up, whether it's how he named his cat Apparatus Recreational Vehicle (I think he opened the dictionary to a random page) or some other story. We eventually made it through all of the snow to Moya, which was awesome. After we arrived, we got to our cabins and met up with everyone who stayed there last night.

Then it was time for night snowboarding! Tina taught me some of the basics on how to snowboard, and then I practiced on the beginner hill for the rest of the night. I got some of the basics down, and I was ready for the next day to go up the mountain.

That night we went to an onsen, cause that's what you do in Japan. I was in there with Wheldon, Seth, and Eric, when a random Chinese guy came up to us and started talking to us in English. That's the thing about Japan, and Korea I noticed as well, people randomly want to come up to you and talk to you because you are a) white or b) speak English. For some reason, a disproportionate number of them feel more confident when naked, and wait until then to talk to us.

After the onsen, there was a little mini-party in the cabin, they cooked spaghetti, salad, and other stuff for dinner. Everyone was tired from that day, though, so it didn't last too long. We went to bed around 1ish, and then got up the next day for more snowboarding, until 3 pm!

Snowboarding is a lot of fun. First of all, it's much easier to learn than skiing. People debate this, and some of the people who think incorrectly say skiing is easier, but it's not. I like feeling like my legs won't go in opposite directions and I'll end up doing an unwanted split. Also, being able to stop whenever, wherever, without going 10 yards of snow-plowing, is really nice. I went up the mountain a few times with Weldon, Crystal, and Eric. I had a really good time snowboarding, and I look forward to doing it again!

Afterwards, we drove home, and I threw some laundry in, hit an onsen because I think the pipes to my toilet might be frozen, and came back and crashed. I'll definitely be going to bed earlier this week.

Since there are no classes this week, I'm just sitting at the office all day, doing nothing. So, I have a lot of time reading, doing nothing, writing this, losing motivation to write and do constructive things, reading again, trying to do something constructive, and then leaving for home at 4:30. At times, I think I'd rather be in the Admissions Office, keying in new recruits, or indexing with music. Larry! Do you need help with anything?!

So, I've read two books since I've been back, and finished the first Japanese textbook. Woo!

Ok, Random Japan, random japan, random japan, what shall I write about? There's got to be something, anything I can think of. Hmm, things have become too normalized. Ahh! I don't think I've written about my shower yet. Let's do that.

Unlike you dirty Westerners, we here in Japan have 6 steps to turning on our showers. (Well, actually, to be fair, it's only my apartment, everyone else has a normal shower.) Anyways, here's how the elite do it.
Step 1: Turn on the water to the shower.
Step 2: Turn on the gas to the shower.
Step 3: Turn the handle around, while turning the other handle counterclockwise to about 10 o'clock while pressing down and holding, until you see a blue gas flame through the glass
Step 4: Wait a few seconds and slowly raise up the other handle. If the blue flame disappears, go back to step 3.
Step 5: Take the raised handle and twist it counterclockwise, further, until about 7 or 8 o'clock.
Step 6: Turn the topmost handle to the showerhead, and prepare for a nice warm shower!

So that is how I do it in Japan. You Westerners think you're so clever with your showers, but now I can see you realize how inferior you are. And I bet you have insulation in your houses and apartments too...such folly.

Till next time!

Morioka and stuff

Well, what has been happening this past weekend. I took a trip to Morioka with Tina, Seth, and Natalie. ‘Twas fun

What shall I write about? I want to write about something clever, fun, and new to those who aren’t living in Japan. I suppose I could write about one complexity of the language. In Japanese, “un” and “uun” are two different words with opposite meanings. “Un,” means “yes,” while “uun” means “no.” To make things even more confusing for you all, this is only in informal form. I’ve been learning the formal form up until now. But don’t worry, I have yet to learn at least one other, more respectful, form.

Japanese must be great for rappers though. All of the sentences end with the verb, and the verbs all end in the same last few syllables (-masu, -masen, -masen deshita, -mashita). Rhyming has to be wicked easy! I can picture the Japanese rappers now, with their long, sonic-the-hedgehog’s back dipped in bleach-hair, sitting around the izakaaya, thinking up lyrics.

“Hey man, what I should I rhyme ‘hanashimasu’ with?”
“How about ‘shimasu,’ ‘kakemasu,’ or any other verb in the formal present/future positive.”
“Oh…yeah.”

I don’t mean to insult or “diss,” as you kids sometimes call it, Japanese music. I’m obviously making an overgeneralization…I think. Regardless, I chose the wrong language to be perapera (fluent) in for my rap star future.

I had the pleasure of going to a Don Don Down on Wednesday (yes, this is all in English on their signpost) in Morioka. They have an interesting fruit and vegetable based economy system. Thinking back, I should have taken a picture. Basically, instead of having price tags on their clothes, they instead have tags of fruits and vegetables (only 1 per item of clothing). The tags correspond with a price, but that corresponding price changes every day. So, a pineapple today costs about 1/2 a mushroom yesterday. Unfortunately, two eggplants and a pineapple was a little out of my price range that day. Very interesting store, I’ll be back for sure.

What else shall I ramble about? Today the annoying kid wouldn’t stop hugging me. He’s a great 1st grader, really, but he’s also the loudest and most interruptive. Every time he sees me, he just runs up and hugs me, saying “hello, hello, hello, hello, hello” ad nauseum. I put a ban on hugs when he is particularly disruptive in class. I don’t think he understands that his behavior is the cause of the single-person hug ban, so I give in and just let it go anyways.

I was in Morioka this past weekend. Tina, Seth, Natalie and I drove down on Saturday. I think “drove down” is an incorrect phrase, because we actually drove in a huge circle before actually driving downwards to Morioka. We arrived quite late, we expected to check into the hotel at 3, but by the time we got to the mall outside of Morioka where we spent a few hours, it was already 5:30. But, this mall had Starbucks, and there were enough Starbucks junkies in the car that it warranted a stop. After the coffee, though, we had to look around the mall. A little Japanese girl somehow got attached to our group.

Actually, I know exactly how. She was on the escalator behind us when she heard Tina, who is of Asian descent, speak a language that wasn’t Japanese. I think it freaked out this little girl’s world, because she couldn’t stop staring at Tina. The little girl followed us around for a good 15 minutes, until she ran away somewhere.

Which was perfect timing, because it was time for Taiko! Yes, sweet game of my existence! The Super Mario Brothers theme song is on the machine, so we, of course, had to play that. I was driving the car, so they had to obey me anyways, hardy har har.*

*Note, pirates have nothing to do with this story, nor do I normally “hardy har har” at people in my regular day-to-day activities.

So, anyways, we made it to the Root Inn much much much later than expected, and it really only gave us time for a short walk down the main street to dinner at this wicked cool café. Then, back to the hotel for onsen and sleep.

On Sunday, Seth and Tina were taking the JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test, aka our entire reason for coming to Morioka). What did this mean for me? I got to accompany the famed shopper, Natalie L from Shingapo-ru, around Morioka. I actually didn’t mind, I need some winter clothes and figured she’d be able to help.

We hit up a second hand clothes shop, didn’t find much (except a hoodie for $1.50), and went downstairs to the Freshness Burger, where I met up with the ordeal of ordering outside the box.

I think Japan likes things in orderly boxes, rules, and regulations. While I’m not always breaking the box (do you break it? Or do you more step out of it if violence isn’t your thing? They need to get a good verb to describe the transition from inside the box to outside the box, but I digress), I took one step too far. Here is a brief transcript from my conversation, trying to order a set of Burger, fries, and drink.

“Sumimasen, may I have this set please?”
“Sure, what do you want to drink?”
“Water please.”
“Oh, you can have any of these drinks on this list.”
“It’s ok, water is fine.”
“But, it’s not on the list.”
“It’s ok, I really like water.”
“Errr….umm…..”
“Ok,” *looks at list* “I’ll take the brown tea.”

We sat around Freshness burger and talked for a good while. Then walked elsewhere to continue the shopping. We hit a mall, that Don Don Down on Wednesday place I mentioned earlier, and so on. I was drained. I won’t say it nearly killed me, but I’ll imply it by leaving the previous phrase in this post.

We made it back to the hotel, and I was dead. Dead as in drained, not dead as in it nearly killed it and then I actually died at the last second. Seth mentioned his point of view when he met us at the hotel. Natalie was sitting and waving at Seth and Tina through the window as they were coming in. My head was back on the chair, legs splayed out, and eyes closed.

So, I was tired, which meant I clammed up for the rest of the trip, which was too bad, but ah well, I was still able to have fun. We had Jaja-men, a special type of noodle found in Morioka. Quite good. We also ran into a ton of other JETs at the restaurant, which was really cool to see.

Afterwards, we went to an asobihodai. Like a tabehodai, where it’s all you can eat, and a nomihodai, where it’s all you can drink, an asobihodai is an all you can play (I coined the term myself, add it to the Japanese dictionary, pronto!). We paid $15 to play as many arcade games and sports as we wanted for 90 minutes.

You know what this means.

Taiko! Batting cages! Airsoft rifles! Soccer, volleyball, archery, badminton, sniper shooting games! It was too much, it was not enough! It was pure bliss with massage chairs mounted with flatscreen TV’s that we didn’t have time for because we were having too much fun elsewhere. It just didn’t last long enough. They did give us free claw-game tickets and 20 coins for playing stuff though. It was a huge maze of free stuff begetting more free stuff, just to keep us in the building. We probably stayed an extra 45 minutes to an hour after we originally planned on leaving. It was such an insidious plot on their part! Well, of course we’ll try to win the stuffed snoopy. 20 coins? Why not try and win more? At one point near the end, I remember looking everyone in the eyes and saying “we have to go, or we’ll never leave.”

And go we did, driving back to Hach. Seth and I didn’t want to end the trip though, so after dropping Tina and Natalie off at their houses, we went to a ramen shop. It’s an interesting thing in that, when Seth gets tired, he talks a lot more, whereas I talk a lot less. Regardless (or, irregardless if you want the extra syllable, [irregardless of which you like, I prefer to use regardless]), we had the most interesting conversation about God. His background as the son of two ministers was a really cool backdrop to the conversation. I won’t go into the details for obvious reasons, but it was really cool and I’d welcome a return to that conversation.

I like being able to write like this. It means you, the reader, are stuck in my solipsis, where my thought process actually make sense because you can　sort of see it working. Ugh, remember when I try talking this way in normal face to face conversation? It just doesn’t come out the same, or come out at all.

Ah, I didn’t mention the Friday night of that weekend! I was invited to a dinner at one of my karate co-students (not sure how to word that) house. His family was so friendly! We stumbled along in Japanese, and everything went well until I asked where his brother was that I saw in the pictures. It turns out he passed away a few months ago…please take a moment for them and their family.

Aside from that quick issue, we jumped back and had a great conversation. I didn’t expect them to keep me so long, so I felt terrible when I told them I had to go to my friend’s birthday in Nanbu. They walked me into the train station, and watched me buy my ticket. Sort of awkward, but ok.

I made it to Matt’s house from there. That family even gave me a gift of 2 nihonshu’s (Japanese alcohol) to give to Matt. We watched Alien 2, and I got their late so I missed the potluck, but it’s ok. Matt, Seth, Joe, Laura, and I went to a bar afterwards. It was only the coolest bar ever. The owner was so chill (and, get this, he doesn’t drink), and the patrons were quite friendly. Too friendly, in fact. The Japanese guy on my right was sniffing our drinks and almost took a taste of mine!

Joe then showed us the Resident Evil bathroom. Complete with windows just waiting for zombie dogs to jump through, the safe room with typewriter, and stairs that we can’t go down until we get the hexagonal key.

Afterwards, we got in a taxi and headed back to Matt’s house. Before going to sleep though, we decided it would be really cool to play his electric drum set upstairs (while some people were sleeping downstairs…), at 3 in the morning. It was cool, you could change the sounds and everything. Luckily no one downstairs woke up, so everything was good.

So, that’s what has been going on with me lately, shoot me some comments and tell me what is happening with you.

T-Day

Happy Thanksgiving, family and friends.

As you know, Japan doesn’t celebrate Thanksgiving. Blasphemy, right? Well, for those of us who live in a country with a Plymouth Rock (and perhaps a few too many field-trips to Plymouth Plantation, and by “too many,” I mean one), Thanksgiving is an integral part of our culture.

On Thanksgiving Night, which I shall now designate at T-Day, I got Seth, Melissa, Helen, and Nick to come to my place and make the trek to KFC, the closest thing we can get to a traditional Turkey Dinner. Funny thing about Japanese KFC, due to cultural differences, they don’t have mashed potatoes, nor do they sell huge buckets of chicken. A “Family Meal” is 6 pieces of chicken and 2 packets of fries. Yeah, I paid the price for it and was still hungry afterwards. KFC is apparently synonymous with Christmas in Japan, because they had a registration list, and the Colonel’s statue was bedecked with a red suit and plenty of Christmas cheer.

After making it back to my place, we opened our meals, and had a round of what we give thanks for. Then, it was time for Superbad. I love this movie, it makes me crack up every time I watch it. For those of you who haven’t seen it, it has a lot of rough language, and it’s based around very small grains of truth for males who have gone through the American public High School system. Poor Helen, our proper British/Kiwi friend, she had to preserve her image and blocked her head between her knees to stop the horrible sounds coming from my computer monitor.

So, that was last Thursday’s small Thanksgiving celebration.

We had a much more normal Thanksgiving at Weldon and Crystal’s (a married couple) on Saturday. They had all of the usual fixin’s- turkey, mashed potatoes (which yours truly made), cranberry sauce, etc. etc. We even played football in the schoolyard nearby.

My team, team Turkey Awesome, won the game! With 2 touchdowns, and a third on the way (until the security officer came by and kicked us out), we were clearly the victors.

Afterwards, we returned to their house and watched Starwars (Episode VI, aka the best one), played Jenga, Uno, poker, and the Midwesterners split up and played their alien “Euchre.” Yeah, I don’t know either, it has something to do with cards and being from a geographically unknown region. Yours truly won poker. After edging out the early Kiwi menace (Tina), kicking out the Kentucky Fried Southern leader (Eric), and surviving the great Singaporean drought (Natalie comes in and, in 1 hand, reduces all of our money at least by half), I made it out in the end with all of the money, $36 to be exact.

Sunday, I did a lot of nothing. Which is just what I needed after a busy day and week. I slept late, cleaned, ran some errands (which included filling up my precious kerosene, and getting a terrible haircut), and met up with Paul for dinner at Gusto.

This week, on Tuesday, after Japanese class was Matt’s birthday. Not only was it Matt’s birthday, but a new generation of game has been born. After assigning people around to me positions in my currently fictional, soon to be non-fictional, world takeover, I named someone the Pompadour of Pies. Well, this quickly turned into an all-night game, where each sentence had to have at least one word that started with the letter P. Yours truly was also the unofficial winner (even though this game has no “winners” per se) of this game. Perhaps, one my say that I was the paragon of pithy p-words, a prodigal player proliferate with positively perfect performance. Purple. I can’t wait for next week’s letter.

This week’s entry was brought to you by the Japanese word “marumarumaru.” Because nothing gets your Japanese teacher rubbing her upper chest (not oppai, get your mind out of the gutter) like the word “marumarumaru.”

2 Weeks' Worth Laundry List

Ok, because I missed last week's entry, I'm just going to do a laundry list more for my memory than for your entertainment. Sorry about this, but there's just too much to write and not enough time for me to study Japanese if I write it. So, without further ado.

Two weeks ago Saturday (15th):

• Went to the salmon festival in Oirase with Tina and Natalie. We had salmon nabe with special miso sauce. Afterwards, we walked around all of the cool salmon-inspired things.
• We met up with Grahame, who was working the festival.
• I caught a salmon with my bare hands in the salmon-catch. Afterwards, I paid 300 yen and they cut and cleaned it.
• Existential crisis about killing an animal, don't get me started again.
• We went to the sports store, then my apartment, and met up with Erin.
• Off to Gonohe! We pick up Seth and drive to zazen meditation in Shichinohe.
• We get there right on time, meditate, and have an awesome meal afterwards.
• Back home!

Sunday (16th):

• That fish-market in Hachinohe for lunch.
• Home Center Sunday/Pia Do/Yamada Denki for various shopping stuff.
• French dessert cafe for pre-dinner dessert.
• Yakiniku place for dinner.
• Home to begin the Week again

This past week was the Mid-year seminar. Thursday I got on the train with my supervisor, ran into the other Hach JETs, and seminar'd it up.

My supervisor decided to get a hotel as far away from the seminar as possible. So a 45 minute walk in the snow later, we made it to our hotel. In order to get to the talent show that night, I walked the 45 minutes back to the main street, near the ASPAM building.

The talent show was awesome! I played waiter for a little bit, getting drinks out to everyone. Hands-down, the best talent of the night was Sam dancing to Daft Punk. He wrote the words on his clothes, and by the end of the song, he was moving in a synchronized motion and the words on his body matched with the words in the song. There was a katana demonstration as well, and, the 2nd best talent and best auction for the night was the Rokkasho crew. Normally, their performance wouldn't be so good, but conditions were perfect. It was the end of the night, people were drunk, including the performers, and something crazy had to happen.

After rowing themselves onstage with their makeshift didgeridoos , they proceeded to sing "didgeridoo" into their cardboard tubes. They actually had some cool sort of thing going. Then, the missing Rokkashite (that's what they call themselves) showed up, hitting a small drum-thing and making tribal screeches. It was weird. It was quirky. It was hilarious.

They then auctioned themselves (for the night was both a service auction and a talent show). Of course, when you are drunk, you'll say many things. "We will build you an igloo. Then, we will cook you a 4 course meal inside the igloo, while we play a movie on the ceiling of the igloo. We will find penguins and populate the igloo for your enjoyment. We will do this all shirtless and singing."

How much does such a believable feat go for? 900 dollars. Yep, a group of 4 bought them for 900. Yeah.

Speaking of which, yours truly got $250 for karate and massage lessons.

Afterwards, I then proceeded to walk the 45 minutes to the hotel and passed out.

Friday (21st)

• Went to more seminars.
• Went home.
• Exciting eh?

Saturday (22nd)

• Met up with office at 8:30 for the trip.
• The first drink was popped open at 8:37 AM, and they continued to drink on the bus during the entire day.
• We arrive at a museum of things. Yes, you can tell how much I like old pottery, especially when my only explanation is 亜非ンジャ　(these kanji may not load on your computer, and I just typed them randomly, so I have no idea what they mean).
• Teppanyaki lunch.
• Walk up to an old temple area. I saw a 1000 year old mini-temple made all of gold. It was wicked cool.
• Back on the bus for more drinks and a drive to a museum of an old school near Sendai.
• Over to a really nice hotel.
• Do I really need to onsen with you guys? Ugh, I'll hide in the corner.
• Change and just in time for the main event. Drinking dinner and a set meal.
• Everyone is getting plastered around me. This is sort of funny.
• You guys are pretty cool, and now that I can speak basic Japanese, this is sort of fun.
• Ah, the 1 guy makes a fool of himself at the karaoke. No, Tanaka-san, I will NOT sing for the office! Stop asking me.
• Bedtime? No, not yet, it's time for us to see a chinese acrobat show! These middle and high-school girls are really talented. I didn't think humans could do such things, I'll try and put a picture up.
• Bedtime yet? No, time for us to get Ramen.
• Bedtime yet? No, time for me to walk around the hotel and see what there is. Hint, not much at all.
• Bedtime, how about now? No, I went to room 1411 to watch the guys play Mahjong, drink, and smoke. I felt like one of the guys. You know, the deaf and mute one who just sits and does nothing.
• Ok, finally bedtime. Oh wait, these rooms hold 5 people on futons. And, my supervisor snores.

Sunday (23rd)

• Let's wake up before the sunrise and see it rise beautifully!
• After breakfast, it's time to leave...only to go to the shark marketplace!
• Ok, goodbye shark place, and now, to the sake distillery.
• Woohoo, lots of sake and a good lunch at this olde-fashioned place. Very cool, but wow, you guys really like to drink.
• How much do they like to drink? Enough to go to the winery right after the sake distillery. Yep. I did buy myself a nice bottle of wine afterwards though.
• Ok, you all found out that I'm going to a jazz concert afterwards and might not make it on time. I really don't want to cause a fuss, so please, stop offering to drive me when we get back, I'll just take the bus.
• Ok Tanaka-san, thanks for the ride. You have a really cool family.
• Hey, Jazz concert, very fun.
• Hey, I could still go for a few drinks, you interested? Yes? Ok, if you say this is a good pizza place, let's go!
• Taxi, please, take me back to Shiriuchimachi post-haste!

Monday, the day off:

• Went with Paul for all you can eat Yakiniku. We got our money's worth.
• Random errands, including changing my tires.
• Cleaning, trying to pry myself away from the piano.
• Oyasuminasai.

And now to study Japanese.

Dracula, Bowling, the Surprise Enkai (Beef), and Okonomiyaki

So I taught with flamboyant Dracula today. Aside from the fact that his English sounded like Dracula, he carried himself in a vaguely vampiric and effeminate way. He also had shaved the hair off his hands, I could tell from the hand-stubble. Japanese people are really hairy, so I could understand his desire to do such a thing...but don't let the stubble grow out. I think it's a common feeling that a 5 o'clock shadow should only be on your face.

The funny thing about Dracula is that he's a great teacher. He was extremely energetic, and it was so infectious that the kids were rapt with attention. They actually enjoyed learning English. Hell, I would too if my teachers were like him.

Sidenote: There’s a woman who came in to speak with one of the administrators in my office, and her 1 year old child is wearing a pair of pants that say “relish” on the butt.

Now I’ll recount what I did last weekend, both for my own record-keeping and also for your enjoyment.

Friday night I went with a friend to buy heating things for my apartment. Right now the inside of my apartment is pretty cold, and it will only get colder. I’ve already broken out the electric blanket for my bed, but now it’s time for more drastic measures. I already own a heating carpet, and soon I’ll be buying a kotatsu heater. A kotatsu is a table with an electric heater underneath it. You put a blanket or futon on top, and then climb on underneath. Even though it only heats the bottom half of your body, it is a great, low-cost way to stay warm in under-insulated apartments. Friday night I bought some plastic wrap made to cover your windows, adding another layer of insulation. Since there are 2 huge windows above my bed, I really needed the insulation.

Ok, enough about me being cold and trying to protect myself. After buying winter things, we went to a Ramen shop for dinner, and then bowling down in Downtown Hach. At the bowling arena, Tina, Wade, Paul, Erin, and I had a battle of fate! The strikes and spares were flying, the points were climbing higher and higher. But alas, at the last frame, only two remained, me vs. Tina.

Now, I’ll give you an insider’s look at my strategy. See, when things get close, such as in this baseball game, I sell my soul to the devil (or any other pagan god/demi-god that pops into my mind) in order to secure my victory.

Funny thing about the devil and his sense of humour*, I lost by 3 pins! Game 2 was a little better and I won by a good margin.

*Please note my British spelling of humour, which is about a million times better than your pitiful spelling of “humor.”

After the epic bowling, we were at a loss of what to do. Where shall we go? What should we do with all of our spare time? Karaoke? Nah. Izakaaya? I can’t drink because I’m driving. Arcade attached to the bowling alley? Sweet as*. I only played the best game ever, the Taiko drum game. There was a 4 player shooting game that we tried as well, with huge fake assault rifles and a terribly stereotyped American Army backdrop, but Taiko was the best. Oh, and also the purikura.

*Please note my use of kiwi slang “sweet as.” In the words of my flatmate from New Zealand, who happens to be kiwi as: “It’s not `sweet,` it’s `sweet-as.`”

Unfortunately, the building was shutting down, and it was time for us to go home. I dropped everyone off and slept very well that night.

Saturday I had a surprise enkai (office-party). The head-boss is leaving, and this lunch was a good-bye party for him. Why was it a surprise? They didn’t tell my until Friday afternoon. Thanks guys, I guess brevity’s your thing (10 yen to anyone who guesses the movie that’s spun off from). Not quite proper use of brevity, but I wanted to include it anyways.

So, at 12 we got into 2 cars and drove to Takko town, famous for it’s garlic and beef (check my earlier post of the garlic and beef festival I went to). We went to a yakiniku restaurant (you grill your own slices of meat with your pals) and began to drink our beer, wine, sake, all while eating some of the best, tenderest meet I’ve ever had. There was also some surprise meat there too, like the cow-tongue and something from “the inside of the body, like the stomach.”

Speaking of surprise beef, I was turning over some slices of beef (with my chopsticks, of course) and flame spat up, which caused my to fling the slice (keep in mind these are all bite-sized, chopstick friendly slices) into the air. Where else does it land but my vice-principal’s lap. Despite the shock and horror on my face, my vice-principal only looked at it through his beer goggles, and in a big voice said “BIKURI GYUUNIKU!” (SURPRISE BEEF!). If only he ate it, then it would’ve been the single most hilarious thing I’ve seen in Japan.

After the enkai, we daiko’d it back to Hachinohe, and I walked to my apartment. At this point, I just collapsed on the bed. I woke up an hour later, just in time to meet up with Seth and drive to Ariel’s birthday dinner. At this point, I felt sort of sick from stuffing myself with the beer and beef, but I went ahead anyways.

Dinner was at the one and only Bon. Only four of us were able to go that night, so Seth, Erin, Ariel, and I were there. We even got the comfy kotatsu table on the first floor, which I’ve been eyeing ever since I’ve been to Bon. We had a lot of cool conversation, and I’m really glad I decided to go, because after awhile, I began to feel a lot better. Just in time for Kappa’s delicious seafood everything stew.

Afterwards, we went to a café, hung out for awhile more, and then returned to my apartment to eat Seth’s home-made pumpkin pie. It was really fun, and the heating carpet came in really handy for keeping us warm.

Sunday there was a big lunch at an Okonomiyaki place called Teppei. Now, I have an unhappy past with okonomiyaki. I hate mayonnaise, and I also hate the brown sauce they put on top of the okonomiyaki. Why did I go? Because at this place you can make your own okonomiyaki (that’s a bitch to type, by the way), sans mayonnaise and brown sauce. For once it was actually tasty! Afterwards, we also played a party game that Jin-sensei just happened to have in her purse. You have to use lacquered chopsticks to move 10 beans from one bowl to another.

Our get-together was only supposed to be lunch, but it ended up turning into an all-day affair. After lunch, we got dessert at the food-court in Pia Do. We were there just talking for a long while, and when we realized it turned to dinner time, we all decided to go together since we happened to be together. Gusto, which was right around the corner, was our target. By this time, the huge group was pared down to only Erin, Ai, Jin-sensei, Nick, Oliver, and Ai’s friend. It was really fun, we got tables next to each other and continued on talking and hanging out. Finally, 8 hours after the start of our lunch, we all headed home. I cleaned the apartment a little bit, played a little piano, and went to bed, not even thinking about the fun I’d have teaching with Dracula this week.

Yesterday, I was a few minutes late to my school in Negishi. I felt really bad about it! I know, it was only a few minutes, but still. Usually on the schedule I get, the put on the time I should arrive at the school in order to go over the lesson plan. I guess this school put the time that the classes started, so I had to jump in while the class was already moving! Ack. It ended up being ok though, the students were wonderful, the teachers were understanding (at least, to my face, I’ve heard that they way they are to your face versus what they actually think are very different things, but since I never get to saying anything but what they present to my face, I suppose that doesn’t matter so much), and the principal and I talked for a good hour (in English!) after I was officially done at the school. I felt much better

Remember last week when I was telling you about the sweet potatoes? Well, I guess my role as a farmhand has spread out to other schools too. I have officially learned how to thrash soba seeds and harvest rice after it has been cut (this was at Herai, the best school). It was really fun, I learned something new and I got a chance to bond with my students.

Well, that’s about it for the highlights of the past week. Have a great week yourself, and I’ll update you soon.