The Welcoming Party

So after our basketball games the team took me out for a welcoming party at a local izakaya (a standard restaurant that serves everything from tempura and tofu to sashimi and noodles). I had every intention of limiting my intake of alcohol that night, feeling pretty tired after two long games of basketball earlier that day, but as it turned out my teammates had other plans. I'm fairly certain that I got alcohol poisoning that evening, but I won't go into details. All in all it was a really fun evening. The naked guy in the pictures is my friend Kimu. We are about the same age so we hang out every once in a while. Supposedly his morning after was worse than mine. Hard to believe.

Kimitsu Club vs. The Golden Oldies

So here are some pictures of my first game with my basketball club team. We are the Spurlets, whatever a spurlet is. The team we played is supposedly the best over-50 team in all of Kanto, which is pretty impressive. Kanto is the region of Japan that contains Tokyo, so its saying alot. These guys were no scrubs, and from what my teammates were trying to tell me, the big, nasty old man that I had to play against, he's being recognized later this year for being the best over-50 player in Kanto. The dude could ball, and he had a mean streak going too. And just to let everyone know, we won both games handily.

Who is that handsome devil down there?

Hahaha. This was sitting on my desk the other day, I think its a teacher roster for the PTA meeting. The teacher to my left is Mr. Maeda, one of the most boring people on the planet but totally awesome. He has fairly good english so he talks to me all the time about some really strange things. One time he brought me a newspaper with a front page story about a German girl who had been abducted and raped for two years in this guy's basement and he wanted me to explain every little detail in the story to him in the teacher's room. A little awkward.

Get ready to spend 3 beautiful weeks in...

Thailand! So I bought my flight to Bangkok yesterday, just around $750 American roundtrip, which was a pretty good deal from what I was looking at. So meeting up with some friends in Thailand, may swing over to Angor Wat for a few days, but a majority of our time will be spent on Phuket island. Then on August 16th heading over to the other side of the peninsula for the infamous "Full Moon Party," described in a recently bought travel guide as "Apocalypse Now without the war." ?

check yourself Fugu wreck yourself

So we walked by this a few weeks ago one late night in Tokyo. This is Fugu, the poisonous ass blowfish that is a delicacy here in Japan. Supposedly its toxic enough to nearly kill a person instantly and the chefs who prepare it must be rigorously certified. If think Fugu means something like "pig fish" which makes sense because its ugly as all hell. As for the price of said delicacy, the small plate costs right around 9000 yen (about $90) and the big ass plate at the bottom 20000 yen (about $200). And while Japanese people love it, I watched an Anthony Bourdain special where he tried it and said it didn't taste like anything at all.

Holy shit...

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/06/08/japan.stabbing.spree/index.html

So yeah, I was in Tokyo when this happened. Pretty gnarly.

Success!

Finally, some authorized footage inside a Japanese elementary school. I feel like I'm working for National Geographic. This is my most dreaded elementary school actually, whose name I won't publish here, but they have some of my favorite students and some my most feared, in particular two 6th year students that go Kathy Bates "Misery" crazy over me. Seriously won't let go of my arm when I'm around and one actually screams when I leave. I'd bet my entire year's salary one or both of these girls kills a man sometime in their life. Seriously. Hope the video is insightful.