Sports festival video 2

Sports Festival Sept 08

So here are some old videos of the sports festival at my current junior high school. Its basically an entire day of small little relays and then these elaborate dances that their teachers drill into them from the beginning of the term.

Cambodia cont.

Here is the link to the rest of my Cambodia pictures:

cambodia 08

To wrap up the rest of our Cambodian adventure, I will quickly just touch upon the rest of our happenings in Siem Reap:

I got lost in Siem Reap at 5 am the morning we are supposed to leave. Luckily I ran into a British girl whom I had met earlier in the night who pointed me in the right direction to my hotel so I could get an hour of sleep before taking the 8 hour cab ride back to Bangkok.

Richard won a game of pool where a topless (or bottomless in Rich's case) lap around the bar was at stake. I also learned that all British people are good at pool. Every single one of them.

And we didn't get malaria...BONUS!

Watch out for that landmi.....

The "Kingdom" of Cambodia

So I've had a little nearly 2 full months to sit and ponder my real feelings on my 3 day trip to Cambodia. Upon re-entry back into Thailand I had left Cambodia with a bad taste in my mouth. While Angkor Wat was truly spectacular to see and is a totally worthwhile experience that I would recommend to everyone, the rest of the country is wrought with just enough uncomfortableness and disturbing imagery that its hard to not let that overshadow the wonderful things that the country does have to offer.

I've described Thailand to friends as a southeast Asian version of Mexico; great food, gorgeous beaches, unruly but manageable as long as your aren't a bumbling idiot about it. It is seemingly a place where anything can happen. Most people I know describe Mexico and Thailand with an ear to ear grin on their faces, the kind of smile that says please, please PLEASE ask me about my debauched time in so and so place... Cambodia, though, is a place where truly anything can, and usually does, happen.

Starting out with our entry into the country, where we were constantly reminded that smuggling drugs into the country is punishable by death and that the sexual abuse of Cambodian children is an offense that is highly punishable as well, we were instantly spit into a border town described in a guide book as the safest of the available border towns. We had just finished our 3 and a half hour trip by van from our hotel in Bangkok to the Cambodia/Thailand border. It was here that we would get completely bent over on our conversion of Thai Baht to Cambodian Real and would also change modes of transportation from a van with roughly 10 passengers to a Toyota Camery fueled by a propane tank.

The wonderful little road to Siem Reap

I should set this up properly. We had gone to a travel agent in Bangkok to see about getting a flight into Siem Reap, home of the infamous Ankor Wat. Since we were traveling during the high season, the flights we wanted were a little out of our price range. So he told us that for roughly $130 he could book us a package that included round trip taxi fare from Bangkok to Siem Reap (approx. an 8 hour trip we were told), the necessary visa to enter "the kingdom of Cambodia," (a $30 value depending on which conniving border douchebag you asked you asked, even though the value printed on the visa says $20...) and three nights accommodation in a fairly reputable hotel in Siem Reap, which included air conditioning and breakfast. Now I'm sure many of you asked yourself "Why in the hell would you take an 8 hour taxi ride? Surely a bus or train would be cheaper..." And I'm sure it would have been. But, from what we had read and what other travelers had told us, the trains in Cambodia are absolutely ridiculous. First, they don't operate out of every border town, so you must go out of your way to a much more dangerous border town, and then when you get on the train, you come to realize that it is essentially a box car with some bolted down ancient park benches...so trains were out. The bus was our initial choice, but then we heard the horror stories of the road leading to Siem Reap from the Thai border, tales of roads so bad drivers sometimes chose to go off road and drive through rice paddies rather than stay on the road.

*An interesting side story, one which I have not yet confirmed but doesn't sound that implausible, is that the reasoning behind the road being in such sorry condition is that Thai Airways, in an effort to persuade more people to fly directly into Siem Reap out of Bangkok, actually pays the Cambodian government to neglect the road, thus leading to the horror stories which in turn lead to more Thai Airways passengers. It doesn't sound that far off to be honest, but whether or not that is 100% percent true I don't know. (We were told this story by our guide at the border who more than likely told us this story in an effort to gain out trust so that his next story about Cambodian real getting better deals than American dollars seemed believable, which is laughable to even consider now. In short, we were totally fucked on our conversion. It's a hustle I'm sure he runs all day, every day...gotta eat I guess...).

So we chose the taxi, had arrived at the border and were getting out first lungfuls of fresh, crisp Cambodian air (by fresh and crisp, I'm sarcastically implying that it is neither fresh nor crisp. It is actually a horrible, putrid air teeming with so much pollution that your boogers are black when you blow your nose...think more along the lines of "the bog of eternal stench" from Labyrinth instead...). We actually got our first of many scares about a minute or so into the car ride when the taxi driver went off the main road and started driving through town. He pulled over abruptly (all of this without telling us what in the hell was going on) and starts unloading our bags in the middle of this muddy ass street. As it turns out he was simply replacing the propane tank to fuel the car (it was located in the trunk). We almost got out of the car to investigate, but the brief moment the car door was open allowed us to get a whiff of THE most horrible smelling air ever, bar none. This may sound overly dramatic, but it was literally bad enough for us to justify to ourselves that we could amply investigate what was going on outside without opening the door, let alone go outside. Our luggage was simply not worth us stepping outside and breathing in heaping lungfuls of that noxious concoction.

As soon as we hit the infamous road to Siem Reap, it was about as bad as we expected, no more, no less. Nearly the entire car ride consisted of endless bumping up and down and aggressive swerving to avoid the crater sized pot holes (we actually never went off the road though, so that should be considered a plus). We did make one stop at a town along the way so the driver could take a piss, but we all elected to stay in the car with recent memories of border smells running through our nostrils.

The carpool lane on the highway to Siem Reap

What really stuck me about the country side was just how isolated it was. It reminded me a lot of driving through the seemingly endless deserts of New Mexico, Arizona or Eastern California, where you see absolutely nothing but the occasional dirt road jutting across more endless desert. That's what Cambodia was like, a bizarro Death Valley, with waist high grass and gray skies for as far as the eye can see instead of sand and dirt. It gives you an eerie sense of loneliness, or at least it makes feelings of desperation easier to conjure up.

So we finally arrived in Siem Reap, the tourism capital of Cambodia, and it quickly becomes apparent how it has received such a title. Amidst all the squalor and poverty juts out these mountains of capitalism, these huge five-star resorts. While the golf resort rested on the outskirts of town among the brush, the rest of the Western palaces could be found dispersed all throughout the city, literally next door to crumbling buildings or brothels. Whereas in Thailand at least the resorts are off the beaten path and hidden from the miserable normalcy of Thai life, this was not the case in Cambodia where the impression is that separation is a luxury that is chiefly ignored. To call the dynamic stark is an understatement of monumental proportions. Even our own hotel, which was off the main road and down two perilously dark streets, was outfitted with iron gates, marble floors and massive teak furniture. The rooms themselves weren't anything to write home about, but I literally saw naked, starving kids running up and down the street we were staying on.

(I found it hilarious that all but the two nicest places we stayed in had mismatched linens on the beds, everything from My Little Pony discarded sheets to flower printed pillowcases. It was what I would imagine camping out in a garage sale would be like. And also, no blankets...hardly anywhere...)

Now, a note on the kind of people that visit Cambodia. I must say that I met numerous friendly people from all over the world in Thailand/Cambodia, but Cambodia definitely attracts the more adventurous crowd. The first notable people we met while waiting at the border were two British guys named J.P. and Thom. This is where my education on English culture and accents formally began, wherein my friend and Newcastle native Rich would be my guide. J.P. was a "cockney," meaning he has a London accent and speaks with unimaginable speed and is always involved in "the game, the fuckin' hustle mate." Thom was from Middlesborough if I remember correctly, which puts him the "Smog Monster" or "Smoggy" category, a name referring to the noticeable pollution in the Middlesborough air (this is also a name which apparently they hate, and understandably so). Physically, they were a sight to behold since J.P. was maybe the size of a 7th grader whereas Thom was a hulking, blonde brute whose caveman features went deeper than mere physical appearances. J.P. and Thom both lived in London and were rival drug dealers who decided to go on vacation together, traveling all over Cambodia and who would eventually make their way up the river to allegedly see some nearly extinct river dolphins and smoke copious amounts of opium with the hill tribes, granted that they weren't blown up by any land mines along the way. But first, a few days of relative safety in Siem Reap with us.

(A note on the oft publicized land mine situation in Cambodia. So from what I was told, land mines are still very prevalent throughout the country, something like 4-6 million land mines dot the countryside, except in the areas most visited by tourists, so Siem Reap and the capital Phrom Peah are ok. But outside of those areas going off the beaten path is highly questionable and dangerous. It starts to sink in when you catch your first of many glimpses of mine victims that inhabit every portion of Cambodia. There was even a band made up entirely of land mine victims that played every night in the streets of Siem Reap. Nothing quite tugs at the heart strings like a bunch of limbless dudes plucking away at modified guitars and drums.)

Our first night together in Cambodia consisted of drinking a few pints at a local travelers bar, "Angkor What?", and then looking for weed. Now, to say I was freaked out doesn't quite capture my feelings at the time of our quest. Rich knew I wasn't going to smoke, and I had let him know before our trip that any and all drug use in Thailand/Cambodia was out of the question for me, but whatever they wanted to do was fine with me, so he knew how nervous I was. It also doesn't help that every single bookstore you walk by always has on display 10-15 books about Thai prisons, drug smugglers in Thailand or wrongly accused people who spent time in a Thai prison. Needless to say the titles nor the descriptions were flattering. But, there I was, one of 5 in a glorified cart being pulled around by a wheezing dirt bike, looking for the finest in Cambodian dirtweed.

The night ended with the group of us going back to the hotel and the four of them smoking in their room. We had agreed that the next morning we would all wake up and get over the Angkor Wat for sunrise, apparently the ideal time to visit the temple. So we went to bed, or at least most of us did. (When we went down to J.P. and Thom's room to wake them up, we discovered that Thom had stayed awake all night smoking and listening to the only 2 cds he had brought with him.)

I won't much go into the visit to the temple simply because there isn't a lot to talk about. The pictures pretty much speak for themselves. There were wild monkeys running around but I didn't get them in any of the pictures. Typical of SE Asian weather, it was beautiful in the morning, then dumped rain for about 25 minutes then abruptly stopped...nothing too out of the ordinary.

To briefly sum up the rest of my relationship with J.P. and Thom I'll just paraphrase the rest of our shared experiences:

Thom picked up two chicks having dinner together at a food stall by sitting down with them, grabbing one of their bowl's of soup and having at it, to which J.P. replied in his lovable cockney accent, "He's a caveman, a fuckin' animal. No manners whatsoever..."

J.P. professed his undying love of Aerosmith, proclaiming its the only thing the states have given him thats been worth a damn...

Riding around with J.P. in a private tuk-tuk only to find out later that he didn't have a dollar to his name to pay for it. His elaborate scheme was to sell some of his pot to the travelers at Angkor What?, citing his love of "the game," and "the fuckin' hustle." I never found out if he was successful with that business venture, but I did see him leave arm-in-arm with the tuk-tuk driver. I have no idea how that turned out for him.

I think this is my favorite picture I took...

To be continued...
...also, I'll post the rest of the pictures eventually.

Facefisted

So its been a while since I've posted anything. Its not for lack of things to write about, more to do with lack of motivation and sheer unadulterated laziness...but at the behest of friends and family its time to share a few stories and happenings that have since transpired....

...beginning with the most recent, and possibly craziest thing that has happened since I've been overseas. So I'm teaching a lesson about Halloween to a group of 6th years at elementary school, going over standard Halloween language like "bat," "jack-o-lantern" and "monster," nothing that should get them too riled up. But, during a rousing game of the basket game (think duck-duck-goose, but even tamer) a student doesn't like the fact that he is the one left standing, so he grabs another kid, picks him up from his chair and throws him to the ground. He sits down, smiles and leaves the smaller victim left huddled on the floor attempting to collect his dignity.

Well, the teacher, a matronly, older woman in his 50s I would guess, witnesses the assault and moves in for retribution. She grabs the student by the wrist and says something to the effect of "apologize and get out of that chair" (I taking a total guess on that, but it would seem to fit the situation).

Well, he was not a fan of this at all and he begins to struggle with the teacher, attempting to free himself of her terrifyingly meager, nursing home grip. (It should be noted that the student is one of the larger kids in his grade. He is fairly tall for his age, but still very skinny like most Japanese students. Watching his struggle with an old woman was humorous for a little while until it escalated, at which point it went from troubling and back to hilarious in the span of a couple of seconds, but all in good time...).

So the teacher is winning the tug of war at this point, as she has forced the student out of the chair and the two of them are now standing toe-to-toe in the circle of chairs I had arranged for the now forgotten game. He must have realized that her ferocious kung fu grip wasn't going to be broken unless he stepped it up a notch, so he rears back and gives her a solid kick in the leg, reminiscent of a kickboxing move, connecting solidly with her mid thigh.

To her credit, she doesn't give an inch, so he kicks her again (please, no one ask me why I just sat there and watched an old lady get kicked in leg twice, I don't yet have a decent explanation...). Having already assaulted a teacher in American standards and witnessing his efforts being brushed aside by a sweet old lady donning a jack-o-lantern hair band (the ones with pumpkins flopping about on 8 inch springs), he decides to go for broke and punches her in the face. Let me repeat that: he punched an old lady in the face. And I'll tell you the best part...she didn't move an inch...

This is where I come in. Apparently kicking an old woman is ok for me to watch, but I draw the line at punches to the face. Let no wrinkly face be harmed on my watch, only their brittle, veiny legs...Before the punch, I simply sat in awe along with the other students watching the proceeding unfold, but after the fists of infantile fury were thrown I jumped out of my chair and bear hugged the kid, restraining his spindly, fiery-self.

Its at this point that little Nathaniel Noodlearms starts crying in my arms. Sensing the worst is over the teacher tells me its ok to let him go and then instructs me to continue with my lesson...which at this point is furthest from my mind. But I trudged forward with the game that started this whole mess in the first place.

Now, onto the most curious part of the story. In America I'm fairly certain that the student would be arrested and the school would hold a vigil for the once bruisless cheek of the teacher, all the while relegating the students present in the classroom to therapy sessions to cope with the trauma of such a jarring event, while the rest of the school would be subjacated to anger management sessions and sensitivity training. The student in question would be given numerous drug and alcohol tests and the child's home life would be under intense investigation. What I'm getting at is that it would be a big deal. A REALLY big deal.

Not so in Japan apparently. Mr. Aggrivated Assaulted stood up in front of the class and apologized to the kid he threw on the ground and the class applauded him. I still expected there to be some reprecussions and at midday there was a meeting in the teacher's room, during which I was asked to wait outside. Surely this was the meeting where shock turned to anger turned to swift, deliberate action. But as I later found out, this was not the case.

Not one word of the incident of mentioned to me, except for a brief thank you from the teacher who was hit. I left school and called my company to tell them what had happened, that I had to physically restrain a kid, (which they said I actually shouldn't have done since Japanese parents are a little particular about who touches their kids, especially in the case of "overly-aggressive Americans") but that everything seemed to be alright. Thinking that was the end of the story, I was surprised to get a phone call from one of the ladies from the office. She called to tell me she had heard about what had happened through my boss, so she called the school to verify if everything was indeed alright when she learned that kyoto sensei (vice principal) DIDN'T EVEN KNEW IT HAD HAPPENED. The teacher didn't tell anyone, I was the first person to let it slip, and actually I let it slip to quite a few people at this point since it was a pretty exciting news story for me. So now I'm just hoping I didn't break some unspoken oath of the Japanese classroom, that which happens in the classroom stays in the classroom.

A few more pictures

Back Amongst the Working

So vacation is over unfortunately, and its time to go back to work and educate the Japanese prepubescent masses in the art of English. But first, here are a few pictures from my trip to Thailand/Cambodia. These are only the scuba diving pictures that were taken on Koh Tao on the last day of our diving, where we completed a deep dive down to 30 meters, a photography dive and a night dive where out dive instructor had us turn off our torches midway through and dive with only the moonlight. For me, the moonlight was pretty inadequate as I could not see a single f'n thing, but the pictures did a nice job of showing how much more colorful the ocean floor became when the sun goes down. I can't put all the pictures on the blog, there are just too many, so I'll only put a select few here and then the rest on my online photo album, which you can see at

http://picasaweb.google.com/jamesrburbridge

As soon as I get the rest of my pictures, mainly of Angkor Wat and the Grand Palace, off my camera I'll post them here as well. Prost.

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.

The weekend that wouldn't end...

5/25

Ok, so here comes the weirdest story of them all. So, Chisako had invited me over for dinner the previous week and I was under the impression that she would be making dinner, so I go out and buy a bottle of wine as a gift and get to her house at 6 pm. I arrive and she is waiting for me outside and tells me that we are going to a restaurant, so the bottle of wine gift feels a little strange now, but whatever. So we go to this nice Japanese restaurant for sushi and other authentic Japanese foods (tempura, tofu, fried fish of which you eat the entire thing, including its giant ass fried head. Yup...). So it's myself, Chisako and her family (son, daughter-in-law and their six and three year old daughters), and her friend. We begin with drink, of which I order water because I'm still in a little bit of pain from the two nights before. Chisako's son looks at me when I tell him water and seems a little shocked, making me feel slightly nervous now. I tell him that I had a pretty late night and that alcohol just didn't sound good which he says is fine. Then he decides to open the bottle of wine I brought and pours me a glass. I figure one glass of wine is innocent enough, but I forgot the Japanese custom of filling your neighbor's glass, of which Chisako's son is VERY observant of. (By the way, Chisako is the only name I can remember, apologizes.) So before I knew what was going on, her son and I had finished the bottle and were on to other Japanese drinks. So we are eating and drinking and I'm playing with their daughters (who are adorable) when he asks me if I know kamakura. I say no and he tells me that after dinner we will go. Chisako and her friend were trying to explain to me what a kamakura was and all they could get out was "many pretty Japanese girls" which is all I needed to hear to be quite honest. So we finish eating and I get in the car with her son, (which I learned is the highest end car you can get in Japan, its called a Century) and we get dropped off at the Kamakura.
Well, kamakura in English is a hostess bar, which was explained to us during training as a bar where men go to drink overpriced drinks and talk to girls, aka hostess. We were warned not to go to one because they are expensive and most probably wouldn't let a foreigner in in the first place. But I get in since I'm with Chisako's son (for the sake of simplicity, I'm going to call him Ichiro from here on out). It looks and feels just like a strip club, with semi-worn out leather couches lining the walls, dim lighting, and for some reason "Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer" playing on a projection screen. So we sit down, Ichiro puts in a drink order and begins to point to different spots around our couch. They bring back a bottle of so-chu and a bottle of brandy that looks like a really nice leather bound novel. So we are drinking and all of a sudden two Japanese girls in basically prom dresses sit down, and this is a hostess club. They sit and talk and make us drinks and hand us wet towels and wipe the bottom of our glasses off periodically. Its pretty weird. What makes it even weirder is that Ichiro is incredibly critical of the girls, asking me every so often what I think of the girls to which he would reply "Hmmmm, I think her bust is too small, I do not like," or "I think she is a little fat." So this happens with about five girls, they just cycle through, sit down for a little while, take some verbal abuse from Ichiro, stir some drinks and then cycle out.
So as we continued to drink, the conversation got more perverse and they wanted to learn english. So it literally comes down to Ichiro asking me "Blowjob, what is it?" I would tell him to which he would reply "Oh! Blowjob I like!" Then he would have me explain to the hostess, who would giggle and say things that I will not put in this little story. So I teach them some English, they teach me some Japanese, and Ichiro and I basically polish off the bottle of brandy. At this point I'm really starting to feel the culmination of the entire weekend and am regretting that I have to wake up at 6 am to go to school (Which is where I am at right now typing this out. I told Isobe sensei, my head English teacher, about my weekend so he said no classes for me today and to rest, thank god.) So we leave the hostess club at 1130 pm, are escorted out by our little ladies of the night, get into a taxi and go home, Ichiro picking up the whole bill.

Another Shibuya Trip

5/24

Ok, so the next evening was spent in Tokyo meeting up with my friend Ryan from the states and his Japanese girlfriend, Minami. Essentially the same crew from the night before, we get to Shibuya around 8-830 and decide to hit the izakaya again for dinner. Now there are many advantages to this whole izakaya business, one of which is the entai. With entai, you pay about 3000 yen (about 30 american dollars) and you get all you can drink and 7 food items in two hours. As I've said before, drinking is a big deal here in Japan, so this all you can drink thing is very prevalent, evidenced by all the passed out Japanese people we passed when we walked up the stairs to the restaurant. Also worth mentioning is the screaming Japanese girl in the lobby who is just piss drunk. She was fun to listen to. It wasn't even 9 pm yet and people everywhere we just absolutely wasted. So we sit down and start ordering drinks, which you can get just about anything you want, so we order some beers, a bottle of whiskey, so-chu shots (a Japanese drink, reminds me of watered down vodka to be quite honest) and some drink that tastes like apple juice. So we eat and drink and get properly lubricated before we go to karaoke for more all you can drink action where I believe we spent another hour and a half or two hours, I can't be certain. At this point in the evening the night started to become quite blurry. So we karaoke for a while, party with some Japs in other booths, having a good time. Let's see, all I really remember after that was going to some guys house for a beer who looked like Buffalo Bill from "Silence of the Lambs," they left to go to Club Womb, a famous club in Shibuya that was featured in the movie "Babel," then we went to McDonald's for whatever reason I can't remember and while there Ryan gets in an argument with some British guy and girl I was talking to. I had no idea what had happened between them but before I knew it they were both yelling at each other and I was escorting to dude out of there before shit went down. I wasn't to worried about the guy, but the chick looked pretty butch and probably would have kicked some ass. After that we went to some club I don't remember. I do remember drinking an incredibly overpriced Foster's beer, but thats about it. Tyler at some point fell asleep in an alley. Supposedly we ate at some late night restaurant before catching the train back to Kimitsu, but I don't remember doing that at all. Honestly I don't remember catching the train back to Kimitsu, but the proof is in the puddin'. So to cap this story off, we left Kimitsu at 730 pm on Sat and arrived back home at 730 am the next day. I slept for four hours, then woke up and went to Chisako's for her private lesson, tired and hungover.

Oh that Daisuke

Daisuke...

5/23
Being Kara's 23rd birthday on friday, we decided to hit up the old izakaya for a couple drinks and dinner. Before I go on, izakaya is a type of restaurant here in Japan where you can order small plates of different kinds of food and many drinks. More on this later. Being as how we were all running low on the money we had brought over from America since we still hadn't received a paycheck, and as how this is one of the only places to drink in Kimitsu, this was supposed to be the extent of the evening, also given that we had planned to go to Tokyo the next night and party hard there. So we arrive and as soon as we step in the door, there is an older Japanese man, who is quite drunk, about ready to demolish this kid who works there for, I'm assuming, asking him to leave. My heart went out to the little guy because this old man was looking for blood and his buddies didn't look like they were going to stand in the way. So we sit down, try to keep out eyes open for the fight (which never happened) and order some beers.
We were seated next to three Japanese men who appear quite normal at first. By normal, I mean not drunk yet. So we order some food, I was in the mood for some familiar home food so I got two kinds of fried chicken and some fried potatoes. As we sit and converse, our neighbors get progressively drunker until they decide to start arm wrestling. We take notice and cheer for the winner. Once we gave them the slightest bit of attention, the drunkest of the three, we would come to know him as Daisuke, beckoned me over to their table, chanting "champion! champion! you!" He wanted me to arm wrestle his friend, who had a nice set of guns on him. So I try to get out of it, fail, then proceed to get owned by this buff little Japanese guy in arm wrestling. We all take our turns, then start talking to our new drunk ass friends. Kara's Japanese is fairly good so we talked for a little while. So we decide that we are done when Daisuke buys a round of gin and tonics (I was drinking gin and tonic at the time). We stick around a little longer, hanging with Daisuke and crew when he invites us to go karaoke with him. We debate, knowing that the next night in Tokyo will involve even more booze and definitely some Karaoke, but by this time I was buzzed enough to want to see where this night would go and answered for the group a resounding yes. So off we went, skipping down the road with three drunk Japanese guys we had just met to sing karaoke.
A note on drunk Japanese people, because drinking is a big deal in this country and the locals get tanked like you usually only see in movies or college towns. They get regretful drunk. But they are generally very jolly when they are wasted, wanting to meet new people, especially foreigners, and practice their limited English. I leaned a lot about this this past weekend. So Daisuke fits this to a t, picking me up and carrying me down the street within five minutes of us leaving the restaurant. The rest of the walk to Karaoke World involved getting lifted off the ground at random intervals, Daisuke bending over and shaking his ass, him laying in the street or humping light poles, or him full on grabbing my "cash and prizes" and/or ass. Another Japanese cultural lesson. The kids here love to touch the genitals. They go for it all the time, and they also attempt to "check the oil" with a two finger technique similar to holding a pistol with two hands, extending the forefingers out like the barrel of the gun. They will literally spot you down the hallway, signal to you with this two-handed gesture and do everything they can to go right up the poop chute. The adults here, mainly the men, never really seem to grow out of this and also LOVE to talk about how big American penis's are and small Japanese penis's are. I had this conversation twice this past weekend. What usually follows this conversation is physical contact, which as far as I can tell, never comes off as homosexual, but more comedic and playful. As shy as they may be about other things, this is not one of them. So Daisuke and I are walking down the street, arm and arm just being drunk and whatever, and he goes for my "cash and prizes," giving them a firm "how do you do," all the while yelling "Oh, oh, very big, very big, American penis, very big." It sounds like I'm making this up, but I'm not at all. He then points to his own area and yells "Small, small, Japanese, very small." He then tops it all off with a hardy ass grab and then we get to Karaoke World. As sad as this is to say, none of this was alarming to me because this was not my first Japanese rodeo, so to speak.
So the night continues at karaoke, which was fun. Karaoke in Japan involves all you can drink alcohol included in the price, so naturally it turns into a complete shit show. I butchered Marvin Gaye's "Let's Get it On" (which I'm not quite sure why I sang that song, of all the songs to choose from. Anyways...). The rest of the night basically went like this...Mr. Burly Arms arm wrestling champion passing out in Daisuke's lap...Daisuke waking him up by violently shaking him by the crotch...Daisuke's sober friends picking up the tab for the whole thing (a pretty awesome side effect of being a gaijin or foreigner in Japan)...walking back to the station and Daisuke dropping his pants several times in the streets...Daisuke smashing a glass lantern with his hands...and that was about it. All in all, a pretty good night that started off so innocently.

Random videos from Japan

The girls team I help out with completely dominating the scene.

This is real by the way

Ha

This pretty much sums up Japan.

SNL - Chris Farley - Japanese Gameshow
Uploaded by bismarck_sinker

For those who missed out

For those who missed out on the video of my apartment when I first moved in. Enjoi.

50 days and counting

So I'm finally getting around to putting this blog together rather than sending out mass emails on my exploits here in Japan. I'm not gonna, this whole culture over here is pretty damn strange, but I'm having a good time. For those who didn't get the email with the video of my apt., its pretty big and its really cheap. It comes out to be about 120 American every month with pretty minimal bills, besides my phone bill because its 10 cents for every 30 seconds with no allocated monthly minutes. Its a shit system, but whatever, not like I have much of a choice over here. I've cleaned the place up but I'm waiting on my first paycheck before I get anymore furniture or paint or do anything. I'm living on quite the budget right now, lots of McDonalds and other cheap Japanese foods holding me over for now.
Before I forget, a note on Japanese furniture, namely futons, toilets and bathtubs. They are complete shit. People sleep on futons on the ground here. We were told to take the futons out once every few days to air out and beat back into shape so they don't go completely flat. Well, it didn't seem to matter because mine is now a wafer thin piece of fabric through which I can feel each ridge in my tatami mat. So, with the future check I'm going immediately to Ikea, which is located on the way to Tokyo and I'm buying a bed. I can't take this shit anymore. Japanese toilets are also quite shitty, no pun intended. They are essentially holes in the ground which one is supposed to squat over and drop yo deuces. I only ever have to deal with them at school, but I dread blowin mud there cause I constantly feel as though I'm going to shit all over the back of my legs and trousers. As for Japanese bathtubs, I still haven't used it yet, but the idea is not one I'm too keen on. The idea is to shower first, then soak in the bathtub, which is quite tall, but very compact. After the shower though, the water is saved, covered with a sort of lid and saved for the next person to use or even saved for the next day. I can't imagine I'm going to participate in this cultural festivity in the next year, just doesn't sound that exciting. Or hygenic.
While I'm on the subject of Japanese living quarters, I also hate tatami mats because of the constant attention they require and the bugs that supposedly frequent them in the summer. They also smell like a barn. Having a dryer is a luxury in Japan, so my clothes never feel dry. Other than that, I love my apartment!