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!