Living and Teaching in Tokushima

Semi Retirement

2008-12-14T21:54:00.002+09:00

I'm sorry to everyone who's been checking this to see that I haven't written anything in months. I don't have the time these days. @.@

I still put pictures up whenever I can on my flickr website. So even if nothing is here you can still look there for more stuff. I have added pictures of my new apartment in Osaka, some of the kids I teach at the preschool...

Please feel free to look!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/suedetigerprint/sets/

Another Murder!!!!

2008-08-06T11:30:00.003+09:00

This time in England.

It is 1912, and a small party has gathered in London to celebrate the engagement of Bunny Mandelson and Agatha Eton-Hogg. But then the body of Mellors, the butler, is discovered, with a revolver in his hand, a bullet in his head and suicide note that says: 'I have seen too much, and can take no more.'

What did the butler see? Did he really kill himself? Or did one of your guests murder him?
Those present at the dinner-party are:

Bunny Mandelson, a gentleman of very little brain.

Agatha Eton-Hogg, his fiancee, and inquisitive and intelligent young woman.

Sir Douglas Eton-Hogg, Agatha's uncle and a highly respected Member of Parliament.

Oscar Hemmingway III, an American big-game hunter and ivory merchant.

Sister Morticia Lewinskaya, a Russian-born nun now resident in Chicago.

Mary Lippe-Anstoldt, one of the leading stars of the Edwardian Music Hall and a friend of Agatha.

Herr Schnapps, a successful German industrialist and business-partner of Sir Douglas.

Georgette Michel, a young Frenchwoman who is only just recovering from her ordeal of going down on the Titanic.

Bunny was played by Claire (he was a gentleman of so little Brain that he dressed like a lady...); Agatha was played by Lisa, Sir Douglas was played by Sean; Oscar was played by me, filling in a role since our attendance dropped and I couldn't play half the nun with Louise... so I wasn't really dressed); Sister Morticia was played by Louise (originally to be played as a schizophrenic nun by both Louise and I.. oh well); and Georgette was played by Gilly. Mary and Herr were optional characters to be played if you have more people, and we didn't, so they didn't exist.

The menu for the evening was English Breakfast. I had bought sausages and hash browns; Claire had brought the eggs which we subsequently scrambled; Sean brought tons of bread and butter; Gilly baked a lovely lemon cake; Lisa supplied the cheese and olives; and Louise brought a freeking huge can of baked beans. Of course, to each, their own wine. Breakfast was made and enjoyed by all over the course of the night. Beans on toast is surprisingly good. Sean's character was by far the best, and most funniest. The man on the tape cassette this time was a bit filthy, saying things that had naughty double meanings. In the end, as usually happens with these games, everyone was partially to blame for the murder.

After the game was finished I whip out my "The Pantyhose Game" which the packaging boasts, "Everyone looks funny!" You put each end of the hose over one persons head, and they pull away from each other. Whoever keeps it on is the winner. Everyone did look funny... it was true. The following morning we had to eat the leftover breakfast, this time for breakfast. Nice. Then we cleaned up and headed out to take some fun Purikura and have a light lunch. A good time had by all.

PICTURES!!!! coming soon
Murder Mystery
Purikura the next day

Drowned out

2008-08-06T10:59:00.003+09:00

It'd finally arrived, our Rocky Horror Beach Party. Months of planning had gone down. Costumes were purchased, items for the different games were made/bought. Spirits were high!

Itinerary was as follows.

Saturday 3pm. Everyone gathers at my house for a pre-party and a screening of the Rocky Horror Picture Show.

6-7pm we all get in cars and drive to the beach.
7pm set up camp and start to cook
8-10pm a number of skill-challenging games including
Drag relay race (a number of skill-tests like catching balls, etc, done in drag on the beach)
Bondage Twister (normal twister, the catch:you were handcuffed to your partner somewhere)
and the Three Legged Stiletto Race (high heels running on the sand, while tied to someone else in heels.... )
10-pm ~ merriment
Sleep in tents on the beach.

Sunday Wake up and go home

What ACTUALLY happened:

Louise James Courtney and Janet show up in my apartment complex with a blow-up doll in an afro wig painted up like Tim Curry strapped to the roof of Janet's car, and they were honking on their horn. Great, so now all of my neighbors see this display.

That aside we get inside and get dressed. All of our gusts arrive and we put in the film. We dance the time warp, enjoy Maya's guacamole, and those who weren't driving drank frozen margaritas made by yours truly.

Then we get in cars and start to drive to the beach. First we need to stop for food supplies. The girls are dressed tremendously inappropriately which summons horrified glances and shocked stares. Luckily for me we were outside my town at this point. Having gotten our food, we head to the beach. The bad news is, its raining.

Just enough rain to be annoying. Oh. More bad news, we have no lamps or worse, no grill for cooking. Whats there to do but ask the hotel nearby what to do. Bear in mind that there are 3 Japanese guys who are friends with Sean, 1 Japanese woman who's friends with Sean, Sean, James, and Matt all speak Japanese reasonably well. However no one does a thing except for Take. This really pissed him off how no one would help him. While he went to ask about the lamps and cost for camping was when I discovered there was no grill. I went back to him, who was waiting in the hotel, really annoyed. And together he and I asked the questions. As it turned out, the hotel was so kind as to let us borrow one of their outdoor grills for the night.

Then Take was the only one who was willing to clean it. He was properly pissed off, and I don't blame him. The other guys were just sitting around and when we came with a usable grill, they go "oh there's a grill.. cool" completely ignorant to the shit we had to go through to get it to them. Later that evening those 3 guys were eating everyone else's food, and in general really pissing everyone off. Needless to say, they were not well liked by the group, and it was several of our requests that they never join us again.

We're cooking. Those who care enough, guard their food from the thieving hands of some of the guests, and we're all drinking a ton. At this point its past 9. Food and drink in us, our attitudes improve slightly. The downside is that the weather is HORRIBLE. It is pissing down rain in buckets. Luckily we are under a wooden canopy and staying dry-ish.. but God help the tents... Despite the rain we attempt some of the games we planned so hard for. Bondage Twister was too slippery and the handcuffs cut into the participants, slipping and sloshing in the rain. The relay race never happened because it was too dark and too wet. And the stiletto race had only six competitors. It was too cold too wet, and the heels in the sand were a bit much. I was tied to Take, we were the only ones who fell. Louise and Terrina did fine, and Matt and Janet did fine too.

Our, everything is wet, we all hit the hay. Unfortunately the hay has been drowned in about 3 inches of rainwater. We will not be sleeping in the tents tonight. Several of us go to the cars to sleep. Louise and James brave the tents and sleep in puddles. Either the puddles, or the probably improperly cooked hamburger meat subsequently cause Louise and James to have a HORRIBLE stomach sickness a few days later.

Oh wait, it doesn't end there. I wanted to get out of there early, so I could go home and get a decent night's sleep (even mid day) since sleeping in a car is misery. I wake up at 5am, clean up the whole campsite while its still down pouring. Arrange every ones things in a pile and leave a note for someone to clean off the grill and return it to the hotel. I figured its not too much to ask since I cleaned everything else, and we took care of the grill in the first place. We get in my car and head off. Its POURING POURING rain. The hardest I've ever seen it rain. As we crawl along my gas tank steadily heads toward empty. Our relief came from driving under bridges, where the wipers had a chance to catch up with swishing away the rain water. Driving for what feels like ages, we finally reach Mugi, the town next to mine. Pass Mugi, and when I'm 5 minutes from home, cars are stopped ahead. A police man comes around and says that the road is flooded ahead and none can pass. I should follow the car in front of me who is going through a windy mountain road which will put is through, somewhere to the other side.

We drive behind this white truck, hoping desperately that this guy hasn't just given up and is heading home, but rather wants to lead us to the other side. My gas tank is on empty and my stress is high. The mountain road is windy. It is narrow, and it is covered in debris from the mountain. Waterfalls are sloshing down the slops of the mountains and rocks into the streets as we drive over sticks dirt and rocks (some piles barely manageable). Having gone from 5 minutes to being home, this new 20 minute journey through the mountains is unbearable. FINALLY were put out on the other side, 5 minutes from my home in the other direction. We get back home and fall into bed for a much needed nap. Later we wake up, have dinner, and I have to drive Take to the city to get back home. Further up, toward the city, the road is closed. For goodness sake. We have to add another 20 minutes to the journey taking yet another mountain road. At least this time I have gas. And finally we make it. The rain has finally stopped Sunday early evening, and I head home, wet and tired.

What a weekend...

PICTURES coming soon.

A worked-thru Weekend

2008-08-06T10:47:00.002+09:00

The following week was Sports day for the children at my school. Which means, working on the weekend. Dreary misery.

As it happened, this weekend was Ingrid's birthday party. Formal dress occasion with platters of food and a karaoke sign up sheet. Ingrid had requested that Louise and I do a duet for her birthday. This meant, I had to drive to the City on Saturday evening after work, and drive back home Saturday night so I could work on Sunday. Not the most fun you could imagine. I couldn't drink, and had to leave the party early (like 11) to get home around midnight.

We first went out to eat. We thought, we should eat first, in case the food sucks at the party. So we all went out to Dear (Italian Restaurant) in our finest dress. Louise and I looked like prom dates because earlier that day we had purchased impromptu pink rose corsages for the both of us. As it turns out, they can make any flower into a corsage in 10 minutes at this flower place we randomly stopped in...

Dinner was lovely, and then it was off to the party. We were one of the first people there and Ingrid was happy to see us. We made ourselves at home, ate a little drank a little (except for me :( ). Then the singing started. Louise and I were singing the 007 melody "Nobody Does it Better" by Carly Simon. We replaced all the words "baby" with "Ingrid" so the song would sing "Ingrid, you're the best!"

It was a little strange doing karaoke on stage with a mic to a room full of people. I know that's the way it is in America, but here, you never see that really... It was too noisy and almost no one heard us, but at least we had fun. Later that evening, James and Louise did Supercalifragilisticexpyalidocious from Mary Poppins. (Louise discovered beforehand that Julie Andrews either screwed up or could not do it when she was supposed to be saying the whole thing backwards, because she says "docious ali expy listic fragil cali repus." The cheeky lady...Louise couldn't do it either, without writing it on her hand.)

Cake came out, everyone sang. It was a lovely birthday. And sadly I had to head home early so I could go to work the next morning. Oh well.

PICTURES!!!!

Ireland

2008-07-23T10:48:00.002+09:00

Since the Cockney-oke went so well (not really) we decided to have Irish-oke. Also Claire is leaving and this will be her last themed-oke of the year. So we made it Irish, in remembrance of her.

Anything goes with a costume, as long as it was Irish. I decided to go as a Roman Catholic. Louise went as a nun. Claire came decked in the flag and Irish-praising clothing. James put shamrocks on his face. Courtney was an Irish step-dancer. Matt and Maya brought Irish pins. Sean was the Irish Potato Famine. and Kwadwo brought the potatoes.

As we were walking to the bars from Curry Dinner, we encountered AwaOdori music. It wouldn't be summer without it. So in our Roman Catholic garb, In our habits and hats, we danced in the streets to AwaOdori.

We traveled from bar to bar, gracing them with our lovely Irish voices. At Mike's bar, Matt love pissed off a Japanese guy by trying to hold a glow-stick halo over his head while we took a picture. Mike had to later apologise to him for us... We sang dutifully in Irish accents, the crowning moment was "Lose Yourself" by Eminem, rapped in Irish. Watch it here!

After torturing Mike's customers with our singing, we left and headed to Bar Bitch. On the way a drunk old man was leaving a dirty massage parlor, saying goodbye to his massage ladies, when he spotted Louise and I dressed in all our holiness. He was laughing so we decided to go up to him and bless him. Fill his heart with goodness. I think it really scared him, haha.

We met Sean and Kwadro at Bar Bitch. Louise polished off her old shochu bottle and was gifted a new one, on which she put her new name tag, filled with nun-related humor. We sang and laughed. The Irish accents were slipping at this point but it was still a good time. After Bitch came Ingrid's, where general dancing and debauchery happened. At this point in the evening no one remembers much.

The following morning we woke up very early. 9o'clock early. James was still asleep so we decided to jump in bed with him to wake him up. Then we went to Mos Burger for breakfast and the weekend was over.

PICTURES!!!!!!!!

Bon Appétit

2008-07-23T08:43:00.002+09:00

The weekend of June 6th thru 8th seemed to be all about food in Osaka.

A great number of us were staying in the hotel that I found, but we each sort of had our own agendas. Louise was in the market to buy costumes for the various approaching parties. Sean was going to a Metal and Rock bar. Claire Maya and Emma were bicycling around, and Janet, Take and I were just casually enjoying Osaka. We all grouped together Saturday evening for a lovely Mexican dinner at our absolute favorite restaurant. To our horror and dismay they were having a birthday party and could not seat a group of our size. They wouldn't even let us wait for a table. We were so angry. Maybe we left an angry not on their cork board, maybe we didn't... I'm not pointing any fingers... but we weren't happy about the whole situation to say the least.

So, abandon ship. Damn. I really wanted nachos and margaritas. What now. Well how about Indian. Sean says "There's this really great place by the Dotonburi bridge..." and then Take and I say "no no, I know this place, we got a flyer for it...its by the Dotonburi bridge..." We're actually talking about the same place, how embarrassing for us. But regardless of our individual shame, we go there anyway.

The thing that I cannot understand about Indian food restaurants in Osaka is their spice level gauge. I can't handle things that are too spicy, so I usually get a 1, 2, or 3 if I'm feeling really brave. Louise sometimes gets a 5 or a 6, and that tastes like death in your mouth. Its so spicy. Reasonable so far, right? Now, keep looking at the chart, and you'll notice it goes up to 50. 50?!?!? If a 6 is unpalatable for me, I cannot even imagine what a 50 would do. Are there people who can eat a 50? Is it there to show off? I honestly believe that much spice going into your stomach would kill you. Maybe I'm just naïve. Sean has to catch a bus home that night for a date, so he leaves after dinner.

The food was great. We stuffed ourselves silly, as usual, and then head out for a quick Karaoke. Nomihoudai (all you can drink), standard fare. We sing for an hour and a half and then leave. The highlight of the night was a song "Osaka Strut" which Take sung, that involved really really fast Japanese talking and just generally sounding impressive.

After the karaoke, we went to martini bar. It was way too crowded as usual but we found little spots to occupy. Louise ordered a dish called "Lucifer's Pizza." Called that for its spiciness, it wasn't that bad, or that spicy. One would have a very puny image of Lucifer after experiencing such a mediocre pizza. Janet heads home a bit early. She's had a long week of her sisters visiting and has been in Osaka the whole time. She needed to rest. Louise and Claire find a man working at the bar who looks like Andrew Dahms, one of the JETs who is in Tokushima, but fatter. She asks me to try to get sneaky pictures of him to show people, but finally ends up calling him over and posing with him.

Meanwhile we get a call from Janet, who, while walking home, was stopped by 2 big guys (one had a blue mohawk) asking to see her passport. They said they were doing routine checks, but police never do that here, especially not undercover in punk attire. They were clearly Yankees either trying to scare her, or worse. She showed her Foreign ID card, and ran away from them, going to the hotel and locking the doors. Janet has the worst luck in Osaka, I swear... :( That's never happened to me. But then again, I'm not a pretty girl...

The next morning Janet wakes up early to go home by bus. Louise wakes up early to do some costume shopping in Umeda. Claire Take Maya Emma and I meet at Choco Cro for breakfast. We then make plans to eat nachos and drink margaritas at the Mexican place for happy hour. Figure around 3. We leave breakfast at 11o'clock. Emma goes off shopping on her own and Take Claire Maya and I wander. Around 1, we get a call from Louise and meet her in Namba. We then decide that we want nachos earlier than expected and go to happy hour then. We phone up Emma and she says to go without her.

The best part about the Mexican restaurant is that during the afternoon you pay half price for food and drinks. Its almost encouraging sinful behavior. We get the largest pitcher of strawberry margarita that they sell and set to work devouring nachos and drinking. We invent a Japanese word. "Koi-ppoi" which, obeying grammar rules means "carp-like," but it really just sounds like nonsense to native Japanese speakers. During a brilliant game of mash-someones-face-to-make-them-uglier, we decide (we being Louise and I) that its high time we make a video. The others reluctantly agree.

Here it is (video).

Fortunately I have pictures of this week, and here they are! (pictures)

Naruto

2008-07-23T08:27:00.002+09:00

The following weekend I went to the whirlpools or Naruto. Its only about a 20 minute drive north of the city, so all together not that extravagant. It was just one of those things that I should have done before I left Tokushima, and was surprising that I hadn't yet. I'm still surprised I haven't climbed the temple in my own town, or visited the vine bridges of the Iya valley. But there's still time.

First was a boat ride. In a little boat, for a bit too much money, they take you out to see the whirlpools close up. We drove the boat right through them. It was incredible to watch them form from still water. All of a sudden, a monstrous vacuum. Jellyfish were en mass that day. Literally thousands of them. I wondered what being in a whirlpool must feel like for them. If it was incredibly confusing or not. If they are capable of confusion.

After the boat ride came the underside of the bridge. There is a massive bridge leaving from Tokushima going to Awaji, and eventually to the Kobe area. This is basically the only way to get to Osaka, so if you've ever traveled from Osaka to Tokushima, or vice versa, you've used this bridge. On the Tokushima end, you can enter a viewing area underneath the bridge. You walk out a good distance and look down at the thick glass paneled floor to watch the whirlpools swirl. From this height they are much smaller than seeing them in person on the boat, but they are still impressive.

Having seen my fill of whirlpools, I grab some local sweet potato mochi from a shop nearby, have a snack, and head home.

Unfortunately I lost all my pictures of this when my computer crashed. Fortunately this is the only weekend worth of lost pictures... I'm sorry you wont get to see them tho. I do however have this video of a whirlpool in action. So enjoy.

Two Tokushima Weekends

2008-07-03T22:03:00.004+09:00

The following two weekends May 17-18 and May 24-25 were spent in Tokushima City.

On the 17th after a photo shoot I had with Andrew (for head shots to audition for Universal Studios Japan) I met up with Louise and the other AJET group (who had just gotten out of a meeting). They were already quite drunk by the time I had gotten to Mike's bar. This was because they were drinking since the afternoon. We did some karaoke at a couple of bars then grabbed some ramen. Chris, feeling very drunk and lonely called us thinking we had abandoned him by leaving Ingrid's bar when really we decided it would be a good idea just to leave and not pay our tabs. Oops. He met us at the ramen shop and ended up emptying a bottle of mayonnaise onto his fried chicken.

After leaving there, we walk past a homeless Australian woman (or was she from New Zealand?) who was playing guitar in the streets for money. We were impressed that we met the only foreigner in Tokushima Japan who wasn't a teacher. But I mean, she was homeless... We sang a lovely few songs with her and then headed off. She probably cursing us for not giving her any cash. We laughing that we had met such an odd lady.

The next week started off with Open Mic night on Friday. I drove to Claire's house, where I had parked and took the train back into the city. Louise met us and we headed for Coco Curry. There we met Matt and Maya and all together we headed out to Bell's Bar for open mic night. Along the way we met some foreigners from Okayama who had come to Tokushima for a visit, and they tagged along with us. Louise had never been to Bell's bar before and had sketched what she imagined it to look like on a napkin at the curry shop. She was shockingly accurate.

We enjoyed the vocal and instrumental stylings of various JETs while knocking back drinks. It was an enjoyable time, but nothing out of the ordinary or exciting happened. Everyone did the twist then we all worked our way out. We were starving. But for what? This hunger was bigger than Ramen could fill. Takoyaki (fried octopus balls) from a street vendor wouldn't cut it. Nay not even a handful of nikuman (Chinese steamed buns) would suffice. A real hunger. Many of us found ourselves saying "I want something chicken!" "Ok the first chicken place we see, lets go!" Lo and behold, we exit to the main street, and there before our very eyes is Aburiya Chicken Concept Dining. PERFECT! The restaurant turns out to be rather posh, but we still binge on chicken this and potato that until we're all sufficiently stuffed. Then we all pile into Matt's car (he hadn't been drinking that night) and get dropped off at Claire's house for a good night's rest.

The next morning we head to McDonald's for breakfast (at lunchtime). Louise believes she ordered one meal but ends up with two. Two of everything. We phone up Matt and tell him to meet us there. He could surely help us eat all this food. He shows up having ordered 3 cheeseburgers himself. The amount of food at our table was outstanding. After McDonald's its off to the video game shop. Today we are going to play video games all day long. We spend quite a long time in the video game shop and in various other shops. Our favorite was bulldog where we found lots of cool signs and a Nazi flag. @.@

Back to Claire's house to play... and shes missing a part to the game console. So back to the video game shop! Now its raining, but we're doing the Macarena in the car, to the horror of the passing traffic. On the way back we all pose with the cardboard cutout prostitutes on the side of the street. FINALLY its video game time. We play until we cannot play anymore. Mario Cart, Mario Party, Super Monkey Ball, Crazy Taxi, some fighting game, Wario World.... Then go get food. Tonight is a dance party at Ingrid's bar. After a boring chat about Ultimate Frisbee, we get all dressed up and hit the train.

Ingrid's is hopping. We're having a great time taking photos and dancing. At some point Louise gets ill because all the men are taking their shirts off. She makes that apparent with very loud puking gestures. As we are leaving we are approached by a high school kid on exchange in Japan. (That must be crazy, going to high school in Japan.. taught in Japanese) He lives by Claire and wants to know if he can share a taxi home with us. We have 4 already, so 5 is a bit much, but some people are certain we could do it. We dance some more and finally leave. Few taxis would take 5 people. Finally one guy tells us to get in. We travel all the way back to Claire's town, as the high school boy makes his age apparent using childish gestures and generally "acting a fool." We drop him off in the center of town and then take the taxi the rest of the way to Claire's house.

The following morning we play some video games, lay about, and finally all head home.

PICTURES!!

Murder Mystery Night 1

2008-07-03T21:34:00.002+09:00

The sudden demise of the greatly beloved Disgustus Caesar could have thrown the Empire into chaos, had this wise ruler not had the foresight to plan an orderly succession. His will attested unequivocally to the character and ability of his chosen heir - his son, Licentius Caesar. Unlike his father at his accession, Licentius had not yet served as a senator, an administrator, or a military commander. In fact, about the only thing Licentius had accomplished thus far had been finishing grammar school - and even that substantially late. But Disgustus was known to be a shrewd judge of character, and Rome was reassured by his unqualified affirmation of Licentius' suitability, as expressed in his will. As he worked to gain the support and cooperation of the various aspects of the Roman power structure, Licentius depended on the talents of his life-long friend, the poet, Flabbius Corpus. Flabbius was best known for his popular works, collected in the Writ of Flabbius Corpus. Eager to enjoy the respect of posterity, as well as the esteem of the populace, Flabbius gathered material for an epic history of the reign of Licentius. . .

CHARACTERS Licentius Caesar, Rotunda Immaculata, Maximus Testosterus, Cleptopatra, Bogus Fortunatus, Flotilla Submergia, Harangus Adnauseum, Mercedes Accelleratti

LICENTIUS CAESAR As ruler of the known world, Licentius Caesar walks proudly in the noble tradition of his late father, Disgustus Caesar. When Disgustus died unexpectedly several years ago after eating some tainted shellfish, the youthful but determined Licentius managed to put aside the cloak of grief that weighed heavily on him and took on the mantle of leadership. Since that tumultuous day, Caesar has made great efforts to bring together the military, the temple, the senate, and business interests in new and unique ways. As a devoted friend of poet Flabbius Corpus, Licentius Caesar also demonstrates an undying interest in the arts. He considers the arts an essential complement to the rigors of statecraft and international relations. His current international relation is a particular Queen of the Nile. Costume Suggestion: Purple cloth draped over a tunic. Laurel leaf crown.

ROTUNDA IMMACULATA The fate of the Roman empire lies in the able services of Vestal Virgins, such as Rotunda Immaculata. The Vestals keep the eternal fires burning, thus ensuring the safety of Roman ships, the strength of Roman legions, and the success of Roman government. Rotunda comes from a prominent family, as all Vestals do, and she was chosen for her honored position at the tender age of 8. Now she is a beautiful but demure young woman looking forward to many, many more years as a humble servant of the empire. Costume Suggestion: Tunic with robe, veil and scepter.

MAXIMUS TESTOSTERUS Maximus is a renowned military commander - a master of warfare. His battles against the Gauls are already becoming legend. He has little use for such intellectual conceits as trickery and delicate subterfuge, but instead has built his reputation on bold, head-on attacks. With Mars, the god of war, fighting on his side, his armies crash through enemy ranks like a massive fist, flattening everything in sight. He is proud, with a no-nonsense personality, rugged good looks and a truly intimidating physique. Costume Suggestion: Orange tunic with armor breastplate and centurion helmet.

CLEPTOPATRA Cleptopatra, Queen of the Nile, embodies all of the mystery and extravagance of Egypt - the richest land in the Roman empire. Mesmerizing in her beauty, she is beloved by the Egyptian people, who believe that she lives on a higher plane of existence than their Roman masters. Cleptopatra's solid-gold barge is a common sight in the harbor of Rome, for she visits the Eternal City regularly to forge new political relationships and alliances... and she has developed a rather steamy romantic alliance with Licentius Caesar. Cleptopatra is well-acquainted with Flabbius Corpus, who makes frequent visits to Egypt and has even contributed to its rich culture. Costume Suggestion: Cleopatra hairstyle with Egyptian makeup, jewelry and long, brightly colored slinky gown or tunic, and a gold crown.

BOGUS FORTUNATUS The enigmatic, and intense Bogus Fortunatus rose from the ranks of a mysterious priestly order, and honed his skill at predicting the future by examining animal intestines. But his life was changed forever when he composed the surprising hit song, Happy Entrails to You which catapulted him into the public eye. Shortly thereafter his accurate prediction of the destruction of Atlantis propelled Bogus to fame throughout the empire. Within a year his numerous fanatical followers elected him supreme priest of an immensely popular chain of temples dedicated to the worship of Disgustus Caesar, and the shellfish that destroyed him. This Cult of The Blue Oyster has become all the rage in the empire, as people try to recapture the good old days before Licentius' ascension to the throne. Now Bogus dines with emperors and reads livestock intestines for Rome's elite. Costume Suggestion: Toga with tunic and shawl on head.

FLOTILLA SUBMERGIA Flotilla claims to be the only face that can truly launch a thousand ships (although that face has seen better days). In fact, she became the prosperous owner of a large, flourishing shipping operation when her husband's ship tragically fell off the edge of the earth two years ago. Her many ships (including the Titanicus, the Lucitanius, and the Poseidon) carry all-important grain throughout the Empire. In fact, her fleet has sometimes been called "the jugular vein carrying the lifeblood of the Roman empire." Respected by all, Flotilla is statuesque, regal in bearing and has a keen business mind. A mature woman, yes, but still in her prime. She is also the next-door neighbor of the poet, Flabbius Corpus. Costume Suggestion: Long, regal, sophisticated tunic with jewelry.

HARANGUS ADNAUSEUM Harangus is the epitome of a successful senator. He is a multifaceted man - part politician and part philosopher, but all Roman. As a military tribune, years ago, he stormed the shores of Normandy. . . and conquered the Normans. Harangus owns a considerable amount of land in and around Rome, but he does not crave wealth and property. He holds closely to Stoic philosophy, maintaining complete control over his emotions and eliminating all wants and desires. If given the opportunity, he will expound on the virtues of Stoicism for days on end, as he did in his now-infamous, three-day oration, "It's my party, and I'll be Stoic if I want to." Costume Suggestion: Toga with a purple border worn over a tunic.

MERCEDES ACCELLERATTI Mercedes is Flabbius Corpus' ravishing wife. Not since Paris fell for Helen of Troy has one woman made such an impact on one man. She is the driving force and inspiration behind the great poet's work. Friends call her a "daughter of Bacchus" (the god of revelry), for she loves the fast, wild life and throws lavish parties at every opportunity. She can often be seen tearing around in her four horse-powered chariot. Mercedes is a free-spirit with strong opinions and a flighty personality. She has also been gifted by all the muses - particularly the muse of interior decorating. Her home is a gallery of fabulous objects from all corners of the empire, including several priceless sculptures. Costume Suggestion: Long, glamorous black tunic accented with a lot of jewelry.

May 10th.

With James and Claire in the car, we scale the rocky cliffs of the mountain in Mino to get to the cabin grounds at the peak. The theme from Betelgeuse is on an eerie loop in the background as the rain falls from the dark night clouds. Setting the perfect scene for a MURDER!

The time is Ancient Rome. The place, the mansion of Flabbius Corpus. We gather awaiting his arrival, but as it turned out (as a mysterious man on a prerecorded cassette tape had informed us) Mr. Corpus was found dead! One of us had done it!

Welcome to fancy-dress murder mystery party number one. We christened this event in the cabins at Mino where we had the musical cast party. Each of us had prepared a part of the meal. We each received a booklet with character information and a scrip to follow for the night. Our task was to find which one of us had murdered! Julie was Licentius Caesar. Brian was Rotunda Immaculada. I was Maximus Testosterus. Louise was Cleptopatra. Sean was Bogus Fortunatus. Lisa was Flotilla Sumbergia. James was Harangus Adnauseum. Claire was Mercedes Accelleratti. Our costumes and characters were well formed and we followed suit to a full-scale interrogation.

Nothing particular to speak of that night. As it turned out Lisa was the murderer. After stuffing ourselves with cheese and salad and meat, topping it off with tiramisu we awarded James and Brian with the prize for guessing correctly. A GIANT piece of chewing gum, shared between them. It was a night full of silliness. The acting was so much fun we decided to make a habit of these kinds of themed parties.

PICTURES!!

GOLDEN WEEK!!!!!

2008-06-09T11:25:00.002+09:00

Ok so Once a year in May there is a collection of a couple holidays arranged just so that often times you could get (including the weekend) nearly a full week off of work!

Sadly this year was situated so that we only had a 4 day weekend. Oh well. It was 4 days of fun!!!

The trip started off months in planning. You need to plan golden week FAR in advance. Kyoto has around 600 hotels and all of them were FULL, just to give an example. Its a big time of the year. It was originally Take, Janet, Claire and I going to Mie prefecture. Soon Janet and Claire dropped out in the interest of money. So Take and I just went.

We started in Osaka and took a 1.5 hour train to the different prefecture. This was a super express train and cost about $30 one way. Yikes. The great news is there is a lot to do in Mie prefecture. The bad news was that the three things we wanted to do the most were on opposite ends of it. Think of Mie Prefecture as New York State. Our three destinations were Ise Shrine, Nagashima Spa Land, and the Ninja Museum. To mentally transplant these destinations on a map of new york it would be to say for instance that Mie Shrine was in Albany, Nagashima Spa Land was in Buffalo, and Ninja Museum was in Rochester. I'm probably exaggerating a little bit as our destinations were only 1.5 hours apart, but you get the picture.

Anyway. We got to Ise shrine midday on Sunday. Its crowded, but we knew it would be. The estimated travel time by bus from the train station to the entrance of the shrine was written as 15 minutes. It took us 40 in all the traffic from visitors. That aside, the shrine itself was beautiful. We wandered about in the enchanted forests, carved through with beautiful holy buildings. I'm not just being poetic when I say enchanted forest. There was a strong feeling of spirits in the forests of that place. Ise shrine is built to one of Japan's most celebrated goddesses, Amaterasu. She is the sun goddess, according to Shinto belief. In everything, the trees, the river, the rocks, I felt a feeling of aliveness. I will HAVE to return again. We wandered about the shrine for a while, then joined the line of people waiting to pray. After tossing some money in and clapping in prayer, we walked around some more and then left.

There were roosters and chickens wandering about. It was odd to see them, kind of cute. The buildings were phenomenal, the weather was great, and the experience was other-worldly. After exiting the shrine I went to the Ise town next to it and bought Akafuku mochi. It is a type of sweet with mochi inside, and red bean paste covering the outside. Pretty good. It is one of the top three gifts of Japan. The triumvirate include Tokyo Banana from Tokyo, Akafuku Mochi from Mie, and Shiroi Koibito cookies from Hokkaido. I've had two of the three. Off to Hokkaido! :P We slipped into a sake shop quickly for a cup of their finest sake, and then ran to catch a bus, which we missed. But luckily we worked out another way home. Our hotel was up in Kuwana by Nagashima Spa Land, so we had a 1.5 hour train ride yet to look forward to. We got into the hotel around 10, had dinner at a fast food beef-bowl shop, and slept soundly from all the exercise.

The next morning we woke for Mr. Donuts breakfast and scurried off to the bus toward Nagashima Spa Land!!! Now. Here's a little bit about Nagashima Spa Land. It is an amusement park attached to an onsen (outdoor bathing springs). The amusement park end of this boasts the tallest wooden and steel roller coasters in Japan the White Cyclone and the Steel Dragon. I'll leave you to your own intelligence to decipher which one is wooden and which one is steel. Apart from these two there is 8 more roller coasters and tons tons tons of other rides. Bigger than Knobles in Pennsylvania, but smaller than 6flags. Either way, its bigger (in terms of attractions) than Universal Studios and Tokyo Disney, so I was SO excited.

but it was raining.

Oh the horror. The one day we reserved for an amusement park, it was raining. Such is our fate. (Remember when it was snowing at Universal Studios?) We got there to find that only 8 rides were open. No!!! Instead we went to Jazz Dream (one of the few outlet shopping malls in Japan, with discount clothing and goods... standard mall fare by American standards but pretty uncommon here in Japan.) We wandered about the clothing shops, and the bath and body shops, melancholy as usual. But the rain was letting up. We got there at 9am and had our spirits crushed. After lunch at 12, we returned and found that most of the rides were opened up again! Ok. We missed 3 hours of what would be a great day if it were sunny, but at least we were in there and enjoying the park. We rode both of the big ones, and almost every high speed thrill ride there. We decided to leave the calmer boring ones for a time when we didn't lose 3 hours. There were times when the rides were temporarily shut because of the intermittent rain and we had to leave the line, but it was never that great a loss and they were back and running later on. Rides that were AMAZING were of course the two big ones. The free fall was a lot of fun. Space Shooters (where they rocketed you directly upwards like a shuttle lunch) was our first and last ride of the park because it filled us with glee. We enjoyed some tasty corn dogs and fried noodles and made it out of the park exactly at closing time, 5o'clock. (A bit early for a park to close, in my opinion, but what can you do?...)

After the park we went straight to the onsen. I had done the onsen experience when I lived in Tokyo but I didn't quite remember it, and again with my neighbors in Hiwasa but it was empty in a small town. This place was jam packed.

You took your shoes off, then you got a key for your shoes, which you brought with you to your clothes locker. You put the key to your shoes inside the locker for your clothes, took off your clothes, locked the clothes locker and carried your key to your clothes locker. Wearing a yukata (lightweight robe) you head over to get your towels. Then you take off your robe, put your robe, your big towel, and your key to your clothes locker inside the yukata locker, and then carry your yukata locker key with you, stark naked carrying a tiny towel. It all seemed so... key heavy...

Inside the room, you wash at little shower stalls to make sure you're clean. Then you enter the baths. Some indoor some outdoor. We went to the outdoor ones first. The hot water was INCREDIBLE after a day of thrill rides. It melted my muscles and soreness away. We spent two hours alternating between the various indoor and outdoor baths. The scenery was gorgeous. A flowing river through big black rocks, and more greenery than could have possibly been natural. Actually, judging from where this onsen was located, it could have been that the entire thing, river, rocks, and all had been man-made. But it was beautiful nonetheless. If the hot water wasn't enough to turn you into a lovely puddle of relax, there were indoor baths with high-powered jets. A round of different cubicles to sit designed to aim the jets at different parts of your body. First you started in shallow water which jetted your lower back, behind and legs. Then you went to deeper water for mid back, deeper water still for your upper back, and the deepest water for your neck, where you lay back and just relaxed. I felt like a million dollars. My back is starting to get sore thinking about it, and wishing I could be back there.... Two hours was the perfect amount of time. I felt more refreshed than I can express, and the whole experience cost only $5. Incredible. (After the park costing $40, the $5 was a welcome relief).

The day turned out to be a marvelous success despite the melancholy rainy start. We went back to the outlet mall to a restaurant and ordered Miso-katsu, A fried pork cutlet with a miso cause on top. It is one of my favorite Japanese foods. They serve it there because Nagashima is really close to Nagano, and Nagano is famous for its Miso-katsu. That with a beer, some ramen, and a coffee to finish made for one of the more perfect days during my time at Japan. We went back to the hotel and slept really well again.

The end of my vacation approached with the next morning. After another Mr. Donuts breakfast it was time to check out. Our train ride home involved a stop at Iga so we could quickly see the ninja museum so we could not take the express train. On the local train it was 1.5 hours from Kuwana to Iga. At Iga we had to transfer to a different train which took us deep into the country side. It was more country than Hiwasa, which surprised me! Apparently Ninjas had to live secluded from the rest of the world, in hiding. This train took near 40 minutes. Finally we got to the station. You could call it a station. It was just a building surrounded by closed nothing-shops in a really nothing town. Barely any restaurants, nothing worthwhile, not even a convenience store. Truly desolate. The only thing that put a smile on the face of the town was the trains painted like Ninjas, with the conductors dressed the part. A 10 minute hike up into the hills and you find yourself at the residence of ancient ninjas. For an overpriced $7 you are allowed entry. The tour is in Japanese unfortunately but its so visual, that its easy to understand.

They showed us revolving doors where the ninjas used to swivel through to quickly hide from people entering their homes. Shelves which transformed into staircases, intricate push-and-pull systems for doors which only let them open on a particular way, notches and slides in wood to have the same effect, loose floorboards to hide weapons even hidden door jambs. The tour itself took 10 minutes. Then you were left to peruse the museum. They had weapons, tools, costumes.. everything ninja! It was rather interesting. At the exit of the museum you found yourself with the option of watching a ninja demonstration for an additional $2. (Rip off...) We decided to go. They opened the show with a talk about ninjas which I didn't completely understand, and then proceeded with demonstrations of different weapons, from just sword sharpness to throwing stars, and throwing hooks, to using the cover of the sword to guide you through the dark and trick your enemies. (The sword would be held out and the sword holder extended to almost the end of the sword. There would be a rope from the holder that you held in your teeth and you walked around with it extended to guide you. If you bumped into an enemy and it wanted to grab your sword, it would instead grab the sword holder and you would be holding the sword still. Stab. Dead enemy. The whole thing was pretty cool, and kind of exciting. I would have gotten a lot more out of it if I were obsessed with ninjas and wasn't dead tired from the already long weekend. I think Kori would really enjoy it a lot! We started the long long long 3.5 hour trip back to Wakayama.

Wakayama was dinner, and then boarding a ferry for Tokushima (two hours), and then a 1.5 hour drive home. I considered sleeping in my car that night but I thought a bed would be nicer. Either way Tuesday was ALL travel. So many hours, I was exhausted and a cold was coming on. But at least I had an incredible time during my holiday, and I took Wednesday off to recover!

PICTURES!!!

Disaster in Osaka

2008-05-26T10:37:00.002+09:00

The next week Janet Claire and I were headed for Osaka. We were going to meet Take there and go dancing and drinking. We were so excited on the bus. The hotel was reserved, everything was great!

We got off the bus checked into the hotel, met Take and then all headed out. Janet had friends in Osaka that night she was going to meet and Claire had friends on Saturday. Janet and Claire had eaten and were eager to go out so Take and I went for Mexican food and met up with them later. First we went to Pig and Whistle where Claire and Janet were chatting up some guys from the UK who lived in Tokyo. After a while, Janet wanted to go dancing. I was feeling a bit tired but we obliged. We wandered into American town to search for a place to dance. The first place was free. We were having a good time, despite the music being bad and the place being almost empty. Janet wanted to leave tho so we left, and tried to search for another place. Everywhere else had 25$ or 30$ entrance fees. I was NOT about to pay that. We got more tired and more discouraged as the night went on. Finding nowhere else to go, we decided to go home.

The next morning I get a knock on the door. It's Janet. She's lost her wallet, probably in the taxi home the night before. Claire said she paid for the taxi, but when they stopped at McDonald's before the hotel it was gone. The really crappy part was that there was about $700 in it. We spent the morning going to the police and calling different taxi companies. Take was a star and really helped us out. If we didn't have someone with us who could speak Japanese we would have been really panicked.

As it turns out Taxi companies get a lot of lost items in their cars. So they cannot report it to the police every time it happens. The car will take it to the company. And the company will take it, once a week, to the big company that runs all the taxis in Osaka. Once a week or so, THAT company will then drop everything off with the police. A big long process. She was discouraged but at least we did all we could. She was set to go home after this. We were going to stay all weekend but now after this Janet just wanted to go home. I loaned her $100. Claire took her back to the hotel and went to an onsen. Take and I went to the movies. We were going to go to IKEA that day, but with all the running around with the police we didn't have time. When we left the theater after seeing 10,000BC, we called and Janet decided to stay. She would only feel depressed at home, so she might as well distract herself a bit longer.

Hiromi was meeting me that night for dinner. She is the secretary to the president of Universal Studios Japan, and as it happened, a friend of Take's. We had dinner planned with her, and I was going to ask her questions about the job and get as much information as I could. She turned out to be a great woman. A completely fun person to be around. We went to a Nepalese restaurant and had outstanding food and great conversation. We all boarded the subway after that and landed in a bar that Claire Janet and I had been in before. Cinquecentos (the martini bar). The night is great, and I made a friend who is high-up in the Universal Studios job. The following morning we parted ways after breakfast. Good luck Janet!!

(sorry no pictures this week)

Farewells, Flowers, Tacos, and Trivia!

2008-05-26T08:54:00.002+09:00

The following two weeks were spent in Tokushima City (and surrounding areas). April 12-13 and 18-20. To start, we had Chris Reidl's farewell party. After a thousand years of living in Tokushima and running the musicals, he was finally going back home to America.
Before going tho, several of his friends were throwing him a goodbye party at P's Paradise.
The events leading up to the party that prove I make the worlds worst first impressions:
Louise James and I went to Coco Curry for dinner. Eating there we discover Nate. Louise knows Nate because he lives near her, but I know of him and have never met. When he comes over I make an odd comment about his shorts. Really I was trying to say that I didn't like them, but because I was censoring myself, the comment just came out baffled and making no sense at all... We finish our curry and buy Chris his going-away present. A single donut from Mr. Donut, wrapped in a ribbon (which cost more than the donut did). We don't know exactly why we wanted to buy him a donut, but we did. We boarded the bus to James' to change and regroup for the party!

At the party I proceed to make an awkward fool of myself in front of a number of people. Finally to top the cake I end up setting off a fire alarm. As the bar owners were running around trying to shut it off... 20 minutes of it ringing later, it finally stops and I'm sufficiently embarrassed. But that was the bad news. The good news was we got there, and we presented Chris with our donut in a very stylized manner. He seemed to like it. By the end of the night, because the ribbon cost so much, we snatched it back from Chris after he unwrapped his donut! Buahahaha. There was also a book going around to be filled with memories. I wrote something snarky like "I remember it like it was yesterday. The cool breeze blowing through the palms; the feeling of the soft sand like cat tongues between my toes. The evening dark as I sipped my cooled colada from a pineapple husk, the only light around coming from the stars and the dim neon sign of the bar behind me. That was one of my favorite nights. You weren't there of course.. but I still really liked it..."

Anyway. After Chris' party Louise Chris Pickles (other Chris) and Amy went to Mike's bar. We arrive at a pilot's party. They're all drinking and singing and we join in. In a matter of time some of the pilots are taking off their clothes. What a shocking thing for Mike's bar... I phone up Janet and tell her what she's missing. The pilots stripped to their underpants, then packed up and left. After a short while we were joined by other JETs and the party there continued. Louise James and I went back to James' place to wait for tomorrow's party.

I awoke to Louise giggling at her pictures. A standard morning ritual. She and James were dressed as pig farmers. Meaning they were wearing matching red Gingham shirts. We watched a bit of British comedy on Youtube, and a very clever dance to Natalie Imbruglia's "Torn." We decided that we would learn this dance. After that we headed to a Mos Burger breakfast.

The thing about Ingrid's Hanami party was that it was during the day, on Sunday, after a long night out Saturday. We were lamenting going. She was charging for all you can drink beer, but Louise and I thought better to bring our own. At Tokushima Castle (the location of the party) we met Louise's friend from Takamatsu, Akane, and our friend Julie. We moved toward where Ingrid's gathering was and sat down. We knew few people but proceeded to drink anyway. Akane drank whiskey coke out of a bowl that Louise had taken from Mike's bar the night before. I bought some bottled orange juice and mixed my vodka in with it. It began to rain and some of Ingrid's friends had to put up a tarp. I thought I could help by climbing a tree, but once up there I felt precarious and didn't want to move... so I didn't help at all, and instead merely climbed up a tree while everyone did all the work.

Bored with the party at some point, I convince Louise James and Akane that we should crash a neighboring gathering. We went over and Akane chatted them up in Japanese while we looked interesting. We proceeded to eat their food (even if it was arranged in a naughty way on the plate...) and accept their offers for drinks. James and I befriended two college students who, despite being only 19, were smoking! I felt like I should scold them. (The smoking and drinking age in Japan is 20.) We waste the day away with our new friends. Soon night fell, and Louise and I found ourselves in a state much more intoxicated than we imagined. Those are the perils of starting to drink around noon. It was Sunday and we had work the next day so we could NOT miss our last trains. We drunkenly meandered through the park and over a bridge. We thought we stepped into a huge pond which in our minds came up to waist-level, but actually our pants were only wet around the ankle. This sent us into a riotous laughter which delayed our getting back. We miraculously made it to the train station. I have no idea how we managed that as we did not know the way. Our trains were at 9:00. and it was 8:00 so we had some time to grab food at Lotteria. By the grace of God we managed to go from the party, onto our individual trains, and then make it home to our houses. Not to mention up in time for work the next day. Amazing!

The next week we had more planned! Take came to visit but he was coming late because of work. I was under the impression that there was a ferry from Wakayama to Tomushima at midnight arriving at 2:30. But there wasn't. Take had to wait at the ferry port for 2 hours until the 2:30 ferry which arrived at 4:30. I felt so bad. And so tired. As I waited I had some dinner and Karaoke with James. The next day there was a musical viewing party. Our musical, Momotaro was recorded by Andrew and everyone wanted to see it before Chris R. had left. Everyone drove up to Naruto to a Mexican food restaurant named Sombreros. The food was ok. I prefer our spot in Osaka, but it wasn't bad for being the only Mexican place in Tokushima. I couldn't drink because I was driving. We watched the musical, talking and laughing over it, most of us seeing it for the first time. Everyone was in good spirits with tasty food and entertainment from the musical. Stuffed and laughed-out we head back to Tokushima City.

Tonight is the Trivia night that Louise and I had been preparing months for. We are hosting it this time and we were in correspondence with questions for a long time. Everything was ready! We got changed into our host's attire and headed to P's Paradise to start the show. We charged 500yen for participating and had about 9 times of anywhere from 3-6 people. The evening was an overall success. Our winnings pot totaled about $200 to be split between the members of the winning team.

Our theme was "The Meaning of Life" based on the Monty Python movie. We had seven categories. Birth, Growing and Learning, Fighting Each Other, Middle Age and Live Organ Transplants, the Autumn Years, the Meaning of Life, and Death. Birth was questions about childhood TV shows. Growing and Learning were selections from high school exams, Fighting Each Other was a collection of questions about History and Politics. Middle Age and Live Organ Transplants was a category about plastic surgery, and gadgets. The Autumn Years was about board games. The Meaning of Life was about religion. Finally, Death was a collection of pictures of dead celebrities (or celebrities who deserve to be dead) who had to be named. In each round we hid the name of a fish (like Carp or Tuna...) somewhere in the questions or answers. This was the bonus round: Find the Fish (also from the movie). Everyone had a great time. The team Louise and I were on last time had dressed up as Naruto (the anime) characters. They had adopted more members in our absence, including Janet and Take. They came in second place and received their 500yens back. The first place team was nicely Chris R.'s team. It was nice that he won the big prize at the quiz night before he left Japan. Louise and I were exhausted from hosting such a big event and we were both thrilled that it went over so well.

PICTURES!!!!

Two weekends in Kansai

2008-05-08T08:33:00.003+09:00

March 29-30 and April 2-6th were two weekends spent joyfully in Osaka and Kyoto.

The first weekend was a short one. I met Take in Wakayama and we headed north to Osaka to meet Claire Janet and Terrina. Before meeting them we had Mexican food and about 4 margaritas each. We met the three girls at Pig and Whistle (an English Pub) in Osaka for a little bit and then decided to go out dancing. Club Pure is one of the biggest clubs in Osaka so we went there (Biggest by Japanese standards means it was pretty average sized). It was $25 for girls to drink and $35 for boys to drink all they can. A bit expensive but we were already there. We decided to go for it. The club was crap. Bad music. Too crowded. So we decided to not complain and just enjoy ourselves for a little bit until we've had a few drinks to make the cost seem worthwhile and then leave.

Claire joined a game of Pool with someone and was kicking their butt when suddenly it was time to leave. Terrina had gotten too drunk and we needed to find her a place to sleep. We sadly forced Claire away from her game when she was just an 8-ball away from victory.

Now, this weekend wasn't a national holiday, but it was right at the start of a new school year beginning. This translates to many students moving into their new schools, which translates to parents coming with them to help and staying at hotels, which translates to no vacancy in a million mile radius. We walked to my fail-safe standby hotel and found it booked solid. We called the hotel Claire found online-no room. Called around to other hotels in the area-all full.
We tried love hotels, capsule hotels, business hotels. Full. Full. Full. What on earth were we going to do. Terrina was about to fall over and we all were tired. We walked to McDonalds hoping to be able to get some food and sleep in there, but they only served take-out from 3-5am. Finally we decided that we would go to Karaoke for a couple of hours, until the first trains were running, and then we would deal with finding somewhere to stay. Karaoke was expensive but it was nice to lay down and have a rest. I find it so amusing how we went to karaoke, turned off the machine and took a nap in the booth. We ordered some food and replenished ourselves for the too-early start of the next day.

At about 5:30 we had to leave Karaoke. Everyone was still groggy and miserable feeling. We trained down to Dobutsuenmae where Janet knew of a youth hostel, but we decided that it was too late to deal with anything. We sent Terrina to the Kansai airport (she was meeting her friend later that day) where she slept on a bench and felt fine when she woke up. Claire and Janet took a bus back to Tokushima and slept. I went with Take back to Wakayama and slept, then headed back to Tokushima in the late afternoon.

Homeless in Osaka. And we all lived to tell the tale!

The next week was Spring Break!!! I had managed to get a few days off from work by rearranging half-days into full days and days off. So on Wednesday April 2nd I headed out to Kyoto. I was going to look at the cherry blossoms. Hanami. I arrive in Kyoto mid-day and head out by bus to Ginkakuji temple. There is a stretch about a mile long of cherry blossom trees draping themselves over a small stream. Vendors were selling cherry-blossom ice cream (which was uniquely delicious) and various other things. People were strolling down the sidewalk, snapping pictures of the beautiful trees along the way, having picnics in the grass. It was a nice relaxing time. Beautiful trees, good feelings, and a general sense of carefree. I ended the day with a walk up the hill from the cherry blossoms to see the actual Ginrakuji temple. Pretty nice. The temple was that like any other, but there were lots of stunning sand sculptures. Meticulously carved sand sculptures which I'm not even sure how some were made. I grab the train to Osaka and stop in my usual hotel. I go into town and get a $10 haircut (which I've grown to consider REALLY cheap, even tho it's about what you'd pay in America for a men's haircut...) which looked horrible. Then I ate at a Korean restaurant.

Thursday was the day that Louise and Lisa would be coming back from Thailand. I get a call early in the morning from them, asking if I could make a reservation at the hotel I'm staying in for the two of them + James. For them this weekend is a punk rock concert. I get them a room but they cannot check-in until 3pm. So we drop off all their things in my room and go out. Louise and I are hosting a trivia night and we are looking for costumes that could involve prosthetic (or plastic) body parts. By stroke of luck, Louse and I knew perfectly well where to find said things, having stumbled upon the store where we bought the plastic head, Gerald, months ago for that guys bathroom. As it happened, they don't sell mannequin arms by themselves. (which I find strange, what if you needed them for your glove shop...) So we couldn't complete the costume idea. We wandered back strolling through America-town and stopping for sushi and got to the hotel perfectly around 3pm.

There it was meet James, nap and get up to go! Go!.. Go where?.... Um... Ok so I guess we're hungry. We went to Mexican food. True I went the week before, but I love it, and the other 3 hadn't been. After a delicious feast of burritos and the like, we went out to Karaoke. They put us on the 1,000,000th floor overlooking the city, but first we had to get in an elevator that made a horrible crashing sound/dinosaur sound on the inside speakers when it arrived at a floor. Very unsettling. Sing sing sing. Then home to bed. We of course pop into an arcade for some Purikura.

The next morning we take a stroll out to breakfast. After said meal, we pop into a shop Lisa knows called Don Quixote. It is an odd shop, filled with wigs and novelty underwear, as well as sensible clothing and home goods. Basically anything you ever might need for whatever reason. Then we went to Umeda quickly to take care of some bus tickets. On the way back we had to meet Sean at the Glico running man (a famous meeting spot in the center of the street). As I was searching the exit guide at the subway stop this confident older foreign guy struts over with his Japanese girlfriend and asks us like tough shit. "Hey are you guys lost?" "No we're just looking for what exit the Glico man would be at..." "Well THAT'S not going to be on there!!! Let me show you! I know the way." I was thinking "no shit its not going to be on there, but I can figure it out based on the part of town its in" but we decided to amuse him and let him think he's doing us this great deed. His girlfriend pressed snugly to his arm, our hero guides us in the direction of our desired location! Oh thank heavens. What would we have done without him...

We meet Sean who decides he wants a piercing. All of us head to America-town to the piercing place James and Louise went to. He gets an Orbital (two holes in the ear, one earring going in a circle through them). We look for pictures of James' and Louise's piercings in the book, but they're not there. After Sean whimpered like a baby over a tiny ear piercing not even through the cartilage, they all left for the punk rock show, leaving me to wait for my Friday plans: meeting Janet and Claire. On the way back to the hotel to rest I pass a crowd of people around a celebrity. I always look, and usually have no idea who it is. This time I recognised the man. It was Duke Saraie. The walking doctor! A few weeks ago one of my Adult English Class students had taken me to a walking class in Tokushima by a famous walking doctor, Duke Saraie. Famous in Japan for his idiotic style of walking which is supposed to energize you and keep you healthy. The class was bull, and I found him sickeningly full of himself, but it was funny to watch the sad man milking his fame for all it was worth. I see him on the street and I decide to wait around to talk to him. At least to tell the student of mine who took me to his class that I saw him on the street. We take a picture together and he remembers me from the Tokushima class. That was nice of him. Then I head back home filled with silliness for giving into celebrity crowd-gathering like so many Japanese girls.

Janet and Claire will be late, so I wander around Namba trying to familiarize myself with the area. I discover that I am able to locate several of the places where in the past have been separate and un-connectible in my mind. Now my grasp of Osaka is increasing. I head up to Umeda for more Korean food (a different restaurant, just down the street from the first one, and this one is better) and a quick stop in a bar while I wait for the two girls. They arrive and after checking into the hotel we head out for the night. Our last stop was a bar called Cinquecento. A martini bar with over 30 kinds of martinis. We meet some very weird people who looked interesting at first but ended up being near impossible to escape. The night ends with each of us having spent over $100. Yikes.

Janet has a horrible hangover the next morning so Claire and I go out to fetch her food. We wander about and discover a grocery shop randomly that has huge bulk food items. The biggest we've ever seen in Japan. We buy strawberries and head out to the riverside where we sit and eat berries and watch people passing by. The weather is lovely and its quite relaxing. We return to Janet with some sustenance. After a little bit we all head out to meet Take and go out again. We go out first to drink and then to dance and get home late.

Walking around outside the next day Claire Take and I hit the Mexican food place for half priced happy hour while Janet gets her hair cut at the same place Lauren went to when she came to visit me. Earlier that day we see that there's a shop called "Star Maker" where you get dressed up and do your hair and they take modeling photos of you. We make plans to get that done soon. Almost time for everyone to go. A really long "weekend." A lot of money was spent but it was an enormous amount of fun!

PICTURES!!!
Hanami Pictures in Kyoto
Two Weeks in Osaka

What do do with ourselves after the musical is over...

2008-04-21T10:16:00.004+09:00

At a lack for things to do on the weekend now that there are no longer rehearsals for the musical, we were desperate for plans.

Together Louise and Chris Pickles dreamed up "Cockney-oke." It is Karaoke done with a Cockney accent (Think Dick Van Dyke from Marry Poppins) and Cockney costumes. We started off strong at Cassanovas (where our horrifying singing scared away a few customers), then ventured off to Bar Bitch. There after a few drinks and a few songs, the owner said "Ok last song..." Which we thought to meant he was closing, but as it turns out he just wanted us to stop singing. @.@ From Bar Bitch we went to Ingrid's where we noisily interrupted a quiet night at her bar, and sang a few loud songs. After a little while longer there, we wanted cheeseburgers. Root Down, the bar Louise and I vowed never to return to again was open for its very last weekend since the bar owner was going on to become a priest or something ridiculous like that. We got there at 3am and he would not serve us burgers. We were so furious. We decided then to get snacks at Turibilly Bops since we had not been there in ages. The bartender was surprised to see us, but I think his joy soon dissipated as we were rowdy and in general not good company. I blame the alcohol. But after what was a great theme for a night, we all went home, having pissed off at least 4, maybe 5 bartenders.

Waking up the next morning, feeling rough, we discover on Louise's camera that we had taken several interesting pictures of us dancing and making faces at James' house before bed. There was even a picture of "I hate Norm" written on a sticky pad and stuck to my underwear... No recollection. To be fair, we were mad that he wouldn't give us cheeseburgers.

Thirsty! Thirsty like never before. We all threw our coins at Louise and sent her to the vending machine with a bag to get as many juices as she could buy. She came back with quite the selection, boasting that she spent the money very efficiently and that there was only 10yen left over. We headed off to Mos Burger for breakfast. I was famished from not meeting my delicious burger requirement the night before so I hastily ordered 4 burgers for breakfast. When they were brought out to me, the waitress looked horrified that they were just for me, and said rather hesitantly "Please enjoy them slowly..." I could only painfully finish three and a half. What to do today. We had no plans and it was a beautiful day. Louise wanted to go to the park and squirt water guns. This later turned into going to the zoo, and ended in James' apartment playing video games.

We finally gather enough energy up to leave the house, and get directions to the zoo from Andrew. Living in Japan has done something to me. When asking for directions I now only listen to the first sentence of what someone says, and then tune out. Even if it is in English. So I had no clue where the zoo was. We drove and drove in the direction I THINK Andrew sent me in. Then finally we had to stop and ask for directions again. I pulled the same trick and only listened to half. James was convinced that zoo's close early. I told him zoo's aren't ever closed until dusk. I don't know why I think that... It just seems right. We drive and drive, and get to a park that we thought was the zoo. The park was closing and the traffic getting out of the park took a while. It was there we decided that we probably wouldn't make it to the zoo. Instead we were not going to go home until we took a picture of 3 animals; it didn't even matter what kind. As we were driving, on an overpass James sees a couple walking a dog. One woman riding a bike, and her husband/boyfriend/brother/friend walking with the dog beside her. The bicycle was blocking the picture of the dog so James shouts out the window, "Move bitch..." As they look up he proceeds to hold the camera out the window and try to get a picture of the dog. Brilliant tact, I must say. Finally there's a sign for the zoo. We make some wrong turns again and eventually make it there.

The zoo closes at 4:30. Its 4:45. There goes our day. On the way back I nearly kill everyone in the car by stopping in the middle of the street to grab a picture of a tubby cat laying on the sidewalk. Then we decide to stop at an interesting looking shrine we caught a glimpse of. The area smelled like sewer and the shrine wasn't all that fantastic. There were strange fox statues all over it. We decided to go to the movies. At the movies, we discovered that nothing was playing. The new Disney Movie was playing but only in Japanese language, and everything else either had been seen or wouldn't have been understood. Strike two is this? I've lost count. We eat at an Italian place instead where the Japanese waiter is very eager to see us and tell us his very fake Italian name. Fuel up and out.

Somewhere along the line we title this day "The Day that Never Ceases to Fail." based on an earlier slip up I said, trying to combine "never fails to please," and "never ceases to amaze." We decided to rent movies and eat snacks at James' house. At the movie rental place we pick up Duck Tails, and Spongebob the Movie. We then grab wine, cheese, olives, chips, salsa, and sweets at the supermarket. The movies were an enjoyable end to an interestingly disappointing day.

The next morning we were up early and headed to McDonald's for breakfast. James has never had a hash brown in Scotland so we have been tallying up his hash brown intake since coming to Japan. He's up to 4!!! We are going to do the zoo today! Yesterday was a flop so today we will do it!! But.. its raining. :-/ We go anyway. We each made a list of animals we expected to see at the zoo and entered. We were surprised at the number of animals there in our very town zoo... But because we weren't expecting much from it, the animals we chose were strange, and they didn't have many of the ones on our lists. It was a great time all the same.

From birds to rodents to apes to African greats... I had to throw some pebbles at the red panda and the otters to get them to come out of hiding so we could take a picture. I didn't strike THEM, just near them... And it worked (even tho the otters looked pissed off). When we got to the ape cage there was a chimpanzee pulling on the locked handle of the door in his cage. He probably saw the zoo keeper going out through there and he wanted to as well. What was interesting was, unlike a human, who would have given up, he tried and tried for 10 minutes at least. This intrigued Louise and she started to talk to it. It found a bucket and started hitting it lightly against the floor. Aww its making music. Then its pounding grew and grew until it was beating it against the floor, raising it over his head, and sending it crashing down again. Such a fury arose until finally it was winged into the air, smashed against the viewing class and back through the air. Immediately following that crash, the chip threw himself against the glass, pounding on it. It was terrifying and we thought it was time to leave. He was either having a bad day, or he did not like us one bit. Either way, we did not want to be around crazy ape anymore.

So many animals. We even ran into bird that spoke Japanese. It would not learn English curses despite Louise's valiant attempts. Some lovely tiny monkeys who let you touch them and a sort of petting zoo (closed in the rain). Finished with all the animals we could see we decided to go to the theme park next to the zoo. As it was raining so no one was there. We decided to forgo the all-ride pass because it didn't look like anything was running. We got on the Ferris Wheel, and then the pirate ship. Since we were the only ones in the park we had not only the ride to ourselves but also all of the theme park attendants running that one ride/seating us/ drying the rain off the seats. They did everything short of hold umbrellas over us while on the ride. The ultimate was when we went on the train. At the start of the ride the train goes up a slight incline. Our train couldn't make it, despite there being only 3 people on board. Boy did we feel fat... Eventually a man came and pushed the train up the hill while we just sat there. Finally we went to the arcade played some really bad games and took a purikura from a machine that was made centuries ago and the quality and selection was bad. I got a balloon and we went back to the car to grab our picnic. We ate in the zoo on a bench; lovely sandwiches, fruit, sparkling lemonade, and crackers. Yum.

Finally got to the zoo! And weekend over.

PICTURES!!!
Never Ceases to Fail
Tokushima Zoo
a video of the talking bird

Final Show & Cast Party

2008-04-07T20:32:00.005+09:00

Good lord I'm behind on my posting. This was almost a month ago. Here goes.

Take comes to Tokushima and then we head off to Claire's house for a low key night of watching Clueless. The following morning is it... the final musical! We thought the day would never come.

The next morning we wake and head out for the 30 minute drive to the last musical venue. On the way we stop for Chinese food breakfast and run into James and Sean. They were at a video game party the night before and were headed in the wrong direction, so it was fortunate that they spotted us. Drive continues and we make it to the venue.

Its in such a lovely section of town. Stone road, charming stream, hanging trees. The weather is beautiful and everyone wants to spend the day with a picnic rather than doing a musical. Sigh. I know too well what that is like during my times at Bard. Well all said and done, we get the musical up and running. But not without a stop to the shop for me to buy makeup remover for the show, Take to buy glitter for the cast party, and a lovely lunch with James and Amy.

Great show. Loads of people, great reaction, all in all, amazing time. As tradition of the final show, the gags came out. People changing their lines or their actions slightly to amuse each other without destroying the integrity of the play. Bessie gets on the god-mic from the lighting booth during one of the sections to pretend to be a voice on the telephone. Jeff does his role in short shorts rather than trousers. James brings out the relationship guidance dolphin to act as a creepy hand puppet when hes visiting the zoo with his daughter. At the scene where the monkey throws the banana at the zookeeper when we come to rescue them, I decide spur of the moment that I want to walk over and eat the banana. The audience finds this funny that a bent-over old lady goes and eats the banana off the floor after a monkey threw it out. Then I proceed (fueled by improvisation) to eat the peel of the banana as people stand aghast. It was a bad idea in hindsight as the peel of a banana is DISGUSTING but at least they laughed.

Cleanup was even more fun. We could tear things down and stomp things up, because we no longer needed to preserve them. Then all of it into a caravan of cars, and off to Gilly's house to be stored. After Gilly's a car went out to pick up the pizza, and the rest of us waited in the parking lot of the supermarket. If ever there was a suspicious looking lineup of cars in a parking lot, we were it. Gilly got back in Casey's car with the pizza and we followed them to the after party!!! We swore that every time an oncoming car lit up their windows we saw Gilly take another box of pizza and we were convinced she was eating them all.. grrr. Turns out she was looking for her slice of ham pineapple and had to sort through a mound of non-ham-pineapple boxes to find it.

The cast party was atop a mountain in Mino, where Brian lives. We had a 30 minute car journey to it mostly up steep windy roads. At the top of the mountain, overlooking the scene below, there were bungalows and a castle playground!!! Everyone devoured their pizza (overpriced. about $40 for a pie... yikes) and we started handing out awards to best monkey, or sexiest granny and things like that. Then we went upstairs and got glitter and stars put on our faces by Take. In total the glitter crew was Janet, Christine, Terrina, Take and I. Chris Pickles wanted to do it but didn't want to wait in line. Glittered and alcoholed up, we went to the playground!

The lovely playground is a beautiful castle sitting at the edge of a merciless drop. God help the children. There are rope climbs, fun fun slides (more danger), and strangely enough a collection of green rubber rods with funny tops on them that look like a odd field of penises... Perfect for a child's park... Also, all this danger, the PERFECT place for some drunk people to play on. We climbed and slit and played around, but opted out of the game of nighttime tag.

It was a great deal of fun and a nice way to end the musical. The following morning, with nothing to do, Louise Take and I went to breakfast at a place near her, where we met Julie, and then we started the long trip back home, sans Louise. With the musical over, what do we do with all our free time?!?! The lot of us truly had forgotten what a rehearsal-less weekend was like.

PICTURES!!!
and there is a video of a clip of this show
apologies to those who cant see it due to facebook. I don't own it to get a copy on my youtube account.

I'm making a slide show of beautiful black and white photos taken by our director Andrew Dahms
keep on the lookout for it :)

Tim Curry and Momotaro Revisited

2008-03-24T14:53:00.003+09:00

Friday night March 7th was Tim Curry Night at Claire's house. What does that entail exactly? Oh only an evening celebrating the acting styling of Tim Curry while eating... curry... and enjoying various other Tim-themed snacks. I picked up James and Lisa in the city and headed out to Claire's. We were planning this for at least a month and the excitement was stupendous! Costume was strongly encouraged, but as I had no time to shop between the first musical and this next, I had to opt out. James and Lisa were both opting out as well, so I did not feel as bad.

We arrive at Claire's to a door decorated with photos of Tim Curry, "Curry anyone?!" printed above it. Claire was dressed to kill in her hostess dress. She was being Mr. Body that night (from the Tim Curry Film, "Clue"). She had three kinds of curry laid out, rice, and nan bread. In addition to that she mad made some traditional Irish mashed potatoes, cooked carrots and asparagus, and a put of "monkey brains." In the film clue, the guests are served Monkey Brains, so Claire made a stewy gravy sauce to act in the place of monkey brains. We waited for Louise and Brian... and waited... and waited. Finally ravished we started to tear into the food and just as we had, they walked in the door. Louise was dressed as a Three Musketeer, and Brian was an interpretive costume of Mrs. White from Clue. (The scene where she says, "I hated her... so... much... that... fla.. Flames..... on the sides of my face... breathing.. breath... heaving... breathing..." he had flame-like plastic tied around his head, and a silk screened Mrs. White t shirt on.) They were both quite mad at us for not dressing up.

Once our timmies..er.. tummies were full, we all sat down to a rousing game of.... you guessed it. Clue. Earlier Louise had made a version of Clue (with the help of James and I) entitled "Barry White's Mansion of Love." In it, Instead of finding Mr. Body dead in his mansion, Barry White is instead murdered in his heart-shaped hot tub. Your job (identical to the game Clue) is to find out who murdered him, with what, and in which room. This is where we got creative.

The rooms are: the porcelain doll museum; the sex dungeon; the stair-lift repair centre; the walrus tank; the taxidermy room; the soup kitchen; the lavatory; the enema ward; and the ball pool.
The weapons: a gimp; an anvil; a cabbage; a cake mixer; poisoned Viagra; and a stingray
Finally the characters: Red is Mummra (from Thundercats); White is Snowflake the albino gorilla (sort of an inside joke from Mid-year Conference); Yellow is Gandhi; Blue is Captain Haddock (a cartoon pirate); Green is Grotbags (A witch from a British Children's show); and Pink is Dolly Parton. All of these characters (as suggested by the game) were at some point lovers of Barry White.

Clue with six players takes a long time. It takes even longer when you change the rules so that, in order to make an accusation "Dolly Parton in the Lavatory with the Cabbage" you have to give a story as to how exactly it happened. "Dolly Parton, a notorious hater of cabbage, was trying to stuff the vegetable down the toilet so it would not end up in supper that night, when an unexpected Barry White barges in. Half thrust by the shock of someone entering the room, have from the toilet backfiring, the cabbage was rocketed across the room, and unfortunately right through Barry White, killing him." We did not finish the game. Once we got tired of playing we each took turns guessing until one of us (me this time) got it right. Then we went off to watch the movie Clue.

During the movie, several of us were sketching pictures of Tim Curry to mail to him. We also wrote a letter collectively, to the acting master. "Dear Mister Tim Curry, We'd like to express our most sincere apologies for not writing sooner. We are the esteemed members of the Tim Curry Appreciation Society in Japan. Sincerely, the esteemed members of the Tim Curry Appreciation Society in Japan." We hope he likes it. :)

The next morning we woke, had McDonalds, and headed to the venue for our third performance of Momotaro the musical. It was thankfully down the street from Claire's house so not much driving at all was needed. Of course, we got there first. Even before the director. The venue was huge and one of our most enthusiastic ones. The people who own the venue always look forward to our musicals every year, and they often do a great deal of advertising, and give us lunch in our dressing rooms! Not to mention that this house seated about 800 people. This was a big one. On top of that the local cable TV was filming that night. Nerves were high. But we pulled it off spectacularly. The crowd loved it and we raked in quite a profit. On our way home we decide to stop at Gusto, a crappy family food place. So did Andrew and Chie in a couple minutes.... a couple minutes later still, so did about 6 other people from the musical. It became a sort of unofficial after party. What a surprise. Too tired to even move after such a day, we drove back to James' house and crashed.

The next morning we had another performance. This time it was 30 minutes away from James' house. We drove around for about 30 minutes (making us late) trying to find tasty breakfast but with no luck. This venue, in comparison to the one the night before, was much smaller. The stage had only one entrance and exit as it was designed for presentations and meetings, not for theater. We struggled with space for moving around the set and keeping people out of visibility, but the whole thing was a great success. At Lunchtime Louise and I drove around for an hour singing Car-eoke in my car really loudly! It was a blast. She titles her albums after colors that the songs make her think of. We were singing from the album entitled "spanko" which, we discovered months ago in Osaka, was NOT the word for spandex, but instead for a fabric packed with sequins and glitter.

The attendance at this Sunday venue was about the same as Hiwasa, but with much more enthusiasm. On the whole, we have been setting records for the amount of money people have been giving us, based on previous years. Each venue we went to gave us more than they had given the year before. It was truly fantastic. I drove Claire home, then James, and finally myself. Halfway home I discovered myself driving behind Bessie. We had a moment of sympathy for each other, living so far away from anything. *sigh*

PICTURES!!!

Opening Night!

2008-03-10T08:57:00.002+09:00

I pick Take up at the ferry port Friday night. He's come to see the Musical in all its glory. We wake up on Saturday in time for lunch at Hiwasa's curry shop. This day, March 1st, is the LAST DAY that the curry shop will be open. A thought which fills me with sadness as it was one of my favorite places to go in Hiwasa. That in mind, I demanded we go Saturday morning, for their last day open. After that pre-show setup/rehearsal starts. Thank goodness it's in my town today. I'm tired of waking up earlier than I have to in order to get somewhere on time. We start rehearsing it, and polishing it up for the Hiwasa stage, then have a 30 minute lunch break. We all run to a local convenience store for a quick meal. Since we have such a short time, I decided to run to the store in my costume (an old granny costume). Only halfway there did I realize that I was in my own town, and surely everyone who knows me would see me. Sigh.

I'm going to take a moment to tell the story of the play.

Act 1 (Story of Momotaro with some artistic liberty)
Scene 1.
Two narrator children are fighting over toothpaste and they run to their grandpa who solves their dispute. He then tells them a story about Momotaro. Peach Boy.

It starts with an old man going to the forest for wood and an old lady going to the river to wash clothes. (I'm the old lady) She spots a giant peach and pulls it onshore, trapping herself underneath it. Her husband comes along and helps her and they put it in their kitchen. On the table, the old man starts cutting it open when they realize there's a little boy inside who's very strong. They have him work at the farm, until one day a woman from the next town, in this play-Princess Leiah, comes to look for the old man. She asks for his help in fighting the Oni (demons) who have taken everything from their village. The old man cannot because he's to old but Momotaro (the boy) says he can do it. His parents put up a fuss at first but eventually conceded after the old man trains him (using a jazzercise music set to Billy's Boot Camp steps) and the old woman gives him magic dango she made (rice flour sweets). It will boost his strength when he eats them. So he sets off.

Scene 2.
A dog army is in practice, with a foppish poodle at the tail. The Sarge barks orders and the poodle (Louise) is miserable at following them. Finally after a tragic display of ability from the poodle, the Sarge kicks him out of the army. This saddens the poodle who only joined the army so that he could be more brave and obedient for his owner. Momotaro spots the poodle howling with sadness and asks if he would like to help him fight the onis. He gives the poodle a bit of dango ("Who Let the Dogs Out" music starts and the poodle and Momotaro dances) and the poodle is full of energy and able to do every command, sit, beg, shake hands, do sumo, and dance awa odori. Now a team of two, they're off!

Scene 3.
Colonel Sanders is trying to sell his chicken to passers-by with little luck. Why does no one want chicken. His fry cook tells him its because people are tired of chicken and suggests they have something new on the KFC menu. Fried horse? Fried Snickers? Fried cellphone... oops. Just then a pheasant struts by and they get an idea. To a Benny Hill theme, they chase the pheasant around the audience, finally catching her and holding her over the oil vat. Just then Momotaro and the poodle enter, and release the pheasant. As they celebrate the Colonel readies his gun for another go at the pheasant, but she eats some dango, and catches his bullet in her teeth then struts over to the fry cook and the Colonel and knocks them out. A trio, the pheasant, poodle, and Momotaro set off.

Scene 4.
Curtain up to a lazy gangster, G-monkey playing video games in his messy room. His momma comes in screaming at him to clean the room, bashing him with her shoe and broom. When she leaves he goes back to playing games. Momotaro and the two friends enter on the other side of the stage, distressed that they are lost. As momma enters again, swinging her broom to smack her son, the pheasant suggests they ask the monkeys for directions. He catches her just in time and she tries to pretend she wasn't hitting him. She gives them directions and then tries to get her G-monkey to be enthusiastic like those three are. They give G-monkey a bit of dango, and he stands bolt upright. Dolly Parton's 9-5 starts playing as G-monkey speeds through his homework and starts to clean. A cleaning dance sequence ensues with all the characters involved. When its over, G-monkey decides to join the group and they head off. When they all leave the momma says "I thought they'd NEVER leave." and plops down to play the video games herself.

Scene 5.
They reach the final stage of their journey, crossing the seito naikai sea to get to the Oni island. But someone has taken their boat. A note from Gipetto (last year they did Pinocchio as a play...) says he took the boat, and hes sorry but he left them floaty devices to get there on. The pheasant laughs and takes off flying there. The poodle whimpers about how cold the water is, but after a little more dango, they're all in and setting off for the Oni island.

Scene 6.
At the oni lair, the 5 onis are tormenting their two servant girls, being rowdy and generally causing a ruckus to "Feed My Frankenstein." Blue oni, black oni, green oni, purple oni, and the leader, red-oni. The 4 heroes burst in and try to put a stop to it. The red demon laughs and sets his onis after them. 007 music plays as the pheasant swiftly takes care of the green oni. The poodle lays out the purple oni, G-monkey floors the blue oni, and Momotaro knocks out the black oni. Then he approaches the red-oni. They clash, club to sword, but Momotaro's sword pierces right through the Oni's club. Defenseless, Momotaro thrashes the red-oni and then throws him to his animal friends who finish him off. Finally begging to be spared, the red-oni promises to give back everything and never return.

The narrator children are disappointed that the story is over. Momotaro won too easily, there was no message, etc. They demanded grandpa tell more but he said that was all. Finally he agrees to flush out a part two for them when they finish getting ready for bed.

ACT 2 (The Revenge of the Red-oni)
Scene 1.
The kids are back and eager to hear the rest of the story their grandpa just made up. He begins.

Momotaro came home with his animal friends to see his parents. The old man and old woman throw a party (Celebrate Good Times) but it is quickly halted by the red-oni showing up with crutches and arm slings demanding that Momotaro pay his medical bills. He has brought his lawyer with him, and the lawyer clears that the property belonged to the red-oni as settlement for a loan he had with Princess Leiah's town. When the animal's try to stop the policeman from taking Momotaro to jail, the red-oni reminds the lawyer that Momotaro has no license for these animals. The lawyer carts the pheasant and monkey off to the zoo. And what about that thing. The red-oni quickly inserts that it is a Shisa (mythological lion-dog that guards temples) which is even more rare than monkeys or pheasants and belongs in the zoo. Despite the poodles protesting that he is not a Shisa, he is carted away as well.
Then, about to go to Jail a second time, the old man and woman say that hes just a boy... Dr. Freud comes out from behind the red-oni and asks the old woman where she found Momotaro. When she says he came from a peach floating down the river, the old man and old woman are carted away to the mental hospital. Crazy old people. Finally the policeman and the red-oni think that Momotaro belongs in school. He is required to and had not been. The red-oni plans to take the farm and turn it into a parking lot for a nearby tourist attraction.

Scene 2.
Kids are scrambling to their seats as the bell rings. The teacher comes in with Momotaro introducing him to the class. As Momotaro explains that he is born from a peach, and talks to three animals, the other kids mock him. He finally gets enraged and picks up the biggest bully with one hand, not putting her down until she apologizes. This upsets the teacher who tells Momotaro that he cannot just fight people he doesn't like. He's not George Bush. That if he really wants to get even with the red-oni he needs to use his brain AND his muscles. The other kids in class decide to help him out as "Footloose" plays and a school/study dance begins, ending with Momotaro receiving his graduation certificate. He's off to go rescue his family and save his farm.

Scene 3.
The old man and old woman are acting like lunatics bouncing around the room and popping pills. Several other crazies are around the stage. The doctor comes in and starts to question the old lady. What did she want to be when she grew up, etc. The old man buts in and said he wanted to be a lumberjack! The Monty Python Lumberjack song begins sung by us, and ending in the old man dressed in drag. Just then Momotaro bursts through the door and approaches the doctor. The doctor says they are too crazy to leave until Momotaro shows a DNA test that he in fact did come from a peach. Ok, the old lady can go, but the old man still has some mental issues with his cross dressing lumberjack fetish. The old lady says its ok, because hes wearing her clothes, and finally fed up, the doctor tells them to leave. Not before the old lady gives him a giant sack of peaches as a goodbye present.

Scene 4.
The animals are getting yelled at by the zookeeper for talking. Animals aren't supposed to talk. They protest but eventually give in. The first customers come. A creepy man and his daughter (?). They marvel at the beauty of the pheasant, approach the "Shisa" who scares them with a roar, and then get to the monkey. The girl asks the monkey to dance, and he replies that he can but his cage is too small. She is excited he can talk to and lets him out. Some 90s dance music plays as the monkey tries to sneak away but is caught by the girl and then starts to dance for her. He frees the poodle and the pheasant during his dance, and as they make a run for it, the zookeeper catches them and throws them back in their cages. Just then Momotaro and his parents arrive, with a monkey license and a pheasant license. He also carries proof that the poodle is a poodle and not a shisa. The animals are free to leave and they all devise a plan to get their farm back.

Scene 5.
The red-oni is directing traffic and taking money at his new parking lot. Suddenly all the heroes burst in policeman included. They trick the red-oni with a bag full of "money" which is actually newspaper. When fooled he gets mad and goes after Momotaro. The policeman steps in and says fighting is bad. They have to settle their differences respectably. Someone suggests a Dance Dance Revolution contest. If Momotaro wins he gets his farm back, and if the red-oni wins he can keep the car park.
The finale starts playing (DDR music) and they start to dance. They are joined in sections by first old man, old woman, and doctor, then all the animals and the police officer, then the other onis, then the school students. Finally (as a desperate attempt to include all the actors in a final dance) the narrators jump on stage and have a section, where everyone else is "who are they" as the line between reality and story blurs for a second. Then everyone dances. Finally its down to Momotaro and the red-oni. The latter is struggling and finally falls to the floor exhausted. Momotaro wins! The red-oni threatens his standard I'll be back, but Momotaro reminds the police officer that there are no Oni's at the zoo. The police officer thinks its a good idea and carts the red-oni away.
Everyone is thrilled except for the old lady. She is sad that her farm is now a parking lot. Where will they live?! Superman theme plays as the animals and Momotaro take a bite of the dango. The cars are soared off stage and a farm scene is put in its place. The old man and old woman jump and scream with excitement.

The narrators come on and announce the end. The two kids are delighted.

Curtain comes up to the red-oni in the zoo, and the bows start.

I'm met with little gifts from a couple of my students before the show starts. My Flamenco class had brought cookies for the cast. An adult conversation class provided us all with juice. It was so nice to see them care that much. :) It is our first show so naturally we're all a little nervous. Rehearsals have all been 70% at best and we only had one full rehearsal with everyone there. When the curtain went up tho, nothing could be done but to do it. And we did it. The crowd was few. Maybe 70 people max. We had several mistakes. But all in all it was a great show. I had closed off my eyes to the audience during the whole performance so only until it was time for me to thank everyone for coming did I see who was there.

All of my adult conversation students were there, some flamenco students, and even some of my Junior High School students. My neighbors were even there with their kids! I was surprised most of all to see my Vice Principal there. He was sitting by himself the whole time, so it really meant a great deal to me that he would come see my show. I greeted everyone, received bouquets of flowers and a teddy bear, and when the whirlwind was over, I was exhausted. The bad news was that I had to drive that same night to Tokushima City for the next day's show.

After cleaning up and packing the cars, we left in a caravan toward Tokushima City. Rehearsal/set-up before that show started at at 9am because it was a matinée, so we had to be ready and early. I drove, falling asleep along the way, all the way to Tokushima City. When we arrived... Pass out. Done. Some people went out to Bar Bitch's opening night, (a bar that James and I named... we're so proud... even tho that was one of our least brilliant suggestions..) but I was much too tired.

Sunday morning, I drive to the theater. No parking nearby, as was to be expected, so after unloading the car, I had to drive 5 minutes away to a place where I wouldn't pay for parking and then walk back. We were all tired but the show must go on. This time, Tokushima Hall, we had a much larger crowd. Over 100 I'd safely say and mostly young children. In terms of quality, it was a better show. Our energy was higher and the audience response was greater. We all felt really good about how we managed to pull this thing together. Take left for home immediately after the Tokushima Hall show, and James Claire Louise and I went for Italian food. We discovered this gorgeous restaurant with great taste and fantastic proportions in town.

There were great write-ups of our musical in the different newspapers and we made quite a bit of money with suggested donations. Several people said it was the best show that they had seen yet. And many couldn't stop talking about how well I did as an actor. Haha.

Pictures!

Dress Rehearsal and Pub Quiz

2008-03-09T22:49:00.003+09:00

This is long long ago. I'm sorry its so late.

We had our dress rehearsals in Kitajima. 30 minutes north of James in Tokushima city. The first dress rehearsal went well and pretty orderly. Our show was in a good shape and was being finally put together and fine-tuned.

After first dress, everyone went to P's Paradise for Tokushima's first Pub Quiz. (Trivia Night at a Bar with prizes for the winners.) Of course we had been planning our costumes for this event more enthusiastically than the musical. It was weeks, if not months in the planning. We had decided that our costumes would be in the theme of several things. Clue. We each were to bring weapons like the board game Clue. Sluts. Just for fun, we were to dress scandalously to freak out the other teams. and Ninjas. We each had our ninja masks from bowling, plus one for James since there were 5 at the shop and we only had 4 the first time. The final decision was we were to dress scandalously in the color of our ninja mask, and have a weapon in that color as well. I had been making a pink knife in school (receiving several funny looks) the week before. James had red ninja stars, Louise had yellow medicine, and a yellow heart monitor (she was a nurse). Terrina had a green futon beater, garden spade, and ice pick. Sean had the notorious Blue fist from bowling.

We had been posting on the message board about our costumes, trying to get the other trivia teams to come in costume as well. Most poo-pooed the idea. They gave us a lot of crap for it, saying that they "plan to be dressed in intelligence and didn't need a costume." Hah! So needless to say we were the only ones in costume. Claire joined us at the last minute, and acted as our manager. Our team was first called the Clue Sluts Clan, but realizing that it could be offensive to some people, we censored it to the Clue Sluts Ninjas. Whoops. At the pub quiz. Everyone was shocked/horrified at our get-ups. The quiz was tough and the questions were next to impossible. But surprisingly... we WON. This shocked everyone else as well, but we made sure to rub it in their faces, showing them exactly what "intelligence" dresses like. It was cash prizes and we each received just under $20 when it was split between the 6 of us. Nice! Although we did deserve it, to pay for our costumes.

The next morning was dress rehearsal again. We were all feeling rough from the night before. Louise insisted that she did not go to the dress rehearsal, and instead pretended to be an imaginary sea creature, a Trollop, wrapped up in her sleeping bag. (James makes us bring sleeping bags now when we visit his apartment because hes tired of doing wash for the bedding we use.) We managed to get her out of bed and head over to the rehearsal.

They were having a yard sale in the building we had practice in so Louise Chris and I went to see if there was anything we could use for the show. We found a carpet to cover the table where the boy is born from inside the peach, but there was nothing else worthwhile. Meanwhile Christine was inflating a rubber glove to its maximum capacity. The original intention was for her to blow it up until it burst, but as it got to enormous proportions, she was afraid popping it would injure her. So we tied it up instead. This was the first rehearsal where everyone was all at (pretty pathetic since it was the 2nd dress rehearsal) but we made due and it all came together.

After rehearsal Claire Louise James and I went to a really tasty Italian Restaurant. Unlike the chain Italian near James' house this was real tasty food with perfect proportions. While it was a bit expensive (not too expensive) it was just what the doctor ordered!

We went home exhausted. As usual. Another weekend wasted by getting up early and "working" all day. Sigh. Where is my free time?!

Pictures!!! (Warning, they contain very embarrassing/horrifying pictures of me... Please don't think less of me, it is costume...)

Edit

2008-03-05T23:23:00.001+09:00

photo sets added to last blog. :) check'em'out.

UNIVERSAL STUDIOS JAPAN and other trips

2008-02-27T08:27:00.006+09:00

Louise, James and I get on a bus in Tokushima city after first stopping by a coffee shop to snicker at an advertisement for "Valentines Day Bitter Coffee" and to say goodbye to Claire. Nothing can blot out our excitement! We are going to Universal Studios Japan!!!!

This trip was weeks in the planning. For a change, we had booked hotels, and organized it over a week in advance. Louise had memorized the USJ website and brought with her two maps, a route for the day, complete with which rides we're going on, which cafes, and approximate times that we should be at each one in order to maximize our experience. Very professional. Our plan was to buy the 7-ride express passes which allowed us to skip the line of seven of the major attractions. The relationship guidance dolphin came along too, and we snapped excited pictures, sang songs, and
basically were bursting out of our seats the whole bus ride, to the shock and perhaps dismay of the other people on the bus.

We arrived in Osaka at about 10:00 on Friday night. We quickly hopped in a subway bound for Namba (where our hotel was) and arrived not long before 10:30. We met my friend Take in Namba. Because Claire couldn't come with us on this trip, and I had reserved a room for four people and don't know how to make a cancellation in Japanese, we invited him to come along with us. After unloading our things in the hotel room, we were starving. "What do you want to eats" were met only with "something tasty." We couldn't decide. We stumbled upon a Japanese BBQ and decided we'd go with that. We ordered such a pile of meat it was indecent. They brought out dishes of raw beef, and lit the charcoal fire at our table. We ate and ate until we nearly exploded. Grilled meat, grilled meat put on a lettuce sandwich, Take even had raw "fish guts" which I tried, but can't say I liked. It looked and tasted like what you use to go deep sea fishing. The penalty that night was a bill of $40 a head. Whoops. After dinner we went out to Karaoke. They gave us TWO tambourines... but no microphones. We had to ring them up. Grr. We were sleepy from all the meat, and had a big day ahead of us so it was an early Karaoke night, despite the joys of two tambourines. (To understand our obsession with tambourines, please see THIS old Tim Curry clip from "The Worst Witch." 3:25 into it) At the hotel, shower then bed.

Up EARLY. Today was Universal Studios Japan!!!! There was going to be a water ride, JAWS, and it was cold these days, so I bundled up. Take and I both had on tights, which Louise thought hilarious, but we knew would keep us warmer than her, so laugh all she wanted, we felt no shame. We grabbed a Starbucks breakfast, and took the trains out toward USJ. Here's the kicker. It was snowing. It NEVER snows in Osaka, and the ONE DAY we decide to go to a theme park, it was snowing like a crazy-person. The trains were still packed with USJ bound people despite the weather. We hadn't bought tickets in advance. After one failed attempt at a Lawsons ticket machine, we thought we would get there early instead and buy them in the park.

As it turned out, we were running late, as usual. We got there before the park opened, but not before the line grew too long. To "cheat" Louise waited in the line to get in, and James Take and I waited in the purchasing line. Tickets to the park were near $50, and the line jumper passes were about that as well. The total came to about $100 per person. I thought it was a little steep at first. The line splitting worked like a charm and we were in the park in no time flat. Snow pouring down on us we head toward our first ride, the Hollywood Dream Roller coaster. CLOSED. Well, maybe its still early, or they're waiting for the weather to clear up a bit. Our second ride was E.T. We waved the passes we bought, and were escorted past the long line of guests to a smaller queue. There was even a water fountain, as I stooped to sip the VIP water while others looked on jealously! We had to give our names to the woman on the E.T. ride. We wondered why... The ride itself wasn't that thrilling. We certainly were glad we didn't wait hours to ride it. At the end, the animatronic E.T. calls out to each of us in Japanese. "Good bye Rob, Good bye Takeo, Good bye James, Good bye Louise..." That was funny. These line-jumping tickets were the best idea.

We skipped a huge number of people to visit the Terminator. (hahahaha) We were excited about the Terminator because on the character website we saw a woman named "Reika Ayanokoji" who looked (as you can see) completely normal. We amused ourselves joking that she was our favorite character mostly because we had no idea who she was. When we get in the ride there is a proscenium where a small intro is given to the show. And there she was, Reika Ayanokoji. Her speech was so dramatized. She fluctuated her tone more than the most emotional Anime characters, and she waved her arms and posed so dramatically. It was quite the show, and she was hilarious. She would continually shout "No Camera desu" ("no Camera" in combination English and Japanese). This was done after Louise managed a quick (tho not very good) snapshot of her. We fell in love with Reika Ayanokoji. When she asked where everyone was from, Take raised my hand for me, and she chose it. I said America and Louise said England and she became so excited. "Wow that's far!" in Japanese. After that, she snarkily commented "oh you're not as far as those people" when other people told where they were from. Instant celebrities we became for a passing second. The Terminator "ride"/show wasn't that exciting. Reika was the most exciting part. In the beginning of the actual show, she was killed. I turned off at that point. So mad. We decided that next Halloween, we are all dressing like Reika, and going to USJ.

After Terminator was Spiderman. Gallantly striding past masses of people tragically in line (we really think paying double for line cutting was the best idea we had that day) we were on the ride. It was by far the best ride so far and even took a picture of us! Woohoo. We went straight from Spiderman to Back to the Future. It was there, in the back to the future line, that we had to WAIT?! What is this!! Outrage all over the place. True we did have line jumping passes, and true we did skip most of the line, but the thought of waiting 10 minutes was simply out of the question! This ride was mediocre and not worth the wait. I could imagine how angry we would have felt if we didn't have the line jumping passes and had to wait 70 minutes to ride it. We couldn't decipher the Japanese version of "Great Scott!" but we were able to write our names in the snow on the Back to the Future car outside the park ride! Then it was lunch time. We were not only freezing but also hungry.

We wanted to to go the English Pub inside the park for lunch. The advertisement boasted "An Authentic English Pub, just like you would find in New York." Which just tickled Louise and James. Why not Authentic like you would find in England... No one knows. The line was too long, so we went to a New York style Pizza restaurant. It was PACKED. You had to hover over peoples tables we were on the verge of finishing, and snatch up their table the second they left before anyone else did. What a challenge. The pizza was good. Not AS good as in New York, but better than I'd had in Japan to date. We were starved so I had half a full pie, a portion of cream tomato pasta, minestrone soup, a rice croquet, and a giant beer. It was warmer in the restaurant, but not by much. The general theme of the park was FREEZING. We left and headed out for our remaining rides. Tragically, on the way to Jurassic Park, we found that it was CLOSED. We asked the man at the locked gate and he informed us that due to snow, Jurassic Park, JAWS, and the Hollywood Dream Coaster were shut for the day. We informed him that we had bought a 7 ticket passbook and asked if we could be refunded for the rides we couldn't use. He told us we couldn't, but that we could use them at rides we had already been on, for a second go.

The Hollywood Dream coupon had the option of seeing one of the two 4D movies, Shrek and Sesame Street. We went to the center of the park by the movie theater, and after snapping some pictures with the people in costumes, we were delighted to see that we hadn't missed Sesame Street. (They run Sesame Street in the morning and Shrek in the evening). We went into the theater. For a while we were discussing the Count. What does he say in Japanese?! The Japanese word for hah hah hah (like the count says) is technically "fu fu fu." We were anticipating that the count would count in Japanese (complete with appropriate counting suffixes for whatever object he was counting: like animals 'ippiki' 'nihikki' 'sanbikki' ; or pencils 'ippon' 'nihon' 'sanbon') followed by "fu fu fu." We were half right. The counting was in Japanese, but the hah hah hah was identical. Oh well, you win some you lose some. We left the theater showing of the last Sesame Street, and after looping around the costumed characters for more pictures, went straight back into the 4D theater for Shrek. The movies themselves were nothing special. We couldn't really understand the content, but the 4D theater was interesting in that it sprayed water on you when a character on the screen was using water, or when an army of mice was escaping the screen, they would have some kind of air hose whipping air at your feet to feel like something was crawling past them. The seats were hydraulic too, so they would jerk and shake, raise and lower as the movie demanded.

With one more ticket left that we couldn't use on JAWS or Jurassic Park, we decided to redo Spiderman. This time Louise and James came prepared with hats. Louise had an Oscar the Grouch hat, and James had a rather puffy Spiderman hat. We were going to pose for the picture at the end, do things right, and since we didn't have to wait on the line, we were on the ride in no time. After Spiderman, we wandered around some shops and even stopped in the Pink Cafe. This was the last cafe on or list of things to do. The website boasted that everything in the establishment was pink, from the decoration to the food. We were skeptical. While it was true that the restaurant also had white, black, and scattered other colors, on the whole, it was overwhelmingly pink. The coffee wasn't pink, I had asked, and shot them a disappointed look when they said it wasn't. There was pink cupcakes, pink ice cream, and even pink beer. The spoons were pink, napkins pink, and lighting pink. I'm surprised people could actually eat there because we were feeling rather sick. We leave the park around 5. An hour earlier than expected, but as it was freezing and snowing, we thought it was acceptable.

Exhausted, and frozen to the core, we head back to the hotel. We had a dinner reservation in Shinsaibashi at 7:30 at a Mexican food restaurant, but Louise wanted to make a stop along the way. Just outside Namba, in Shinsaibashi is a side of town I'd never seen before. It was madness, the streets were filled with strange clothing shop, angsty teenagers, and all accessories appropriate for angsty teenagers. Louise was looking for Smart Freaks Piercing parlor. We found it and with minutes to spare, she decided and communicated that she would like to get a piercing. We made sure she was fine, and that everything was communicated, and then Take and I headed to the restaurant to make sure we had the reservation. The piercing would put is 30 minutes late to the restaurant, so we wanted to have someone there so they couldn't give our table away. Once we got there, I headed back to the shop (Louise James and I didn't know how to get there, so I was acting as a shuttle having learned once how to get there from following Take) and after Louise was done with her risque piercing (which she named Johanna) we went to the restaurant and met Take.

It was a small place but warm. A man was playing guitar and singing English slow-rock songs really well. The walls were scribbled with graffiti. Most related to poo or pee in some kind of way. There was "Poo Wee" on the picture frame behind us, "bum" scribbled on a picture of a dog, and "I love poo" scrawled on the coat rack. We ordered our burritos and enchiladas and fajitas and thoroughly enjoyed them, taking a few Oscar the Grouch pictures, or any other randomnesses along the way. It was a delicious restaurant and I'd love to go back. After dinner, Louise wanted to go to a bar she'd never been to before. The plan was to go to Barfly and say goodbye to my friend Tora because he was leaving for Canada, but we put that on pause and walked into a bar for a couple of drinks. It was there we discovered that Take's lighter had a light on it that projected a tiny color picture. This picture (and we debated this at length) was either a chicken in a sheep costume, or a sheep wearing a chicken mask.

After leaving there, Louise and James wanted to play some Mario Cart and Taiko Drumming at an arcade. I went with Take to another bar for a drink and to meet some of his friends. After a drink there, we reunited with Louise and James at Barfly. It was nice to see my friends Tora and Hokuto (the bar mama), as well as people I recognized like Hitomi. It had been a couple of months since I had been out in Osaka and it felt like a reunion for me. Especially since I had been going to Barfly randomly 7 times during the end of December and January. Exhausted, (Louise even asleep) we bid everyone adieu and headed back to the hotel. I hope Tora enjoys his stay in Canada. Showers would wait until the morning and we went straight to bed.

The next morning we wake up early-ish and head out for a Choco-cro breakfast. After that we did some searching for an MP3 Player for Louise, and some fur for the musical. Uneventful in all departments, we head for Kyoto by train. Our Sunday night stay was at a Kyoto youth hostel. When we got to Kyoto, after all the buses and trains, we were exhausted. Not to mention that our weekend had already been jam packed with adventure. We check into the hostel--"Kyoto's Cheapest Inn"--and select a bed amongst the 18 or so bunk beds packed into the room. How interesting! Then its off to eat something quick at a meat-bowl place. Our plan was to see the Monkeys at Monkey Park. I had gone with my parents and sister, and Louise and James had wanted to see them. But we were too tired. It would mean more buses, more time, and worse, climbing a mountain. No thank you.

We decide instead to visit Nijojo (castle). Louise and James made a mock documentary destroying ALL facts in retelling the history and significance of this castle (see here). Something that you wont find in their documentary, that I learned, was that the floors were specially designed with nails that rub against each other, to make a chirping sound when weight was put on it. Each step you took inside the castle was a choir of squeaks, and it was not because of the age of the floor, but instead completely intentional. The shogun or whomever owns a castle, designed this floor so he could hear when his enemies were walking about inside the castle. It was muddy and a bit on the cold side, but the surroundings and the castle itself were beautiful! After having some coffee and snacks at the castle, we headed back to the hotel for a quick nap.

At 7pm we awoke. Groggy but refreshed. Then it was off to an area outside of Gion for dinner. We ended up walking into this cute restaurant with sectioned off rooms for each guest. The menu was a la carte and we ordered a mass of food and shared it between us all. James was not fond of the meat in a gelatin similar to the kind you see on a patê. But we liked it, and everything else was great. Well, almost everything. They had a special "build your own drinks" section of the Chu-hi. I had made Louise get the tomato one, and I got a pear flavored one. As it turned out, the tomato one which we thought was going to be disgusting turned out not quite so bad, and the pear one was HORRIBLE. What a turn of events. After making an origami E.T., a phantom of the opera mask, and sicking our Purikura picture in the dessert menu, it was time to leave. I took Take to the train station so he could get a train home then I met up with Louise and James in Ponto-cho. A street I had never heard about where supposedly all the Geisha were.

The sign on the street said that it was a popular gay district in old-timey Japan but we had been told that this was just to keep tourists off it as it hid the illustrious Geisha. While I was gone, Louise and James saw a geisha at a convenience store (just my luck) but when I got back we continued the search, referring to them as ghosts, so as not to say the word Geisha and blow our cover sneakily searching for them. After a while, all we had come across was a really old geisha. I still haven't seen one with all the makeup *sadness*. We walked into a Jazz bar but immediately left when the woman told us there was a $15 dollar cover and 20% tip added to the bill automatically. We ended up going to a shot bar instead and getting a few drinks. There we wrestles with a Rubik's cube and some kind of block puzzle for a while, played with a stuffed ghost, before we decided that it was boring there and we wanted excitement!

We wandered the streets of Kyoto for over an hour. Nothing looked riotous. Nothing looked fantastic. After more wandering about we just decided, screw it, we were going to Karaoke. We get 2 hours nomi-houdai (all you can drink) and head up to the booth. In the tradition of Nomi-houdai Louise throws two drinks at me, and I ring up asking for the usual two drinks per person. At this place however, they had a policy where they would only give one at a time to each person. This enraged us. Because we were smug and wanted to teach them a lesson, we instead chugged out drinks as soon as they brought them to us, and the minute they walked out the door, we ordered another one. If they weren't going to bring us two at a time, we were going to pester them every five minutes. We aren't sure if we taught them a lesson or not, but we did get very drunk.

We took a taxi back to our youth hostel and quietly climbed into bed so as not to disturb the other 15 people sleeping in the room. We closed the curtains on our beds, hid our valuables, and passed out. Checkout the next morning was at noon, so we woke at 11, got ready and out the door by noon. A quick stop at a convenience store fed us breakfast, and we grabbed the train back to Osaka. At Osaka James decided to get pierced as well. We went back to the piercing place and he got his nipple done. I sort of wanted to get one as well, and Louise was certainly egging me on, but I wasn't certain about where I wanted to get it, so I passed this time. We shopped for a big, buying things like fur and hats for the musical, and then raced from Shinsaibashi to Umeda in order to board our trains back to Tokushima. What a long, but FUN three day weekend!

The next weekend was musical rehearsal on Saturday where in we spent the whole day learning the dance I was making. Which means I was the only one who did not get a break. I was beat, but after rehearsal, I drove to Tokushima city and got on a ferry for Wakayama. I went to visit Take and see a bit of Wakayama. The ferry was SO cool!

You get on the ferry and find a space on the carpeted floor. There are no chairs, no seats, you sit, or sleep on the floor wherever theres space. The whole trip is exactly two hours and they have food and drinks and "pillows" (padded blocks). I went up outside to check it out. It was freezing February weather, but looking over the edge of the boat was exciting. And it was nice to see my Tokushima drifting off by boat in the distance. I napped a bit, but mostly wandered about the boat, thrilled.

In Wakayama we had a relaxing weekend. After the one before in Osaka and USJ we decided that this one should be quiet. We watched a movie, "No Reservations" which was pretty good. Went to a really amazing restaurant with fantastic food, and did some Karaoke. Nothing too crazy or eventful. Just sort of a way to get my energy back from so much rehearsal and travel, and get out of the house at the same time.

PICTURES!!!!
USJ Osaka and Kyoto
Ferry

Scotland London Dolphins and Barbers not to mention Rehearsal Rehearsal Rehearsal

2008-02-12T09:57:00.001+09:00

Two weeks of things, long overdue (I'm sorry) condensed into one...

Friday January 25th.
My friend Take from Wakayama was coming to visit me so I head over to the ferry. On the way I meet James and we get haircuts and get something to eat. I pick Take up at 9:30 at the ferry port and start the drive out west to Louise. She has made a version of the board game "Clue" titled "Barry White's Mansion of Love." Staring folks like Dolly Parton, Ghandi, and Snowflake the Albino Gorilla. I feel bad for getting there so late.

In the car, talking to Take at a red light, I accidentally let my foot off the brake and slowly crash into the car in front of me. My car got a slight dent and nothing happened to the other guy's car except a bit of a rip on the cloth spare tire cover (he had like a Jeep type thing). We offered to pay for the tire cover, but he insists we go to the police. Late arrival to Louise's becomes even later as we have to deal with police, and calling my vice principal at 11pm. Ugh what a mess. The good news is in hindsight that insurance covers it all, and the mechanic is even going to change my tires and oil for free while its in for repairs... :)

We get to Louise's a bit after 12, and no one else is there. So much for the Clue party. :( But I guess its only fair since I got there so late. We watch some videos for a little bit, have some wine, then go to bed. Rehearsal is out near her house the following morning, so we wake up, grab a Lawson's breakfast, and head over. Of course, we're the first ones there, as usual.

Rehearsal starts at 9:00. And we made a rule whoever came past 9:30 couldn't come to the party later that night. Well almost everyone came after 9:30... tisk tisk tisk. And rehearsal was freezing. FREEZING. We took a drive to a highway stop for lunch and then back to rehearsal. After a long rehearsal I was beat. We go shopping for some food to bring to the potluck that night.

Saturday night was Burns Supper. A night en homage to the Scottish poet, Robert Burns (think Auld Lang Syne). It was at the Highway Oasis, a highway stop containing cabins and an onsen (hot bath) near Louise's house. Louise and a bunch of ladies stayed to take a hot bath, but Take and I were tired so we went to Louise's house to take a nap before the party.

At 6:30 we make it to the party. A food extravaganza. Everything from fried croquets to gyoza to pasta salad to mulled wine, and even haggis. Yes thats right, nasty lumpy intestine-y haggis. Chris Pickles had smuggled some into the country when he visited home (England) over break. Many people read poems, sang songs, ate food, and drank. The night was a joyous occasion for all complete with a group singing of Auld Lang Syne. People retired to various cabins at various hours of the night. In the morning I went to get some breakfast, took a shower, and it was time to leave the cabins. Rehearsal was in Naruto on Sunday (3 hours away) and had started at 9. Unfortunately We woke up at 10, and had left by 11. Andrew was the only one at the rehearsal at 9, and we all felt so bad getting there around 1pm... I dropped Take off at the ferry port on my way to Sunday's rehearsal, and made it there about 1:30.

All during rehearsal I sewed costumes while others built props. We didn't rehearse anything that day because a large part of the group was horribly hungover. I had stopped drinking at 10pm and went to bed early, so I was fine. :-D

After a long long rehearsal, (or really prop making session) it was time to take the 2.5 hour drive home. I packed up my car and headed home. What a long weekend, and what an empty tank of gas. 3 hours west, 3 hours north, and 3 hours south to home. 9 hours driving in 3 days. Lovely.

February First. A new month, and a new weekend!

Sweeny Todd is playing at the only theater in Tokushima. And it's the first of the month. And its a Friday! Off we go to the movies! I fetch Louise and James and drive up to the theater. Our film is at 8:40 and buses stop at 9, so I need to drive there to avoid getting an expensive taxi home. We get there early and decide to hit a Chinese food chain restaurant. So begins the photo journey. Louise snaps into silly picture mode which lasts until we get Purikura taken at the arcade nearby. When we get to the movies we are surprised (and James and Louise delighted) to find that at theaters in Japan, they offer popcorn and beer sets. Drinking in the movies... hmm. I'm driving so I cannot enjoy, but first of the month means half-priced tickets, so I enjoy some ice cream instead.

The first half of Sweeny Todd is great. The musical numbers are addicting and the cast makes us happy (Johnny Depp and Alan Rickman). But once the blood comes, I get sick. The premise is that Johhnny Depp is a barber that comes back from prison and asserts his revenge on anyone in his way, killing them. Halfway through the film, I have to leave. Mostly because I am a wuss, and I couldn't take the sight of all the fake blood. I wait outside for James and Louise, poking my head in every so often, seeing blood, and running out again. When the movie is finally over, they come get me, and properly make fun of me for being such a wimp. We leave the theater and go to the arcade for some photos. To our delight the photo booth is playing E-Rotic "Willy use a Billy." How odd.

On the way back from the theater, Louise pulls out a hand-puppet dolphin. This is the relationship guidance dolphin. Back when we went to Tokyo, if you'll remember, we had an impromptu relationship guidance session, using our hands as puppets. You can view the story in my previous Tokyo post. Well over the months, somehow this entity turned into a dolphin, and when Louise saw a hand puppet dolphin in the 100 yen store, she snatched it up immediately! The dolphin proceeded to give us advice about our lives and relationships as we drove home. We then went out to Cassanovas for some drinks (since I couldn't drink at the theater) and enjoyed some Karaoke. When we returned back to James' house, the dolphin came out again.

During the movie, Sweeny Todd, Alan Rickman (Severus Snape for those who would recognize him from Harry Potter Movies) says these lines which resulted in HILARIOUS laughter from the three of us, much to the confusion of the Japanese patrons...
"You gandered at my ward, Johanna. You, GANDERED, at her.... YES. Sir! You GANDERED!"
Laughter obviously came from the word "gander." We stumble upon a YouTube clip of Alan Rickman saying those lines. We then use our phone (sorry for the blurryness) to record this clip of the Relationship Guidance Dolphin "mouthing" the words of Alan.
Yes. Only moments before YouTube stardom finds its way to us! :P

The next morning we head to rehearsal in the city. We hop a bus, grab some Mister Donuts, and get to rehearsal... earlier than anyone else. How typical. This time however everyone was exceptionally late. So much so that we had to write "late late late" a hundred times on the chalkboard and stand it by the door to instill shame in those coming in late. Well, we didn't HAVE to, but we wanted to. I sewed more. The did some scenes. We went on a fabric adventure. All that great stuff. Lunch at Indian Curry.

Afterward, Louise had to run to Takamatsu to see some friends, and James and I went to Bar Aqua. Unfortunately we were early and it hadn't opened yet, so we went instead to Bell's Bar. I had only been to Bells once before and it seemed huge and spacious. But its even more cavernous when no one is in there. We chatted quietly with the bartenders, and then the woman who owned the bar invited us to play Wii Fit. (Wii is a nintendo game where theres wireless controls, and Wii Fit, you stand on a weight detecting device and play using your whole body.) I was incredible at hula hooping. I'm shocked the video game was able to realize where I was spinning my hips. It reads the weight distribution and as you swivel your hips, the hula hoop on the screen spins around you. I was lousy at soccer and skiing tho. After that we had a round of Wii Bowling. James and I and the bar owner. She kicked our asses, but I came in second place! Not too bad.

We left and went back to Bar Aqua and enjoyed some karaoke and drinking until wee hours of the morning. I was trying to help James get a date, and he had great success. Hooray. We woke up a bit late for rehearsal the next day, but to be honest, with all the times we were early, we deserve to be late once. I drive down to Anan, getting some drive thru Mos burger on the way. (This was my first Japanese Drive Thru... how exciting!) And at rehearsal, guess what I did? I sewed. Sewed and danced. We had lunch at a fast food beef and rice bowl place and then went back and worked on the show some more. The lucky bit about this week was that Anan is only 40 minutes away from my town. So after rehearsal I didn't have to drive 2-3 hours to go home, and I made it in reasonable time.

These musical weekends are killing me...

PICTURES!!!!!
Musical Mischief and Burns Supper
Sweeny Todd and the Relationship Guidance Dolphin

Two Photo Albums

2008-01-25T15:13:00.000+09:00

Finally put up the pictures for Musical Mayhem 1 and 2...

Sorry for the wait. Check them out by clicking the link in that post, or here...
1...
2...

:)

Flashes of Boredom and Excitement

2008-01-21T13:44:00.000+09:00

Three-day weekend earlier means no work on Monday. JET Mid-year meeting on Thursday and Friday mean no work on those days either. The result is a 2-day workweek...with a grand total of one class during those two days. Pretty sweet.

But far from it. On Thursday, I had to wake up at 6am rather than the usual 7:50 in order to make it to the meeting on time. The education center was about 3 hours away from me, and I had to pick up James on the way. So to get there by 9:30, I should have left by 6:30. I left at 7:10. Whoops. I was speeding like a madman though, overtaking everyone in sight in order to get to James' house. Once there, I had made decent time, so little need for speeding but no time for dawdling. Thy asked us to bring lunch, but stopping to buy lunch was out of the question. Luckily my Vice Principal printed me out several maps including the troublesome spots, so finding the place was no problem and we got there at 9:45 on the nose (the latest you could arrive without being late). Sweet deal.

These conferences are generally a waste of time, and this one was no exception. The positive side was that both the JTEs (Japanese Teacher of English) of Louise and I couldn't make it to these meetings, so we had no one of "authority." Looking over us. We sat together instead of with a JTE and just made fun of the whole thing, writing silly stories and jokes on the papers. Since we couldn't bring lunch, we decided to sneak out during lunchtime and go to a restaurant. This turned out to be a fantastic idea and we decided it would be on tomorrow's agenda as well. After lunch we had to get back into groups and sit in boring example lessons. The whole thing just drained you, and left you wondering "Is it better to be away from work, and here beating your head against the wall, or vice versa?"

After boring boring lecture town, we got in my car and headed toward Terrina's house. She lived pretty close to the center so it would be a good idea to stay there instead of driving in the AM. Something fun was definitely called for. We loaded in her car and went out to the bank and the dollar store (to search for musical props and costumes). We found a set of Luchador wrestling masks/power ranger masks and each bought one. Terrina was Gentle Green, Sean was Narcissistic Blue, I was Glamorous Pink, and Louise was Jocular Yellow! (These were written on the package and were in no way invented by us...) Back in the car we headed for Italian. It was a special all you can eat salad/appetizer bar with either a pasta or pizza entrée for about $20. This includes dessert of course. The buffet part was great. Our pizza and pasta however were not so much. Pasta was Bacon and Cabbage in a Tomato Cream sauce... Too Eastern European tasting for me... and the pizza was Corn and Tuna Salad pizza. loaded with onions and mayo... Dessert was ice cream and flan.

After dinner we decided to go bowling, wearing our new masks. First, however, we went to a discount alcohol shop and bought stuff to drink. Upon my encouragement, (because I thought it would have been funny) Terrina parked diagonally taking up three parking spaces outside a liquor shop. It was pretty funny. Sean and Louise bought a brand of sake called "Oni Killer" or "Demon Killer" which tasted horrible but was OK for the novelty. We went back to Terrina's and played cards for a while as we drank. Then we took a taxi to bowling. Much to the delight/confusion/horror (we're not sure exactly) of the many Japanese people there, we bowled wearing our garish masks. I even had Christmas tinsel around me to really enforce the glamorousness of glamorous pink. They put us in a lane next to a group of old ladies who quickly left. :( But were replaced by 19 year old boys who were eager to try on our costumes and have fun with us. We bowled in half real style, half handicapped style. Handicapped means no accounting for actual skill. The difficulty lies in meeting the challenge. For example, we had such rounds as "Flinstones Bowling" where you had to approach the lane like Fred Flinstone. "Turn and Bowl" where you had to spin up to the line and then bowl. “Animal bowling” where the approach was in the style of an animal of your choice, etc.

Hilarity ensued when Terrina's ball got stuck in her fingers and stayed there as she swung up.. looking as if she was going to toss it over her head. But the funniest moment of the night was during the Turn and Bowl. A man was next to us, in full bowling gear including a glove, by himself bowling strike after strike in two lanes. He looked serious. During turn and bowl though, Terrina gave him quite the scare of his lifetime. She started turning and went diagonally, landing RIGHT in front of one of his lanes. She of course didn’t realize this and took aim. Time froze still as we were calling out "Terrina NO!!!" as his face froze in the horror of her ruining his perfect games, and Terrina swinging back to release the ball. By some grace of heavenly being, she realized that we were shouting at her and stopped just in time. Heart stopping thrill moment and one of the funniest of my life. I lost miserably in the second bowling round but kicked but in the second round (122... kind of pathetic). After bowling we all got into a mini-picture studio and got more Purikura taken.

God of fortune was shining on us that night because as it turned out there was karaoke in the same building as bowling. They didn’t serve alcohol but suggested we get some from the convenience store if we wanted and bring it in. Also since we had bowled already, they gave us two hours for the price of one in Karaoke. Sweet x2. The crappy bit was we had work at 9:30am the next day and we were out till 3am. We called a taxi at 2:30. The guy didn’t know where he was going and drove the wrong way for a while, doubling our fare. But Louise took revenge by taking a picture in the car, probably blinding him with her flash. Asleep by three, awake by 8:30. No fun.

No fun indeed. We woke up, grabbed McDonald's for breakfast and headed off. This time, despite being a whole lot closer, we arrived a bit later. But the lectures were just as boring. After lunch we arrived back for another lecture that was interactive. Not boring, per say, but nothing interesting. The same old crap, all day long. Enough of this!!!

Finally the two days of seminar were over. We had to head to someone’s house before returning home to check out his closet full of props costumes and things from previous year's musical. After I loaded up my car with both things I wanted and things we needed for our show, we headed home. This time Chris, Janet, and Louise were in my car. It was getting late and we were tired and hungry. we dropped Chris off in the city and Janet Louise and I went to Karaoke Mos Burger down by me. We were all very tired so the energy wasn't up, but it was nice to have the instrumental "Tea for Two" playing while we were being served our food. To take a break from killing ourselves, we went right from Mos Burger to my apartment and quietly watched a movie, staying in all night. The next morning we had musical rehearsal in Anan (by me). We got up late and arrived late, but everyone else arrived later (as usual). After lugging millions of props into the meeting hall, (Pausing to put on the giant horse head and get chased by Louise with a toy rifle, of course), we got around to actually rehearsing. It was productive. A lot of costume was thought about. 1.5 of the dances were made. Scenes were solidified. Great job.

That night I had to take Louise to the train station to go to Takamatsu. She had plans to see some friends out there since she wasn’t going to be around for a while. I went with James instead to dinner, and a bar. The crappy part of the bar was that I was sitting next to a Japanese guy who was drunk off his ass and thought it was funny to keep hitting me on the head... I would have punched him if I wasn’t a symbol of friendly foreign relations as well as a community figure looked upon with much scrutiny (a teacher). So instead an endless barrage of bludgeons to the head compounded my following morning’s hangover. Thanks a lot jerk. Lucky (sarcasm) we had musical practice the following morning in the city.

Everyone's late. What else is new? But when they get there, I begin the big dance number (to the music for Footloose). Despite my feeling like hell, it comes together really well and makes for another productive day. Louise comes in really late, but is excused as she was out shopping for costume goods. We have delicious curry for lunch and all is good. After the musical meeting, James Louise and I go to an actual Italian restaurant for dinner, then our separate ways back home.

PICTURES!!!

Musical Mayhem

2008-01-15T14:36:00.000+09:00

Hooray!! A three day weekend is coming... wait... never mind. There's musical rehearsal all three of those days. Friday night I'm feeling spry so I accept Stacie's invitation to come to a Salsa dance class with her and Theo. We get there a bit late and miss half the class, but it was still a lot of fun. The teacher teaches Salsa Mambo style, and I'm not entirely sure I trust him as a teacher, but the class was fun anyway. (I don't trust him because he couldn't tell me where one feels salsa inside them, even after I gave an example of where one feels flamenco...) They have the ladies of the class circle through the entire room. You begin with a partner, and after practicing the step once, you change partners, again and again until you've danced with every lady in the room. It was great fun and I'd love to come back and do it when I have another free Friday evening. I went out for a bit after that, and then stopped by James house. Tomorrow morning would be the first musical meeting, and it was going to be an early one...

I was woken up to James throwing things at my face. Apparently he doesn't like to shake people awake so he chose to throw articles of my clothing at me instead. :P To be fair, I was sleeping far too long and we had to leave. Kamojima (where the first rehearsal was) was about an hour away from Tokushima city (in the Westerly direction) and we had allotted 45 minutes for it. We were a touch late. We would have been later if we hadn't gotten a call from Louise saying she was lost and walking. As it turned out, even tho she was the lost one, she was on the correct street and we were driving on the wrong one, and her calling us alerted us to this. Despite being a touch late, we were among the first ones there. Everyone else filtered in whenever they felt like it, in the following 2 hours. Poor Janet never made it because she was lost, called for help, and her phone died before she could get any answers.

Finally we begin rehearsal. And shortly after beginning, its lunch break. Not very strict or rigid, this practice schedule is... One hour for lunch. We get in the car and drive looking for restaurants. Nothing... nothing.... nothing..... for miles. Finally we see a measly little ramen shop (we had passed several others, but they didn't strike our fancy) and we thought "we've been driving for too long.... its this or nothing..." so we go in, and order from a menu that we cant understand. Louise got a red-something, I got a red-somethingelse, and James got what I had, but the not-red version. Red versions were spicy! Who would have guessed. It made my lips numb but was tasty nonetheless. We got back 10 minutes late.. Oops. And again, we were one of the first people there. It wasn't for another half hour or so that people started to show up. We started assigning characters, blocking etc. A semi productive day; Louise James and I went to Bulldog (costume/strange goods shop) and the 100-yen shop immediately afterwards to see if we would be inspired for costumes and props.

On the route home, we decide on Skylark GUSTO for dinner. James wanted a steak and to see if Skylark GUSTO was the same as just plain Skylark we saw in Kobe. It was. I got a pasta with meat sauce and a side of a creamy seafood gratin. Louise had a 4 course meal for some reason with soup, salad, bread, and gratin. James had his steak. The bread knives looked like flat spoons rather than knives...

Back in the car and off to James'. On the menu for that night was Shidax Karaoke! Shidax is a karaoke chain where you rent a room and a drink menu for an amount of time, and the rest is up to you! We bought a room for 2 hours, with unlimited cocktails. roughly $32.00 per person. The game we play in Shidax is a reasonable one in theory, but completely unreasonable in practice--its called 'get your money's worth.' At about $5/$6 a drink. One would have to have 6 or 7 drinks during those two hours to about break even (as if you had gone to a regular bar with free karaoke). We each had 8, which meant ordering 6 drinks at a time, and when we emptied one, with another one waiting for us, we would place an order for more. Singing was the same. We had two hours so there was no time to waste with choosing songs. Bang them out, one after the other. Shidax brings out the most debauched in people (and sometimes the worst).

After Shidax we decided to go for a walk. We were all completely far from sober. For no reason we stumbled down this back street, and that alley, and that corner until we weren't quite sure where we are. It was at that point that we found a rather interestingly named bar, "Barscapers." Louise and I had fond memories about shoving ourselves into a bar we don't know (back in the Turibilly Bops days) so we went ahead and repeated it. It was a real posh bar and they sat us in some corner by ourselves. The kind of bar where people show up with a pressed white shirt and ladies have thin dark colored dresses, and they're all drinking something from a class that's not in standard cylindrical glass shape (eg a martini glass, or a champagne flute). James takes a glance at the menu and sees "Famous Grouse" and recognises it as a Scottish Whiskey. Louise then demands that I order three "Famous Grice" as she is certain that Grice is the plural of Grouse. We were so caught up in the novelty of the word Grouse that we forgot, after 8 cocktails, straight Scotch Whiskey on the rocks is not a good idea. So we sipped it slowly for an hour or two and left after only one drink. "On the rocks" was also interesting here, as the bar master would chisel a piece of ice in his hand until it was i a near-perfect sphere shape. Then that one ball of ice would be inside your glass. We played games spinning it and trying to fit it inside our mouths. We noticed a young couple outside dancing, so we made some dancing gestures at them through the window, and they responded, but when they walked through the door, they pretended like we weren't even there.

Getting home around 1 or so, even after stopping at a convenience store for some buns, Louise and I decide we're hungry again. There's a man outside James' apartment building who runs a shady little ramen stand out of the back of his truck, so we go order two ramens. James doesn't want any and just goes to bed. We ponder the just-right amount of filth on the eating-room tent walls, and the pepper shaker as we enjoy our midnight, shady ramen. When we get inside, James is asleep. Louise then proceeds to alienate herself from many a Facebook friend, first trying to piss off her boyfriend, then having a laugh at Ingrid, a local bar owner, then finally responding to news of her friend getting hit by a car, breaking his collar bone, rib, and toe a little like this "Haha! that's the funniest thing I've ever heard...." We then proceeded to talk to one of James' friends who messaged us on the computer thinking we were James. (We were on his account). The following morning our conversation was revealed to us, with great embarrassment, as James logs all his conversations.

Quick Mos Burger breakfast and then off to another Musical meeting in the AM. This time we had props, including a 6 foot pole to carry there. Luckily the cab driver didn't put up any kind of stink about it. We get to rehearsal perfectly on time and to our not-so-surprise, every one's late. When people do get there we rehearse till lunch. Then since we're in the city this time and not a small town, we are given a 30 minute lunch. James Louise and I run around observing all the closed stores and not being able to find a single restaurant. Finally we go to a convenience store, grab some junk and get back. On time. The others haven't arrived tho. Even the director. 30 minutes had turned into a 90 minute lunch, as FINALLY the rest of the cast stumbles in. Rehearsal till 5, then time to go.

We stop at Coco Curry after rehearsal, then take a bus home to James' house where I take a shower and everyone else collapses into a nap. I follow suit after my shower and we wake up before 9pm. We watch a little "Pushing Up Daisies" which is a new series I just think is GREAT, then a little Family guy. Its far too cold to do anything outside so indoors we stay. That is to say until I get an uncontrollable urge for pie. James has an Italian restaurant by his house that is open till 11, and I try to convince everyone to come with me but they are stayed put. Finally I just bundle up and go outside to bring carry-home dessert. No pie but tasty cakes. I make tea and serve the cakes.

After dessert, we played a game of Clue. James had the board game sent to him from home. In the UK tho it is called Cluedo. Instead of Mr. Green its Reverend Green. Instead of Wrench its a Spanner. Instead of Knife its a Dagger. Rubbish. I suppose its better than the Japanese version which includes such terrifying weapons as "briefcase" and "shoes." Our rules for the game of Cluedo were not so simple. In order to make a suggestion you had to propose an entire scenario. Giving a story as to why the certain character found themselves in that particular room, how they came about holding the said weapon, and how they managed to (either accidentally or purposefully) commit the murder.

As it turned out, the murder was committed by Colonel Mustard. After having a chat with Mrs. White (who had earlier gone delusional in the game) he was informed that she just had transformed back into a woman after being the teapot from Beauty and the Beast, and that the Ballroom was being taken over by Lumiere and his dancing dishes. Armed with a spanner, he went to the ballroom; it was unfortunate, however, that Dr. Black was wandering about in the darkness as well, carrying a candlestick for light. Colonel Mustard mistook the now-dead doctor for Lumiere after hearing Mrs. White's far-fetched lunatic ramblings and smashed the poor man to death with his spanner.

Early to bed, Musical (again.....) in the morning.
We were a bit late, but still earlier than everyone else. Trend? But today was very productive. We got a lot done and even were able to end early!!! I drove Louise to the station, and James back home, then I drove back to Hiwasa. Craziness...

PICTURES!!!

~~~~Winter Break~~~~

2008-01-07T11:14:00.000+09:00

This is a long one. Apologies in advance, but it does cover like 12 days of activity. :)
Aah! This the 12 days of Christmas post. Everyone loves that song, despite it being so long. So you will love this post despite it being so long!!

Family’s Coming to Osaka

Thursday night, Louise and I head out to Osaka. My parents are due in Thursday and I decide it would be fun to get there ahead of time and tramp about town. One of the first things that we did when we got there was take a subway to Namba and hit the town. A bit hungry, we find a restaurant called “Surprised Donkey.” It looks themed and we love themed restaurants, so Louise looks at the menu on the outside. “This has a wide variety of food, lets go,” she says. In actuality she only saw a burger and a plate of spaghetti so she assumed there was a wide variety, instead the restaurant just had several types of bun-less burgers, and pretty much nothing else. We get colas (possibly the largest colas I’ve ever seen) shared some fries, and got cheeseburgers with curry. Large size of course, we were feeling hungry. After the waitress left, we called her over because we spotted “Organic Surprised Donkey Beer.” “Instead of the cola?” No you silly woman, in ADDITION to… As it turned out, the beers were even larger than the colas. HUGE flagons of beer. Drunk by 1:30pm and full to the top from greasy burgers, we hit the streets.

We spend the day shopping and searching for various Robot-oriented objects. (Louise is in the process of “pimping” her boyfriend’s toilet in the theme of Robots. We found some silvery security camera signs and even a life sized glossy silver plastic head—the kind you use doe displays in stores.) We bought funny hats and fake moustaches. My hat was a leopard print fur hat; Louise’s was a dapper looking hat with a badge reading “Slightly Stupid Department” sewn to it. After parading our hats and moustaches around town, getting strange looks from strangers and laughs from the people we asked for directions, we stumble first into a Purikura machine (of course) and then into a conveniently located moustache friendly bar called “Beard.” The cartoon man on the outside sign looked convincingly similar to us in our false facial hair, so we entered, ordered drinks, and basked in the moustachness of the scene.

Off to find a hotel. Louise and my philosophy on travel within cities is as follows. Arrive with no plans, get drunk, and THEN try to find a hotel. Nothing could ever go wrong when you’re drunk. And to this date, it has worked every time. I remembered the place I stayed in the first time I was in Osaka, and we headed there. There was a room, despite the online hotel booking site claiming that there was NOTHING due to the holiday season. Eat it Rakuten travel. In ADDITION to it being a room for the night, it only cost us $30 a person. Half what the online hotel reservations would charge. The room was huge—no windows, but a beautiful picturesque view painted on the wall in the image of a window, with glass over it for an added convincing touch. The only catch we can gather (unless there were perverted cameras everywhere) was that the bathroom had blinds and a window with a full view of its insides from the bedroom section. Not too bad for being in a shady part of town and paying almost nothing for a room. We drank some Chu-His (malted non-beer beverage) and settled into our huge accommodation, pulling the silver head of out the bag (we had named him Gerald and had given him a moustache as well) and set him up in a comfortable part of the room.

After that Louise and I go to the same bar I went to last week with James in Osaka, Barfly. She needed some convincing so I informed her about the Karaoke version of R. Kelly’s “Trapped in the Closet,” and she was sold. My favorite bartender wasn’t there and the crowd was more subdued than when James and I had gone for the Christmas party, but it was a good time still. Louise and I were served flakes of gold in a drink, and we even learned about a Madonna song that we both had never heard in our lives. It’s called “Hanky Panky” and from the sound of it, it’s hard to think of it as Madonna at all. But the bar master loved it so we’re on track to learning it to sing for him in the future. We sadly have to clear out of there around midnight to catch our last subway train back to the hotel, but we had a great time. Louise was even chatted up by a married couple trying to lure her into a threesome. She was less than thrilled.

The next morning was spent waking up late for checkout and getting a call from the front desk. Then we groggily meandered the city looking for something to wake us up for excite us enough to gain some energy. We played Mario Cart in a local Arcade Center but that didn’t do it. Ate some food. Bought Louise a bus ticket back home. Nothing. Blah blah morning. Soon it was time for me to get my parents and sister at the airport, so we had the mini-adventure of trying to find the suitcases that we had put in coin lockers the previous day. We are all too familiar with this game. Just stick your bags anywhere, and then try to remember where they are when you need them again. We involved about 3 station attendants and 2 police officers, but eventually we found them. Then it was “bye bye” to Louise as she went for her bus and I tried to figure out how to get to Kansai International Airport by train.

My parents arrived and we headed to the Osaka Hilton hotel. 90 minutes on the train. When we got checked in and sorted, my parents went straight to bed suffering jet lag and my sister and I went out to Barfly. We had a good time and Lauren loved the staff. She said her friend Alexis would love the bar master. I’m not sure what that means but right on. We got home around 1am. The next morning we woke with Osaka Hilton breakfast buffet. A large buffet albeit overpriced, but at least everyone ate well. We went walking/shopping around town. We were in Umeda so it was mostly expensive department stores but we saw the big Ferris wheel and different Osaka landmarks.

After tiring of that we got on a train and headed for the Osaka Aquarium. It was a long ride out there and once off the train, a bit of a walk but once we made it, it was spectacular. The main attraction was the giant whale shark but for us, we enjoyed the otters much more. The speedy buggers were nearly impossible to get a picture of. There were fish of every variety, otters, crabs, dolphins, sharks, jellyfish, stingrays, penguins, monkeys, a sloth, lizards, turtles, and even a rare un-photographable sunfish!! The whole thing was arranged on 8 floors, with several viewing places at various depths for each of the exhibits. Dad was the only one who got to see the penguins. He had gone a bit ahead; but by the time we got there, for some reason they shut the lights off in the penguin’s tank. Photographs were nearly impossible, sadly. We poked into the souvenir shop and then left to find food. There’s nothing in that part of town in the mid-evening besides the whiskey museum and the aquarium… we ended up going into the only restaurant we could find and being daring with different kinds of food. Dad had said afterwards that it was the best meal he’d had while in Japan, which is a good thing, although I’m not sure if it still stands after his delicious ramen meal.

Sunday afternoon we head off to Osaka Castle. Unfortunately (as is the case for just about everything in Japan this time of year) it was closed because of the New Year. We got pictures of the outside, some souvenirs, and a lovely walking tour of the grounds including such places as “the pine tree where priest so and so once hung his robe” and “the place where prince who’s his face and princess what’s her name committed suicide” as was written on the maps. We also got a peek inside a shrine on the grounds and even got our New Years fortunes in English. I must say, after all the hype about the pine tree where priest so and so once hung his robe, it was less than spectacular. Walking out of the castle we spotted an old man feeding an army of cats (which Lauren had to pet) a man singing Japanese blues, and a rock concert of Japanese boys trying to make it big (too bad it was only their moms and girlfriends in the audience). We took a train to Namba (the rough-around-the-edges shopping district) and perused the stores for a bit. I got my new Mac operating system OS X Leopard (swoons). Because it was so congested in the covered outdoor shopping streets, we didn’t get much done but at least they got a chance to see the fun side of town. Lauren also got her hair cut at a funky Japanese salon. Even though it took 2 hours, it was what she wanted to do all along. On the way back home, at my request, we stopped at Outback steak house! I had not yet been to Japan’s Outback and was excited to have steak. It was almost exactly like the American one, which was surprising, however we didn’t believe that “Jason” was the waiter’s actual name…

On Monday we had to switch from the Hilton hotel to a Holiday Inn, so our plans at first were home-centered. But after checking out at the Hilton and walking 7 minutes to the other hotel with all our stuff, we were relieved to find that the Holiday Inn let is check in hours early. This opened up the day for us, and we decided to venture out to Kyoto. I had never been to Kyoto so this was a strange new beast. After a grazing through my Lonely Planet guide to Japan we concluded that we wanted to see the Maiko (geisha in training) of Gion. The thousand Tori gates at the Fushimi Inari shrine, and Monkey Park in Arashiyama. We first caught a bus to Arashiyama, which Lauren affectionately renamed Monkey Town. It was an old town with jinrikusha (carts pulled by a person) and old bridges and boats. We popped into an udon shop for lunch and then hit the trail for the monkeys. It was a 10-minute moderate hike uphill. Moderate for Lauren and I. Impossible for mom and dad. They required several breaks, which was fine for Lauren and I as it gave us a chance to take some monkey pictures. They were literally walking the same path as us. You could touch them if you wanted to, but from the start the staff of Monkey Park instills fear in you with “do not look them in the eyes” as scenes from 28 Days Later come flashing into your mind. I took pictures trying not to anger or conjure up and monkey rage and we made it to the top. They called it the observation deck. Really it was a cage for people. You are ushered in when you get up there, and they monkeys are out in the wild. Quite a reverse. Then you could buy bags of sweet potatoes or peanuts to feed the monkeys. They are quite used to this by now, and just hang on the chains covering our cages windows with their arms outstretched inside waiting for food to be placed in them. Feeding them was fun despite the big ones stealing from the little ones, and an overall sense of greed I got from a lot of the monkeys. Lauren decided she’d irritate one of the monkeys by having nothing in her hand. Once this was discovered, the monkey just looked at her, pissed off. Outside our cage was a tremendous view of Kyoto from atop the monkey mountain. We had our pictures taken with the monkeys and I even caught two monkeys engaged in unwholesome behavior. Tisk tisk. We hiked back down and headed for Gion.

Once in Gion I had no idea where to find Maiko. And apparently it was strange to be on such a quest as everyone I asked, “where can we see Maiko?” just sort of laughed at me and said, “I don’t know.” I suppose it makes sense, as they are people with individual lives, and not stationary attractions. We found their school, and a cab driver said we had bad timing, so we went to a New Years festival at a temple instead. Just a quick glance around at all the stands and food and festivities, because it started to get freezing so we went home for the night instead. Dinner was a collection of goods from a local convenience store. Fried noodle sandwiches and steamed pork buns. Mmmmm.

It was New Year’s Eve and mom and dad were passing out in the hotel room at 10pm, so Lauren and I decide to go back to Barfly. The countdown party was exciting. The bar was so full, Lauren and I were put in short spare chairs around the bar. Two girls at the bar were impressed with Lauren’s and my ability to do shots so later we made them do tequila shots with us. I don’t know if it was the excitement, or the tequila but they seemed 100% more drunk after the single shot. There were several photos taken of dancing and New Years Mochi and Oranges on peoples heads. A good time had by all! There was a New Years toast with Japanese Shu with specks of gold in it. Tora even stopped by right as we were leaving so everyone was there.

New Years morning. There is a show in the hotel lobby. They crack open the sake barrels and give everyone a 10:30am glass of sake… then a New Years lion god comes out and dances (two people with a costume over their upper bodies). Everyone gathered around to pet the lion’s head afterward and then they wheeled out the mochi. It was to be pounded by whoever wanted to help make it. Mostly men at first, but soon little children and old grannies were wielding a hammer and beating the mochi. One of the hotel clerks asked me if I would do it, so I did. After everyone had their turn, they sprinkled kinako in it or red beans, and served it to us. Yummy. We missed the breakfast buffet because of the show, but we went to the hotel restaurant for lunch. Dad and Mom got a club sandwich with egg and Lauren and I got a sliced steak sandwich. Both were delicious!

We decided that today, instead of going to the Himeji castle, that we would retry Kyoto. This time we spent the afternoon in Gion, hoping to have had better timing in seeing a Maiko. No such luck. The Maiko must have been away for the New Year. Dad and Mom wanted to eat at a restaurant where you sit on the floor, and I had no clue about anything in Kyoto so we go into one. The down side is the meals for one person are $50-$90 each. Since we committed to staying there (they made room for us even though we didn’t have reservations) we decided to go through with it. We ordered two $50 meals to share between 4 people. This confused the ladies but whatever. Midway through dinner they needed some dishes that were stored in a cabinet behind mom and dad. At first a woman burst through the door, then she was pulled back and something was whispered about “no, no don't…” and she shook her head and marched back in, then excused herself and dove behind mom and dad for the plates. Two more showed up, I assume gathering their courage, and after they got their plates, there was a shower of the most polite apologies I’d ever heard, including things like “there’s no possible way you could forgive me for such a thing, but I’m sorry,,,” We head from Gion to the many many orange Tori gates of the Fushimi Inari shrine. The whole town of Fushimi Inari was alive with festivities, even at night. Stands selling grilled and fried everything (including what looked like fried chicken fetuses… tiny tiny chicken) and gifts, toys, and sweets galore. Walking up to the thousands of gates we found a Gyro stand. Walking under all those gates was more beautiful than can be explained. Simply going under them was a life changing experience, and the colors and massive presence were phenomenal. At the top there was a little section with more stands and places to pray. There was a set of two stones, one heavy one light. You make a wish and pick up a stone—if the stone is light your wish comes true; heavy it doesn't. We were all set to go but the jerk in front of us decides to tell all his friends after her went, “this one is light!” Ruining it for everyone around him. We climb back down under all the gates and get some gyros at the stand. Then we work our way back to the Kyoto station and finally back home.

Tuesday it was off to Hiwasa. We got on a bus at 1:30 in the afternoon, after stopping off a Choco-Cro first (a chain café). Three hours on a bus. Not too thrilling, but once in the city we find that Topia is closed. I had planned to store the luggage there and walk around for a bit, but no such luck. Instead we waited with our bags for an hour until the train left Tokushima city to Hiwasa. Two hours on the train, by now we’re all fed up with traveling. Dad manages to get all the suitcases in my car as we head to my apartment. My neighbors aren’t home and I wanted them to meet my family, so instead we go for Ramen at a local ramen shop. Dad had been getting a lot of crap about his tattoos. In Japan tattoos are associated with the Japanese mafia, Yakuza. He was asked to leave the hotel pool at the Hilton even. When he took his coat off, the girl who was working there was so in shock her jaw literally dropped. The young guy though thought it was awesome and came over to see. Even the old lady pointed to his arms and said “beautiful” when she was serving us. We each got a huge bowl of ramen and in addition to that we ordered two plates of fries, two plates of gyoza, one of fried chicken tenders, and one of chicken wings. It was such an enormous amount of food we were shocked that we ordered so much. But we finished it all. Dad loved the taste of the spicy ramen we ordered. I’m not sure what the flavor is, or what’s in it, but I get it every time. Then we went back home to sort out the luggage and bedding. I warned them all, sleeping on the floor in my apartment. There was lament at first, but I think everyone felt really good after it on the first night. It must be good for you to sleep on the floor.

Wednesday we woke up and did a little shopping in town. Dad was going to fix my shower door and mom was busy trying to make the house warm. Around 11:00 we headed to Tokushima city in my car. This terrified mom and dad but they had no other option. We stopped at the dollar store, and then for Kaiten Sushi (sushi that comes by on a conveyor belt and you take what you want and count the total at the end). The Harley Davidson shop in town was closed for holiday (what else is new?) so we went to the station and met up with Louise in Mr Donuts. With now two guides, Louise and I, we were taking my family to shop in the City store with interesting clothes shops and books. Lauren Louise and I took Purikura. Afterwards we headed to the Awa Odori Museum. A museum exhibiting the August Awa Odori dance festival held in our prefecture. Off to dinner at Mos Burger where we met James and then to Cassanovas, our Tokushima bar. Right away the owner, Mike liked dad. We did Karaoke and everyone drank but me (I was driving). A bit later Mike says he’s going to take my parents to a Japanese bar and that he would have them back in 10 minutes. In the mean time, Louise, James, my sister and I are left alone in his bar. We get out his bunny (he has a pet bunny in the bar) and get on the tables and dance with it while we karaoke. Ten minutes turns into thirty though and we’re almost late to leave and meet my neighbors. This however does allow me to drive like a maniac but maintain the “you brought this on yourself for being late” rationale. At the Japanese bar, they had sweet potato shochu, various fruits and things to eat, and Mike paid for it all. How nice of him!! Dad gave him some American cigars. In a record one hours time, we make it from Tokushima to Hiwasa again. I call my neighbors up and we go downstairs. Yuko has made gyoza and pizza and mochi for us and we chat with them. Even though the kids were sleeping, Haru and Mizuki kept waking up so we were able to visit with them as well. Yiu was asleep like a log the whole time though. Bear in mind that Mizuki is going on 4 years old and the other two are younger… Shige tries to pawn off Haru on mom, like he’s done to me before, and had done to my friend Liz. Why is he always trying to give away his son? Hmm…

The next morning we wake early. So much to do in no time. First stop is Hiwasa castle up a narrow mountain road. Then a walk along Ohama beach. After the beach we take a look inside the Sea Turtle Museum. I had never been and it was exciting to see it. The sea turtles look like birds under the water and it made me excited for summer when they come to the beach to lay eggs. Of course Lauren loves any kind of aquarium/zoo/monkey park. There’s even a quiz machine where you try to become Doctor Turtle by answering all the questions correct. Lauren becomes this doctor turtle and requests a certificate from the guy. He has a CD player that he pushes and it plays a victorious trumpet chime for a couple milliseconds then he hands over the prize. You could tell pushing that button was one of his life’s joys. We go shopping around my town after that, and we’re even served tea and sweets in a shop we walked into. 11:30 comes quickly and we’re due at a restaurant to have lunch with some of my eikaiwa students. They’re pleased to meet my family and are extraordinarily helpful in getting us back to the city on time for our bus back to Osaka. The trains would be risky with the timing so I would have to drive. As luck would have it, one of my students knew a guy who had a space in the city I could park for free for the weekend!

We make it to the city with everyone’s belongings just in time. We dropped mom and dad off with all the stuff near the bus. Then I get back in the car and head toward the parking lot. It's a 10-minute walk from the lot to the station so we turn it into a 6-minute run. There’s some bus confusion (I had gotten the wrong tickets and when I tried to change them it caused some confusion) but we all got on the bus for Osaka. At this point my brain is fried. So when we get to a restaurant to have dinner before I say goodbye to my family, I cant read a thing on the menu. Luckily I tell the waitress what kind of food (beef, chicken, rice) and she picks out some delicious things for us. It is a barbecue style restaurant where you cook it on the table in front of you. The beef was so good. Some wandering around lost for a bit and finally I find the station that will take my parents to their Ramada hotel. We say our farewells and I make sure they know which station to go to and where to get off. Then I go to my station for Namba.

It was great to see everyone. I did miss them a lot. But it had been a really difficult week as translator/tour guide so while being sad to say goodbye, it was a bit of a relief to not have to convey things that I barely understand myself. I did have a good time with them, and I hope that they enjoyed themselves too.

I head straight toward the hotel I usually stay at. It’s risky; being 9 at night, but luckily there’s room! I draw a bath and relax for a while until I get a call that mom dad and Lauren have made it to the hotel just fine. Then I go back to Barfly. This time, as promised to the bar master, I stay till closing at 5am. In actuality I didn’t have much of a choice. Trains stop at midnight and start back up again at 5am, so if you don't leave at 12, and if you don't want to pay for a taxi ($17) you stay where you are till 5. I was incredibly tired though. The next morning I get a phone call that I barely remember from mom at the airport saying everything’s fine. I ACTUALLY wake up around 1pm. I take some trains to the Harley Davidson shop (NOW its open... when I have to ship the shirts) and then to other places to eat and shop. I decide to see a movie in Umeda and hang around to see the sequel to National Treasure. Not too bad even though I hate Nicholas Cage. Then back to Barfly. Yes two days in a row. At around midnight I leave to go to a club downstairs but as soon as I get there, I ran into someone I didn’t want to see, and turned right around and left back to Barfly for the rest of the evening. A 10:00 checkout time and an 11:30 bus got me out of the city quickly but with little sleep, I did nothing but sleep on the bus the whole way back.

Back in Hiwasa. Winter break over. Work starts.

Phwew.

PICTURES!!!!!!
Pre-Family Visit with Louise a.k.a. Hairy Adventures
Osaka Aquarium
About town in Osaka
Sightseeing in Kyoto
Barfly with Lauren
Family comes to my town, Hiwasa
Family’s gone home, last weekend of break

Lauren’s photos will be added to these folders when I get them from her. Stay tuned.

Photos and Update

2008-01-07T00:50:00.000+09:00

Update
There are finally photos added to the last post. Sorry for the wait I've been busy. Go check them out.

Photos
I emptied out my cellphone camera of photos I've been taking and made a random folder of them. No rhyme or reason, check them out if you want to.

Christmas Posts! Ho ho ho.

2007-12-26T23:30:00.000+09:00

Christmas Time!

Sunday December 16th

Although I hadn’t planned it, after a night in Tokushima City going to bars, I decided that I would stick around and visit one of the orphanages with the other ALTs. Originally I worried that it was going to be depressing so I didn't want to go, despite having given gifts. When I got there my idea changed completely. It was not depressing. There were maybe 50 kids playing. Reading, running around, coloring. Like they all had over forty brothers and sisters—the big ones read to the little ones; the boys engaged in combat; the girls played with dolls. On top of that, they were SO happy to see us. We sang songs with them, made Christmas stars and wreathes out of construction paper, played pass the parcel, and gave gifts. All the while kids were climbing in your lap, or tickling you, or wrestling you to the ground. I spent a great deal of time trying pathetically to escape the tickles of a child, arm wrestling another, and was even taught (well he attempted to teach me) a Pokémon-esque fighting card game.

For every ALT there was atleast three students, so we all had our arms full. James’ story was different. Within a few minutes of him walking into the room full of kids, a two year old girl approaches him and sits in his lap. After a couple more minutes she fell asleep and stayed there for the whole time. Needless to say he fell in love, and to this day wishes he could go back and adopt her. They each got a present and were filled with such joy. It was a truly magical and positive experience. I did not want to leave, and I definitely want to go back and visit again.

Friday December 21st

School finished with a Marathon. I was told to go outside to watch the students competing in a marathon, so I did as I was told. They were jogging about and stretching and carrying on. Soon they all made a line and with a gunshot from the principal, they ran… off campus… into the street…and out of sight. I just sat there thinking, “I was supposed to run for 3 seconds and then that's it? I can’t see them anymore.” After 20-30 minutes they returned out of breath and exhausted. This happened twice; first with the girls and then with the boys. And I truly did wonder what the point of me being out there freezing to “watch them” was. Oh well.

After work was a bonenkai or year-end party. All the teachers got together and carpooled to a local restaurant. Even though these are expensive, they are usually a good time. The food was sushi, nabe (a pot of meat veggies and other things boiled at the table), fried food, and endless amounts of beer. The last one I went to, we played contests. Last time I correctly guessed a Japanese quiz question before anyone else and they were impressed (The card showed P0,000; the Japanese word for 10,000 is MAN and I guessed P in front of it was P-MAN or PIMAN which means pepper in Japanese) but this time the questions were not so easy. I only guessed YMCA in the name that song category, and I think they let me get it because it was English. Our team won first place and was awarded some sweets. Then we exchanged Santa presents drawing numbers from a hat. I got a selection of rice crackers (shrimp flavored.. blah.. I gave them to my neighbors afterwards.) The rest of the evening was spent chatting with the gym teacher, the special ed teacher, and the art teacher about American dramas (Lost, Desperate Housewives, 24, etc.) and travel. It was a nice end to a difficult year. Now I just wait for the bill…

December 22nd – 24th

James and I went to Kobe on a morning bus. Claire was supposed to come, but her funds were limited based on exceedingly high phone bills. We arrived in Kobe and it was raining. :( yuck. But we bought umbrellas and made the most of it. We found a TGI-Fridays kind of restaurant for lunch and each got a sirloin steak. Kobe is known for its beef so why not… And to wash it down we got the all you can drink-stand. Which was filled with the common things (soda, tea, coffee) and the not so ordinary things, namely Black Vinegar Drink. The taste was…interesting…and improved when you mixed it with Calpis (a Japanese yogurt beverage). Calpis and Vinegar. Yum…

After dinner we hopped a train to Osaka. We couldn’t get a hotel in Kobe for both nights so our first night had to be spent in Osaka. We wandered around a shopping arcade for a while. I bought a leather jacket with a fur collar for a high price, which I will not mention on here. The truth was I had seen that jacket all three times that I went to Osaka, and had wanted to get it for over a month but thought “too expensive.” Finally, in the Christmas spirit, I decided to buy it for myself. And it’s amazing! Then we wandered about for a bit, stopping in a beef-bowl shop for dinner. Then we went to a bar that we heard about online. It happened to be a Christmas party. Who would have guessed? The owner wasn't dressed up, but one of the bartenders was wearing reindeer antlers and the other one was dressed like Amy Winehouse…with facial hair. When questioned about the facial hair, he responded, “Oh its just shadow…” Yeah… We had a great time there, chatting and drinking with different people. At one point this rather boisterous woman comes in and tries on a wig. I suggest she put on this Christmassy dress and she does it. What a sport! The people were so alive and friendly it was a great evening. We even didn’t care about missing the last train to the hotel and instead grabbed a $15.00 taxi home instead at 2am. We had also missed the public bath hours at the hotel, but that wasn’t a big deal.

Checkout was 11:00 am and checkout we did. I was hungry, James doesn’t eat unless you force him, so we got breakfast in an odd Rest shop. The outside smelled like pee, and the inside was decorated like a cross between a Greek Diner, and Aunt Helen’s house. Very odd being in Japan. The breakfast was good though and we were on our way. Boarding a train to the Himeji Castle—a world treasure. The train was an hour long so we rushed to get seats. After a long time on the train we arrive in the town of Himeji. An adorable touristy town, Himeji was filled with little shops and restaurants. Since we arrived in Kobe I had been taking pictures of strangely posed women carved in stone that were on display just about everywhere, and Himeji had one every block. I was going snap-happy—not out of want for the pictures, but because I decided long before that I would document them all. After a 10 minute walk we get to the castle grounds. Its GORGEOUS!!! Moats and stones and sculptures. It would be even more beautiful in the spring when all the cherry blossoms are in bloom, but it was still stunning in winter. We wandered about the gardens at the entrance for a while, and then paid to go in. First we toured the buildings around it—where they lived, etc—and then made our way to the top of the really tall hill to see the main castle. So many stairs, so little light, it was all such beautiful breathtaking architecture. There was artwork and historical notes everywhere and I really appreciated having done something “nice” in Japan, as opposed to going to bars and going shopping. The view from the top was also spectacular.

After the castle, we got the train back to Kobe and got lost in the attempt to find our hotel. We found it eventually and got settled. I left to get my bag from the coin locker that I left it in on the first day, and James took a nap. Afterwards it was dinnertime. He had read about an Irish Pub in town, but when we got to the address, it had turned into a German Pub and we were outraged. So we walked further and found an English pub instead that we remembered seeing while walking around on the first day. (We wanted fish and chips which was why the German Pub wouldn’t do… nothing against Germans…) They seated us, and shortly after, seated another white group of people next to us, assuming we knew them. They were JETs from other parts of Japan. After dinner we walked around for a while trying to find a bar. When we found it, it was largely disappointing, mostly because we were tired, and also because we had such high expectations after a great time the night before. We left for the room shortly after. I lost my tiger’s eye necklace at some point during the day so I wasn’t feeling too happy.

The next morning we checked out at 11am, bought some omiyage (gifts for people back home when you travel) and caught the bus back home. Kobe is nice, but I prefer Osaka and Tokyo.

December 24th

I took the train back to Hiwasa and spend Christmas eve alone drinking an entire bottle of wine and watching Little Miss Sunshine. Sad. Haha oh well.

December 25th Christmas

After waking up and calling some people I love and care about, I got ready and drove to Tokushima City again. We had plans for Christmas dinner at a fancy restaurant in the city. Originally making a reservation for 8 people, only 5 showed up. The restaurant was GORGEOUS. At the point we walked in, it truly felt like Christmas. The Christmas dinner special was about $80 dollars and included 6 courses, a drink, and coffee. Foie Gras with a pumpkin mango chutney, Seafood compote with cauliflower cream sauce, Lobster bisque with creamed sea urchin, Cod over white beans, Awa beef with a red wine sauce (Awa is the old name for Tokushima), and dessert of white chocolate mousse. I had quite a bit of wine and finished dinner with a Sambuca grand totaling about $120. I felt so good to spend that much though because it was really worth it, and I had the best times! The food was out of this world, the service was phenomenal, the atmosphere and ambiance were beyond compare; a GREAT time.

After that we went to a piano bar for a bit. Then Claire and Rich left for their last trains and Jeff, James and I went to another bar for a snack and some drinks. My sadness for a lonely Christmas had melted away because I had the time of my life!

My family is coming in a few days. More Christmassy posts are en-route. :)

PICTURES!!!
Christmas Party in the Osaka Bar
Statues of Kobe
Himeji Castle

Members Only Bar and Louise's Pub-Quiz Birthday

2007-12-17T08:23:00.000+09:00

Last weekend (Dec 7-9) was a bit crazy. It started off on Friday when James and I decided to go to a members only bar in Tokushima city. But not before trying out an Italian food place close to his house. It was called "Dear" and the interior was really modern and cool looking. The downside was everything on the menu seemed to have egg on it, because the Japanese love their egg. Pizza that looked delicious except with a nearly raw egg floating on the top... We both got the lasagna which although it was a little bit sweet, was still delicious. I got the house wine which was terrible (I should have known better). After dinner we went to the bar. It was very odd and creepy. The sign advertised that it was ¥1500 to get in, then ¥500 yen per drink. We got there probably around 10 o'clock and after a bit we checked the clock: 11:30. Ok reasonable. A couple more drinks and some Karaoke and we look at the clock again... 2am?!?! Where the hell did all those hours go? I suppose you can say we had a good time as the hours flew by, but what an odd experience. The good thing was we were only charged ¥2000 each.. and we definitely had more than one drink.

The next morning was the Tokushima Musical meeting. We set out driving for the station but on the way decided we had time for and wanted breakfast. As we were driving down the street, an old man with a bike collided into the side of my car... It might have been my fault and kind of looked like I hit him. But he was fine, my car was fine, I was horrified but shook it off and drove off, a bit more cautiously than before... James told everyone afterwards that his head fell off... great... Driving around searching for something breakfasty turned out fruitless. No coffee nooks. No bagel cafes. No places to get a stinking egg. So we gave up and went to the station. At the station we swung in a local sandwich shop. I got a tuna melt... mmmmm. And James got a Croquet Monsieur (I was reminded of the dance, Barcarole, that Liz and I made... *sigh*). The musical meeting was fun. They have the show times and rehearsal times set. We read through the first act which was pretty good. I'm a bit bummed that all my friends who were excited about the musical are now bailing... but what can you do...

After the meeting, I round up Louise and Claire and we head off for Takamatsu. Its my first time driving there and I'm nervous. It was Claire's Birthday on Thursday and Louise's birthday Saturday so they were both in high spirits. The route turned out to be pretty easy. We got off the thruway at the wrong exit but a man with a map was very helpful and we found our friend Rich's apartment perfectly on time. Since there was supposed to be many of us staying at Rich's and he only had one extra futon, I brought the entire contents of my room to his place. A metric ton of bedding. The three of us loaded up our arms and heads and wherever else we could hold blankets futons and pillows and piled into the elevator. It was such a tight squeeze that we could have lifted our legs and been held up by the bedding. We exploded out of the elevator and into Rich's room where we prepared for the Pub Quiz. Our team was the Tokushima Tarts (since we were the guest prefecture there, everyone else was from Kagawa) and upon Louise's birthday request we got tarted up. I am impressed that we made it to the pub (Dirty Dicks...) on time! The pub was interesting. The quiz was fun and sometimes challenging. We ultimately won third place but no prize :( Pretty good for out-of-towners tho. The bartender was slow, and he was the only one. Louise had "buy me booze" written on her fingernails in nail polish because it was her birthday, so she was set for the night. But after a rousing spirited quiz everyone dispersed.

Off to Karaoke afterwards, at a chain Karaoke complex, Shidax. We had to wait forever to get a room for 12 people. We signed for 2 hours, all you can drink and started singing. By the end of the two hours however, I started to hate everyone in the room. People were rude, belligerent, hostile, just plain stupid, and everything else you can think of. At one point the canceled a Disney song that Louise and I put in. Needless to say when they signed up for another hour, I was pissed. Claire was pissed too. After 3 hours dragged by, we finally left. Claire and I had left early and waited outside we were so fed up. The kicker, the thing that made us the most angry was how much it cost. ¥5000 a person. $50. For a miserable time. Shit. Then we were dragged to get a snack with everyone (I was fed up with these people). Then when I was ready to go home and forget about it, Rich and this guy Greg who I do not like at all dragged us to another bar. I sat outside with Claire for a while looking moody. Then we went inside and didn't order anything. We both had literally no money left. The conversation was stale and painful so I eventually fell asleep against a wall. Perhaps a cue to leave and go home. So eventually we did. I was SO done with that night.

At 11am the next morning Claire and I had packed up to go home. Louise was heading in the opposite direction and would take the train. Parking wasn't bad, only $11.00 for the whole night. I was pleasantly surprised. We stopped at McDonald's and hit the road. Driving along the expressway we lost track of something.. and soon found ourselves on a big bridge. Is this.. oh wait, shoot. It is... We were heading off the island to the mainland toward Osaka. We were traveling on one of the biggest bridges in Japan because we missed our exit. Haha. As soon as we got to the mainland, we got off at the closest exit and I looked as stupid as I could and asked how to get to Tokushima. He asked where we came from and I said "Takamatsu..." and he laughed and said "you made a mistake." Fortunately he let us make a U-turn without paying any fee, and gave us our expressway ticket back. Calling out "Make sure you go to Tokushima this time." Which I can only hope was not supposed to sound sarcastic in its original Japanese... Usually crossing that bridge is CRAZY expensive. The fee and toll at the end... but we managed to cross it twice for free. Fantastic! And it was such a pretty bridge too!

Home. At last. Weekend over.

PICTURES!

video added

2007-11-28T23:40:00.001+09:00

Video was added to the Tokyo post. :)

Tokyo at last!

2007-11-27T13:20:00.000+09:00

Liz and I arrive in the city late Thursday night. James meets us for some lovely curry dinner and Karaoke at Casanovas; singing Christmas songs and the standard fare. Shortly after it is to Turibilly Bops, then home. It is a short night because we have an early morning bus into Kobe to catch. We meet Louise at a cafe at 8 in the morning and hop on the train toward Kobe Airport (2 hours by bus). At Kobe airport we have 2 hours to wait. I had thought that the bus would drop us off in a shopping friendly area so I reserved some time to poke around, but Kobe airport is on an island with nothing but airport to do, so we wait. And after I buy a cheesecake for my host family, we hop on board a plane to Tokyo. The plane starts off pointing at Tokyo (as we can see from the handy flight path TV) but then curves sharply and heads toward China. Keeps heading there, gets halfway over Japan until it finally turns around. No doubt adding 20-30 minutes to the trip which would be much shorter if it didn't have to turn around so much, but who knows how planes work.... Either way it takes an hour to get to Tokyo. We land and take to the underground. Liz having some idea of where she's going back to her brothers house, and Louise and I with no clue. We say farewell at her brothers station and head toward where we think our concert is. Shinjuku.

Since this was going to be a strange performance in Japanese and we would be lost for the meaning, we decided it's best to drink a little bit. But after wandering around for 30 minutes we realize that we only have an hour to find the venue. We hop on a train that will put us near the place (luckily we have a map of where the show is) and get off the train with 20 minutes to spare. We find a Lawsons, run in for some alcohol and directions, and make it to the show with 2 brief minutes to spare. Both of us are amazed that we managed to get there on time. For some odd reason, they don't charge us. I asked her how much it is, and although the signs said ¥3000 or so, she said nothing. So why argue... go inside.

The concert is odd to say the least. Surrealistically clad people are sprawling about the lobby and stage and seating area engaging in not only their personal business but also the business of people around them. Like an odd zoo. Some wear full costume, others wear a trashcan and a pair of underwear. They ran about, shouted at each other, trumpeted each others entrances and exits. There were drag queens singing the Sound of Music, aerialists in PVC miniskirts, sumo-wrestler kings, a number of buxom burlesque ladies, the trashcan-brief clad man took off all his clothes at various points of the night, a juggler. It was so strange and so random but mostly because we probably had no idea what was going on. Toward the end of the show there was a video of a bare butt pooping into some one's cupped hands. I personally found this tasteless and gimmicky, but then again I could have been missing some context. Tho still I think it would have been in poor taste. The show was called Hanakengo's Forbidden Zone. All in all it was a great show. I needed something this odd since I left the US. We grabbed a picture with one of the cast members after the show, and headed back to the train station. (First stopping by a random forklift along the way for some photos and Mos Burger for dinner).

Back on the underground and into Shinjuku. We were heading toward Shinjuku ni-chome and san-chomei. (The party areas) and settled in a bar in ni-chome. While enjoying a drink we were approached by two creepy men. One tall and white the other short and Japanese. "Excuse me" he said in a long drawn out creepy voice. "Do you know where would be a good place to see a drag show?" While the short Japanese one just stood there looking timid. No sorry. Later we see them at a dance club that we're at but we do not approach. We dance for hours at a place called Arty Farty and then finally begin to leave. It is after 11 and all the subways in the town close at midnight. Stupid stupid idea. Why would there be bars open until 5am but no subways or buses between like midnight and 6am? It's too late to find our way back to Liz's brother's apartment so we search for a hotel. When we arrived at Shinjuku station, long before even the concert, we stowed our bags in a coin locker bringing with us enough to use that night and stuff for emergencies. After an hour of wandering between full hotels on a holiday in the city (poor planning) we find one. With bathrobes! yay.

We wake up at 9 to be checked out by 10. I dried my pants of sweat from dancing the night before with a hair dryer (I know, lovely...) and put them back on. We grabbed breakfast and hopped on a train to Harajuku. Scary lovely Harajuku. Freaks abound in a slew of strange fashion. With the largest variety of strange shops to supply their lifestyles. Tokyo truly is the core of Japan's upcoming styles, both mainstream and underground. We went in a store that had the most extravagant costumes that would send Chara and Elton John blushing. We managed to snag a picture of us in shiny hats, but when I tried to take a picture of an outstanding dress I was scolded by the shop keeper. We went to many a many shops. I didn't buy very much (except a chain for my necklace so I could retire the ribbon) but Louise bought quite a lot of her Santa costume for her Christmas parties. We poke in a Thai food restaurant for dinner. And excited by the idea of bubble tea, I order a Thai coconut milk tea. To my horror the tapioca that I expected was tiny clear with a black crunchy inside and a fishy taste which brought to mind images of frogs eggs. I couldn't take more than a sip or two before I was completely repulsed. But the food was delicious.

Train into Shibuya and we begin to wander about. We found a restaurant that Louise had been to during orientation called the Lock Up. Here, in the sub-basement of a building you are greeted with a convulsing dummy in an electric chair behind prison bars. We almost nearly ran out at that point but decided to persevere. Wandering through the rock covered walls lit with black lights and creepy glowing paint, we arrive at a woman in a PVC dungeon mistress costume. She handcuffs me and takes Louise and I to a table. for larger parties there are small rooms surrounded by prison bars; we are put at a creepy table instead. I order a drink that comes in a graduated cylinder called "Electric Shock" and Louise orders something that looks like a bottle of pills. They bring it out. Louise's pill drink tastes like watered down cola, but my drink tastes like the most alcoholic thing in the world. It burns your eyes to drink it. After asking the woman what It was, she said it was a mixture of liquor and that it was 95% alcohol (that's what I heard I could have misunderstood but I wouldn't doubt it.) We decided to share and have a sip of mine, and chase the pain away with Louise's. We get two pizzas on top of that. When we finish the pizza we get dessert and are enjoying it when suddenly the lights go off. There is some announcement on the speakers and all of a sudden people down the hall are screaming. Then there is a parade of terrifying men/monsters roaming the hallways scaring you. The scariest of all is a bloody pig face man. After 10 minutes of monsters and mayhem the lights come back on and the PVC ladies haul the bad guys away. We pay and leave the restaurant after taking a picture of the Japanese couple next to us that we befriended out of fear. What a crazy time.

After dinner we wander out to the Sega store to play some arcade games. Louise broke the Mario Kart machine (just like she broke the bowling machine in Tokushima) and we had to call people over to help us reset the whole system. At this point we're worried because earlier I had called my host brother, Tomo, and he was going to be out of town until Sunday afternoon. Our plan was to meet up Saturday night and it was Saturday afternoon already. I started calling Ayako, my host sister, and finally got in touch with her. She was working until 10pm. Together we decided that its best to take our stuff to their house, and then go out for the night on our own and come back to sleep. One small problem, host mom was working too. So when we got off the train in Fuchu with all our luggage I staggered about for a little bit trying to recall from six years ago how to get to their house. Finally I give up and call a taxi. I DID remember their address after all these years which was amazing. It turns out the taxi ride was only two minutes long, and easy enough to remember. It all came back to me. And it was so nostalgic to be standing outside their door. We left our bags with a note and left for Shinjuku.

Wandering around Shinjuku without a plan we find ourselves in the middle of nowhere. We were so far removed that when asked about where subways are the people just scratched their heads and tried to think of the best way to break the news to us. We ended up taking a taxi back to the station and trying again. We find a shot bar. And while deciding to go to the Whisky section or the Bourbon section a man comes out and tells us there's a ¥500 cover. No thank you. Next bar. We really only have an hour and a half before our last train home so we start to get worried. But luckily there's a bar around the corner that's cheap and even has blue cheese pizza! With an hour to our names Louise and I resume the same attitude that we adopted at the Karaoke place a few weeks before. Keep the drinks coming and the mouths full. Get the most of the time. We hopped on the last train and took it back toward my host family's house.

As we approached the house my host-mother was taking out the garbage, and cautiously asked if it was me. It was instant nostalgia. Oh how I've missed them. She took us inside and called Ayako and my host father downstairs. They were gushing over how I've changed and I was filled with warm feelings about the past. We went to sleep and woke up the next day around noon. Tomo had come home while we were asleep and then left for lunch so my host mother had made us breakfast. Around 2:00 he came back and we were off in his vintage 1960-something Volkswagen out to meet his friends. All car nuts. We got there and no sooner did we step into one of his friends cars then a slew of paparazzi came with cameras taking pictures of us. Lord knows why... Then Tomo took his mom in his car and told Louise and I to go in his friends car and we went to Kichijoji. There was a Studio Ghibli museum there, but you need to reserve tickets weeks in advance to see it.

In Kichijoji we started wandering around various shops. After it got dark we started to head toward Inokashira Park. It was too dark for photos sadly but the park was beautiful. I indent to return in the spring because the whole thing is cherry blossom trees. My host mother took us to a restaurant there and we ordered a snack to hold us off till dinner. Then after a little while we decided that it was going to BE dinner, so we ordered more food. Louise got a beer from Thailand called "Phuket." The label said "Every day is a phuket day." How lovely. On our way back home, Tomo stops the car and we get out. Unsure of whats going on we look terribly confused. Then he explains that he's picking up Ayako and his father and is going to take them back here to meet us for dinner because they haven't eaten yet. Ok. Dinner Part Two. We go inside a Japanese style restaurant and order drinks, then food and more food. We're stuffed but they keep insisting we eat more. Oy. Afterwards we took a group shot with the help of a happy waiter and went home. I showed my host family the DVD of my dances. And we went to bed. The bus to the airport was at 6:40 the next morning so we needed to be up at 6 to get there. Tomo and Ayako drove us to the bus and we got on just in time. After saying goodbye, we headed for the airport. I miss them already.

At the airport I buy LOADS of Tokyo Banana (a cake gift set that everyone in Japan seems to LOVE) for my neighbors and my coworkers. We confuse the life out of a woman at the Yahoo cafe when we go and say we don't want to use the Internet, just get food. Apparently that never happens? Then some airport shopping before the hour plane ride back to Kobe. We had a 3 hour "layover" in Kobe; whatever would we do?!

We head straight toward the Chinese buffet upstairs. We figure its all you can eat, we can kill three hours leisurely in the buffet. But no. Louise decides that it is a contest. Each course must consist of three dishes. And our goal would be to reach 10 courses. As we photo documented each course, you can see our faces change from eager to bloated. I succeed in making it to the final 10th course, whereas Louise gives up at 9. (VIDEO)

Bloated as all hell, we get on the bus for home then the train for home. LONG traveling hours, but a FANTASTIC weekend. :-D

PICTURES!!!!
Tokyo in general
Hanakengo's Forbidden Zone (contains somewhat graphic images)
a clip from the show

Two weekends in Tokushima City.

2007-11-16T12:06:00.001+09:00

Nothing of merit, or of note, just a talk about the fun/odd/strange things I did for the last two weekends. (Nov 2-4 & 9-11) (It's a long one but its filled with nonsense that isn't really important)

Friday: Louise and I met at the station coming from opposite ends of the prefecture to meet, like is often the case, in Tokushima City. This time there was a plan! Fueled by an addiction to Purikura (those tiny decorate-able pictures in booths all around Japan) we keep thinking of new ways to take photos. You usually get a print out of 6-8 photos that can become stickers when all is said and done. That in mind. The theme that day was stripping. We had put on an appropriate number of layers far in advance and made it to the Purikura stations just before closing time. After taking some silly photos, trying to look sexy, we go outside to decorate them and print them out. It is then that we realize that in this particular Purikura there is a TV screen on the outside. We are not sure whether or not our images were being broadcast on that TV but judging from the face of the janitor sweeping up, we thought they might have been. We ran out of there immediately and met James for CoCoCurry.

Oh CoCoCurry. I love it so. After curry we decided we wanted to try something new. Already in a silly mood from the naughty picture taking, and a single beer at dinner, we decided that we would try one of those big Karaoke chains rather than going to the bars we usually went to. Shidax, a Karaoke chain, was decorated like a luxurious hotel. We request a karaoke room, and get bombarded with questions, which through struggling we manage to decipher. No we don't want a members card, Probably 2 hours, which all-you-can-drink option do we want? hmm
we want alcohol. we'll go for the $20 option. But after deciding all this we realize its $20 per person, and we only have 2 hours. So the marathon begins. Once we get into the booth we get on the phone and order beer while we decide what we want to drink. Then when our glasses were half empty we order another. Louise was a maniac, I was tailing behind, and James tailing behind me. We might have done more drinking than singing. At one point James went to the bathroom during Destiny's Child "Independent Women." and without warning Louise and I launched into a dramatic Opera during the slow part of the song. Then when we realized that it was possibly the strangest thing we've ever seen in our lives, we couldn't finish the rest of the song from laughing. Fortunately before we went Karaoke-all you can drink for $10 that includes soda. Nah. All you can drink for $15 soda and beer. Ahhing we took a BEFORE picture in the lobby with the character statues, because our AFTER photos showed exactly what kind of night that was turning out to be.
James went home because he had work the next morning but said he would leave his door open for us when we decided it was time to go back. We were on our way to Root Down for cheeseburgers when Louise spotted a sign for Turibilly Bops. A Rockabilly bar. She pushed me through the door and we stumbled upon this bar we had never been to filled with Pirates of the Caribbean and Nightmare before Christmas merchandise. There is even a Jack Sparrow version of pop-up-pirate that we decided to turn into a drinking game with the friendly Japanese people who welcomed us into the bar. When it was your turn someone had their head over the pirate and if it popped and hit them on their head when you put the sword in, they had to drink; and you put your head over when it was someone else's turn, etc. The bar owner was a riot and we promised him that we would return. Then off to Root Down for a burger, get some sass from Norman the owner about "why do you only come where at 2am for burgers..." I suppose rather than spending the whole night there drinking. So we are at present mad at him, and would rather not return. Back to James and wake up at noon on Saturday. There are two suspicious looking bumps on our necks in the same place. Kind of like an insect bite, except why would there be one on both Louise and I in the exact same place... hmmmmmmm.

Saturday. Louise and I do some shopping around James' place. Then headed off to the center of town to find James. His school had work on Saturday because it was a Tanuki Festival. So by "working" at it, he just essentially had to be there, walking around. So we walked around with him. Ate some fair-food hugged a person dressed in a Tanuki costume etc. On the way back we see Matt and Maya in Mr. Donuts. They inform me that there are no buses running into Tokyo on the weekend we wanted to go. Brief Panic. Then leave for James' house. Thrilling Pants story follows!!:

James was doing Laundry and had hung a duvet cover over his balcony to dry. Unbeknownst to him, a pair of boxer shorts had stowed away, hidden in the folds of the duvet cover only to escape at the most inconvenient time. And that they did. As the duvet hung over the balcony, his boxer shorts descended. Not to the ground floor (he lives on the fourth floor) but directly onto the balcony of the person directly below him on the second floor. Laying there on display for the owner of the apartment to walk out and see. James had given up hope, but Louise and I WERE going to get them back.

First Attempt: Dump water on them. The weight of the water will knock them down to the ground floor, as they were precariously perched anyway.
FAILURE.
It only made the boxer shorts and everything around them extremely wet.
Second Attempt:
A: Affix a safety pin to a piece of string and fish them up.
failure
could not see the safety pin past one floor down in the darkness
B: Attach a glow-in-the-dark witch to the safety pin and attempt to fish again.
failure
glow-in-the-dark witch vanished. no idea where she is to this day.
C: Attach a deflated ball to the safety pin. Fish.
near miss
pants were too heavy, possibly from the water in attempt 1, so we hooked for a second, and then lost them. At this point we're concerned that the owner of the house is confused
watching either a glow-in-the-dark witch or a deflated ball hovering around their window at
night.
Final Result of Fishing: FAILURE
Third Attempt: Operation Jab like a Maniac. Louise grabs a mop and goes to the ground floor. Jumping and swinging she cant reach the pants. I go down and we find a bucket. Standing on the bucket, even jumping from the top of the bucket in a do-not-attempt-this-at-home kind of way, we still cant reach. Louise gets on my shoulders with a mop, but freaks out when shes an inch of the ground and we cant complete this mission. James refuses to go on my shoulders.
FAILURE
Final Attempt: I wander the streets looking for a long stick. Tucked behind a soda machine at a local Karaoke place is a discarded curtain rod or something. It is extendable and just might work. We get back to find the owner of the house wandering around in the dim tv-screen lit room. I stand under his balcony with my wand in hand and Louise keeps a lookout for when his back is turned. GO! I soundlessly shoot my stick up and with the speed of a mongoose, I snatch the pants and they fall to the ground.
SUCCESS!! Pants are soaking wet.

All this before we've had anything to drink. We head out Bowling after that. Shoe size? shit. These shoes are in vending machines. You have to know your size. Luckily James' shoes have the size written on them in centimeters, so we get a good feel for how to size ourselves. I get shoes that are maybe one size or half a size too big for me so I decide to see if I can manage to exchange them in limited Japanese. Expecting to see the shoe room on the other side, I instead see this massive bank-vault type room, closed off to the shoe section. Rather than disrupt the sanctity of this glorious room, I decide to deal with my shoes as they were. Bowling is going great. None of us knows how to play and we get as many gutter balls as we do strikes or spares. Louise breaks the machine at one point by bowling her ball right into the pin-set-up machine. Sorry, can you please come over here.. the white people have destroyed your property... thanks. What had actually happened was we had gotten so excited about our ballet bowling that she didn't see it wasn't ready for her. Since we had a friendly group of Japanese boys in the lane next to ours we decided to challenge them to a ballet bowl. The first challenge was walk up to the line, turn once, and bowl. Some did well some didn't. Two turns-similar results. Chaînés were next (consecutive turns in one direction until you stop at the line) I did alright, most were horrible. Finally there were Piqué turns (with one leg up to the knee). They were real sports about it. :) But I'm sure we looked like freaks to those around us. After Bowling was retake of stripper Purikura. For some reason we thought we should do it again this time without a monitor. James didn't want to be in it so he pushed the camera button. After that, James had work Sunday and went home and Louise and I grabbed a taxi to Cassanova's. We only went there because we didn't want to go to Turibilly Bops without having something to drink first because we didn't quite remember what kind of place it was. Eventually we made our way over to Turibilly's and were welcomed with the same boisterousness from the barman as we had been the night before. This time we had a treat for him. Since he was so nice the day before we bought him a Nightmare Before Christmas towel. He loved it, and thanked us with a special kind of alcohol. This was something similar to Japanese Sake, but it had an actual poisonous snake coiled in a tight coil and floating in the bottle. The East Asian Pit Viper to be exact. The name of the drink was Habuzake. Or Habe (pit viper) Sake (alcohol). He said it would make us strong. It certainly tasted strong. More pop up pirate, this time with a Japanese woman who was quite proud to declare herself Japan's Number-One Wanker. Then finally back to James' place. Wake up late late Sunday and take the train home. Weekend #1 comes to a finish.

The next Saturday. We were invited out by Maya and Matt to a fancy-dress bar outing. The theme is Gyaruo>. Boys with dyed hair, the latest J-fashion, makeup, and pointy pointy boots. I had used the wig that Louise got with her Colonel Sanders costume. Knew that would come in handy! Some trendy jeans I had bought earlier, a plaid button down shirt, open with a black A-tee under it, and chains hanging from the back of my pants. Louise had a short skirt with lacy stockings that ended just below her skirt. We were met with either confused looks or laughter where we walked. No taxi would pick us up. But eventually we made it to the train station to meet Rich from Takamatsu who was coming out with use that night. We met Matt and Maya at Casanovas. The bar owner didn't recognize me until I took my wig off. After having quite a bit to drink there, we went to Root Down (against our wishes) because Rich was hungry. We actually Drank there which I suppose made Norm happy. We're still not going back. Then after that we took James and Rich to Turibilly Bops. He remembered us and let the two other guys partake of his snake alcohol. We had God knows how much to drink there and then off to Ingrid's Karaoke Bar. James decided to head home. At Ingrid's we drank and sang until closing time. Then Ingrid took us out to a hip-hop club afterwards. We did not get home until 6 in the morning. That has never happened to me before. Sunday morning we were a wreck and stayed in bed until 1, stayed in the house until 4. Finally when we were able to move, we got our separate trains back home.
Ugh.

PICTURES!!!!!

Halloween

2007-11-06T08:31:00.000+09:00

In the car, back out west.

I arrived at Louise's at 9pm. Friday night was pre-Halloween video game playing with Brian and Julie. I was the first one there. When I arrived Julie had called to say she didn't feel well and wasn't coming. We had been trying to get in touch with Brian for a while because we wanted to go run out and get a pizza, but with no sign of Brian, we thought perhaps we'd try and order the pizza. I called, started to say what we wanted but the man on the phone interrupted me with something I didn't understand. I sat there stupidly for a while, both of us "uhhhhhh"-ing at each other because I didn't understand and he probably thought I was an idiot. After I couldn't take it any more, I hung up the phone without saying anything. Failure. I returned to play Wario on Gamecube for a little while. FINALLY Brian calls us back, but the pizza shop is closed. We meet him at the convenience store instead and pick up some junky treats. We all get back to Louise's where a rousing game of Mario Party begins. Brian is sick and doesn't want to drink. So much for our pre-party. Louise and I have vodka and strawberry milk regardless (a strange combination, but it looked interesting at the store...)

Brian understands Mario Party, neither of us do. It seems that one of the characters in the game, Toady, is making up the rules as he goes along. We affectionately name these characters this, not knowing their real names--there's stupid Toady, Chicken Nugget in a Hat, and Special Needs Ghost. Needless to say, Brian wins.

We wake up bright and early to top off our Halloween costumes the following morning. Brian had returned home, so we would meet back up with him around 4pm for the drive out to the party. We started the trip in search of feathers for Louise's KFC Chicken Bucket. Oh. I hadn't told you. Louise was going dressed as Colonel Sanders, Julie was going as Sophia from Golden Girls, Brian as a Card Captors character, and I as a spokes-"person" for Mr. Donuts (a donut chain in Japan) Pon-de-Lion. Hes a lion with a mane made of a donut that he and his friends eat. When it is no more, his tail magically turns into another one and he puts it on his head!

No feathers were found in the surrounding area. We did however manage to find a set of fuzzy genitalia for my lion costume. Strangely when I asked the woman if they had feathers, she directed me to these things... We'd hit up so many discount shops and dollar stores our heads span, but no feathers. When we returned home, we cut open a pillow, emptied some feathers, and sewed it back up. Then time to start dressing.

Brian and Julie picked us up and off we started driving to Takamatsu. The cassette of E-Rotic Louise had made was pumping in the car. Amusing many Japanese people along the way by either sticking our oddly dressed heads out the window as we passed, or getting a gasoline request from pon-de-lion and colonel sanders... Because of all the balloons around my head, I could barely move in the car, so I was stuck with basically only directly-ahead vision. Before Takamatsu we made a pit stop at a Sega game center. There we took Purikura of us in our costumes, with stares and shock from the Japanese people around. In Toys-r-us, our next stop, despite being DIRECTLY next to the Halloween aisle, we were met with looks of confusion and sometimes disgust. It all became better when we went to Freshness Burger for a quick dinner. The two woman keeping house were in riots, and the one behind the counter nearly peed herself as I tried to pay with my lion-mittens on. THEY had the spirit of Halloween at least.

Back in the car, because by now we were very late for picking up Ashley. First tho, we needed to make a stop at KFC so Louise could pose by the Colonel statue. We walked into the plaza which had KFC, and two other restaurants (more upscale) and hurried next to the statue. People from windows of all the restaurants were staring at us. The KFC customers were especially confused to see the Colonel had come to life. After a few snapshots, one of the Maitre-D's from the fancy restaurant next door approached me. (He and a gaggle of waitresses had gathered at the door watching us) He goes behind me and tugs on my tail, which was a pon-de-lion shaped circle at the end of a yellow long balloon (for stretch and bounce). He gives it a firm tug, and then giggles and runs back to the waitresses. After saying something in Japanese, probably "It's a balloon!" The gaggle of them run to me, rubbing my balloons in my mane and pulling my tail all the while in hysterics. After the brief molestation, we run back to the car and head toward Ashley.

Once in Takamatsu, we park the car and take off. We met Ashley (dressed as Hello Kitty) at Starbucks, where Brian went in, and I audibly poo-pooed the donuts, claiming that they were not as delicious as Mr. Donuts. People were trying to be sneaky taking pictures with their cellphones but we knew it, and embarrassed them by calling them over or chasing after them when we noticed. The party itself was easy enough to find and we soon were there.

We knew almost no one at the party. It was mostly JETs from the other prefecture and their Japanese friends. None the less, Tequila shots were $3 and drinks $5. I was met with "are you a flower" by most of the foreigners, and "AAH!! Pon-de-lion!!!" by most of the Japanese people. Louise and I were obviously the best dressed ones there. She had a routine where she secretly grabbed a handful of feathers, and brought her had to her mouth to cough, as feathers flew. We entered the costume contest, but to no avail as it was cheer based, and no one knew our names. Instead a quite good Wolverine won the contest. But to be fair, his costume was great. Next was the dance contest, which I entered, and was a runner up. They asked me my name but again, it was applauds based and no one knew me. (That's just the excuse I tell myself :P)

The party soon became a blur after drinking a bit too much. I met many new people and exchanged facebook information. Saw some old friends that we had met from the Castle Party a while back. And had a general good time, despite being slightly uncomfortable in a dance belt and a yellow unitard for 10 hours. At 1am, Brian (who hadn't been drinking because he was sick) drags us off to the car. We say goodbye to everyone and leave. The trip back is very sleepy despite E-Rotic's best attempts to bring up the mood. Brian takes Louise and I to Louise's house and then Ashley and Julie home.

The next morning we wake up, and start playing video games. Get a snack at the convenience store, call up Julie, and play some more video games. When Julie gets there, we play Mario Party, this time on Chicken Nugget in a Hat's level. (He seemed a bit more there, but still a rotten cheater). The day had disappeared and Julie was going home. We all go to the grocery store together and get some microwave pizza. Then Louise and I go back to her house to eat pizza and watch the Simpsons movie she downloaded. At 8pm, after having stopped at electronics stores to buy Louise more video games and me a CD player to play music in my car, I head home, getting back around 10:30. What a LONG weekend. I was exhausted!

PICTURES!!!!

Oh what a Mountain...

2007-10-30T08:43:00.000+09:00

Out west again. Friday was Chocolate and Cheese Karaoke. We ate chocolate, and sang super Cheesy songs. Just the four of us, Louise Julie Brian and I, the room felt different, smaller, like someones living room. But fun anyway. We discovered a new group, called E-Rotic. Very catchy and funny, but filthy as all get out... It was fun to try to imagine what the tune was to "Oh Nick Please Not So Quick." And then to download and hear the real version later.

Louise and I were going Mountain Climbing the next morning. We woke up with the realization that we had no idea how to get to the mountain. It turns out that the directions themselves were rather easy, but getting there was not....

After grabbing some not-terribly-good-for-us breakfast (i.e. microwavable pizzas) at Lawsons, we hit the road. We popped in the only tape that I have in my car, some weird trancy easy listening that we've deemed the "you're lost" music because we had gotten lost to it back when we went rafting. I needed gas so we pulled into a shady looking station. This old old old woman hobbles out, and fills up my tank, after I request $50 of gas. I hand her $100 and she disappears for what seems like hours. Meanwhile a homeless looking man asks if I need any help but we informed him that we've already been helped by the crypt keeper inside. After a day and a half of waiting, which was probably more like 10 minutes, she returns with my change. We get out of there quick and start driving up the mountain. The roads are HORRIBLE. Suitable for one car, with deep pits on the shoulder closest to the mountain wall, and a gaping ravine (sometimes covered by a guardrail) on the other side. We were gasping, screaming, and holding our breath the whole hour that it took to drive up the mountain. Cars sped by with little care, and I squeezed by them, I don't even know HOW I managed it. There were parts where you could literally go 3 mph, and have your mirrors kiss both the passing car's mirrors and the guardrail. It was that narrow. After what would warrant hospitalization for a one hour long nervous crisis, we made it to a clearing with a log cabin.

We get out and wander about. Old folks were looking at us like we were the strangest things they've ever seen. It was a beautiful inn with a bath and everything... we thought we had made it to the top without climbing... but as it turned out, we were only nearly at the bottom of the climbing part...

Driving a bit more we discover the climbing area, and James waiting. We park our car (which was a feat in itself as the place was crowded, we had to move a box that might have been reserved for something, to get to a spot) and start changing into our costumes. Oh yeah... we decided that we'd climb the mountain dressed as pandas in ugly dresses. In Osaka we had bought panda ears and Louise and Julie had the ugly dresses from Chalice Karaoke. We painted our faces up good, put on the dresses and exited the car. Oh the attention we got. Three reactions: 1) children, don't look at those creepy people. Oh My God run... 2) I don't see anything I don't see anything I don't see anything... 3) AWWWW Pandas!!!!! Can I take a picture?!?! The shop owners were friendly, but you knew they burst out laughing when we left their store.

After a while, and a free lunch that some Japanese man thought important to give to a pair of pandas, everyone in our party arrived. Fourteen people. We began the hike up. What a killer. Everyone was going so fast and we were struggling to keep up. Mostly because it was a hard climb, but also because we were being stopped constantly by other climbers coming down the other way who wanted their picture with a panda. One woman even called me "handsome"... while I was wearing panda makeup and a dress. Obviously something was off about her... The hike up was 3 hours or so. We had taken many panda photos of us and our panda baby (a walking, sound-making panda doll we bought in Osaka) as well as beautiful photos of the mountain to appease the folks back home who keep asking why we only take pictures of stupid things. :) About 3/4 the way up, we were a 10 minute hike from the top. But James knew of "this natural spring that is one of the top 400 natural springs in Japan...." Top 400? Doesn't sound too interesting but we went anyway, adding at least an hour to the trip. It was a nice spring, but about the size of a persons head, hardly marvelous.... Id put it maybe somewhere in the low 300's? Being the Japanese Natural Spring connoisseur that I am...

We FINALLY make it to the top and BOY is it cold. zero°C. I hadn't brought a jacket but luckily I had borrowed one of James'. We take as many pictures as we can muster in the frigid hell temperatures, but then head inside to the inn. Its a cozy little mountain hotel where we are served a thick ginger soup/tea that warms us right up and flushes the phlegm from my sinuses! Amazing elixir. Dinner, Breakfast, and Lodging were included in the $70 cost, so it wasn't that bad. I was FAMISHED tho, so I devoured two lunches. A whole big plate of curry, and a huge bowl of tempura udon soup. After lunch, the others say "lets go hike to see the sunset." And Louise and I look at each other... "You don't celebrate climbing a mountain by going off to climb another pissing mountain...." so everyone else went and we stayed at the inn drinking beer. No regrets. They were tired and sweaty and cold, and we were comfy and warm and drinking. Eventually they make it back for dinner.

Dinner........ Oh my. This rusty looking fish, deep brown, and completely intact, was sitting beside some miso soup, various kinds of pickles in flavors ranging from rancid to delicious, and other treats. I ate it all, even the rust fish, because I was starving. It tasted like KFC for some reason... After dinner we all start hanging out in the inn. Drinking more, playing Texas Hold-em. I find my way to the bath. It was downstairs where our beds were, and no kerosene heater, so freezing. There was no hot water shower, only cold water shower and a hot bath. But I had gotten the brilliant idea from Amy to scoop hot water out of the bath and use that to shower off with. Then, I hop in the bath for the most LUXURIOUS experience of my life. The hot water felt SO good after that climb, and the cold. The tub was made of wood, had a beautiful smell beautiful feeling, beautiful everything. I didn't want to leave. But after what I thought was an appropriate amount of time allotted to luxury, I got out, and ran back upstairs where the heater was. There was a coo-coo clock on the wall which had not been ringing. We were sad that it wasn't working, as it was ticking down to some hour, Amy notices that the switch to the clock is turned off. So with literally seconds to spare, she jumps on a chair, flies over to the clock and flicks the switch in the exact same instant as the clock rang the hour. Our screams of delight at the coo-coo were enforced by our amazement at the perfect timing. Every one's heads turned to the 6 lunatics who were howling like banshees over a clock.

At bedtime, four people decide to go off for a midnight hike. STUPID idea. Its now sub zero, and the wind is howling strong enough to blow anyone off the side of the mountain. But they go anyway. Fools. Fortunately for them, and the JET program they return safely. At 5am we are all woken by the lodge keeper to view the sunrise. "Happy day! Blue sky!" Our options were go outside and watch the sunrise, no doubt freeze, or stay inside under our thousand blankets and stay warm. We chose (Louise and I) to not go out, and slept some more. Amy had done the same. Everyone else went out. Again, no regrets. It was probably beautiful, but at least we were warm. To be fair, no one else was as warm as we were. There were about 6 rooms for all of us, and most of them decided to huddle together for warmth. Louise and I decided instead to get our own room (designed for four) and take two sets of bedding. A total of 6 thick blankets. It was brilliant! We also took some of their cookies while they were out for the hike. haha!

After a breakfast of a hard boiled egg, rice, soup, and various pickled things that no one wanted to eat at all... it was time to pack up and ship out. James had to take his jacket back, since a bunch of them were taking the long way down, and Louise and I decided to take the shortest route possible. So because it was still zero degrees outside, I put on all the clothes that I had, including mine and Louise's panda dress, put some socks on my hands, and a towel over my head and around my neck. I looked like a homeless old lady bantering down the hill. A few Japanese people along the way told me "I thought you were an old woman when you were approaching!" We made a wrong turn because a large group of climbers were blocking visibility of the path we were supposed to take. So when we got to a path that went back up hill we realized we were going the wrong way. The down side was we had gone at least 20 minutes out of our way, and it was an uphill hike to get back to the right path... :( If there was any doubt that we would be taking the lift the rest of the way, that doubt was gone. We were so annoyed with adding at least a half an hour to our trip that we didn't hesitate a second in deciding to take the lift. (The lift only takes people up and down about half the mountains height) It was a $10 ride but it was nice to sit in a swing, dressed like an old lady (eventually I put the panda ears back on) and having everyone amused as they rode up the other side.

Once down we phone Julie and begin Shopping. But not before another nerve wracking drive down the winding narrow mountain roads. I swear we almost died at least a dozen times and apart from running over a rubbery plastic orange road warning stick thing, my car was untouched. The difference this time was we had our panda ears on, so everyone driving by ever so carefully could see two terrified screaming pandas driving the car.

We stopped in Wakimachi for some Kaitenzushi (Sushi that is made by a chef in the back and sent around a conveyor belt for you to pick which ones you want, and pay for the amount of plates you've eaten later) and then made our way to Bulldog. Bulldog is a used and weird goods shop. Kind of like a Spencer's meets Salvation Army? Louise still needed a white suit for Halloween and I had some shopping to do as well. Julie opted out of Bulldog but would meet us later at Mos Burger. At Bulldog, Louise bought her white suit, which came with a rock star wig. We finished shopping taking turns wearing the wig and even took purikura together with it. I wore it in Mos Burger and all the clerks secretly laughed trying not to let me notice they were. We ended the night buying pumpkins to carve later and going to a huge recycle shop.

To tell the truth, we probably enjoyed the shopping more than the mountain. But it was a good experience to do both. :)

PICTURES!!!!

First Trip to Osaka

2007-10-22T13:54:00.000+09:00

Ok, I'm late again, and I'm sorry. But here goes anyway.

Two weekends ago (Oct 12-14) was a big trip to Osaka!!!

It started off on Friday night. I caught an express train into the city. The sign reads "regular train ¥1060 express train ¥1150" and you can only buy a regular ticket. I figured you'd get on the train and pay the ¥90 difference. I was right about getting on and paying the difference. What I discovered tho is that it is an ADDITIONAL ¥1150; totaling ¥2210. Never again, tho it was a nice train and a quick ride...I got to the city incredibly early because of it, and decided to buy the bus tickets for me and Louise to go to Osaka the next morning.

Louise had a guy visiting her from London. They had briefly dated before JET. This was the trip to return him back to the airport, as he had been there a whole week before. Unfortunately Louise developed a strong dislike for him almost immediately into the week, and needless to say the week was horribly uncomfortable for her, sharing her home with someone she'd rather not... I went as a buffer, also to meet my friend Naoki who I had been talking to for a while online.

It was fortunate for Louise that I only bought two bus tickets to Osaka, because she had called her ex-boyfriend and told him not to come to the city that night, and instead take a bus from her town in the morning. Which meant that she had a night without him! I met Louise James and Claire and we headed off to CocoCurry, a delicious curry shop. I pushed myself and got a level 2 spice. James had a 4 and Louise had gotten a 5. Apparently you are not allowed higher than a 5 unless they've seen you eat a full plate of level 5 first. She said it was hot but not too bad. Louise has the stomach of a viking! We had to go to the musical viewing party to get an idea for what the JET musicals are like, so Louise and I shuffled off to Jeff's apartment and met several others there to watch the Pinocchio DVD from last year. There was a brief discussion afterwards and then Louise and I left to meet James and Claire for some drinking karaoking.

The last train away from Jeff's (even tho he was one stop away from the city) was an unreasonably late hour, so we decided to take a cab instead. Getting inside we told the cab driver "ASTY 21 please" which we thought was our desired destination, the location of Cassanova's Karaoke Bar. Driving driving and driving. We eventually pull up to a desolate bus stop looking place, completely dark. Avoiding embarrassment we get out of the cab and pretend that it was where we wanted. It was a radio station building, which had closed for the night, and apart from one or two couples snuggling in the darkness we were completely alone. APPARENTLY, after we called James to see, we wanted ACTY 21... not ASTY 21. It was a horribly cruel joke that we are sure is exactly for the purpose of confusing foreigners that these two completely different places are so similarly named. We walk till we hail another cab, and get to the right spot.

At ACTY, not ASTY, we were the first ones from our group there. But the bar was FULL. All Japanese men, all young maybe 21-25. Drinking gallons of beer. We asked them what was the occasion, and it turned out to be a going away party, and that they were all Japanese Coast Guards. Fancy. We sang and drank with them a bit. Then instead of James and Claire coming, everyone else who was originally at the musical viewing party shows up. Then finally Claire and James show up. The Coast Guards order more beer but the bartender tells them no more because another party was starting and they had to leave... I thought this was rude, we didn't mind hanging out with them... So they left and we carried on for some more hours. Louise and I wanted a cheeseburger, so we headed toward Root Down. No one else wanted to come with us and went to Ingrid's instead. At this point Louise was completely trashed, and I wasn't far off. So at Root Down we just get burgers and water. There was a foreign guy showing two Japanese women how to throw darts. I don't know why but I insisted that they throw it while looking through their legs. When they tried and failed they demanded that I do it. And miraculously each dart I threw through my legs stuck in the board. They weren't as amazing as bulls-eyes but I hadn't missed once. They were convinced I was a dart master and we left the bar.

Louise had fallen down to take a nap at two points in the middle of the road, and with a great deal of effort, we had made our way to Ingrid's, where we both fell asleep until James and Claire wanted to go home. There we slept, as usual, and the morning found us with a Mos Burger and a bus to catch. We boarded the Salad Express (name of the Bus...) and were off to Osaka. My first time, Louise's second time.

A 2.5 hour bus ride across the sea and we touched down in Osaka. It was SO good to get off the Island I spent more than the past two months on... So much shopping. So many people. So many buildings. It was a true city! Louise and I ran around shopping, mostly for Halloween costumes and pre-Halloween costumes. We met Louise's ex boyfriend around 3, did some more shopping, grabbed some sushi, and then met my friend Naoki around 5. It was a bit awkward to be around Louise and her ex, because she flat out ignored him and wanted nothing to do with him, and he was pathetically depressed about the whole thing. (I mean you kinda cant blame him for having paid all that money to get dumped, but things happen...) Once a foursome, we went to the top of the Hep 5 building (a big shopping mall like building) and rode the giant Ferris wheel at the top. They took pictures of us with a pumpkin and shoved us in a car. The view was great and it was slow enough to be completely relaxing. Naoki took us out to a restaurant afterward where you order from a vending machine and the vending machine tells the chefs what you want. Waiters merely bring it out. I had Oyako-don. It is a rice bowl with chicken and vegetables and partially cooked egg on top. Okayo means family and don means rice bowl. It is suggesting you are eating the whole family by having both the chicken and the egg. Cute :)

After all the food and a rather interesting conversation about why Louise carried Vaseline with her at all times, we headed out for more shopping. Clothes shopping Pants shopping everything fun. Naoki called me 吝嗇さん (Mr Cheapskate - Kechi-san) because I really only would buy a t-shirt if it were ¥1000 or under ($10). But the Japanese have a habit of spending enormous amounts in brand names and thinking its normal. They all have D&G wallets, Armani shirts, $200 jeans... I don't know where they get all this money from... We found a hotel room that was pretty cheep and dropped off many of our belongings. After lightening our load, we headed out to the Pig and Whistle--an Irish pub in Osaka. By this point we had traveled through 3 of Osaka's 4 big areas. Umeda, Namba, and Shinsaibashi.

Pig and whistle is a very famous name for many pubs in Europe but no one knew why. There was a sign on the wall, however explaining it in Japanese, which Naoki read. Apparently long ago, a glass of beer with a handle used to be called a pig and as is more commonly known the mouth is referred to as a whistle (a la Wet your Whistle) so Pig and Whistle implies putting the Pig to your Whistle, or more commonly drinking beer. Louise and her ex were both delighted to learn something about their own country while being in Japan. Louise also found a picture of a bar that is down the street from her house in England in the toilet of Pig and Whistle. I met Naoki's mother and sister a bit later. They were exceptionally nice despite it being difficult to communicate. They even gave me ice cream! yum!

The next morning I attempted to meet Louise again. She had left earlier to take the man to the airport. I wandered about Osaka for over an hour, taking two subways only to continue finding myself in the same location. I was also searching for a fabric store while I was searching for Louise. I had found one that was closed, and as I wandered around waiting for it to open I couldn't find my way back. After passing where she was (realizing this in hindsight) about 4 or 5 times, I finally found her. Eating a cheesy bread thing and a chocolaty bread thing at some cafe. I had a cheesy bread thing and a hotdoggy bread thing. Then as we head off to find more shopping, I stumble upon the fabric store and buy the fabric I needed for my Halloween costume. Yay!

We shop and shop some more until its about time to catch our bus back home. In Umeda by the bus station we find a outdoor vendor selling these strange balls with strange toppings on top. We order an Italian Special ball and attempt it together. It is a doughy ball filled with corn and vegetables and one miniature egg which I had the misfortune of getting, because it tasted horrible. What was "Italian" about it was the cheese they melted on top and the sauce they poured on it. Also in an extra-special pièce de résistance, he sprinkled potato chips atop the whole thing. Except for that mini quail (?) egg, yum!

On the two hour bus ride back home we are loaded up with shopping and tired as hell. We read hilarious excerpts from the book entitled "Making Out in Japanese" which has important dating words and other things in English and Japanese. Our favorite was in a section marked what to do if you're being harassed by perverts on a train. And one of the example replies was "I'm never coming here again!"

In Tokushima city, Louise and I both buy huggy pillows. Its a squat body pillow with a shallow diagonal sewn in the center. The pillow then folds into a V shape, and you can hug it in so many ways while you sleep. Best Japan purchase yet! Then we headed to CocoCurry again. This time I got a 1 and Louise got a 3. We weren't up for a challenge after such a crazy weekend. Then to the coffee house to wait for our trains home to arrive. Well the arrived, and left. Louise made her train by a couple minutes, but I arrived just in time to see my last train home speed off.......

I exchanged the ticket for a refund, bought an emergency battery pack for my dead phone, and thought about what to do. There were no more trains to my town but there were still trains going halfway home. I called my friend Bessy, and asked her really nicely if she could pick me up in Anan because I missed the last train. She was kind enough to do that, and drove 40 minutes to come get me and take me back home. I was SO grateful. Home and with a huggy pillow, I was happy!

And late for work the next morning. :P Oh well.......

PICTURES!!!!!!

Festival Crazy

2007-10-10T23:02:00.000+09:00

This last weekend, I stayed in Hiwasa. It was a three day weekend so technically I could have dome something in an exotic location, but there was so much happening here, I felt I couldn't leave.

The first thing was Hiwasa Autumn Festival. Depicted in that brochure that some of you saw. Men of the town carry around "miniature" shrines through the village all day. They are miniature in the sense that they are not big architectural shrines, but one that is in essence portable... 50 men lift this massive structure, and even with their large numbers, they all appear to be in extreme pain at its weight. Inside the shrine sits four children who play the drum while the adults carry it through the street. I started the day off by visiting the Hiwasa Castle for the first time. I didn't pay to enter inside this time, but the outside was beautiful. I even saw a Tanuki (raccoon dog) scurry past. So cute!

Back in town though, I happened upon my region's shrine. (The town is split into sections, and each section has one to carry.) My two friends Hiro and Shige (neighbors in my apartment building) were carrying it, and Hiro's son Yutaro was riding on top. I walked about town for a bit, getting something to eat, happening upon various other groups in their procession. When night fell, I went to the temple grounds, which were all decorated in lanterns and street food/games. So many of my Jr High School students were there. It was strange to see them out of their uniforms, in their own style. Some even were couples which completely floored me, because there was no sign of it in school. I grabbed various things to eat, and played a game where you try to catch a goldfish using a flat circle made of thin tissue paper. (It ripped almost immediately upon entering the water...) Despite losing, I was awarded three goldfish, which I had no use for whatsoever and couldn't pawn off on anyone. :-/ There was also a gathering of people in front of a stage where some men were throwing mochi (gelatinous rice flour pastries) into the crowd. I didn't manage to get any, but it was fun to try. Around 9:00, the fireworks started. First they were a string of lanterns which exploded into colored sparks. After the street had filled with smoke from these, the ones in the sky had begun. I got a strawberry shaved ice and enjoyed the fireworks.

Sunday morning was part two of the Hiwasa Autumn Festival. The miniature shrines were carried into the sea (not completely, but only to get wet and then straight out). Apparently years before they were left to float out to the ocean, but now they think it safer for the children aboard not to have to swim for their lives, and for the expensive drums (about $1800 each) on board not to be lost. Wise idea. I had left before they actually did this, I only was able to watch them carry some to the beach and wait on the sand. I left because I heard that because of the rain, they weren't going to go into the sea. So I figured after I had seen a couple parade onto the beach, that was it. I did watch the video afterwards tho and it wasn't anything so phenomenal that I feel bad about missing. I had a great time, and one of the students mother and father said that I was welcome to have dinner with them sometime. Which could be interesting.

Around 8:00PM began the Akamatsu Autumn Festival. Akamatsu is the mountain town next to Hiwasa (where my old apartment used to be). It was held at the shrine by the Elementary School. Despite the pouring rain, everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves. For this festival, a huge wooden spire was erected in the center of a rope circle. On-lookers stayed outside the circle while a handful of men with towels on their head, and Hapi coats were inside. One by one, traditional Japanese fireworks were hoisted up the spire on a rope, then lit. These fireworks didn't shoot up into a circular bang like the fireworks I'm familiar with. Instead they rained down a shower of sparks, all fire-colored (no brilliant colors or designs). Huge downpour of sparks flooded the ground whereupon they were immediately extinguished by the wet soil. Our group of towel men would start rhythmically clacking musical sticks, chanting, and would go charging into the flames, and dance around in a circle with sparks falling about their body. It looked horribly dangerous, but no one showed any signs of being in pain. I enjoyed some more festival food, and more Jr High School student sightings. Several other JETs were there and it was nice to be speaking English for a change. My Vice Principal was also there. He was drunk off his ass as his home was in walking distance, but seemed extremely pleased that I was there and enjoying myself. I really get along with him, and am convinced he likes me. Despite my doubtful feelings about the English teacher, at least I know that I am held in high regard with the Vice Principal.

After a long hard weekend of festival happenings, I had managed to catch quite a cold. Might have been all the rain. I spent Monday in a combination of relaxing and getting over the cold, and returned to school Tuesday. It's really great to see my town come alive. It's usually so quiet.

PICTURES!!!
Video of Fireworks
Video of Mini-Shrine Carrying

Rafting Weekend

2007-10-05T14:53:00.000+09:00

Friday after work I hop in my car and drive out to Brian's house. Three hours approx. From there its off to Karaoke to meet several other people. Chalice, a girl from out west, was leaving Japan and Friday was her last day. So we were having Chalice-oke in her honor, to say goodbye. As a theme of the Karaoke, we decided to dress like Chalice. Louise and Julie dressed as speech contest Chalice Brian as standard day-wear Chalice, I was "stuffed pants on the outside" Chalice because she came to Brian's with shiny red stuffed underpants on the outside of her shorts, and Caitlin wore one of Chalice's dresses. We thought someone had spilled the surprise to Chalice because she showed up wearing her own Speech Contest Chalice dress, but we later found out it was a very strange coincidence. Bedecked in our Chalice tattoos we stormed the Karaoke plaza and sang until 1am.

The highlight of the evening was during the middle of a riotous Beauty and the Beast Karaoke, the lyrics on the screen popped up "Beef our guest!" Lots of dancing, from interpretive and ballet tom-foolery to sexy dirty dancing and scream-metal thrashing. I had to perform Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On" because apparently I sound like a British talk-show drag queen, Dame Edna. You can youtube her if you like. Also, my standard Macy Grey "I try."

Even tho I only knew Chalice for maybe 3 days, it was sad to see her go.

We got back to Brian's (Louise and I) and after some nighttime giggles, and Louise recording a ring tone to be her morning alarm (screaming "GET THE F#*% UP!!!!!!!!!!) we fell asleep around 4. I woke up at 7 to a cat in my face. Possibly the most frightening thing one could imagine. Louise had placed it on my chest, and it stood there staring at me, as if to say "I'm not going to stop being creepy until you wake up." We let Brian sleep as he wasn't going rafting like we were, even tho we were cursing the morning light.

Grabbing some pizzas at Lawsons, we hit the road with Brian's crappy tape that he had lent me playing dramatic route-seeking music. Barely escaping our lives as a truck was driving on the wrong side of the road, we made it to, and past our destination. Driving with full confidence as the music was confidently playing along side us. After a while tho, we had doubts and pulled into a gas station. The woman had no idea so she called her husband (at least I think it was her husband but in light of events which I will soon regale we believe him to be either a kind of mystic or some kind of fanciful creature...) He told us that we had passed it. And told us to go exactly 15 kilometers the way we came. Alright. Standard directions... I'm used to hearing "yeah go about 5 miles back that way....." So I punched my tripometer to get a feel for 15km. To our flabbergasted shock, the man was right on the money. Like he had some sort of laser pointer that told the distance to any object--he was right on!! We thought we should either go back and kill him, or keep him in our trunk to use later...

Thirty minutes late, we arrive at the Happy Raft parking lot. Our group is there, and the wavers are being signed and clothing is being distributed. We're not too bad. They give us wet suits, flannel shirts, raincoat, life vest, helmet and shoes. I was sweating thinking "great this is going to be a gross sweaty time." We hopped a bus and drove off to the take off point. There we met the guides and we re instructed on how to not die. I was in a boat with Louise and 3 other JETs, one friend of a JET and our Japanese guide. We named the boat Celine after Celine Dion's rendition of my heart will go on for the Titanic. Our pretended not to speak English, but his English got better as we went along. I was informed that a rough pronunciation of New York 入浴（にゅうよく）means to take a bath. So as a sort of pun you can say "I took a bath in New York. ニューヨークで入浴しました。” (nyuu youku de nyuu yoku shimashita) Which I have done!! :P

Each Rapid had a name. There were eight major rapids. In an attempt to remember the names (and by remember I mean completely forget in the form of bastardizing) we decided to give them names which sounded similar to the Japanese ones. The first rapids were affectionately termed "Techno Remix." The second ones "Morning Musume" (a teeny-pop girl band which refreshes its members yearly...). We were told the name of the third rapids and decided its name should be "Nudie." But as we approached a pretty strong current, we asked if that was Nudie, and it was not, so since it came before Nudie, we named these lesser rapids "Foreplay."

After Nudie, there were some tall cliffs which jutted out above the river in a very deep spot. There we would cliff dive. I figured I was scared at the lowest one, probably 12 feet in the air, so I might as well go for the highest one, 24-ish feet. (The numbers are all estimates, but it seems about right) SO MUCH FUN. I slapped my hand really hard tho. BUT FUN!

Goldfish was next, followed by Old Turkey. But between the bird and the fish was lunchtime. We got off on a sandy rocky place and undressed down to our wetsuits to enjoy an on-the-house lunch of tuna salad on bagels. We could feast on as many as we wanted. I had 3, some had 5!!! Back in the water after warming up and drying off (thank God, I was now thinking, for all those pieces of clothing; the water was so cold.)

Then came Margarita. The biggest of them all. Our boat got stuck on a set of rocks in the early stages of Margarita. So a majority of our margarita was on the rocks... but we broke free and although popping the bottom of our raft, we made it down and felt its true tequila terror! Our guide, at this point was mistaken, and thought the next one was called something which we named Adolf (after Hitler, thinking it appropriate as we had just eaten bagels) but there was some other rapids before Adolf which sounded like "Adult Play" but we took it a step further and called the penultimate rapids "Kinky Sex." Adolf immediately followed Kinky Sex, and the trip was over. Five and a half hours on a raft, with lunch in between. We were knackered!!!!

On the bus ride home the guides joked that a video of me would make the website. I had tried to attack one of the other boats by kicking it from underneath, but instead I bit it good and smashed my face into the side of their raft before going into the water. They said it was the funniest video all year. @.@ We stayed to watch the pictures and videos that they had taken on the trip, and each contributed about a dollar to buy one CD of it between us all and share it.
Then Louise and I began our long drive back to Brian's.

We were at Brian's for a bit waiting for Julie's car to be done at the shop and for us to go to Kagawa (the prefecture above us) to attend their castle party at Marugame Castle. The party at the castle started around 7. We, after driving for gas, and food, and forgetting which way we were actually going, got there around 11. Louise and I had met Nick, Megan, and Angelina from Zorbing before, but the other Kagawa people were a mystery to us. Julie and Brian had many friends there tho so they were fine. We decided to drink! When in doubt. Louise also had brought a pair of funny glasses with the nose on it.. so to introduce ourselves to the crowd, we asked some people to pose for a picture with the funny face, and then take us to their friends to take their picture, and their friends friends and so on. By the end of the night, we had been there for about 3 hours, talking to God knows who, and had amassed some 40 pictures or so. I don't remember anyone really, but I cant remember not having anything to do for three hours. So, success! A video was made from this sillyness.

Brian was nice enough to drive and stay sober so we headed back around 2am. We had been awake since 7am the following morning, so were naturally pretty tired. We stopped nevertheless for something to eat at a local diner-like Japanese restaurant. Brian got his beverage from the tea bag counter, Louise had another pizza, and we all admired the girl with a wiener on a stick printed on the menu. We dropped Julie off at home and went back to Brian's. After criticizing one of his kindergarten counting books ("These aren't 5 cuddly teddy bears. I don't see a single cuddly one there. They're 5 mangy teddy bears....") We went to bed around 4.

I woke up, looked at the clock. Damn... it was 4pm. I slept Sunday away. Brian had been up since two. I watched some cute anime about a little girl in witch school (long before Harry Potter's time) and we waited for Louise. Around 5pm we thought enough was enough, and I kindly woke her with a cat on the face as she had done me several hours before. She rolled out of bed and it was off to the grocery for her and I. Brian was making us lasagna and we needed some salad preparations. At the grocery, we decided that it would be cute if we brought dessert. We saw a blueberry cheesecake and snatched it up. Then we thought... it would be cuter if the plate had chocolate powder on it. Finding the chocolate powder, we also see gummy cute animals so decide to decorate with that. In addition Louise finds mini grapes and we pick those up as well. Next we thought it would be even CUTER to make this a surprise, and in order to make it a surprise we needed to buy our own plates so we didn't have to ask for some.

After a delicious dinner. Louise and I go outside. As we are decorating the plates of cake in my car, we realize just how insane we are... The look great regardless of our sanity, and everyone is pleased and delighted at the cakes. I make my way home around 9pm, destined to be home in 3 hours, at midnight... but there is no traffic on the road, so I make it home in 2 hours!!! Lucky!!!

What an exciting weekend, despite a missing Sunday. :)

PICTURES
Chalice-oke and Marugame Castle
Rafting

VIDEOS
Margarita on the Rocks
Rapid Surfing
I Bite it Hard
Funny Glasses at Castle Party

New Picture in an old Set...

2007-10-01T09:36:00.001+09:00

I added a picture of my toilet to the Apartment set on my Flickr account.
I decorated it about a week or so ago!
SEE?!

And now for something work related.

2007-10-01T09:21:00.000+09:00

Last week was the English Speech contest that I've been rehearsing two of my third year students for all August and September. It was a short 30 minute drive out to Mugi where the contest was held, and there were 16 kids from about 6 or 7 schools competing.

We had to eat lunch before everyone else in order to make it to the contest in time, and the girls were nervous as hell. I thought they were well prepared. Ayana would go first about her speech on the real meaning of Christmas. Her voice was loud and her presence great. Sachika would go next who had a mastery of all the words and a great accent. Her speech was about her mother's diabetes. :(

When we got there, we helped Bessie set up (Bessie is a JET in Mugi from New Zealand) and the show got on the road. I was asked to lead the kids in a stretch warm up. Last year they had to rock paper scissors for it because no one wanted to do it. But it was no problem at all. The kids were all with me for the stretch up, stretch sides, touch the floor bit. When I told them to shake out their face and make a noise, some did, some didn't. Then, because I was specifically asked to stretch out their faces, I did a face stretching exercise that Aileen taught us. It came from Japanese performance art... I figured the Japanese would love it. :P But the kids all watched me. No one did it; despite it being hilarious and good for them. At least they, and the teachers and judges all had a good laugh. :)

Sitting through the speeches was long and tiring. Some were engaging, others weren't. My two kids did great of course even tho, in their nervousness, they each had to glance down at their papers once to regain their place. After a 45 minute wait, the judges were finally ready. It had been a tough decision, but first place went to Yuki-town (my neighboring town) and an Honorary/Second prize went to 5 other girls (both of my girls were among them). So good work after all.

We had decided that if we won, they would get ice cream, and if we lost, I had to drink milk (because I HATE milk in Japan..... ugh *sick face*) So they were playing up the "ahahah you have to drink milk!!!" Until we got to the convenience store and they each got an ice cream (my calling Ayana an alcoholic for getting rum raisin flavored....) and I was allowed to pass on the milk drinking!!

We returned home after much praise back at the school from their fellow students and other teachers! Good work girls!

PICTURES!!! (I don't have pictures of my two kids speeches because I was too busy videoing)
Ayana video
Sachika video

Some weekends

2007-09-25T20:42:00.000+09:00

Fake weekend

Because I worked Saturday and Sunday for sports day, I got Monday and Tuesday off. Louise was in the same boat. So we bugged James to let us stay at his place, even tho he had school then. For some reason this trip I had a ravenous hunger. More on that later. Louise left her phone at home so we had to bother Andrew at the CLAIR office to find each other. Louise had been to the pants shop twice before we found each other. The first time was for her own pleasure. The second was because she heard from Andrew that I was going to buy some pants. (Pants means underwear in British English, and I will use it from now on).

As it turned out, I wasn't there, but we went back again after rendezvousing. I had gotten two cheeseburgers at a Lotteria (fast food place). We did some more shopping and decided that it would be funny to go back to the pants shop, making it a total of 4 times in one day for Louise. At the pants shop, we bought matching underwear (Gold waistband and green camouflage print). Louise made a joke to me, saying "these shop owners must thing that we're going to be involved in some kinky sex..." in front of them thinking nothing of it since they don't speak English. I reminded her afterward that the Japanese word for "kinky sex" was in fact "kinky sex" and she turned red. The Japanese shop owners understood nothing BUT that phrase.. quite a dramatic turn.

We took our matching pants and went to a photo booth. It probably was illegal, but we took pictures of us in just the pants (there was a curtain, but it still seemed wrong). When it came time to decorate and print the pictures, we expected about a minute to do it in. Usually in the other machines they time your decorating and you have to hurry. So we hurried. But when we were done, it just sat there. We started freaking out, thinking we would have to go get help printing our quite-scandalous images. The last thing we wanted to do. Pushing every button imaginable, nothing would happen. Finally after about 10 minutes of debating just walking away with our pictures on the screen, or asking for help, they printed. Sigh of relief. We got out of there fast.

More shopping (I bought a strange tiger mask), then we met James after work. Went out to a ramen shop, I had a tenpura meal, and then was still hungry, so I got a huge bowl of ramen. Essentially two dinners, after a two hamburger lunch. Was I pregnant?! Walking back to James, we stopped to pose on a giant cheese like playground. From James, to Karaoke at Cassanova's. By now, we don't care if he does or doesn't take pictures of people in the bathroom. He gives cheap drinks and is a nice guy. We were the only ones there on a Monday night, so he said he wanted to go to his friends place. He asked us to watch the bar and give him a call if someone came. Sweet. He refilled all our drinks and was off. Bar to ourselves! But we only took a couple of behind the counter pictures. We didn't knick any drinks, and he was back soon enough.

Because it was a school night for James, he headed back home, and Louise and I were quite drunk. We stumbled around the streets, me in my tiger mask, looking for Ingrid's bar. We had only been there once, but had a map. We stopped this couple we saw to ask for directions, but they were visibly terrified of the foreigners so gave us "hurry these crazy people away" directions. Somehow, we found Root Down--another bar we frequent--so we figured we were close. We asked another woman for directions, but she just said "No." to us. No explanation, how rude. There were three guys on bikes down the street, so we asked them. Turns out they had spent some years in the US and their English was great. Their English was great but their sense of direction was horrible. We walked around for anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour and a half.. who was keeping track, and finally found Ingrid's, which was closed. After all that! So we headed back to Root Down. Snapped a couple pictures of our new friends and were surprised that they didn't even want to come in with us for a drink. You would think that after an hour of going out of your way for a couple of foreigners, you'd want them to buy you a drink, but no, it was a simple goodbye.

At Root Down I had my third cheeseburger, tying Louise for most cheeseburgers in 24 hours. Took a cab back to James' house and woke up to find he'd already left for work. We played his Wii a bit (video game) and then left a lovely note farewell to head back to our respective homes. We topped off the trip with a visit to Mos Burger, where I consumed two burgers, making a grand total, and a new record of 5 burgers in 24 hours. Needless to say, I wasn't feeling too fantastic, but it was delicious. Fantastic fake weekend.

PICTURES!!
and this.....

Venturing out West

The next three day weekend I was supposed to have, but had been canceled because I was supposed to go to a sports festival, which really was never true because I didn't have to go and didn't find out until the last minute WAS HERE!! Well if I had known that I had three days off all along, like was planned, I would have gone to Tokyo. But instead I booked it home after work on Friday and got in my car to attempt driving for the first time out west. Janet was having a BBQ, and Brian was really sad and just wanted to get drunk, so he couldn't drive. So I thought, why not. I'll attempt it. After three hours on the road, I made it to Janet's with NO problem. I'm really impressed with myself. As it turned out, no one could find cheap meat, so the BBQ plan was out the window. We went to a restaurant for dinner and drove Janet home. She was going to Oosaka at 6am the next day. I drove everyone back to Brian's (Everyone being Brian Louise and I) where we played video games and drank the rest of the night. Some of us out of glasses, some of us out of measuring cups.... eherm.

The next morning we arose around 2. Brian cooked up some eggs, bacon, sausage and toast. Louise was in charge of filling the water for coffee. And I was in charge of making sure Louise didn't kill herself doing so. She was either horribly hung over or still drunk. I'm not sure. After breakfast, I had to get in the car and start the three hour trip back home. I was meeting my neighbors at 6 for a party. I made it back just in time. :)

The rest of the weekend (Sunday and Monday) was spent buying new things for my apartment and cleaning up. But that's not so exciting.

I only have a couple of pictures that were taken by Louise for this one. Sorry :(

NEXT WEEKEND... Rafting! Woo hoo.

Sports Day

2007-09-16T12:01:00.001+09:00

I know its a week late, but I'm lazy... what can I say.

I had to work the weekend of the 8th because of Sports festival. The crap part of that is that I had to work a 7 day week. The good part of that is Sports day is incredibly funny.

Saturday was practice for sports day, we ran thru all the activities and the kids half-assed the whole thing. They skipped a bunch of things and sped thru many others. But Sunday on the other hand was golden. It started with a march of all the children, organized into three teams of varying years, around the sports field to introduce themselves thru an adorable (and somewhat unintelligible to me) chant. I did manage to get the Red Team's ”そんなの関係ねえ。そんなの関係ねえ。はい、オッパッピ！" tho! (A chant and dance made popular by a Japanese comedian click to see)

After that they broke into several smaller sections of teams to compete in various different athletics. Games included girls wrestling over old car tires, first years dressing up like monkeys, running with a basketball between their knees, climbing up a bamboo pole, and then reaching for a banana with a rubber tube tied around their waist..... Basically anything you can think of to properly make fun of the kids. Gotta love this school system. They do it so willingly. My favorite of all time was the relay for the 1st thru 3rd year boys. Each sat in the corner of a triangle. In the center was a rubber inner tube tied to the ground with a rope. Whose ever team was all thru the inner tube first, was the winner. But you could carry the tube over closer to your team, Run it away from other teams, push people out of the way, etc in order to achieve this. Kids were dragged across the dirt half inside the tube...pushed, tripped. It was riotous--and the whole thing reminded me strangely of a sperms quest for the egg... The crappy news is that when I was transferring all the videos I took from my camera, my computer decided to get an error at this exact point, so this is the only event which I do not have a video of... my favorite event. :( :(

Lunch time interrupted the games around the halfway point, but not before a charming folk dance. The kids performed a rather simple square dance, and a mazurka, en mass in a giant circle. It was creepy and reminded me of the Nazi armies which used Laban notation to learn dances. For we teachers, lunch was catered in the teachers lounge. A simple bento (lunchbox) with bits of this and that with rice. The kids all brought their own lunches, their parents too.

Sports day continued without a hitch after lunch. A presentation of skits were put on by each of the three teams, most boys were either dressed as girls, or in animal costumes, and the girls were either boys or really strange girls... Each skit was 5 minutes--I had to judge them and didn't know what was going on :P... And to my dismay, many of these small children can do back flips and gymnasticy things that I cannot do. grrr. This time it was the PTA's turn to play some games (Strangely the initials PTA somehow stand for the same thing in Japan as they do in America...) I joined in a rousing game of over-under pass, tug of war, and get the bean sacks in the basket alongside my fellow teachers, against our kids parents! Muahaha. We totally owned the bean sack in the basket game. More children games, and then the coveted awards ceremony. Green team won, Purple team second, and Red team last... damn I was rooting for the red team.

The day of great fun ended in everyone taking down the tents and putting all the equipment away. My weekend began Sunday at 5, and was destined to end Wednesday morning.

PHOTOS!!!

Videos:
Sports Day Activities
Folk Dances

Actually Living and Teaching...

2007-09-07T16:13:00.001+09:00

Ok so its about time; a post not about an extravagant weekend, but instead one about what I've been up to these past few weeks and how I've been feeling!

School is not quite in full swing, but its certainly winding up. Its an exceptional week due to sports festivals and school festivals and such; sometime next week we'll be in full swing. That said, I have been very busy regardless.

I want to start by saying that I have learned that, so far, I adore teaching. I have only been to two classes, but both were fantastically rewarding. Before that, a little of the goings on at school. A couple of days ago, I come into work late accidentally and when I get there everyone is blasting music and cleaning. I ask the English teacher if I should get a broom and she said "Oh you don't have to..." which I took to mean "Oh, we don't expect you to clean... you're the foreigner you just sit there and be comfortable..." but in actuality she meant "YOU don't have to, and neither do I, or any other teacher, because its the students job to clean the school." ...subtext... But since I didn't know that I said "No, I really think I should..." You know, good graces... and she kind of looks confused, says ok and shows me a broom. I'm sweeping to the tune of "AAH!! Cool Teacher!!!" as kids are shocked and happy to see that I'm cleaning with them. A misunderstanding with beneficial effects as now I've won some of their hearts. Later that day, as some kids were preparing for their performance in the school festival, I ask them if I could watch their dance. Its a very Kids Bop music video dance with an abundance of clapping and turning.. but I quietly turned of the studying-four-years-of-dance-at-college critique and told myself that these are middle school girls... The rest of the day I spent drawing monkey faces. For no apparent reason, at least to my knowledge, the Kendo teacher approached me, and asked me to draw a monkey. He liked my monkey, and had me draw more... And that was that.

For my first class, on Wednesday, Megumi, the English teacher, and I taught half of the second year students. She had me introduce myself, answer questions, draw some states I was associated with on the chalkboard, and then ask the students questions. They were eager, happy, thoughtful, and an overall joy to teach. Fifty minutes flew by and I did basically nothing! Later that same day I had a "business trip" as they like to call it, to the Elementary school in Hiwasa. I thought, better to plan a lesson, so I downloaded some children's songs (ring around the rosie, froggie went a courtin, and pop goes the weasel). There was to be about 48 of these second graders that I would be in charge of at the elementary school. So I brought also 48 sheets of differently colored construction paper (pink, red, blue, green, orange, purple, yellow). The kids came in, lined up, and repeated everything I said.
"Hello!"
"Hello!"
"Nice to meet you!"
"Nice to meet you!"
"How are you?"
"How are you?" ..... wait a second... they have no idea what I'm saying, they're just repeating me... oh well. Game on!

I gave them each a paper, (they knew all the colors already, damn.....) and with the help of the supervising teachers, I explained that they should get in a circle, put the paper down on the floor, and when the music starts, to skip, jump, walk, or awa-odori around the circle. Freeze when the music stops. Look down at your color. Naturally with 48 kids walking in a circle, it didn't work out that they stopped on a color, were unevenly spaced about the room, and all kinds of other technicalities.. but the supervising teachers quickly grabbed unused colors and tossed them at the feet of the colorless kids, as if in a By-any-means-necessary desperate attempt at the success of my game. After a couple of seconds, everyone had a color, and the kids didn't mind freezing that long, rather enjoyed it--shouting out loud if they or their friends didn't have a color. 1, 2, 3.... Blue. I would call. And the blues took their paper, ran around the room over to me, gave me a high five, and together, we chanted the color name again. Or whatever other color I said randomly. They had a great deal of fun... so despite knowing the vocabulary already.. they still enjoyed it.

All that's left at this point is my 英会話 (Eikaiwa - Adult English Conversation Class) and my Enjoy classes (classes where I am the main teacher and have to keep the kids busy and having fun--the focus isn't English... but I am to speak English) Those are the two that I'm most nervous about... where people are an age where just anything wont entertain them... :) But we'll see how that goes when I come to it.

In the living news... I've moved apartments, as you know. And within the first couple of days of moving in, I get a ring at my doorbell. Two women from the apartment complex are at the door and say "We want to be your friends!" They invite me over for cake, and later, dinner. At dinner was the both women, their husbands, their kids, and another woman from the apartment complex with her kids. Including me, 6 adults, and 6 toddlers (all kindergarten or younger). What a crazy time. I've since been over for dinner a couple more times, met more of their friends. Communicating with these new friends is just as challenging as communicating with anyone else here, but its a lot more relaxed, so its a lot more enjoyable. They are very eager to help me out, and even helped set up my Internet for me yesterday. I'm really thankful for these neighbors.

I'm getting used to this town. I find myself WANTING to explore instead of wanting to stay home and sulk. Try restaurants, learn to communicate, learn to navigate. There's such a wealth of things to do in the surrounding areas... to the naked eye it is dull and a miserable desolate place to live. But underneath its skin, this town has something beating. I will find that pulse!

Shirahama Beach

2007-09-04T15:50:00.000+09:00

I met Janet Louise and James at a Lawson (convenience store) near my house. They had each gotten a pizza and as we were heading to the cars, an old Japanese woman smiled and said "you're going to get fat..." and walked away...

Beach party today! We were all on monkey patrol, but with no luck--I don't know if I had mentioned that I see wild monkeys frequently around my place, and the three of them do not. We begin our 30 minute drive to the beach, all of our stuff piled in my trunk. We stop at a big supermarket in the next town over to stock up on beer, beer, beer, peach flavored cocktails (we bought out the store, all like 12 or so), cheese, bread, and raw meat to make burgers. We get to the beach and very few people are there. No bother, we leave the tents and clothes in the car and bring only the food, drink, and fun. Get in the water, toss a Frisbee, life is good.

But no grill to speak of. 5, 6 o'clock rolls around and still no one in charge is there. We're contemplating either eating the meat raw or roasting it over a human sacrifice that we nominate. Just then, the cavalry arrives, but without grill. Tragedy.... they inform us, while knives are pointed at their throats, that the grill had been here all along. And lo and behold, it had been. Get that fire started. It was in the hands of an able girl scout and a couple of guys to get the fire going. In japan they have chunks of trees that are called charcoal. Unfortunately no charming briquettes of lighter-fluid--so it was a bit more trouble than one would expect. Once the fire was roaring, the full crowd of about 30 of us were there. With smells of pork and salmon and kabobs and whatever anyone dreamed of placing on a fire wafting through the air.

I had seized both of the tongs and a miner's headlamp and had become the grill master. Flipping things like it was my job because no doubt, it was. Our group had polished off all but two of the burgers, which I as happy to hear Louise and Janet had eaten at wee hours of the morning, so nothing went to waste. I had also managed, through my masterful grill work, to earn a Sudachi seasoned (Japanese lime native to Tokushima --pride--) Salmon Steak. Sudachi Seasoned Salmon Steak. Sudachi Seasoned Salmon Steak! Since we were drinking since around 3pm, the night came quickly. Music came late. We had wanted music all day, and only when it had gotten late had the music come.

Music leads to dancing, like it does. We also discussed the various juicy gossips that were springing up all around us. Our tents set up, our bellies full, it was time to just enjoy the beach. A couple among us had gone to bed already, a couple had passed out on the sand or in a car. Myself, I was whisked away for a swim. I was one of the only few in the first group who would swim naked... but after a few minutes a whole team of naked swimmers arrived, including one of the Japanese groundskeepers, who kept shouting "I am a samurai!" until Bessy pointed out that he was a small samurai. Embarrassed, he abandoned that title.

Snacking on the leftovers, the evening began winding down. Ingrid (a woman who has been in Japan for 15 years, owns a bar in the city, and loves hanging out with JETs) left a lot of her leftover food in my possession. I scored some bread, salad, raw meat, and cheese. That would be dinner. It was eventually back to the tents for me. I had conveniently forgotten...anything... and had to sleep without blanket resting my head upon two slightly wet towels. Horrible sleep. Which is why it only lasted four hours. The next morning, I comb the beach for our belongings, clean up a little, and go to pack up the tents. Piling everything back in the car. In the spirit of being all together again, we obviously want burgers. There's a Hawaiian Kitchen, but it is closed at 9am, so we drive until we spot a Sunkus (another convenience store). Still on monkey patrol, and serenaded to the sweet tune of "Que Sera Sera" on the radio, we make a sleepy drive home. No monkeys, but a good time.

PICTURES!!*
*borrowed from Louise because I was lame and didnt take any pictures for this trip... :(
PS. two new pictures added to my apartment set... if you care. :P

How the West was Awesome!!

2007-08-30T15:12:00.000+09:00

Late finding the time to get this done…

This past weekend I went out West. The longest train-ride yet, but it was well worth it. Brian picked me up at the station, and we went out to eat. It was my first うなぎ丼 since I came to Japan (Eel over rice). Afterwards we went back to his house and watched Margaret Cho until other people were ready. Louise and Janet had thought we were going out earlier, so they had begun getting drunk early, and were waiting and drinking (like hobos) at the train station for about an hour. Once Jill and Gilly arrived at Brian’s we all headed out to Karaoke. Ten foreigners bust through the door of the Karaoke place. How exciting that must have been!

I put all my effort into Macy Grey, which as it seems is becoming my signature Karaoke song. In full Macy Grey rasp. We left around 1am, and had a slumber party (Jill Gilly Brian and I) back at Brian’s place. I adore his cats!! He has two incredibly cute cats, which make me miss mine at home… even though one of his cats, Soichiro, attacks my feet with extreme prejudice when I’m wearing socks, its still endearing.
The next morning we wake up early, bid Jill and Gilly adieu (they are going to the beach on the other side of the island… a long drive awaits them) and head out to meet Janet and Louise and pick up Angelina, Megan, and Nick from the station. With that begins our Zorbing experience.

Now zorbing, for those who don't feel inclined to look at the pictures or who still have no idea after having seen the pictures, is a giant PVC plastic ball, inside the ball, in addition to air, and more plastic “rods” is another plastic ball. The result is a sort of mildly shock absorbent “cage” or dwelling place. You ride up the hill in an adorable cable car with the massive ball leading the way, strapped to the front, then once at the top, the fill the inner ball with a couple gallons of water, encourage you to enter, and then seal you in. You are then pushed down this hill, and because of the water, you don't flip around and around but sort of jerk splash and slide around the bottom (meniscus?) of the inner ball. If I had taken AP Physics in High School I could better explain it, but I instead took, and failed at AP Chemistry. Anyway. It’s like a waterslide and its ENORMOUS amounts of fun. You can find a video I made of the experience, HERE. All this for about $7!!

After we Zorbed we piled into cars, ran into a grocery to grab a picnic, and took to the mountains to go swimming in a crystal clear serene mountain river. Aah. Ashley and Caitlin had joined us along the way. It was a rocky river bed, but smooth rocks, so you could go shoeless. The current of the water, in places, was tremendous and would whisk you away. In addition to that there was a rocky ledge that was climbable which jutted over a sufficiently deep section of the river. It was thrilling to leap off into the water. I even tried to do some trick jumps and twirls off the rocks. Flipping was out of the question, only because I was afraid I’d hit my head. But I did do a cabriole, and a couple of pencil turns.

After we swam, we ate our fill of sushi, “delicious potato” chips, fish balls on a stick, tenpura, etc. And drank tea and Quu (pronounced koo—a fruit drink) out of mini hello kitty cups! Finding a bamboo stick, we invented a vaulting game, for which the video can be seen HERE. Drying off we parted ways briefly to get some dry clothes on, and regrouped at a local festival. Just in the nick of time, we found parking, and caught the most thrilling part of the fireworks display! Children down the hill were playing with glowing swords, and we decided we must have them! I bought a glowing sword, while many others bought a glowing fan. We ordered たこ焼き (fried octopus) and sat down to watch the Awa-Odori dancers performing post-Awa-Odori. This couple approaches us, dragging this horrified looking child who is kicking and screaming to be let go of. They try to get her to speak English to us, but she is SO scared that as soon as they release their grip, she is off like a bat out of hell. Over time, all members of their group relocate to around us. Some of the kids are very keen on talking with us, as are almost all of the adults. We’re given free beer, and enjoy a lot of laughs with the people who are so happy to be socializing with foreigners.

At the end of the night, we bid Louise, Janet, Ashley, and Caitlin adieu (lots of adieu bidding) and head back to Brian’s. A short walk from his house, we find ourselves enjoying wine and snacks under an overpass. After that, back home, we play videogames and watch more Margaret Cho until its time to sleep. Another slumber party, this time five in a room: Nick, Megan, Angelina, Brian, and myself. Pillows were scarce—I slept on a sweater but it was all ok.

And slept we did. Sunday, I had to be home to pack, but at no particular time, so we all slept in until the middle of the afternoon. Around 2pm, shortly after I had woken up, Brian too me back to the train station to start my long trip home.

I packed the rest of Sunday, and cleaned the new apartment on Monday. By Tuesday I had moved everything in, and then some. This new apartment is much cleaner, much more lovely, much bigger! And although the price is higher, I think it is well worth it. Tuesday night, I met Angie and Stacie (who live further up in the mountains but nearby where I live) and we took a nighttime picnic to the beach to watch the lunar eclipse. Despite the cloudlyness making the moon invisible early on in the eclipse process, and the crab that tried to scuttle up Stacie’s skirt, it was a great time and the moon was beautiful after the clouds cleared.

I’m working my way through unpacking and setting everything up. I still have to vacuum the old apartment, and clean one of the rooms I tossed a bunch of my junk into. Other than that, things are progressing along nicely. On a stranger note, driving home one day, I see a gang of rogue monkeys carrying things in their mouths (food?) up into the mountains. Wild monkeys in Japan?! Who would have guessed? I hope they appear again so I can take their pictures! Cheeky Monkeys.

Next weekend… the Beach!!!

PICTURES
Out West
New Apartment

徳島市もう一度!

2007-08-23T13:00:00.000+09:00

This past weekend, a bunch of us returned to Tokushima City. Who can blame us, it was so much fun the last time. I met up with Louise and Janet at the trainstation and shortly after we met with a handful of 30 or so other JETs to take the "Tokushima Tour of the City," of course not before we each went off shopping on our own, and bought matching "Burger, Open the Large Mouth and Eat" t--shirts. We split up into two tour groups because our numbers were so large. Louise Janet James and I went with a number of other people on the tour led by Amy and Chris (Pickles).

Despite the fact that it was miserably hot outside, the tour was nice, visiting shopping malls, book stores, drug stores. The drug store "Power Drug!" was also attached to a 100¥ shop, and sold such delightful things as cute animal towels, and the infamous F-cup cookie. A snack that is destined to increase your bust size--by the looks of the packaging, to an F cup. Good lord.

I considered buying it, but would have honestly regretted it if they actually worked.

After the drug store we took a walk around, had the post office pointed out to us, a few good curry shops. Then we stopped in a seedy sex shop run by the Japanese mafia-- the Yakuza. It was in the basement of an old nondescript building. The whole second floor of the sex shop was devoted to bugging devices... I don't know how many are sold per diem... but something tells me Japan has its fare share of perverts who want to listen to people. How about that...

As would be the natural next step on a tour, after the sex shop, we went to eat.
The restaraunt was a big one with sharing-style food. A couple of pictures are in my photos, as the English descriptions of the food were often hilarious. Louise and I were sharing and we got some pork kimchi noodles, delicious fried cheese!, fried popcorn shrimps, and some cold sweet and sour chicken. After eating we took a series of photos with chopsticks in order to compile this heart-warming video.

Leaving dinner we head to Casanovas to drink. Back here again, who'd a thunk it... It was hilarious; I think I mentioned that theres a rumor the bar owner takes pictures of people in the bathroom--well after we get there, I go to the bathroom to freshen up, and as soon as I come outside and sit down, he says--completely oblivious to how funny it is-- "I have a picture of you!!!" I froze then laughed. Turns out he took a non-bathroom picture of a bunch of us from the last time we were there. Aww how nice. Once we've had our fill, and Mike Miyagi, the bartender, invents a price for us each to pay, usually very cheap, we head off to P's Paradise.

P's is a bar for dancing. Sort of. We made it so anyway. There were only a few of us determined folk at first, but soon the second tour group met up with us, and more and more people dancing. Louise James and I went home at 2am despite some peer pressure by others to stay out later. They got in around 5am, but I am thankful for the extra rest.

We wake up the next morning to, what else? Mos burger! Of course! The three of us wearing our recently purchased burger shirts. We probably looked like a handful of nut-cases. After Burgers it was shopping. More humorously worded English shirts! More Purikura (mini pictures from a booth...) Then a taxi hopped and finally the long train home. Ahh so sad to leave all your friends behind.

There's always next weekend!!!

PICTURES!!!

徳島市もう一度 - Tokushima City one more time

Chopsticks!

2007-08-21T10:21:00.000+09:00

Louise and I made a charming video about the various decorative uses of Chopsticks!

Here she is!

Enjoy!

Fanny Toss (A Drinking Folding Fan Game)

2007-08-17T12:03:00.000+09:00

The video for the fan game that Louise and I made is now up on youtube!

here's the link!

:)

Shirahama, Tokushima City, English Camp, and Awa-Odori!!! Oh my what a week.

2007-08-16T13:03:00.000+09:00

A week-long entry (it's long...)

Thursday, after a half day of work, I go to the train station nearest me to pick up my friend Kai. He is visiting my prefecture and decides to stop by. We go out for some Udon and head out for the 40 min drive to Shirahama Beach. The water is salty but the beach is beautiful and the waves are a great deal of fun. There are only a handful of people at the beach, and it is incredibly clean--not to mention free! So we spend a couple of hours there. Its time to head back, apparently I'm a horrible driver, but I'm not used to the other side of the road--I was getting a lot of guff about it.

We get back to my apartment, and in a little while I get a knock on my door. My vice principal had invited himself over with a bag full of beer. You can't really turn someone down in that situation, so we let him in and he drinks with us. Refilling our glasses before they even get half empty. They're talking about me in Japanese and I'm struggling to keep up, but the atmosphere was fine enough. The only problem was that we hadn't had dinner. In Japan the allowable blood alcohol level is zero, meaning if you even sip a drink, you cannot drive or bicycle anywhere. Sort of hinting at it, he feels bad and returns home to give us some food his wife had cooked. He leaves at 9:30 because "he's too old to be out drinking so late." Meanwhile we're both supremely drunk, and don't even feel like eating the food we were given. Having a bowl of miso soup each, we go to bed.

The next morning we head out of the train station. He was staying with his friends in Tokushima City, and I had to get to the city anyway later that weekend, so I thought I'd go with. Train company. We park in front of the train station at 11:00am and grab some lunch at the nearest shop. The woman is doing her best to talk to me and I'm doing my best to communicate in Japanese. We ask her if it is ok to park where I had for 5 days (the amount of time I would be gone), and she replied, "yes, as long as no police come." Asking her "what happens if the police come," She simply says "That would not be good..." With 10 minutes to spare, I call up my English Teacher and ask her if it is ok to park at the school for that long, she says yes.

As it turns out, the school is at least a 15 minute walk from the train station, so needless to say, completely soaked in sweat, we miss the first train. The next one that comes is an express train and would cost about 2 dollars more; I'm all for it, but Kai says no, so we wait some more. Finally another train comes and we get on. It's 2:30.
On the train I get a call from my school, saying the paperwork and photo I turned in for my passport is wrong, and I need to redo it... Another hassle begins. I put it out of my mind because there would be nothing I could do about it until I get back on Thursday. The train plods along, as I learn how to play Trump (which we called asshole back at home) because I surely would be playing it with Kai and his friends. I'm terrible at it, but I get the concept.

Hilarity ensues at my ability to play rock paper scissors (janken)--apparently i hold my paper the wrong way, and stick my thumb out during scissors... my rock is great tho) The train stops at a station for 30 minutes, adding still more time to our trip.

At last we arrive at Tokushima Station. Kai's friend Maho picks us up and takes us to her apartment. It was there that even more drama occurs. I had been playing a game on my cellphone for a little while, and Kai asks if he could check to see if its free. So he checks and turns white saying "you are paying a lot for this cellphone...." Somewhere around $500. I don't know what to do, I'm speechless, I cant even faint. This was not news I wanted to hear. Apparently my school board bought the most expensive cellphone plan for me, costing me a fortune. Luckily, Maho had worked for DoCoMo (the cellphone company) and she grabs the phone and starts plucking away at it, and over the course of 20 minutes, my service had been changed to the cheapest one. Thank God for Japanese friends. I felt exhausted after my near heart attack.

A little later their friend Fumio comes over and makes us some kind of tasty rice consomme and a Korean style savory pancake. Its easier to communicate when I'm comfortable... I teach them some English expressions, some dance lifts, (Maho LOVED being lifted and with each different lift I showed her, she wanted to do it 5 or 6 times.) They taught me Japanese games involving a song and either some kind of hand game, or a jumping game. We play Trump long into the night and head to bed around 2am. Fumio and Maho in the small single bed, and Kai and I on the floor on a futon without a pillow. I have to admit that my apartment looks like a palace next to the size of hers.

In the morning, I wake to leftover Korean pancake for breakfast. Maho takes me to the train station again, and they all head off to Naruto (in the north) and then to take Kai back to Okayama. I say farewells to them. Who knows when I will see them again. Kai is going to American in September, and I had just met the other two, not exchanging numbers. But it was fun regardless.

I meet Louise, Janet, James, and Dave at the train station. We are all going to be spending the night at James since we have to be in the city the next morning at 9am. It would be better to have a 20 minute walk to the meeting place, rather than an hour and a half train ride at 7am. Louise and I planned the whole thing, which we are quite proud of ourselves for, and James kindly offered his apartment to us.

We grab a cab and head out to his district of the city. Meeting first at Mos Burger for a bite to eat. "Hamburger is my Life". Mos Burger is glorious. I get the Curry Chicken Burger, Louise the cheeseburger, Janet a hot dog with everything on it, and Dave a Prawn burger. James skips lunch and tells us to meet him at his place when we're done. His place is really nice. Big size, great accommodation, good time. Happy to unload our things, our first thought is, Shopping!

We head over to the department store, and are sidetracked by an arcade. We drop a couple hundred yen (a couple of bucks) inside the arcade playing Mario Cart, Wack-a-Mole, and various other flashing glittering games. Then, off to the department store. Our first stop is the shoe shop. And I didn't even mean to rhyme. Then the clothing store. $5 t-shirts by the bucket full with hilarious Engrish slogans written on them. My favorite was the red one with the woman clad in lingerie where one of the lines is "I'll learn him a thing or two." (see pictures) We go upstairs and find a fabric store! Jackpot. Louise and I are determined to win our skit we have to make for English camp, so we stock up on cheap fabric. Down the hall there's a Purikura (print club or mini-photo booth) We all pile in it, toss some money in, and without knowing whats going on we take picture after picture of ourselves. Then, with 100 seconds, we have to decorate them, frantically working the pen to make marks and stamps all over. It was a crazy experience, and we each got a great picture out of it. Louise then boarded a game called "dog walking," which was a glorified treadmill with a dog on a leash attached. The treadmill was unfortunately broken, so Louise had to manually drag the belt of the treadmill unwillingly around, which as it were, was way too slow for the dog's taste, and it died after eating a poison apple. Before leaving the store we pick up a thing of beer, each of us grabbing a 1000mL can of Asahi, except for Dave who grabbed a 2L jug. I also picked up some creamy liquor which advertised itself as a fruity fruit beverage.

We get back to James' and open our beers and stamp our names on the pictures we took. I crack open the alcohol and we each pass it around, twice, gagging and moaning in horror at the horrible taste. To the garbage with that! Shortly after, some of us shower, and we call up Andrew, our Prefectural adviser to come out with us to drink. He brings his girlfriend and we have to take two cabs. The first cab with Louise, Janet, James and I arrive at the drinking district first so we head up to a Karaoke bar. Casanova, I think it was called. The bartender speaks English well and gives us a great deal of free drinks we sing like mad to a nearly empty bar. As it turns out, we hear from older JET's that this man at Casanovas takes pictures of people in the bathroom... hmm. Seedy. Lets not go there again. We head off to a place owned by a foreigner who has lived in Japan for 10 years, Root Down. Its a cute little place where the Beasty Boys are king... and the cheeseburgers are delicious. We all are completely drunk so the food is amazing. When it comes time to leave we cannot find Dave. He had gotten really drunk (and I'm sure the 2 liters of beer before going out didn't help...) and was sleeping against some vending machines down the street. Back to James', slam on the futons and go to sleep.

In the morning, we stumble in to Mos burger again. This would be Louise's third cheeseburger in 24 hours. And since I get curry chicken burgers, I had gotten two of those and one cheeseburger in 24 hours. Then off to the meeting place for English Camp.

We all board the bus to take us to the Jurakujin temple where we will be staying to participate in English camp. When we get there its sweaty and hot, and smelling like cow dung. But gorgeous. The temple has this beautiful air about it and incredible sculptures. We get a lunch of rice, salad, soup, fried chicken?, a 1/4 cup of spaghetti, and exactly 5 french fries each. Then, its off to meet everyone and get ready for the kids! I am in a group with Louise, Janet, Pickles (affectionate nickname for his real name, Chris P Pickles), Lisa, Jason, Dave, and Becky. Our kids arrive and its a core of four popular junior high school girls (in Japan, popularity comes from being smart), one shy girl, and one poor boy all by himself. We come up with the group name "chicken typhoon" and make a flag! Then starts the activities. All of them are a point-earning competition, and since Louise and I had it set in our minds for victory, nothing was going to sway us.

We played a game where we went outside and they had to write down as many words as they could see. Then a game where we had to make a sculpture out of nothing but scissors and paper. Ours was glorious (video). Karaoke then kids to bed, adults to beer.

The next morning was similar, except that we added a boy to he group, so now the little boy wasn't by himself. We had to prepare for our skit. We were doing the Wizard of Awa (in the spirit of the Awa-Odori) because we had so many props and costumes, thanks to Louise, myself, Pickles, and Lisa. We let the kids have almost all the roles and we filled in where necessary. The plot was written and told by a chicken farmer narrator (pickles): a princess was whisked away to the enchanting land of awa by a chicken typhoon. (played by all the jets in chicken hats made from rubber gloves...) She met a awa-odori dancer who told her about the dangers that lied ahead. She first met a shy rabbit, who needed courage and the rabbit joined, then she met two fighting men, a ninja cowboy, and a business man, who needed peace. Then she met a famous actress who wasn't so famous in fact, and she came with to find fame, and lastly they met Santa Clause who was cold up North, and still cold even tho he was in Tokushima, and needed warmth. The journeyed to the Wizard of Awa (myself) who was a scary mask at first, but the chicken who was following them around, took down the blanket to reveal that it wasn't a wizard at all, but a fairy. Japanese people love campy humor. I was in my pointe shoes, tights, tiny shorts, and knee pads with a shirt that said welcome to the gun show, and Billy Idol makeup. I granted them each their wishes and sent them on their way.

Later that day we did a scavenger hunt, and a series of games like Robot Wars where the kids had to give directions to the JET's to fight each other, Jeopardy, and a Relay game. At the end of it all, we were in the lead by 75 points. It came down to the skit. We spent the night drinking and Louise and I made a game with her folding fan. The premise was that you hold the fan in your butt cheeks, through your clothes obviously, and reach through, toss, and try to catch. Everyone is drunk so some hilarious takes were made, all on video (which I will be trying to figure out how to turn into a movie, superimposing a song to it) We get to bed late and have to wake up early to perform our skits. The problem was that the other teams got to judge each others skits. So since we were in the lead, we were convinced that they gave us low scores just out of spite. Regardless, we won the competition anyway, and our kids were SO happy. It was great.

Late afternoon, we hop in a bus and head out to the festival!

I'm tired of writing, are you tired of reading? I hope not.. only one more day left...

We get to the hotel and change into our yukata (lightweight kimono for the dance festival). Boys are split between two huge rooms with futons side by side, and girls either have group rooms or doubles. Its very old fashioned, very cheap, but a place to sleep, so no complaints. Then we walk 15 minutes to another hotel to meet the people we will be dancing with. It's SO hot, I couldn't even describe it to you. My face was melting. We arrive at the hotel, get some things, and listen to a man drone on and on in a speech. By now a couple of us are getting irritated. They finally let us eat, but it runs out too fast, irritating us more. We head out, against the rules, to find food, and get back just in time for everyone to leave. I have food outside the hotel, and some of the people are looking at me like I'm a bastard for getting extra food. In a crummy mood and in the heat, we slosh to the first stage where we will be dancing. The free beer we had heard about is nowhere to be found. And we have to wait in line forever to get on the stage.

Louise and I finally crack and get a beer each for $4, but as soon as we do the line starts to move and we have to shotgun our beers. You're not allowed to bring cans of beer into the stage. As soon as we step in and begin dancing, the world changes. Its fun. Hundreds of people are watching us, we don't know what we're doing. It feels so full of life. I try to do it correctly at first but the Japanese spectators are reacting so strangely, and everyone around me is having a blast, so I drop the technique and just have a good time. Stepping off the stage, our moods had shifted from completely irritated to completely elated, and we couldn't wait for the next stage. Usually men wore Happi coats and white shorts. Happi coats are short shirts wrapped around. I was jealous, and also hot, so I hiked my yukatta up to happi-coat length (first asking to make sure I wasn't being obscene) to reveal my very short red shorts underneath. Some old man fanned my butt which I didn't know about until someone told me. A photographer snapped some pictures and one of the Taiko drummers poked my ass with his drumstick... It was hilarious. I paraded down the second street just like that. The third and largest stage we'd perform on was coming up. Louise and I were ready to just go nuts with dancing. But I was stopped and told to make myself decent, so I did slightly. We were dancing and bumping booties down the street and posing for pictures. Then this man runs up to Louise and gives her a flag, for who knows what reason. So we wave it and continue to go nuts.

When its all said and done, we head back to the hotel, change out of our sweaty rags, shower, and head out for the night. Back to the drinking district. Most of the JET's are going to Ingrid's, another bar owned by a foreigner, but we decide to go back to Root Down. Almost no one was there, which is what we wanted; we being Louise, Janet, Claire, and I. With a map and confidence we happily walk for about 20 minutes in the wrong direction. When we stop to ask someone where we are, miraculously as if she had been following us the whole time, a woman who works for JET rides by on a bike and points us in the direction. We get there, enjoy our burgers, a brownie sundae, and a couple of drinks. Since we're all beat from the night before, we just pop into Ingrid's to see who's there and check it out, but don't stay more than 10 seconds. Grab a taxi home and go to bed.

In the morning, we walk back to the train station, and go to Japanese class (the program couldn't justify our schools paying for us to go to the dance festival without having something educational sounding after wards, so it was a sort-of joke). Louise, Janet, Claire, and I skipped the second half of it to go shopping, and met back up with everyone later to say goodbye. Some more Purikura later, and we all go our separate ways. I board a 1.5 hour train for Hiwasa, and talk to an old Japanese man about who knows what for half an hour because I could barely understand him.

What a week. I'm reading Haruki Murakami's Kafka on the Shore now and am totally into it. He's a great writer.
I'll write back the next time something fun happens!!!

PICTURES!!!
Shirahama
Tokushima Night Out
English Camp
Awa-Odori

+plus new photos added to Minami because I figured out how to get the pictures off my cellphone.

Off to a Rough Start

2007-08-07T14:01:00.000+09:00

We land in Tokushima. I'm all smiles because my Board of Education (BOE) has sent some people with signs that read "Welcome Mister Robert!" I get in a van with another JET from Colorado who is going to go live in the next town from me. The four women that were sent to pick us up were very excited that we both had some grasp of the Japanese language.
After the hour long flight, there was a 1.5 hour long bus ride. Travel Travel Travel. We drive to the BOE and I get dropped off with one of the women who doesn't speak English. The other three get back in the car to take the other JET to his house.

Once my Vice Principal (Kyoto-sensei) and the English Teacher (JTE) arrive we start to get things underway. But things come to a screeching halt when it is realized that my Passport has my name spelled incorrectly. Bear in mind that all while in NYC and in Tokyo, everyone was telling me "Oh its not a problem, it will be an easy thing to work around." I get here to hear "This is a big problem..."

No Passport means No Alien Registration Card which means no telephone, no car, no Internet, no multi-entry visa, no bank account, basically I'm dead to both governments. I cannot send away to the American Embassy because then I will have no international form of ID on me. They don't allow me to make an Alien Registration Card with the incorrectly spelled name on it. We leave with nothing accomplished to go take my things to my apartment.
My apartment as it turns out is a 15 minute drive from the school. It's small and old. I go inside excited to see that it is a western toilet seat (as opposed to an Eastern toilet which is a long urinal-like hole on the ground you need to squat over), only to be horrified that there is no running water in the toilet, ever. It is basically an out-house, in the house. The hot water for the shower and the sink are oil heated and you need to crank a pilot light in order to get it going.

They immediately whisk me off to a restaurant to meet the other teachers. I'm on the verge of tears now but I go because I don't want to seem antisocial. I get there and everyone is excited to see me, sushi everywhere. I introduce myself and start to eat, and they are all eager to get to know me. I end up standing up upon their request and dance a little Flamenco. I did the first sevillianas, but added a couple of arbitrary steps because it seemed a little bland to me, and to be honest they would never know. :)

As the night went on they got progressively drunker and started to dive into personal questions. I was in no place to answer them, felt attacked, alone. I just wanted to go home.
When I get home, my only contact with the outside world was a 5 minute walk to a pay phone. I tried for an hour to call home collect but without success. I knew the number of another JET who lives on the other side of the prefecture, so I called his number, desperate for someone to talk to. He calmed me down a bit.

The next day I get driven to work, where they take me out to get my car. I almost had a heart attack at how much insurance would cost me. Everything became "Oh shit, money..."
We went to get my cellphone, but since I didn't have the alien registration card, Kyoto-sensei was kind enough to put it under his name for the time being. I go back home feeling a little more in contact with the outside world, but still lonely and scared.

Another day, and I hear from Bessy, who lives about 20 minutes south of me and is a JET from New Zealand. She shows up at my school to take me out to lunch. Later she takes me to meet another guy in the surrounding area and we go to Moss Burger & Karaoke. To take my mind off things. It worked. As shy as one would think they are about doing Karaoke, in Japan the shyness just disappears as Karaoke is the thing to do! I go home with a few more numbers in my cellphone and a little happier.

Shortly after this I find out that in my house in the mountains, separated from the rest of the world, it is impossible for me to get Internet. The teachers don't seem to see why I would need Internet at home; whats the problem?; but I try my best to tell them that it is my only way of contacting people at home. The vice principal spends half the day on the phone figuring out my Internet availability, and when he returns with bad news, I request to move apartments. He proceeds to spend the other half of the day on the phone with different apartment complexes and the Board of Education.

The next day, we find a place. It is in town, and is much bigger than the house I would be staying in for free. It is closer to the school, there is Internet availability. Everything is golden except for two things. 1. Its not mine yet, I need to get the approval of some higher-up company before I can move in, and I need my Alien Card to do that. (Alien Card is coming soon) 2. It will cost me the equivalent of $300 a month, whereas I had the other room for no rent. Money again. Always Money.

I decide that I can afford this. Who knows really, but I will make it work. Internet seems to be a necessity for me. And this is where I stand as of now.

I've come a short way from crying my eyes out on the first night to this point where I'm a little scared but certain things will work themselves out. Within the week, I've slowly been climbing the rungs of survival. And I think that I can make this work. Its different than home. Its scary that everything I need, I first need to cross a communication barrier. But no one ever said it was going to be easy to do this.

Here's to my next few months! (Excitement comes in the next one as I will have just gotten back from English camp and Awa-odori dance festival... Pictures are coming soon...)

NEW PHOTOS!!!

A Blast in Tokyo!

2007-08-07T11:33:00.000+09:00

The plane touched down and we flew through baggage, through customs, and onto a bus. The bus trip was 3 hours to get from the airport to the hotel we'd be staying at--glorious Keio Plaza Hotel. The three hour ride was just what we all needed after a plane that took 14 hours.
I pulled up to the hotel about 7 or 8 and I yelled to the bus driver, yo homes, smell you later...
*shakes the Fresh Prince of Bel Air moment off*

When we get inside we're ushered into one of the meeting halls where we become laden with pamphlets and leaflets and piglets and basically any kind of "let" one could think of. On top of that, with our hands full of our suitcases and necessary information, as we walk out the door, our courteous embassy grants us a lovely 5 pound gift of 4 meaty looking books (which I left in the hotel after I checked out)--US Government, US Economy, US History, and US Geography. Thrilling reads I'm sure. We're on our own for dinner that night so I stumble into a noodle shop, put my money and order into a vending machine and out pops a ticket which i go to the counter to retrieve my food. 天丼 Shrimp Tempura over Rice. Back home and into bed for 13 hours to sleep off the Jet Lag.

Next morning we wake up to place ourselves among those of our prefecture. I sit by an English girl Louise and we become instant friends. Sit through a boring chat, coming dangerously close to missing lunch. For lunch we sat at a biz lazy susan with vegetables, some kind of orange carroty squash soup, bitter cookies, and this meat look alike which was actually made from beans and to me tasted a bit like chocolate cake... I depart from Louise to take care of my passport issues (in case there be anyone who has not been informed, they spelled my last name wrong on my US Passport... oh what hell) In doing so I miss another apparently boring lecture, and head off to the AJET info fair. Laden with more papers (this time news papers, advertisement fans, booklets about travel, bicycling, being black, or being gay in Japan, everything) I dumped them all out onto my bed and went to more talks about different things which we may face while in Japan. Dinner, buffet style, where due to some kind of communication error, everything was labeled "chicken" even if it clearly was not. This sent the vegetarians into an uproar.

That night a group of us went out to 二丁目 (ni-chou-me) and hit a couple of dive bars before running into a pretty cool one with 5 disco balls suspended from the ceiling and a smoke machine. Earlier that night I had said that my requirement for a bar to be any good was for it to have two or more disco balls. That way the specks didn't all spin in the same dizzying direction, but rather they whirl in a beautiful chaos. Became friends with these two cool guys from Chicago. One lives relatively close to me (meaning within a 6 hour distance...). The other one I still owe a drink (because I ran out of money...) oops. We (the three of us) leave at wee hours of the morning in the rain, traveling by pure instinct, and the unintelligible directions of an old Japanese man who we had asked. Getting splashed by the passing of 3 taxi-cab's tires over a massive puddle, we arrive wet home and go to sleep.

Another morning, this time hung over, and another meeting. This time we had to choose one of 4 rooms to stay in to get the same lecture about teaching but taught by 4 different people (a way to split up the thousand or so of us that were there...). The one I chose however was taught by a terribly boring and dry Japanese teacher/JET combination. Meanwhile the room next to us was a cacophony of riotous laughter and exciting music. A group of us had realized that we had chosen the wrong room, as we mused that this is what hell must be like.
Lunch this time was a delightful mushroom curry. Afterward a few more talks about life in Japan, this time brought to us by CLAIR and not by fellow ALTs. The only one I got anything out of was the driving one. That is over. Orientation is over. We gather the Tokushima JETs together (we didn't get all of them because the Europeans all had separate parties with their embassies, Americans had too many JETs to organize an embassy party) and head out for dinner and karaoke.

We sit with Andrew, our Prefectural Adviser, and Ashley, an ALT who's been here for a while. And he orders anything to surprise us, sparing us the dreadful things. We were all laughing at the fried chicken cartilage and raw horse meat. But as the night and drinks carried on, and the sounds of Queen karaoke echoed through the room, a few grew adventurous and tried the raw horse meat. I couldn't bring myself to do it, tho I probably should have. Afterwards, we shake off a couple of early-to-bedders, and head off to an Irish pub a few blocks from the hotel. It was surreal as the only Japanese people in the pub were the bartenders and waiters. Everyone else was someone from the UK. We all went back home to bed in time to rise early to catch a plane to Tokushima Wednesday morning.

Highlights of the hotel:
walking distance from a vending machine with anything you could ever need in life.
drink and walk home, as drunk driving and drunk biking is illegal in japan
the toilets which had both a butt-spray and a bidet feature. One felt incredibly naughty using them; and even more fun was tricking the toilet seat into thinking someone was sitting on it, while rocketing toilet water 4 feet into the air.
amazing water temp and pressure in the shower

I sort of love Tokyo.
I feel like I rushed through... any questions could spur more musings if you comment with them. :)

NEW PHOTOS!!!

日本に行くつもりです。

2007-06-30T13:34:00.000+09:00

Come August, I will be living in my new home for a year, Minami-cho, Tokushima, Japan.
I'll be keeping everyone up to date with whats happening in my life via this blog rather than repeating myself ad nauseam over the phone or instant message. Pictures will be linked from this blog to a photo account for everyone to see. I hope you're as excited as I am.
*(Japanese subjects will be translated at the bottom of the post. Japanese words within the post will be translated alongside the English word)*

日本に行くつもりです。I intend to go to Japan.

Living and Teaching in Tokushima

Semi Retirement

Another Murder!!!!

Drowned out

A worked-thru Weekend

Ireland

Bon Appétit

Naruto

Two Tokushima Weekends

Murder Mystery Night 1

GOLDEN WEEK!!!!!

Disaster in Osaka

Farewells, Flowers, Tacos, and Trivia!

Two weekends in Kansai

What do do with ourselves after the musical is over...

Final Show & Cast Party

Tim Curry and Momotaro Revisited

Opening Night!

Dress Rehearsal and Pub Quiz

Edit

UNIVERSAL STUDIOS JAPAN and other trips

Scotland London Dolphins and Barbers not to mention Rehearsal Rehearsal Rehearsal

Two Photo Albums

Flashes of Boredom and Excitement

Musical Mayhem

~*~*~*~Winter Break~*~*~*~

Photos and Update

Christmas Posts! Ho ho ho.

Members Only Bar and Louise's Pub-Quiz Birthday

video added

Tokyo at last!

Two weekends in Tokushima City.

Halloween

Oh what a Mountain...

First Trip to Osaka

Festival Crazy

Rafting Weekend

New Picture in an old Set...

And now for something work related.

Some weekends

Sports Day

Actually Living and Teaching...

Shirahama Beach

How the West was Awesome!!

徳島市もう一度!

Chopsticks!

Fanny Toss (A Drinking Folding Fan Game)

Shirahama, Tokushima City, English Camp, and Awa-Odori!!! Oh my what a week.

Off to a Rough Start

A Blast in Tokyo!

日本に行くつもりです。

~~~~Winter Break~~~~