Wednesday, June 29, 2011

It's Too Darn Hot

It's like the heart of the sun up here... more specifically, up in my room... but not in the way that would be a good way.  I'm srs, it's high time I e-mailed my landlord (equivalent) and asked to get this A/C remote fixed, whew.  Same ol same ol today with English teaching training.  I'm pretty tired by the end of the day, but when I think of all of the Japanese people working so much harder than me, it doesn't help me feel any more relaxed.  Even so, it DOES manage to quell some of my (secret) complaining, which is pretty hard to do.  Basically, people here are hardcore.  I'm just rated PG-13.

I forgot to ask about getting interwebs at home today, whoops... so instead, I'm back at the internet cafe.  Still unable to upload photos, but soon.... soon.  I'm trying to keep up with singing by going to karaoke pretty regularly, and found they had even more songs than I originally knew of.... but some of the arrangements might be a little different than I expected?  Well, I don't know, I guess I'll have to try them again.

I'm getting fat.  I really am.  Everything here has rice and sugar in it... even the air.  You know how air in the US is like 70% nitrogen?  Yeah, no, it's rice over here.  I've gotta work out or something!  ...sometime.  Soon.  I can't trick myself into thinking that all of this walking to and from the train station offsets the pilates ball-size amounts of rice I eat on a daily basis.  OH, and these people LOVE grapefruit... I don't know what it is.  Grapefruit is like 90% of all of the fruit at the supermarket... or at least, it's the most affordable fruit there.  I may have to start buying them... but they're just too healthy, argh.

Monday, June 27, 2011

Getting closer!

Getting closer to what, you might ask?  iono, none of ur business.

I might now have someone I can ask about joining bands and stuff like that, but instead of e-mailing him, I'm instead posting on this steeeeyuuuupid blog.  He also might be out of town or something.  As for me, I suck at singing anyway so the more I can put this off, the better!

Had another training session today, and it wasn't bad.  There's a lot of stuff to cover in these two weeks, and I don't think I can forget the material at a fast enough rate.  I'm trying, but my liver processes all of the alcohol eventually.

Neat thing, I met an Italian girl today who was down on her luck.  Fortunately, she could use a new friend (just had a falling out with her good friend), and I'm happy to be a friend.  There was this other girl on the train this morning who looked SUPER sad, but my command of Japanese is limited to calling her a dog using improper grammar probably.  omae wa... inu desu.  Project Amelie Poulain do-gooder may need to be put on the backburner.

But yeah man, the other trainees and I went out for drinks after training and chatted about a bunch of stuff.  Top secret stuff.  Top secret stuff involving pirates.  The bartender overheard us and put the Pirates of the Carribean DVD in the bar's DVD player.  I don't remember much of what our group discussed after that, but what I DO know is none of your business sigh.

Looking forward to getting interwebs one day, so I can rip and post all of the CDs I bought... but I can't read the kanji.  I'm going to have to translate it somehow, or make Japanese friends in that short period of time.  The question is, which is more convenient?













...and the answer is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BjP2UuCQ04

Saturday, June 25, 2011

Half an hour to blog gogogogogo

Sooo check it.  Ironing sucks oh yeahhh

Our bank accounts won't be processed for like another week or so, so odds are, I won't have an internet connection at home for about that long.  What that means is I won't be able to post pics until all of that happens.  Maybe.  w/e w/e (whatever whatever)

Today I had my first day of Engrish teaching training, and the trainers were pretty pro.  They were making tons of jokes and performed the lessons while pole dancing.  Naw I lie, but I may have chosen to visit a strip club instead of going to training.

A couple days ago, I went to this place that was supposedly a 'pub.'  I had karaoke singing there so I assumed it was a karaoke place.  It was, and I was immediately greeted by some asian girl (she might have been Japanese) and seated.  They asked me some jank in Japanese but c'mon, that language is so archaic and outdated that only samurai use it.  Do I look like a samurai?  What, do I LOOK like I have a sense of honor?  Do I LOOK like someone who will commit suicide if I fail at my tasks?  She seemed to think so.  The old men in the joint didn't pay much attention to me, but I paid attention to them.  I was able to discern that they were old.  The women of the place were pretty young, and had flirtatious poses around the old men.  Yes, it turns out I went to one of THOSE places.  You know, the ones where you pay like $30 an hour to talk to girls.  It's not even like 1-900 numbers... you just talk, drink, karaoke, and leave.  Oh, and pay a load (a payload, if you will) of money.  No kiss-u, no bang-wa, no massage.  Just straight up TALKING.  Mannn at that rate, I don't know if there's anyone I'm willing to pay that much for just to TALK to.  Nikola Tesla?  ...naw dawg it's aight.  William Shakespeare?  Man, I'll just watch or read your plays nawm sayin.  Ellen Page?  ..........welllllllllllllllllll..........

So I left that place.

Anyway, the people I trained alongside of today were pretty cool.  4 American dudes and 1 Aussie gal.  Word.

I got a phone number today BAM!  First step to making tomodachi (friend)!  It's the dude who works at this internet cafe.  We spend a good amount of time trying to decipher what each other is saying, but it's fun... or should I say, tanoshii desu OH YEAHHH

Pete's coming over today ($100 train ticket YES I'm so happy to support the Japanese department of transportation), so maybe we'll go out tonight and die of being dumb like we did last time.  Too much tired, too much P-A-R-T.... WHY?  Because we GOTTA!  (that's from the movie The Mask, if for some reason you didn't have that movie on the forefront of your mind)

Aight gonna peace out now.  My head is wishy washy from the train ride back from TRAINing.  Maybe it was too many stops or something, but I'm motion sick now YESSS just loving life left and right!

Friday, June 24, 2011

Oh, the ironing.

I'll write more tomorrow when I don't have to blog from my iPhone (stupid). I ironed for like 4 hours today. Unacceptable for non-iron shirts. Yesterday, an older (then) disgruntled gentleman caught me peeing on his plant and feeding stray cats cat food. He reprimanded me and made me pick up the cat food I had scattered on the ground. One thing he couldn't make me do was sober up, suckaaaaaaaaaa

...but for being strays, those cats were awfully particular about the food they ate.

Thursday, June 23, 2011

Book Off -- where you can get your book on.

So the other day I was riding a train and I saw a sign for Book Off.  Book Off is a place that has tons of used books (NO SRSLY GUYS), DVDs, and most importantly, CDs.  I managed to find this place with my SWEET new iPhone (iFuggin hate it), and it's pretty close to where I love.  I mean live.  It's one train station away, actually.  I get there, and have to walk like 15 mins no problem np np BUT it turns out I wore the wrong underwear that day.  Chafe chafe chafe, chafe chafe chafe, chafe ur booty, chafe ur booty.  It was just really hot today.

So I get there and pretty much just put my arm on a shelf and sweep everything into my basket.  I bought a bunch of CDs that were 105 yen each (about $1.25 or so) if they looked even remotely interesting.  This has been a hit and miss process in the past -- about 40% success rate?  Not bad!

I met a Nigerian I mean African guy today at the internet cafe I go to.  He claims he's from Seattle but I know better.  He used to teach high school English... but I don't think his conversational English is that great (though it was all grammatically correct).  He says you can do it with an undergrad degree..... we talked briefly about race WHEW glad my brotha got da hookup fer realz dawg.  When we shook hands, we shook... then dapped.  Sigh, life is dumb.

Pictures on everything (except the African dude) to follow.

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Jim and the Grapefruit Soda Beer

I spent a day buying stuff and whatnot.  When you have to buy tons of essentials, you're bound to forget a few.  Fortunately, one of those few was not my passport.  If that happened again, I would probably go postal (by not saying 'sumimasen' every 10 seconds).

My grasp of the Japanese language is about as good as the leastest thing ever.

So I caught a bus to the city hall to get copies of a paper I had... with these copies, I can supposedly open a bank account and get a cell phone.  I went there, and the dude totally just put those thinly sliced trees into a copy machine.  Wow.  Even dumber was that those were not the documents I needed... I needed an entirely new document, which I had to go back to the city ward for the following day (which I did).  Though it sounds like it, I'm not really griping.  Nothing has bothered me so far, except for the severe lack of snow.  I mean it.  C'mon Japan.

I spent a good hour in the cell phone place (SoftBank), playing charades with a very nice employee.  We both lost, but I had fun.  Oh, I also spent an hour at karaoke, and half an hour trying to explain to a karaoke employee that the swastika she drew on her wrist meant BAD.  She may hate non-Aryans, but she at least put up with me.  OH btw karaoke has like every Japanese song ever.  Man.  I sang them all.

Some dude named Jim totally vandalized my front door by taping a note to it that read something like: "it's hot in here so let's chill lol room 415."  Just paraphrasing.  He lives in the same building as me.  We hung out a bit and he answered tons of questions as we walked around.  We went to the 'Walmart' and he showed me an alcoholic beverage that's like soda.  I thought mine was lemon, but it was definitely not.  Lemons are not shaped like and do not taste like grapefruit, usually.  In Japan, maybe.

All of the above was yesterday, which I didn't blog.  Today...

I went to the city area to try to get a phone (Harajuku), since the Softbank place in the main city has English-speaking employees.  Like I mentioned before, it turned out that I didn't have the right paperwork, but I was able to talk through a plan with one of the dudes there.  I also asked a random dude about where this one bookstore was (6 floors of books), and he took me there since he was headed in that direction (across two train stops to Shinjuku) anyway.  Hiro is my hero.

I bought a fuggin dictionary.  Awwwwww yeah.  Lemme look up some words for you:

anata (you)
hairikoumu (penetrate / enter)
penisu (penis)
chikara (power)
chusho-teki (derogatory)
shiri (butt)
chitsu (vagina)

I can now communicate with all Japanese.

Harajuku was interesting, and there was some interesting fashion going on.  I didn't go to the coolest spot I suspect, but there was still a lot of cool stuff.  I have pictures, but currently no capability to upload them to this blog.  JUST KIDDING I just don't want to show you losers.

Anyway, I took the bus (like I mentioned before) to the city ward and got the stupid paper I needed.  Went back to the local Softbank and played more charades (we won!) to get a phone.  Sigh, it's an iPhone, but whatever.  I don't care for smartphones or anything, but I just said "watevs" and got it.  STOP!  hipster time.  OH OH OH OHH OHH OHHH OH OH OH  that was from an MC Hammer song, but you've probably never heard of it.

Flying solo... Han Solo.

Today I'm out on my own. I have left the mother's nest and flown to the land of Saitama.  I was late in meeting the guy who would show me my new flat, since there seems to be a difference between the Omiya and the Higashi-Omiya stations.  Pro sense of direction, GO!
He showed me around a bit, which was nice.  Not much more to say on that at the moment.

What I WILL say is that there's a small used book/CD/DVD place near me, which is pretty sweet.  I bought a couple CDs, and will put them up for download on my short and sweet music blog:  http://musicofnihon.blogspot.com/

My new place is tiny...smaller than Pete's (http://suntorytimes.blogspot.com/), but it'll do for now.  Pictures to follow later.

More importantly, I ate delicious tonkatsu shio ramen at a local ramen place.  BAM!

Oishii mothasnuckas.  ...or should I say, おいしい AWWW YEAH that's right, I'm typing on a Japanese keyboard at an internet/manga cafe.  This place is pretty baller except for the fact that it does not play basketball.  There are TONS of volumes of manga here, as well as a bunch of computers around so you can surf porn and shieeet.  It's 100 yen for 15 minutes, 200 yen for 30 minutes, or 900 yen for 3 hours (about $1.25, $2.50, and $11.25 respectively).  There are tons of games, free drinks (all you can drink fountain drink machine drinks???? oh snap time4liquidcaloric explosionnnnnnnn), and maybe even a shower.  Lemme check.  Well I don't know, come here and find out yourselves you lazy bums.

I really just don't know where I live.  I came here because I was tired of looking.  It's getting pretty late, so I think I'd better get back to it.  No internet at home woot woot.  I'll hopefully be able to fix that soon.

mmk so i was going to only post this when i got pictures up, but it looks like that won't be possible til i figure stuff out (uploads not working here at internet cafe) SO text only for now!  I wonder if the uploads will work on Facebook...

Sunday, June 19, 2011

The case of the stolen sweets.





After sleeping for about 18 hours off and on, Pete and I finally managed to get out and not die of starvation.  That's a good thing, because dying sucks, and starving sucks even more.

Ramen.  They sell ramen here.



This is the miso ramen they serve here.

:o wat happen???
For a paltry 600 yen each, we got to eat until we were ALMOST full.  600 yen = $7.50, and seeing that we didn't have to tip, that's pretty pro.

We rode bikes around a bit, and eventually found this mall called... Viva Mall.  Cool place, but I didn't take any pictures mb mb (my bad, my bad).  They had a food court, where I bought a LOT of sweets from a bakery.  I only ate a little on the spot, and carried the rest with me.  More on this later...

The mall had bunch of stores (with like $100 graphic polo shirts whaaaaaaaaaaaaaat), and an arcade.  AWWWW YEAH.  The arcade had a crazy ass Gundam game where there were like 8-12 pods where one person could go in and play on a battlefield of a the other people playing in other pods... and those players would all be on either the red team or the blue team.  The pods closed and had crazy controls and screens... but out in the main area, you could watch a couple screens that showed a map of all of the action going on.  Of course, you could purchase a card to save your game data and stats, so that's how they get people to come back.

Related to the above paragraph, this is a zebra.  Anne would have been very happy to have been here.


We went to Toys R Us so Pete could buy the Uno game and use it for his classes.  Naturally, I saw a little girl with a funny Playboy t-shirt and asked her if I could take her picture.  I'm pretty sure I'm the least creepy guy in Japan right now.

Rode back and met up with Kiyotaka (I met him my first night here; he's a regular at the reggae-style bar Paraiso) to go to this AWESOME place called Sky Joker for lunch.

Leather seats and Leffe, Kiyotaka's favorite.

Free drinks, awwww yeah delicious apple juice.

Kanako (Kiyotaka's girlfriend) and Kiyotaka fighting with piece signs in a very ironic fashion.

u tryin to fight with sashins (pictures) dawg?  i'll show u secret american style

HILARIOUS bartender dude.  He'd pose for a photo...

And another photo....

And ANOTHER awesome photo.... until...

...you turn the camera away, then he acts super shy -- I tricked him this time.  :>

Engrish as always, but I love the idea and attitude of places like this.  Hot beer, lousy food... so wha?  fuggin love peace and smile mothasnucka
We then went to a CD/DVD shop, which was neat.  After returning to our bikes, I was shocked to find:

OH NO
You cannot tell what has happened here, so I will tell you instead.  All of the sweets I bought earlier today and left in the basket... GONE!  The thief made off with some of the most delicious delectables on this side of the Shire.  They took the sweets and left the bike... what a cruel world.  I can't eat a bike, it's too much.

Friday, June 17, 2011

The day and nightlife of the day and night walker.

Agent Marque reporting in.  Debriefing operation New Life Nihon, day 2.

I lost my damn passport.  ...but someone turned it into the police so I love it.  :>  Close call, I would have been unable to work here without a visa and all, so some of you might have seen me sooner than I'd have liked.  Yeah, I said it.  Naw, I lie lol.

To take a couple steps back, I woke up and rode a bike solo.  I took a video:


Two references I make in the above video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaIvk1cSyG8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4NPRBC6efU&feature=related

After biking around, I went to the drug store to get Pete some... drugs.  He's been feeling under the weather lately, and I'm getting pretty sick of him coughing everywhere LOL GET IT SICK OF HIM COUGHING so I got some kinda time release capsule cold medicine to try on him.  I think it's working, if its intended use is to have no effect on cold symptoms.

I'm pretty sure this is what happened to Pete.
Following the drug store, I went to a big Wal-Mart-type place.  I ate:

Taiyaki, a tasty snack that tasted like Eggo waffles with maple syrup.  In reality, it's like... an Eggo waffle that's shaped like a fish, and filled with anko (sweet red bean paste).  There are different kinds of Taiyaki, but whatever.  Hey, if you've got a problem with the fact checking on this blog, go poop yourself.

Chicken Katsu.  It wasn't a full meal, but it came with a free piece of paper with cool symbols on it.  That 250 yen part of it is probably what this cost, which is about $3.  To put things in perspective, you can buy 3 items from the dollar store in the US with $3.
Due to my impressive sense of direction, I rode around for about an hour looking for Pete's place.  If there's one thing I've learned about navigation from my time in Japan, it's lol

So then I realized I lost my passport, and rode all around some more to look for it.  Stuff happened, and Passport-san was acquired.  Pete and I rode around to places.

The University of Michigan has a branch out here, complete with a Basketcycling Tennis Field.  As you can see, Pete is going for the hookserve shot for the extra inning value point.

Japan has water too.

When there are cement cubes, I will stick my leg out like martial arts style.

Hikone is safe thanks to this man.  Kind of a dork.

Nope the princess wasn't here either Mario lol

some trees and stuf lol

Oya this was earlier in the day... wafer + ice cream + chocolate, was delicious!
Crazy Hummer.  I wish someone would give me a crazy hummer like this DOUBLE ENTENDRE MINNA-SAN (everyone-san)!!
So the above picture is a part of the nightlife Pete and I experienced.  We went to Nagoya and fuggin paid a ton in train lucre.  Total, the round trip cost over 6000 yen per person.  That's like $75 per person.  To put things in perspective, you can buy 75 things at the dollar store with $75 in the US.

We went to some bar place with 4 levels called iD bar.  I had to show my ID to get in.  I got the TSA treatment because I look particularly threatening, and Pete got it too by association.  I'll work on looking less menacing in the future, maybe by buying a V for Vendetta mask.  The cover was 3000 yen (OK LOOK JUST DIVIDE BY 80 TO GET THE DOLLAR AMOUNT.. about $37), but it came with 4 drink coupons which is pretty fair -- not to mention tipping isn't done in Japan.  The place was neat.  We went to the bar Yukari works at... whatever it's called, and chilled there for a bit.  No cover woo woo.  Yukari's nice.  Pete and I left and slept on a park bench for a while, until Yukari called Pete because she got off of work (2 AM).  We then went to ANOTHER bar and hung out there, at which point we probably went to ANOTHER bar and hung out, but not before we had gone to ANOTHER bar to hang out.  It was fun.  A few observations:

-Lots of these bars are just one small room.
-"Aw man, not more Nigerians!"  They may not be long lost prince relatives or even Nigerian, but there are a lot of African dudes.  At least one of them is named Kriss and he owns a bar.
-Foreigners are kind of poops.  So many of them are pretty forceful and persistent in trying to get girls, to the point where they're grabbing at them like all the time.  We're talking tug-of-war here.  There was a sign in the bathroom at iD bar that said that if you try to pick up girls forcefully by grabbing their arms and stuff, you'll get kicked out.  I lol'd at this at first, but then I saw this happen all night across multiple bars.  The Japanese girl strategy against this?  Play dead.  Don't resist.
-Sweet, Japanese music in clubs!  Funny, cause they sound a lot like:  "I NO U WAN ME... U NO I WANTCHU... I NO U WAN MEEEE... U NO I WANTCHU.... ONE TWO THREE FOUR UNO DOS TRES QUATRO" and "CAUSE BABY TONIGHTTTTT DJ GOT US FALLIN IN LOVE AGAINNN" and "SOMEBODY CALL 911 (HEY!) SHAWTY FIRE BURNIN ON THE DANCE FLOOR"  This was EVERY bar we went to.
-These girls are crazy.  We were out at bars until the break of break of dawn.  I mean we left Pete's place at 8 PM or something, and got back at 11:30 AM.  How do they do it?

After a long time of shifting my weight back and forth from foot to foot to give my best impression of seaweed in the ocean swaying to Gaga and Jason DeRULOOOO I left for a little bit to get some curry.  No pictures for this one, but if you close your eyes and imagine really hard, then you're probably wasting your time and should get back to work.

Thursday, June 16, 2011

The Journey

Landed in Tokyo, and am starting to believe I'm in Japan.  Most people look asian and are speaking in Japanese, but I can't say with full confidence that I'm in Japan just yet... where are the samurai, ninja, and Bob Sapp?
Hoohoohahahah
I suppose it's possible that they're just not in the airports.


I flew on Japan Airlines, which had a pretty kickass first class.  The seats were incredibly spacious and had their own cubicles, complete with a lot of awesome shit.  I didn't fly first class.  For the other economic groundlings like myself, there were adjustable headrests, which were very comfortable.  Since these headrests could only be adjusted so much, those who were hobbit-sized didn't get much use out of them; however, the small blankets and mini-pillows that came with the seats looked like they were designed for our good hobbit friends.  The food was much better than I expected; I had some kinda chicken dish over rice that came with three trays of vegetables, a cup of miso soup, and a small bag of crackers... I could've ordered bourbon, but that may have violated the principle of flying in Economy class.  I silently vowed to violate this principle many times over the coming months.

As though there was any question of what my first meal in Japan (airport) would be.  Miso ramen - about $10.


The Narita airport in Tokyo is hot, man.  Oh, and despite being in Japan, I didn't have to take my shoes off when I went through the metal detector.  Good ol' America.  All the flight attendants (as I saw them heading towards flights) were women... and dare I say, they looked identical to each other.  It's possible there's a vending machine nearby that procures them, but it would seem that it lacks variety.  Even so, these attendants all come built-in with courtesy and smiles, which is a little suspicious.  I did not drink the punch.

The train lines were very confusing to me.  Of course, I didn't believe that Japan would let me leave the airport so easily.  The minotaur on my heels, I asked for directions ("Krispy Kreme wa doko desu ka?"), and navigated through the labyrinth to a train headed to the Nagoya stop, which is apparently different from the airport stop that is located in Nagoya.  Everyone on the train was silent, except for the ghosts who lived underneath the tracks.  "We're rusty... give us oil..." they groaned.  ...in Japanese, probably.  Nobody on the train said a word, though many of the passengers used their phones or other portable devices.

If you look closely, you can see the "Rounge."  You know, a rounge?  A place with a bar and sofas?


After a bit more travel (and some help from a pixie named Yasu:  Thank you Yasu!), I ate a McDonald's double cheeseburger (it tastes the same as in America), and met with my tomodachi, Peter (http://suntorytimes.blogspot.com/).  We took the bullet train back to his place, and we saw Neo in bullet time.  He dodged us.  Pete's place is small by American standards, but it was considerably bigger than I thought -- I would have absolutely no problem having a place the size of his.

Pete and I went to a bar (you can check it out on his blog) named Paraiso.  It's a really small place with pictures (and music) of Bob Marley everywhere.  Joe, the owner, had me sing in Japanese.  When I asked if he knew Luna Sea, he started singing True Blue (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuV3bbioqJ8), which I joined in on.  Two regulars were there, Kiyotaka (male) and Aya (female), and we collectively established that Pete was a playboy.  We also discussed the dimensions of Kiyotaka's and Aya's genitals.

Whew.  This was a long post, but it was also a long journey.  Hm.  The end.