teaching

starting this at school to give me a bit more inspiration to finally finish it. ive wanted to write more in depth about my whole experience teaching in japan, as in the actual teaching part, since that takes up most of my time here. and because i enjoy it. usually something funny or unusual happens at school and i want to write it down to remember it but then i forget. so here's some funny quotes from today

(this first dialog was almost all in Japanese, im not sure if that made it funnier or not)
JTE: one deer is the same as two deer, one or multiple, they're both deer. you remember we learned "sheep" before right? it is the same pattern with some animals like that.
Sakamoto kun: "goat" is the same too isn't it!
JTE: umm, i think that the plural of "goat" is "goats"...

JTE (same one as earlier, in English): OK class, please repeat after the Bryan.

ok so 70% of the time I teach at the awesome school where this happened, Takahagi Junior High School. The other 30% is split between a small middle school out in the middle of nowhere with 12 students total, and any of the various kindergartens and elementary schools in the area. Every time I go to another school (especially the mountain one) I am reminded of how much I like Takachuu. The funny thing is, before I started up at Takachuu, all I heard from staff at the board of education, other ALTs, even kids at other schools, was how bad Takachuu was. Everyone made it seem like it was more of a continual prison riot than a school for kids going through puberty. And while the kids might not pay as much attention or have quite the same level as Akiyama (nerd school), they make up for it with enthusiasm. Not for English, or even studying at all, but just in general. I am barraged by "Hello Bryan!"s every time I walk down the hall. Granted, this is at least partly because of the constant "manner up" campaigns to make sure the students have a genki aisatsu, but they do it outside of school too. There are a ton of great teachers at Takachuu too, the English staff is amazing, everything is great. I can't wait to get back there next week.

Life in Takahagi

Been awhile since I posted anything here yeah? I suppose that's because of the absence of huge awesome events in Ibaraki lately. Since life is just kinda flowing along at this point, as the winter semester draws to a close, I thought I would try and give everyone a little picture tour of Takahagi, to show you what life is like in a small city of around 30,000 people in central Japan.

I've mentioned this before, but from my experiences in Japan before, life was always centered around the train station. It was the hub of all activity in any given area. Food, services, entertainment, everything either in the train station itself or within 50 yards of it. Takahagi is pretty different. Here's a picture of the train station in Takahagi. What can you see? Well, there are a couple vending machines, and just out of frame to the right is a drycleaners. That's about it. There used to be an Ito Yokado, a big department store chain, right next to the station, but all that's left now is an empty lot, as you can see by all the gravel by the fence. The post office and Police Box are nice and close to the station, but other than that... not a whole lot. This is the main road going out from the station. There are a few small stores on this main road, but I personally haven't had much need for new glasses or fresh fish. Sometimes they play background music over the PA by the train station. It's kind of comforting, in a video game kind of way. I probably shouldn't have started out talking about central Takahagi, because it's mostly depressing... especially when you look at streets like this, one of the cross streets off of the main drag. You can tell that this used to be a shopping area too. But now all that's left is a rusted out archway with advertisements for abandoned stores. It's creepy. One day when it's really foggy and dark out I'm gonna get a flashlight and a broken radio that only puts out static and scare the crap out of myself walking around there.

But, once you get away from the train station, things are a little better. Not that there is an abundance of things to do or places to go, but at least the slow feeling of decay leaves. Takahagi is the opposite of Tokyo, more like a small suburb in America, in that there's not much of a central area, but once you get in your car and drive towards the outskirts of where people live, you can get to some big stores. In Takahagi, we have a Hard Off, Off House, Wonder Goo, Book Off, various grocery stores, and the Super Mall, with Beisea Electronics and Cainz Home. I have no idea how they come up with these names. But luckily these stores are all semi-bike accessible.

Takahagi easily redeems itself, once you get outside of the actual uhh "downtown" area. The western part of Takahagi is all mountains. You can see some nice mountains in the background of some of the pictures. I've been up in the mountains a couple times to do some hiking and go to Kimida JHS, and it's a very tranquil area. Just thank god I don't live there, it would be 10 times more boring than life now. To the east is the beach, which is my favorite part about town. Leading up to the beach are some fields and a river that people fish on a lot. Unfortunately I think it's getting too cold to hang out there much anymore. But come spring, I know where I will be when I just want to relax. Check out the pictures, its really just a beach, but its a damn nice place to be, and I'm glad it's here.

So, this probably sounded like a lot of complaining, but Takahagi isn't all that bad. Next time I want to write more about my actual job, which I enjoy very much, sometimes. I guess the best way to describe life overall right now is that while there are still low points, I am having way more "holy crap life is good" moments than usual. I'm off to wander around a bit more on my day off. Hopefully my next entry won't take another month and a half to write.

wandering in Mito

So there was a three day holiday this weekend, and it was going to be a busy one thanks to the double header of the Daisuki Ibaraki Festival and the Tsuchiura Hanabi competition. This is right after my big welcome reception Thursday night too. That was fun, delicious food that no one actually ate because they were too busy talking to each other. I didn't know how formal it was going to be, though, and I was a little under dressed. Luckily they liked my speech that I gave in Japanese. It pays to be conversational. Plus, afterwards I went over to this really classy looking bar with a new salaryman friend I made. I have passed by that place riding my bike down Route 6, and I always wanted to go in, after seeing all the bottles they have lined up on the shelves. The weird thing is, right after I went in for the first time, I got a text from Jay with a picture of some salaryman guy he met at HIS reception going on at the same time in Oarai. The salaryman wanted to know if I knew of a bar called Wild at Heart in Takahagi. Weird coincidence. Man... if you think about it it could have been extremely sketch. There wasn't any one else in the bar besides the bartender, who my new salaryman friend only called "master."

. . .

Except it was actually just cool. No menu, just a bartender who was fully stocked and knew exactly what he was doing. And a huge collection of classic rock and some older blues stuff. He had Howlin Wolf, Stevie Ray Vaughn, and Zepplin. So I would definitely go back. But yeah, this is all just a digression, because starting Thursday night it was pouring rain, which graduated into a full fledged typhoon Friday. On Friday after school I went with the other teachers to watch out for the kids going home. Yatabe sensei just said "We have to protect them."

Unfortunately the rain flooded out both the grounds for the Ibaraki festival (which I didn't really want to go to anyway) and the Fireworks tournament (which would have been awesome). So here I was sitting on a three day weekend and no real plans. Felt like a big waste. Ended up meeting up with some JETs in Mito after dicking around in Takahagi. I've spent a decent amount of time in Mito now, but it's kind of a strange city to get a handle on. It's about the size of St. Louis population wise, and has a decent amount of interesting stuff there. I crashed at Dan's place with everyone else Sat night, after we all got lost looking for a bellydancing party (wtf) somewhere in Kairakuen, which is a pretty huge park. Took a taxi out from the station, asked the guy to take me to the location I received via text message, and the cabbie is just like "uhhh... why??" I arrived to a mostly empty parking lot and ended up walking back to the station. Turns out pretty much the same thing happened to everyone else. I blame society. Sunday morning everyone got up early to man the JET booth at the second day of the Ibaraki Festival, which was strange, I guess they just didnt get the email that it was canceled that day too (hahaha thanks Seth, that is the best excuse ever). So I just wandered around Mito a lot. Mito is laid out along one big street that goes out from the train station (inconveniently even in a big city like the capital of Ibaraki there's pretty much just one train station to use). There are all kinds of shops and restaurants along the street, for some reason including a lot of hip hop clothing stores that play taped American radio stations. Which is totally balls, because one played the American commercials too, including one for Taco Bell which made me insanely jealous and hungry. Before the stores open they are all shuttered, and the shutters had some pretty cool graffiti covering them as you can see here.

After walking down the main drag I decided to branch out a bit, and I ended up walking down a side street and finding the Mito History Museum. I didn't really see much in the way of exhibits, because I was just distracted by how fucking gorgeous it was outside. I chilled on a park bench for awhile and tried to figure out what the hell Haruki Murakami was trying to say in his book I've been reading called The Wind Up Bird Chronicle. Unfortunately all that graduating with an English degree really did for me was illustrate how little I comprehend of the literary value in most books. I'd rather not just read 800 pages and only think "oh, that was weird," but that seems to be the most prevalent thought after finishing anything by Murakami. Anyway, sitting on the park bench at around 10 AM, staring at the sky, I was dismayed that most of the time my thoughts were just turning to any one of the half dozen or so girls that, well, that I have been thinking about lately. For various reasons. Which ironically is what the main character in Wind Up Bird ended up doing most of the time. Eventually I wandered off and discovered that the History Museum butts up right next to Kairakuen, which is really beautiful when its actually daytime. I really like wandering around parks in Japan. Or just wandering in general. It's a good feeling to just see something you've never seen before, or just the opposite, to see something familiar after being confronted with so many strange things. Japan in general is definitely starting to just be familiar though. Mito functions much differently than Tokyo or Makuhari, but bits and pieces still link them all together.

Monday was the big day off, and I spent it chilling in Takahagi. It needed to be done, especially since wandering around a city like Mito goes hand in hand with spending money. Me and Tim decided to explore around the beach area, and ended up going out on a pier that was still under construction (gaijin smashing past several do not enter signs) and chilling on some giant concrete tetrahedrons next to some fishermen. Hey, at least we had an excuse for ignoring the signs saying keep out. In the end, I really enjoyed this weekend despite all of my plans for the fireworks and whatnot being canceled. It was good just to stay in Ibaraki and enjoy the local sights. Being on the beach in Takahagi was especially nice, because it felt like something I would do on vacation, only it's the place where I live. April said that JET is basically like a paid vacation, so I guess I would have to agree to some extent. It also goes to show that the more you plan for something the more disappointed you will be for it. So I should just stop planning anything for my birthday this weekend. Ha.

should be asleep but...

hehehehehehehe. saw this guy when i went to mito station today to meet up with Jay and play some taiko. seeing someone in a fat suica pengin suit just makes your day, yeah? anyway, another weekend is past (hell i gotta go to sleep and make it through hump day tomorrow) and I've got another trip out to Tokyo to decompress/recover from. Been on a small downturn lately, to tell the truth, but nothing I can't recover from. This week is my first week at the "bad" school where apparently there are fights all the time and the kids are all little punks who won't respect you or listen to you and will probably steal your bike. I hear lots of horror stories about similar schools from other JETs in the area, and all kinds of bad things from other teachers in the area. Even the sweet little majime kids at Akiyama seem to be scared of their counterparts at the big JHS in Takahagi. But of course, everything always gets blown out of proportion. The kids may be a bit more unruly and prone to talking in class, but they seem fine. If anything I am getting a better reaction from them in general, in that they are not shy at all about coming up and talking to me (just not in English like they should be). The only annoying part is when the JTE is trying to teach a grammar point and none of them are paying attention. That's only happened one time so far though. The biggest change between my current and previous school is just that the girls are all very noisy and won't stop asking me if im single etc. Which was funny and cute the first time but gets old pretty quick. It also looks like I will have to do more work at this school, since the JTEs seem a lot more willing to go into class without and preparation and just say, "well Bryan do you have any ideas for what we should do this lesson?" That's supposed to be my line!! Honestly I am complaining on both sides, since last week I was lamenting my job being limited to a human tape recorder. I just forgot how lazy I am.

As another example of that, even though I was looking forward to going to TGS this year, I couldn't be bothered to get on a train and go an hour tops from Shibuya/Harajuku to Makuhari. Heh but that might have had to do with me preferring the company of the 4 good looking girls I was with versus hordes of smelly nerds. Had an awesome day in Tokyo Saturday, got up early to take the express in, and went straight to the Chiba Lotte Marines game with Angela. Afterwards it was a fuckin IES reunion, meeting up with the Oyabun, Blanchard, Kristine, NL (to differentiate from Ibaraki Angela sorry), Sunny, and Joel. Oh and plus we saw gay Lee san one of the Korean dudes from Bekka back in 2k4... my first words upon seeing him were "what the fuck are you still doing here??" Anyway, it was a night true to form for the A Team, even in limited numbers. Hana no mae nomihoudai, on a mission to get as many umeshus as possible. Then off for some karaoke where I don't think anyone sang a song in English, and then me Blanchard and Angela went off to Roppongi. I was basically gone at that point and the night took a turn for the worse. Not that I was drunk or puking or anything, just that I was kind of exhausted and not mentally prepared to deal with some problems that popped up. Problems that I thought I had left behind like 5 years ago, but what can you do. Growing experience or somesuch. Anyway, gotta get some sleep, I need lots of energy so I can get up early and think up something to do with the special ed kids tomorrow.

Oh I almost forgot! The yakitori place in Omika has definitely made itself my second favorite restaurant! Went there again and they remembered not to add the inch of head to the top of our beers! Khari and Hana at Little Nepal better watch out!

poor pengin

Seriously, I dunno what those penguins did to piss off the Japanese. Probably wore their outside shoes inside or something. Well sheeeeit, I just had a three day bender of a weekend in Tokyo, and I feel like I need to write something down about it, if for no other reason than to read it and look back fondly when I am feeling trapped in this charming little inaka town. Riding the Super Hitachi into Tokyo, I was immediately comforted once the scenery changed from (building)(grassgrassfieldhillnothingnothingnothingnothing)(buildingsnackbarconbini) to (hugemegamallhirisehiriseanothertrainlinegoingunderneathmine-andoneoverheadtoobuildingbuildingFUCKINGLALAPORTYES) basically, good ol urban sprawl :) Only downside was the middle aged lady singing softly behind me in what might have been english, and getting kicked out of the reserved seat section. Unsuccessfully tried to gaijin smash my way through that one but ended up having to hold my breath through not one but two smoking cars on the way back to the free seats. God those smoking cars are awful.

But I eventually made it to Ueno and the mother line, the Yamanote. Night one was partying with one of Tim's friends and a group of random Japanese, including one girl who "could legally be considered a midget" and was way too interested in Tim's fly once the zipper broke. I was also trying to mentally prepare for my first night hitting the clubs in Shibuya and Roppongi. I've heard a lot of varying accounts from people here, and I've always been more inclined to believe Anthony and Ari that they are balls, but I had to find out for myself after all. One of the Japanese girls said this club Womb in Shibuya was supposed to have some good music so we checked it out, and payed a 3500Y cover charge to gain access to... complete shit. I did actually like the music even if it was just standard techno stuff, but man. No one there, and of the people that were there 75% were white guys. We left pretty quick, sacrificing the cover, to go to Roppongi. I was expecting it to be even worse, honestly, but it was ok. By that part I'd been through a 2 hour nomihoudai and various other drinks and was just enjoying the atmosphere. No idea what the name of the second place we went to was, but it was gigantic and labryrinthine, and you could turn corners looking for the bathroom and get completely fucking lost. That was cool. Night one ended... well with three guys looking to find a love hotel with an open room at 6 am in Ikebukuro. Yeah that was kind of awkward. Luckily most of these establishments have front desks where you don't have to see the staff, and theoretically they can't see you clearly either. Plus there was plenty of room to just crash without any awkwardness once inside. But yeah.

Woke up at 2 pm and went out to get food and check out Akihabara for some deals. Got a sweet ass faceplate for my phone that makes it look all ipod shiny. And I contemplated dropping 20,000Y on some in ear headphones but decided to hold off. I feel like Akihabara could be a dangerous place to go, and not just because of this guy :

Eventually I met up with some other Ibarakians, and we all chilled in the business hotel Jon rented. Then I got my ass handed to me by Rick at Street Fighter II (I think my situation is pretty much like this (read the newspost too).) We'll see, I gotta get back into shape with CvS2. Also back in actual shape, like me physically. So then, with April as my sugar mama, it was night 2 of clubbing in Roppongi. Shawn AKA future boy was the man of the night, as he figured out we could get into Vanilla on the cheap if we just asked. Vanilla was actually worth going to too! Music could have been better, and drinks definitely needed to be stronger, but the crowd was real good. Ha I still wanted to make a quick exit to avoid this one Canadian girl tho.

I didn't get enough of Tokyo after 2 nights of partying past 4AM, and I hadn't met up with Anthony and Blanchard since they arrived for Aeon training, so we managed to get that together despite them barely having any forms of communication. So Day 3 was more chill, went to Ueno Koen and the zoo there, where I saw the above penguin sign. Had to cut the excursion short, which was a shame since I managed to find out that THERE IS ANOTHER TOP RUN SUPER YAKINIKU VIKING and its halfway between Ueno and Akihabara. But I wanted to get back home to another meeting, and was feeling pretty worn out by that point. Spirits were lifted, however, at the awesome yakitori place in Omika (sorry I know not Omiya) with Angela where the staff gave an awesome chourus of "irrashai!"s and "one order of delicious chicken on a stick!!!" every time you order something. Eventually I finally got back to Takahagi, and spent all day yesterday recouperating.

So yeah, awesome weekend.

Field day?

So, once September 1st rolled around, I started my actual job of enlightening middle school children about the wonders of the English language. Only not really. I moved from going to the board of education (right next to my apartment) to one of various middle schools around my area. So now I actually have a bit of a commute where I have to take a bus or bike. But not a big problem.

I haven't actually taught more than a handfull of classes though, because the kids and the teachers and everyone were getting ready for their undoukai (sports festival). It's kind of like when we used to have field day back in the states, only to the extreme. Big surprise there! Don't think I've ever used that language to describe things in Japan before... anyway. The sports festival was just held yesterday (Saturday) and it lasted all day. All the parents and families in the area attend, it's a huge affair. The kids spent more than a week practicing all the events that they had to do. Some were really strange but looked fun. There was one where a 1st year guy rides piggyback on a 3rd year guy, and they race across the field while the younger guy is swinging around a soccer ball on a string. When they get to the end of the field they have to knock over a 2L bottle off a desk, and then run back for the next pair on their team to go.

Pretty much every event was a relay or group performance of some kind. At one of the schools i went to they did this traditional kind of dance called the souran, which apparently is a dance they used to do in Hokkaido to give thanks for a good haul of fish. It was pretty cool to watch, a lot of the kids were getting really into it, yelling and shouting and whatnot. I actually got to compete in a couple events too, like pushing a basketball with a broom relay, and then just a straight up relay as part of the PTA competition. I raced against one of the badass teachers and it was a tie in the end. To try and add some meaning to this, and not just be a collection of random shit, one thing I noticed was how much each event was about teamwork. The school was divided up by years and classes, and each team got their own color headband. Then everyone was competing to win a trophy for their class. I don't remember American field day that well, but I seem to remember it being more individual. I dunno. My next post is going to be about how Japan is basically a video game.

I climbed up Mt. Fuji for 8 hours

And I made it all the way to the top. I bitched and complained the entire way, and the last couple hundred meters really was pretty miserable, but I'm glad I did it. I got my cool Fuji Stick stamped with the official "you just spent a hundred bucks and an entire weekend to see a sunrise" stamp put on it by the monks at the top of the mountain. I wonder how they get to work every day. I bet there's an elevator or something. I want to say that the last 200m, when I couldn't walk more than 5 steps without almost passing out/throwing up, was entirely due to elevation sickness. Somebody said that elevation sickness can affect people regardless of their physical fitness. But that kinda seems like bull to me. I don't really want to use an excuse when I know I'm not nearly in as good shape as I should be. It seems like even with really thin air a person with better cardio will be able to use what little oxygen is available more efficiently. But who cares, I made it, I didn't puke, and I felt much better once I got to the top and had some hot chocolate.

I hope tire smoke isn't carcinogenic...

So yeah, as I said, it was a bit of a hike. But getting to see a ton of Sylvias, Skylines, hachi-rokus, and a pair of awesome Toyotas (a Chaser and a Soarer, of course!) tear around the Ebisu South Course, mostly sideways, I can honestly say that waking up at 6 and riding the trains for 5 hours was well worth it. Getting there really was crazy though. I transfered at all of these stations I had never heard of onto lines that I had no understanding of geographically. Realistically, I could have ended up in Okinawa and not have realized it. But my broken Japanese was enough to carry me through the commute, meet up with Kristine, and eat ramen way too early at Kouriyama station. From there it was just a couple stops to Nihommatsu and Ebisu Circuit. We gave up on taking a bus once presented with the timetables for doing so, and just took a cab. It was like 3000yen for a 15 minute ride, which believe it or not isn't that bad for Japan. Good thing too, cuz the cab driver took us inside the circuit right to the South Course, which ended up being another 5 minutes up and down a bunch of hills. Good thing we didn't have to walk from the bus station. But being in a cab was definitely a little awkward, especially with all the other car lovers checking each other's rides out, all under a banner that said "no car = no life". So true. But oh man, once we got to the track. All the teams actually racing that day had their cars lined up behind the main grandstands, with the drivers coming out to meet the fans. This was my first event so I didn't really know much about the drivers, but after this race and watching the Option DVD I bought of the first round from 2006, Ken "monkey" Nomura aka Nomuken is def my favorite. For one, because he was a huge showoff and was the only driver to always drift through the unscored warm up section on the upper half of the track, which happened to be where all the free section seats were. Also for trying to slide the rear end of his awesome Blitz Skyline while half out of the car, but not being able to cuz he's pretty short. I was cheering for him after seeing him in the prelims, and he made it to the final battle against one of the Team Orange Imprezas and took second. The judge kept saying "this is truly a high level battle!" :) As far as the cars go, seeing a big Chaser slide around the circuit in full D1 spec solidified my love of all things Toyota (or at least all Toyotas with the 1JZ-GTE / 2JZ-GTE). Every day I'm here I feel the need for a car more and more, and I'm definitely going to run out of things to do in my town if I don't expand my operating range with some (twin turbo) wheels soon.

So maybe, hopefully, I got really lucky after the race. I called a cab to pick me and Kristine up but was kind of worried about the cabbie's ability to determine where we were exactly based on the short conversation. So when an opportunity presented itself, (much like the time I accidentally spent my train fare on McDonald's in Hitachi) I humbly asked for the assistance of the international community in Japan, and ended up meeting some damn cool people in the process. Waved hello and asked the first group of white people I saw if they could give us a lift to the station, and they happily obliged. As luck would have it, the guy was driving a really slick looking JZX100 Chaser Touring V, with the 1JZ-GTE and numerous mods. Turns out he's a dealer just outside Tokyo specializing in exporting JDM cars! Of course I already knew that there's nothing I can do to bring a car here back to the states. But it was awesome luck to meet a guy who knows all the details about buying cars here, especially the kind of cars I want to buy. Plus, he was happy to let me and Kristine know about all kinds of drift events coming up soon. Hopefully I will get to go to some of them, since I just found out today that the Super GT in Motegi is no go :(

Chou A Class

So coming up this weekend, maybe, is the D1GP in Fukushima, the closest its going to get to Ibaraki. I'm so far north in Ibaraki I'm almost in Fukushima anyway. Even given that, though, it looks like I am looking at a 5-6 hour trip, one way, to get to the Ebisu circuit where the event is gonna be at. Not that it's actually that far away, its just that the trains are exactly the opposite here as they are in Tokyo. Sporadic service at best, with stations located next to pretty much nothing. I'll have to switch lines 2 or 3 times and spend almost as much time waiting in a station for a train to come as I will on the actual trains. All of which just reminds me of why I need a car.

But! Man, I did some searching around on Yahoo auctions, and it might not be that bad at all to get one. The main problem is that the cars here are so freakin cool. Why is that a problem? Because I can't take it with me. Once my time here is done so is my time with the RHD beast that I want so much. If I bring it to America, it would probably get crushed in some junkyard. So what do I do? Get so close to my dream of driving a Supra around the C1 inner, only to spend my time here in a Civic? Or worse yet, a little kei car? Or spend significantly more money and do something that I've always wanted, but know that I would have to give it up in the end?

I was looking at Soarers (Lexus SC) on Yahoo, and the price for most of them from '92-'97 was around 300,000 - 600,000 yen. Knock a couple zeros off to get dollars, and you might think that it sounds about right, maybe a little on the cheap side for a car that is at least 9 years old. Except for a couple things. First, they're Toyotas, so you know that they will run for like 150k miles easy. Second, not a single one had more than 90k on the odo! I guess that even though Ibaraki is inaka countryside, and people use their cars way more than in Tokyo, America is still way ahead of the game there. These cars would probably be twice as expensive in the states and have twice the mileage. Plus they wouldnt even be as cool as they are here! The SC300, the "sporty" coupe from Lexus, has the 2JZ-GE engine. Almost perfect yeah? Except that little "T" that's missing stands for the most important part, turbo. Here the best Soarer has the 1JZ-GTE engine. Slightly smaller displacement (2.5 vs 3.0 liters) compared to the 2JZ, but it has the twin turbo action and 280 hp (upper limit for Japanese cars, not always followed "officially"). It's not the Supra's TT but its related to it and its still a turbo.

So what I'm thinking, is I'm not buying a car, but an engine to take back to the states and put in an American car, bring a little of the dream back with me. I just get the added bonus of having a car attatched to it while I'm here. The 1JZ-GTE is pretty prevalent here, not only in the Soarer TT but also the Chaser Touring V (a pretty badass sedan, also a fav) and the Mk III Supra. Howeeeever (shikashi!) maybe I should also look at the Toyota Aristo (Lexus GS) because they put the real deal, the main event, the 2JZ-GTE, in that bad boy. Hmm... better go back to check the auctions...

catch up

Got inspired to write another post here after getting bored at the Board of Education and finding other JET blogs on the Ibaraki JETs forum. And considering I'm planning on posting this blog on that forum after I write this its like an endless feedback loop thing. But honestly (especially considering how annoying blogger has been to use, I think I liked the old livejournal better) it's hard to tear myself away from Ouendan !

Yeah I know, I'm like a year late on this one, but I just got my DS a couple months ago! So if somehow you haven't already played/heard of it, its a rhythm game for the NDS where you tap/slide on the touch screen to make your badass cheer gang give everyone the kind of fighting spirit they need to get through the day. Like the standard kid studying for entrance exams, or maybe the concert violinist riding the train to his receital with severe diarreah. The music is all J-pop, and even though I'm not particularly fond of the pop music here (except Kishidan!) its all catchy. I guess I never really got into the rhythm games much before outside of Taiko no Tetsujin, but its a really cool way to connect with the music. Plus, Ouendan is so freakin hard that there's a huge sense of accomplishment when you finally beat a stage.

RANDOM CATCH UP STUFF

went camping with all the 5th graders in the area. all the kids here love bugs, and love to show them to me.

went into tokyo and met up with anthony, went to namja town!

went on a mission in akihabara to find a way to play US PS2 games on a system here, and also to buy ouendan cheap. succeeded in the first while dodging crossplaying maids, but the second had to wait until i checked out the book off store here in takahagi. well actually it was called the chameleon club for some reason but it was in the book off store.

iwaki beach bomb - trying to cram as much drinking as possible at an hour long nomihoudai followed by - get this - black nikka in a can! was a bad idea, passed out on the beach pretty soon after getting there, woke up at 5 am with sand everywhere.

the last event will have to be a secret until i go back there so i can photographically document its awesomeness and enlighten everyone reading this.

Terebi

Japanese TV is so fucking retarded. I just had to get that off my chest. Every time I've turned it on I am astounded at whats on. If its not the stupid eating shows that Anthony has so elequently called out, its even worse. Last week I was bored and what did I see but a show about "hey what completely fucking retarded stuff that no one would waste their time thinking about can we come up to do with everyday items?" First, someone was like look, its just a normal 2L bottle! But watch! (everyone else on the studio stage goes eee?) Just by squeezing the sides a bit, I can suck up this egg yolk into the bottle and drop it on some rice! (Everyone else on stage goes uwaaaaaaa! and starts clapping) Next, a guy is like look! I cut across this carrot! And now, I can scale this fish with the cut edge! That one was too much even for one of the guys getting paid to think it was amazing, because he was like wait, I can do that with my finger. Then he did. He pushed some fish scales around with his finger. It was on TV. Yeah I turned it off after that. But now, Im bored and trying to do laundry, and its even worse. Im flipping around and see the studio people start clapping as some guy comes out of a dark entryway. Its just a dumbass guy in a green tshirt ive never seen before, so I change the channel. I've only got like 8 channels so I was back there pretty fast. And the fucker in the green t shirt was demonstrating how he can open one of those plastic wrapped wet towels by just flicking it with one finger while holding it by one end. Then, the announcer is like "so what is this guys true power?" It turnes out his ability was to fold the hand towels into animals. Only they werent actually anything. Oh man. His "pengin" was just rolled up and folded in half with a corner sticking out. Godzilla was like the exact same thing. When I went on a cruise the fucking maids did a better job. But this guy made a little group and his green T shirt was actually advertising his "art." Jesus. And the entire time Hard Gay was just in the background not being Hard Gay. Plus Beat Takeshi was there watching too. So fucking ridiculous. I think the only requirement to be on Japanese TV is to be able to act interested in people who have wasted their lives. But I did learn that HG has like a gay crush on the fortune teller judge from Iron Chef. AAAARGH. And Pe Yon Joon's japanese sounds just like Ahn Tuans.

After actually sitting down and watching the next guy, who was in his 30s and has been making little robot action figures out of rolled up paper, and then videotaping himself play wrestling two of them together, and then the next guy, who was in his late 60s and just completely fucking out of his mind in a room surroundeb by dumb crap he made, I kinda had a revelation. Maybe it has to do with how proud the Japanese are about their overall national identity, but its like they're very accepting about small personal eccentricities. Like all the old women who dressed up in Hawaiian costumes and danced in front of everyone at the matsuri, not to mention the flamenco, samba, and belly dancers. Or all these people who have spent a whole hell of a lot of time making "art" out of nothing. They interviewed the old guy's wife for a bit, and she was like yeah, I put up with it because it makes him genki. And he certainly fucking was. But its not just that theyre tolerated, they get paraded around and celebrated in public, or put on TV with studio announcer types saying nothing but "uwaaaaa" or "sugeeeeeee." And I don't think its sarcasm either, considering how well sarcasm goes over in general here. The only comparison I can think of in America is stuff like when they bring the "UFO expert" or "psychic" onto the daily show, or the entire first 5 episodes of any American Idol clone. They celebrate (completely retarded) stuff, we point and laugh at how ridiculous it is. I mean, we're right, but it always seems kind of mean.