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.