Tire Smoke and Cherry Blossoms

Goodbye Takahagi

2008-08-04T20:19:00.000+09:00

Although my contract officially expired some time ago, today was my last day as a teacher. The last two weeks have pretty much been one continuous farewell party. With speeches and toasts literally every night, presents received and pictures taken, finishing JET has been a gradual process to say the least. Perhaps because of that it was a little difficult for me to get a sense of closure from most of those farewells. I think I talked to everyone I wanted to and said all of my goodbyes, but knowing in the back of my head that I would probably see any given person again as I continued my farewell tour lessened the emotional impact. Well, now I've finished all of my duties as an English teacher, and yet this whole experience of living in a small town in a foreign country for two years steadfastly refuses to be summed up in a nice neat package. Instead, I'm just sitting in an apartment that isn't even mine (thanks Tom!) a little depressed at the realization that yeah, it's over, but also wondering, what's going to happen next?

Hopefully sometime soon I will be able to think a bit more clearly about what teaching in Japan has meant to me, and what to take from this experience going into the future. For now, I just know that despite plenty of frustration at times, I am going to miss this town and the people I met while in it.

Accident Update

2008-06-07T13:15:00.002+09:00

It's been an up and down couple of weeks. Dealing with two insurance companies and two repair shops in Japanese has been a bit taxing, and I'm still not sure how it's going to turn out, but hopefully I can get my car back on the road soon. Things started out great, I got a call from my insurance company, saying the truck driver's insurance was accepting 100% of the blame for the accident. I was relieved to somehow avoid the "if your car is moving, you're partly to blame" rule in the insurance system here. All that was left to do was talk to the trucker's insurance and get my car fixed.

At first, when I talked to the other driver's insurance company, I was ecstatic. The first words out of their mouth were "700,000 yen" ($7,000) of damage, and I immediately thought of all the carbon fiber I could buy with that. But something seemed a little off. How on earth did they come up with that number? The next sentence brought me back down. "Yes, and unfortunately since your car is only worth 200,000 yen, we won't be able to pay for repairs of that level..."

What?

Granted, I was a little worried from the start about my car being undervalued. You just won't find any Tourer-Vs in a normal Toyota dealer's used lot anymore. The only X90 Mark IIs around at a normal dealership are bargain bin base models, which are worth next to nothing. Still, my buddy Kevin paid more than 200,000 for his base model Mark II when he got to Japan. When you look at a Tourer-V, and a manual, the price goes way up, not even considering all the new parts on my car. So, it was obvious that the insurance company was fucking with me, both by undervaluing my car and overestimating the repair costs. I tried explaining that my car was worth much more than that, but the lady at the insurance company wasn't having it, and kept talking about the red book value. Argh.

I panicked, hard, imagining the trucker's insurance company basically stealing my car from me. I was also thinking about all the money I'd put into it (hell, I literally paid more than half of what they were offering me for the car only a couple weeks earlier for the shaken inspection!) disappearing with nothing to show for it. After worrying about it for way too long, I got some relief the next day when I called up Kazama, the guy who doesn't know if Bryan is spelled with a B or a V, also known as the owner of Kazama Auto, the store I bought my car from. After telling him the basics of my problem, his first words were, "Let me talk to them."

After that conversation, things felt a bit better, but it's still not over. Even after talking to Kazama the insurance company wasn't changing their stance. Last weekend, though, I went to the shop in Hitachi my car was towed to in order to get a better look at the damage. And 700,000 yen is completely just them fucking with me. The only damage was cosmetic, and the only body panels damaged enough to need replacement were the front bumper, bonnet, side skirts, and one headlight lens. Even getting name brand stuff, a front bumper is about 60,000, bonnet 70,000, side skirts 40,000, and headlights can be picked up for about 3,000 on yahoo auctions. The other 527,000 yen was completely just them fucking with me, quoting ridiculous labor costs so I would get scared and take their lowball offer on the car's total value. There is absolutely NO damage to the car's drivetrain or suspension. I got in the car last weekend and drove it down to Kazama's shop, almost 100 miles away, with no problems.

Things are looking a little better. Kazama's guys looked at the car, confirmed that the insurance company was full of shit, and the insurance company then called me up to say yes, we were full of shit. But, it's not over yet. They said they need to reevaluate, and I am still waiting for them to give me a new offer. So yeah, frustration all around with the car.

Carnage

2008-05-26T21:47:00.003+09:00

AAAAAAAAAAARGH. Need to get that out of my system. So, driving home from Mito last Saturday, had a bit of an altercation on the Joban Highway. I was traveling in the right lane, nothing out of the ordinary, when a truck cab in the left lane ahead of me clipped the right barrier and flipped over to the right, directly in my path. Got on the brakes as much as I could but a collision was inevitable. I was strangely calm in the aftermath, even after the trucker apologized for falling asleep at the wheel. Overall I was pretty lucky. No injuries to me or Saori, only light injuries to either of the people in the truck, and the damage to my car could have been a whole lot worse. The only part of the truck that made contact with my car was the cargo area above the cab, which apparently was made out of FRP (and apparently full of porn if you'll notice in the picture above) so there wasn't much damage to the metal on my car. I will need at least a new front bumper, grill, and bonnet though. But hey, I wanted to replace that bonnet anyway. Since the other driver admitted to falling asleep at the wheel, there's a chance I might not have any percentage liability for the accident. Honestly, even if he was awake when he did it, I don't see how I could be held responsible. A truck flipped over into my lane and I slowed as much as I could to lessen the impact. There were no escape routes since Japan hasn't invented the highway shoulder, leaving a 100 foot drop the only thing to my right. Unfortunately, Japan's auto insurance system is set up to almost never assign blame 100% to one party. Let's hope it turns out allright.

Random Conversation

2008-05-09T19:43:00.004+09:00

(While waiting in Kazama Auto to find out how miserable shaken is going to make my life, measured in 10,000 yen bills)

Kazama: "Hey Bryan, how do you spell your name?"
Me: *Huh?? Kazama knows my name???* "Uh, B-R-Y-A-N."
K: "What's that? B? V? Like Tourer-V?"
M: "No no, B." (Pushes the shop cat away and demonstrates writing a capital B in the air)
K: "Ah, gotcha." (Fools around with some machine for a bit) "Here you go, a cell phone charm."
M: "Hey, thanks"

Yeah, uh so now I have a piece of wood with "BRYAN" etched into it hanging off my phone. After an entire life of having to explain my name is spelled with a Y not an I, it was nice to have confusion arise from a different letter. It's also funny that the confusion was resolved by my car's grade. Which gives me an idea. Maybe I should get a replacement badge made up for the back that says "TOURER-B."

Chasing Sakura

2008-04-23T19:29:00.008+09:00

A common writing prompt on English tests for my students is "Tell me about your town." Invariably, they will reply with, "My town has a lot of nature." Well, that's nice. No ATMs open after 9 on a weekend, no non-Japanese food other than McDonalds, but at least there are lots of trees. Well, sometimes trees can be pretty cool. As anyone that attended my nationally-televised Hanami party in Ueno park can tell you, once the cherry trees start blossoming, everyone better pay attention. Something about those trees just fills everyone with a desire to revel in being alive.

As spring and warmer temperatures slowly start crawling up the islands of Japan, the sakura trees follow north, but they don't stay for very long in any one place. Part of the appeal is, of course, that the pale pink blossoms only stay on the trees for about a week before being replaced by green leaves. Ueno park this year ended up being a bit of a perfect storm, with rainy weather both Friday and Sunday leaving Saturday as the only viable day for people to party under the trees. And party they did, coming from all over Tokyo, Chiba, Tochigi, Saitama, not to mention 20 ALTs from Ibaraki. Compared to Ueno, Hitachi's Sakura Matsuri, two weekends later, was a much calmer affair. Still, strolling along Heiwa street while chatting with Kenpoku area friends and munching on the gyoza at G-bros is always worth the short ride down. For the first time I visited Kamine park, as it was shutting down, giving its mostly abandoned attractions an eerie feeling. Back in downtown Hitachi, the cherry blossom festival was already over, street stalls and rockabilly dancers replaced with a line of cars snaking towards the station.

There's something calming in that contrast between the bright flower petals and the night sky behind them. Still, it wasn't long before Hitachi's trees went green, and Takahagi's along with them. I thought I would have to leave the Kanto area and go north to Fukushima or even further to get what I really wanted, a picture of my car surrounded by cherry blossoms. Unfortunately I didn't actually have my car back from Kazama Auto until last Saturday, and by the time I had it back in Takahagi I was too beat to do much exploring. Luckily, it turns out I didn't have to go far. Today I was able to leave work a bit early since almost all of the teachers were out visiting parents, meaning no classes to teach. I took the afternoon to cruise around Takahagi and experience some of that nature my kids are always bragging about.

Although my main school is only a 2 minute walk from the beach, actually only a very small part of Takahagi lies along the coast. The rest of it is covered in mountains extending to the northwest. The climate change between the two areas means that although everything in the city area of Takahagi where I live is done, trees in the higher elevations are hitting their prime right now. I was informed of this by a distinguished older gentleman who insisted I called him Professor Sakuragi. Maybe. I also learned that yamazakura, the cherry trees that bloom naturally on the mountainside, can be quite different from the rows of trees planted in the cities below. Many of them are completely uncultivated, naturally growing to impressive heights and spreading their branches wide. Their blossoms tend to clump together, and many times they will appear simultaneously with the green leaves. All of which makes this tree in Shimokimida (3 minutes from my mountain school!) all the more impressive.

Professor Sakuragi went on to tell me that he and his wife had been to our very location only two days before, only to find that the tree had not yet started to bloom. With rain in the forecast for the next few days, he (and I) were quite lucky to see such a beautiful tree blossoming at that time. Proving their devotion to nature, or at least sightseeing, people actually come from well outside of Takahagi just to see this tree. Oh yeah, and I did get plenty of pictures of my car and sakura trees amidst the wonderful nature all around Takahagi.

Must be dreaming

2008-04-15T01:19:00.002+09:00

Let's ignore the fact that I only have 4 more paychecks before I am unemployed with which to move out of my apartment, pay the deposit on a new one, and live however long it takes me to find a new job in Tokyo, and just do some shopping for my car.

Also, shaken. Urgh. Yearly tax on cars that could end up costing me around $1000US. No way around it.

But, next, cooling. My car's been running pretty hot since I got it, usually around 98-99C. When I get it on the track, hopefully soon, I'm gonna need to do something about that, better radiator maybe. Looks like Koyorad has one for about 4 man, or Trust is 9. Yikes. Getting the heat out of the engine compartment would be a good idea too, so an aero bonnet could give proper ventilation. Could go full carbon, which would look sweet and be lighter, but more expensive and maybe more flashy than I want. D-MAX does this carbon one for 7 man or FRP for 5, although this picture is from a 90 chaser since theres no pic for the mark II on their site. Second is a FRP hood from Car Modify Wonder that I saw at the Auto Salon in January, but since their website is crap I have no idea how much it would be. I do like the fact that it's a little less duct-y than the D-MAX hood, but then again, that's kind of the point, isn't it. Last is a FRP bonnet from Hippo Sleek (what kind of name is that, seriously) that costs as much as a full carbon bonnet, 7 man, and would require another couple man to get painted. Of course that one is my favorite so far. D'oh.

Next is the headlights. As you can see, the passenger headlight is getting yellowed. It's nothing big, and purely cosmetic, but bothers me. Options are getting a used set of factory headlights in better condition off yahoo auctions for probably about 6000 yen, or replace the covers with new plastic ones, which would look sweet but cost 2 man plus labor.

Or, I could rent a heat gun and try to do it myself. Could be fun.

That's probably all realistically in terms of what I'm gonna do to my car, unless more stuff breaks. Eventually I'll need to replace some of the aero parts, especially the rear bumper, which I put a huge crack pretty much the first week I had the car. But, before I do that, I want to try taking it out to Ebisu myself.

Graduation

2008-03-12T20:26:00.002+09:00

Yesterday I watched some of my favorite students walk out the door of their school for the last time. Last year I wasn't able to attend the graduation ceremony because I was scheduled to work at a kindergarten instead This year I was actually scheduled at an elementary school away from my main junior high school again, but luckily I was able to change my schedule around thanks to a couple JTEs. I'm really glad I was able to be there. I've been teaching these kids since I came to Takahagi and it's really been a pleasure watching them grow up and mature (a little) into high school students. They're the only class that I will see start and finish their third year, since I'll be gone myself come July. One important thing to keep in mind is that in Japan, when kids graduate junior high school they don't all go to the same high school. Instead they have to take weks and weeks of tests get into specifically ranked high schools across the prefecture and beyond. In that regard it's almost like high school graduation in America, with kids saying goodbye to the friends they've been with since kindergarten.

The actual graduation ceremony was a little dry, as these things tend to be. Principals and members of the board of education giving speeches, etc. One nice thing I thought was that they delivered messages from all of the teachers who had taught the graduating students in the past but had been transfered to other schools or cities. The real emotion came when some of the students got up to give speeches. Plenty of the kids in the audience were tearing up, not to mention the ones giving the speeches. It was starting to get to me a bit too. Somehow I think when I hear something in Japanese it carries more emotional impact than the same words in English. I think sometimes these things sound trite or corny in English because we've heard similar things so many times before. But hearing it for the first time in Japanese bypasses all those reactions and just leaves you with the emotion and meaning behind the words. Writing it out in English really does make it sound corny, but the speech I liked the best was one girl talking about her memories in class, saying, "Even when we had really boring or really difficult classes, I still enjoyed learning because we were doing it together, as a class, as friends. I want to keep learning with everyone tomorrow too, but I can't do that anymore, can I?" Hmm. Maybe it has more impact if you're watching a 4 foot tall girl struggle to get the words out and not break down in tears. Or maybe not.

The sense of togetherness and arriving at graduation as a single group was an important theme for the day. Speeches by staff continually referenced the fact that every single student was graduating. One interesting thing was, during the ceremony there was no mention of class rank, test scores, or who would be going to the most prestigious high schools. The only achievement recognized was perfect attendance. In other words, those that never took a day off from being a part of the group. Which is why two students really confused me. There were two girls graduating that I had literally never seen before. I know its ridiculously hard not to graduate in the Japanese school system, but is it really possible to do so without ever going to school? It was easy to pick these two out from the rest of the students, since they both had their normally long skirts hitched up to mid thigh, and one had bright blonde dyed hair. What's more, neither one bowed during the graduation ceremony. I couldn't really get my head around how they were able to participate and graduate despite breaking so many rules. Why did all the rules so strictly enforced on all of the other kids in order to preserve group uniformity not apply to them?

Some Decisions Aren't Really That Hard

2008-02-04T23:36:00.001+09:00

Yeah, so one year ago this time I was tormented with indecision over the recontracting issue. You could read all about that here if you're so inclined. After struggling with that decision for so long, it really turned out to be pretty easy. The ups and downs of moving to another country and actually trying to live a halfway normal life in a Japanese town of about 30,000 people was something that needed more than 12 months to get used to. I know I didn't get any culture shock the first time I came to Japan, but that was because the A Team was too busy being atomically fucking awesome to notice a lot of what goes on in daily life here. Plus the myriad distractions available when living 30 minutes from the center of Tokyo go a long way towards easing over the rough patches that are all too visible in a slowly dying inaka town.

So yeah, there were definitely rough patches in my first 6 months in Takahagi, before I had to decide to stay another year here. But after deciding to recontract I found out that they were just rough patches. Going from Winter to Spring really was a rebirth in so many ways. The new school year brought new students, and a renewed sense of effort from me and all the teachers I worked with that made the job amazing. Deciding to recontract conferred upon me my Definitive Title and a leadership position among the Ibaraki JETs. Spring also brought hanami and a rebirth of Japan style debauchery underneath the cherry blossom trees. It also brought me together with Saori. So yeah, pretty much a month after signing the paper everything started going my way. Of course, there have been rough patches since then too. Some new, and some of the very same problems I described in my post around this time last year. But, the extra year gave me a great deal of perspective. I saw the downturn from October-January for what it was, temporary. Seasons change, situations change. It's let me stay a great deal more positive about Japan and the job when times are tough (as they are right now actually, lemme tell ya) since I know that they will get better soon.

So it's interesting that with all this newfound wisdom that I decided not to recontract with no hesitation whatsoever. I guess that perspective has shown me what problems I can change and what I can't. And what I can't change about my life as an ALT is living on the extreme edge of Kanto. Let's give an example from a week ago today: after an awesome sumo trip that about 40 people went on, planned in part by me, I was feeling good until I hadda get on that train back to Ibaraki. In order to keep from noticing the declining number of buildings as the Fresh Hitachi sped its way through Kashiwa and southern Ibaraki, I was busy trying to fill the hole with whatever media I had on hand: DS, iPod, keitai, etc. Of course (see my post here to confirm) I'm an idiot, so I managed to be entirely too unaware until I saw the train I was on was moving away from Takahagi. Argh. Of course, since it was already 10PM by that point, I had no business being North of Takahagi, since that's where the Dead Ones live. Or, I mean, since there are no trains southbound after 10PM. AAARGH. So I ended up choosing to spend ￥6000 for a night in a hotel in Fukushima, which was a whole lot better than the other option, a cab ride home for probably 4 times that amount (about $200). Laying down in a random business hotel in a city an hour north from where I live, I was struck by how isolated life is out here. The only reason to live in a place like this is to have space for a family to grow. It's safe and gives you a nice controlled environment for your kids. But it offers nothing to someone like me. I have no family here to back me up, and come drive out North to Fukushima after small lapse in concentration. I don't want a family (yet). What I need is Tokyo. I need a group of my peers, not people 10 years younger or 10 years older than me. I need events. I need life experience. It would be a shame to leave Japan through Takahagi. Tokyo draws me in like no other place I've ever been to, and I'm happy to say that I've decided to live there starting this August, no matter what. I am extremely pleased to find out that I will be joined by Mr. Jay Hoare. I know that there will be ups and downs, but it will be on my terms because of what I want to do.

NAOKI gained a level

2008-01-10T23:39:00.000+09:00

Today in class one kid started humming the Final Fantasy victory fanfare. Then a bunch of other kids started picking it up. It was like some kind of virus going around. The best part was, though, that apparently none of the kids, including the first one, had any idea what they were humming. They all just kept asking each other “Where does that music come from?”

Danananaa na na na nanaaa

Car Life Japan

2008-01-07T23:20:00.000+09:00

After driving here in Takahagi for a couple months, and then going back to America over the break, I got a good chance to see the differences in driving in America and Japan. In the end, it all comes down to space. Living in the middle of America gives you plenty of room to build a highway with 5 lanes going each way and big grassy medians everywhere. Thats just not possible in Japan. Most buildings are built right up to their property lines, and then feature a sidewalk/drainage ditch combo with a sharp curb or metal guardrails. For the road itself, you have one lane of traffic each way at most, and no shoulder really. This is in the middle of town on a 30-40 kph road. Driving habits of people around here only exacerbate the problem. It's a common sight to see traffic backed up because it can't get around someone who stopped on the nonexistent shoulder to jump out of their car and buy some cigarettes at a vending machine. Even when traffic is moving, it's usually bogged down by some car shaped like a cardboard box with a 600cc motorcycle engine redlining as it struggles to get up a hill. And there are a lot of hills. This is a common situation even on the most important road in northern Ibaraki, Route 6. The biggest road around is only 2 lanes and it still has to carry all the commuters struggling to get up to the speed limit of 50kph. Yeah, its the main artery for commuting and the speed limit is about 30mph. It's basically useless. The only alternative is to use the toll roads. If you do that, you can expect to pay 1000-1500 yen to go just 50 km to Mito, and the prices go up from there. Oh, and gas costs twice as much as in America too.

So given all the headaches that come along with car ownership, I must be regretting spending all my money to get my JZX90, right? Hell no. It was totally worth it. Let me give an example. When I first came to Japan a year and a half ago, I had to spend 5 hours to ride the trains up to Ebisu to see some drifting. Then, when I finally got there, I was cruising up in the backseat of a taxi, most likely a Toyota Comfort or a Nissan Gloria, while staring longingly at a parking lot full of 180s, hachi rokus, and FCs. There was a huge disconnect between me, just a spectator, and everyone else, who even if they were just watching the pros driving sideways, were active participants in the car culture. Luckily, on the way home I happened to meet a guy who about a year later would end up selling me my car, Yankii Doraemon. Since I've had it the problems of driving in Japan have only become more noticeable. The coilovers threaten to scrape the front half spoiler on every bump I go over. The clutch (while it could be much worse) is still a bit of a nightmare in the stop and go traffic that frequently occurs in the mountain roads where I live. And the twin turbos can hardly console me when kei cars or decotora clog up every available avenue. And yet, it's worth it. A couple nights ago I was just doing some shopping in town. I parked my car and as I walked to the store I noticed a really nice JZX110 Mark II iR-V. Then when I was leaving the store, that car had left, only to be replaced by a 100 Tourer V. There was no one in the car, but the engine was still idling until the turbo timer stopped it. With my 90 there it was like a little Mark II family reunion right in front of Cainz Home. Then, later on that night, I saw the same 100 and a R33 GT-R stopped at the same stoplight as me. We were all waiting for the light to change, engines drowning out all other noise in the area. I looked at the other Mark II, and at the Skyline, and then at the wheel in my hands. And then I just smiled.

Big edit after a couple big weekends: man, I was so right. Friday night, 8 PM, I leave Takahagi for my first venture onto the Shutoko, Tokyo's highway system. No more straight shot Joban line, it's time for the spiderweb of the C2, Chuo, 1, 5, 6, and of course the Wangan, all centering in on C1. I mostly stayed on the Wangan, trained by years of TXR to head for the big Yokohama Bay Bridge, and at the end of it... Daikoku Futou. But I had to pass by to head to a nearby train station to pick up Saori. Exit off of Yokohama K-5 and.. madness. Intersection after intersection with no discernible information to identify which road leads where. Still manage to pick up Saori from a train station in the middle of nowhere no problem, but getting back on the highway... eventually get back, figure out I can't turn back towards Daikoku, and end up going all the way out to the airport on the Haneda line before exiting and crossing back over to the Wangan to start again. Back on the Wangan, notice even more than before the large number of modified cars screaming along in the same direction. Finally back en route to Daikoku, but a new problem arises. While my Trust exhaust was certainly always louder than stock, the drone at 2200 RPM has now become a full car shaking vibrating rattle. Fuck. Guess the stress of a little too spirited driving for the 4 hours or so its taken me to get to this point has taken its toll. Spiral down to Daikoku, and can see the entire array of cars spread out down below, including a neon blue Diablo that I saw stopped on the side of the Chuo at the beginning of the night. Embarrassed by the horrible rattling my exhaust is doing over 2k, I do my best to idle it into the parking area. Get out and damn, it's good. Camera can't take pictures worth shit in the dark so hopefully I will get some video up soon to show everyone what I mean. I will definitely be going back soon.

The next day is the Tokyo Auto Salon. Just like last year, the Makuhari Messe is completely full of amazing cars, only this year, I can actually shop. Totally different experience, instead of just running around thinking, wow car is cool! so is that one! and that one! I could focus on finding some good examples of shops working on JZX90s and the 1JZ-GTE. Still took a ton of pictures, which you can check out here: http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v476/bskrilla/Tokyo%20Auto%20Salon/

Finally, this weekend I made an amazing discovery. On the C1 line, you can get to Roppongi Hills like 5 minutes after you take the Shiba Koen exit. Why would you want to do that? Because for 3000 yen, you can park for 24 hours in their garage. Haha I got pulled over by mall security and directed to a special garage for Lambos and Porsches because my car is too low to enter the normal garage. Japan is awesome. Driving in Japan is awesome.

２級 is over

2007-12-03T21:28:00.000+09:00

::wrote this on my keitai going to work today::

so the mayor of takahagi just rolled down his window as i was jaywalking across the street to say good morning and ask how the JLPT went. good question. btw the mayor does not drive but is driven in a blacked out Toyota Crown Royal Saloon, nice. very VIP (which japanese tuners ruin by pronouncing "bippu" for some reason.)

so yeah, the test. second time around, and somehow it was even more fun than last time. umm, its hard to really tell how i did. last year was ridiculously hard and depressed me for like a week because of how poorly id done. and then i turned out to have only missed the passing line by 5 percent. this year felt a lot better, but i dont know if thats because im actually better than last year, or if i was just expecting and prepared to take the pain (in other words, i lubed up properly). one thing im proud about is the listening section. it was my best section last year, and i definitely nailed it this year. there were only a few questions i was even unsure about. that especially felt good because a lot of my friends thought that was the hardest section. of course they definitely did better than I did on the other 2 sections.

so, it was tough, but i only needed to do 5 percent better than last year. we'll see.

Something Must Be Wrong With Me

2007-11-27T18:53:00.000+09:00

For some reason, I'm watching TV, something something Cherry Pie, and there's an American guy on TV, which would usually prompt me to change the channel immediately. Usually every foreigner on TV in Japan acts like an idiot to reinforce stereotypes (Bobby?) or is there just to be made fun of by the Japanese hosts. This guy Pakkun, although undoubtedly a tool, for some reason doesn't cause me to hate him immediately. I'm more just... kinda jealous that I can't speak Japanese well enough to be on TV.

Performance Enhancing Substances

2007-10-03T17:44:00.001+09:00

Hot damn that Viper Extract and Royal Jelly is a killer combo. Chugged a bottle of it last night, and one this morning, and I could barely feel the cold through the overwhelming genkiness flowing through my veins. Got through 6 classes at the loudest elementary school around without problems, even though they made me go out and play with the kids during recess. Of course now that I'm home and sedentary, I feel like I'm about to crash for a year or two... get me some snake juice stat!

I'm gonna die tomorrow

2007-10-02T17:11:00.000+09:00

Man when stuff turns on you it really all goes at once doesn't it. This week is the first week in like a month where I have to work a full 5 days. Add to that a wicked head cold that is about to turn into a wicked fever. And finally, tomorrow, already exhausted from being sick, I have to teach 6 full classes at the noisiest elementary school in the area. Basically, I'm going to get to school at 8:30, immediately be surrounded by a bunch of kids, and then used as a human jungle gym while vainly trying to get them to repeat words in English. All until they leave school at 3. I hope I at least get a bunch of them sick.

I don't think I'm gonna get much sympathy from the Board of Education either should I try and pull a sick day. My boss just gave me detailed instructions to go to the local drugstore, get a bottle of children's cold medicine and a energy drink, and chug them both before I go to bed tonight. We'll see how it works!

EDIT: Just got a bottle of "Yunker Kotei" which my supervisor recommended I take. Check out the ingredients:

Viper Tincture 100mg
Civet Tincture 250mg
Bezoar Tincture 250mg
Ginseng Extract 10mg
Crataegus Extract 3mg
Rehmannia Dried Extract 30mg
Royal Jelly 100mg

and then some boring vitamins that don't sound like they will kill me

My Car

2007-09-03T17:51:00.000+09:00

It took just about 13 months in Japan for me to finally find a car I like and then get it in my possession here in Takahagi. Here it is:
It's a 1993 Toyota Mark II Tourer V. I want to try and explain this car since most people back home haven't heard of it. It's a 4 door rear wheel drive midsize sedan with the 1JZ-GTE twin turbo 2.5L engine. Trying to compare it to cars people know, in terms of basic layout and size it seems similar to the BMW 5 series or Nissan Skyline sedans of the time. The exterior length is 187.0 inches, width is 68.9, and height is 54.7. The wheelbase is 107.5 inches and the curb weight is 3190 lbs. All of those dimensions put it pretty close to a 5 series of the time, or if you like a '93 Nissan Maxima. Or, what most people most commonly mistake it for... a Toyota Camry. Here's a stock Camry and stock Mark II for comparison:
It has a longer wheelbase, but yeah, lookswise I guess it is pretty close. I think the slight differences do make a better overall image. And, of course, the layout makes it a completely different car, which is why I think the comparison to the BMW 5 series is more accurate. And I don't think MY car looks much like a Camry. The Mark II was a high volume seller for Japan just like the Camry was in America, and you can see many ordinary Mark IIs, like the Grande (lol) above. Context is also slightly different, as a car of this size with RWD was more upmarket and executive in Japan's smaller scale world, whereas the visually similar Camry with FWD was a family car perfectly suited to Americans.

Next is that last part of the nameplate, the Tourer V. I'm not sure where they got the V part from, but it means that the Mark II Tourer V is the sportiest sedan Toyota made at the time. Two other Toyota sedans could also carry the Tourer V badge, the Chaser and the Cresta. Actually, all three cars (collectively called the Mark II brothers here in Japan) were basically the same, with slightly different front and rear lights and grille, and other minor changes, like the Cresta's full frame doors. The Cresta was considered the most luxurious of the three, and the Chaser the sportiest, with the Mark II in the middle, but mechanically all three cars were identical in terms of engine, drivetrain, and suspension. People complain about GM badge engineering identical cars under different brands, but at least they had different brands. Toyota sold three cars that were exactly the same under one brand! Back to that engine... the 1JZ-GTE is a twin turbo 2.5 litre engine that also saw duty in the last model year of the 3rd gen Supra here, as well as the fastest Toyota Soarer. A non-turbo version of this engine was in the Lexus SC300. The block of the 1JZ is actually pretty close to the 2JZ, the all powerful heart of the 4th gen Supra. There are of course other differences. The 2JZ-GTE's turbos are sequential, and the 1JZ-GTE's are not, which means the 1JZ-GTE has much more turbo lag. Both the 1JZ-GTE and the 2JZ-GTE were listed as 276 hp factory, both at the legal limit for Japan, and both considered lower than the actual power figures, although the Supra's 2JZ-GTE was probably the more conservative of the two. Sorry for the crappy comparison picture, but I don't have a scanner so I just had to use my camera to get this pic out of my copy of Hyper Rev for the Mark II. Drivetrain and suspension changes rounded out the upgrade to Tourer V status, but I don't have a lot of hard info on what changed there exactly. I think that's enough for now, even though I haven't actually said much about my own car, just the Mark II model. But I wanted to give everyone a good idea of the car itself before I talk about my car specifically. Here's one more pic of my car until next time:

惜しいなぁ

2007-07-09T22:29:00.000+09:00

My life these days:

USS Auction

Toyota -> Search
CORONA MARK-2 -> Go
More Info -> Go
Model -> JZX90
Transmission -> MT

Toyota -> Search
CHASER -> Go
More Info -> Go
Model -> JZX90
Transmission -> MT

Toyota -> Search
SOARER -> Go
More Info -> Go
Model -> JZZ30
Transmission -> MT

Bid

Lose

:(
Right now I'm trying to decide if a heavily modified Mark II is a good deal for me. It's got a full roll cage, GT wing, full aero, intake, exhaust, coilovers, racing seats, intercooler, gauges, 18" alloys... it's pretty hot. Oh also almost a year of shaken. Issues? Yeah there are plenty of those too, not all the fault of the car though. It's not in the best shape exterior wise, plenty of dings and scrapes, plus a bit of rust in one of the wheel wells. It's rated R on the auction site, which means it could have been in a crash, or just that adding all those parts qualifies as "repairs." I'm not sure how much I really need to be concerned with the condition of the car though, really. Unless it's going to need major repairs that will cost me, I think what's more important is figuring out what the resale value of the car will be in a year or two, and how much of a hit I am willing to take on that. But besides that, I was looking forward to getting a relatively clean stock car and choosing how to modify it myself. This would be buying a car already in the last stages, with all the work done for me, but no longer really "my" car. The other issue, unfortunately, is that I don't think it would be a very good idea for me to drive around my inaka town of 30,000 people in a car that would draw that much attention. I already get more than enough. But it's frustrating, because if I was living anywhere else, I wouldn't care, because I could still be anonymous. I guess I could just throw like a 5% tint on all the glass? What probably would end up happening is I would remove the wing and probably the roll cage, which wouldn't be that bad of a compromise. I dunno.

it takes 72 muscles to smile and say good morning

2007-06-15T23:09:00.000+09:00

Yeah, I made that fact up. But, this Tuesday, although I was scheduled to work at a school, I instead had to show up bright and early at the train station in the middle of town for a "aisatsu undou" aka exercising greetings. This basically consisted of me wearing a smart little red sash and white armband, both proclaiming my allegiance to my town's Board of Education, and giving an enthusiastic "good morning!" (in Japanese of course) to everyone that passed by the train station entrance for a good 45 minutes. It was pretty hot for 8 AM, and the sun was in my eyes the entire time, but I still kind of enjoyed myself, certainly more than I would have if I had to teach that day. (I still love my main school.) That afternoon I got to go watch the tail end of the basketball tournament for all of Takahagi, and I got to see my kids beat up on another school. That was literally the entirety of my job duties for that day. Say hello to a hundred or so people in the morning, then watch some 15 year olds play basketball in the afternoon. It's great. I feel guilty that I don't help out more with basketball though. The old basketball coach got transfered to elementary school (which is hilarious, this guy does not seem like he is well suited to dealing with 10 year olds at all) and the new coach is one of the Japanese Teachers of English, who asked me to help her with the team, but I've been shirking that responsibility way too much. Luckily the boys basketball team is ridiculously strong (they beat every other team by at least 30 points) so they will be moving on to the northern prefectural tournament without my help.

Despite my only going to basketball practice 3 or 4 times in the past 2 months, I was still invited to the victory drinking party just now. My main school actually did really well, ending up as the champion for boys basketball, soccer, baseball, table tennis, and a bunch of others. I'm proud of my kids! These days I am getting something out of my job that I never really thought about before, when I was having so much trouble deciding whether or not to continue working in Takahagi. I really feel connected, like I am part of a group, when I go to Takachu. Just now at the drinking party, there were a bunch of speeches given by each sport's coach. Despite my limited involvement they still wanted me to speak. And then we all stood in a circle and put our arms around each other's shoulders and sang the first verse of the school's anthem. Enkai over. Good times.

questions and confirmation

2007-05-28T00:52:00.000+09:00

In the past couple weeks my job duties have gone a bit downhill. But really, any change was going to be for the worse, since up until now I've been at my main school, my favorite one, every single day for a month. And it was great. I got to be with the new ichinensei from their very first English class, and after two weeks Yatabe sensei, the JTE for the first years, said "they think of you as a regular teacher," which made me quite happy. I also was placed in charge of the new 3rd year select English class. I got to go up with all the normal teachers and explain what the class would be about to all of the sannensei, and then the kids that wanted to be in my class lined up in front of me. That made it a lot easier to figure out who my favorites this year would be. ;)

But, I was informed last week by my BOE that from now on I would be visiting elementary schools at least two days a week, every week. Now, its not that I don't like the kids at elementary school, theyre funny and cute, but I just get tired of spending entire days teaching 10 words over and over, especially when I was just starting to actually matter at takachu.

A lot of that comes from the feeling of belonging at takachu. At takachu, the kids and teachers are used to having me around, and I feel more like a normal teacher, especially this school year for the reasons I said above. Contrast that to every other school I go to. From the moment I walk in the door and say my ohayo gozaimasu, I'm treated as some kind of special guest, offered coffee senbei etc. It's very nice, but it also puts every teacher in the staff room on a "this guy is not one of us" wavelength, and I once again end up suffering through small talk with the same people, again, about how good my Japanese is or how good I am with chopsticks. Thanks.

Of course, there are some things that make me feel good about continuing here. I was walking down the street and saw a group of high school boys. Turns out they were some of my ex students who had just graduated. One of them says to me, "Bryan! Gum! Last piece! For you!" I gladly accepted and wished them all good luck in high school. I saw another ex student at the train station coming from who knows what high school, who wanted to stop me specifically to tell me how much cooler I am than her new ALT. That made me feel good since maybe it means the kids dont like me just because I'm a gaijin. Then, on the day before my current third years went on their school trip, one student came up and asked what I wanted as a souvenir :)

Maybe this will turn out for the better though. I will have more control over what I teach the younger kids, and maybe seeing the teachers at the elementary schools will eventually give me a "normal" teacher status there too. I just gotta work at it! ...still wish I was at takachu every day though.

Return

2007-04-04T23:53:00.000+09:00

Finally. Last week was a rare opportunity to live completely responsibility free, remain just barely in control, and eat and drink way past my limit, just like I did when I was "studying" here at IES Tokyo 2 years ago. It's no surprise then, that what prompted this backslide into youthful indiscretion was the return of one Ari Dybnis to Japan. I think it's a rule that any time more than 2 of the original A Team get together, chaos and destruction will follow. Me, Ari, and Anthony provided plenty of that last week. Could Japan even survive a full reunion?

So I managed to eventually meet up with Ari after I wrote that last blog post while riding the Joban line. I completely forgot how much taller he is than me, and I relished the opportunity to relinquish my circus sideshow like ability to stand out in Japan. A random waitress even stopped him to ask how tall he was, in English! She had some brass ones lemme tell ya. We met up with Anthony and Blanchard in Chiba, went to perhaps the cheapest nomihoudai ever, and then all night karaoke. I tried to help Brian as he sang/yelled at everyone walking by our room. Unfortunately apparently all that we succeeded in doing was getting some creepy Japanese guy to come over and put crappy music on our machine. That is definitely all I remember that guy doing.

Once the trains started running again we slept at Anthony's for a bit and then went to a Montgomery Flea Market conveniently being held at the Makuhari Messe. At least that's what I think it was called. I spent most of my time looking for a mascot from the 2005 Aichi Expo, but all they had was the same crap over and over, mostly women's clothing and disney stuffed animals. Oh and I seriously considered buying a Land Rover. After an amazing omurice lunch we toured all the arcades of Makuhari, and I got a bit better at the new Initial D game. Met up with Shin san that night, and how awesome is IES when they have a guy like that working there. He's gonna help me out with planning stuff for Ibaraki JETs to do next year. We had a chill time at an izakaya, and it was good to relive memories. Oh plus my phone went off and Shin san recognized the ringer.

After crashing at Anthony's again, I realized that I had left my house 2 days ago with exactly no extra clothes, toiletries, etc. So I had to buy an entire new wardrobe at a 7-11. Ha. And I got a bizarre phone call from one of my JTEs while changing in the bathroom of a Kappa Zushi warning me not to buy a new bike anytime soon. oooooookay.

Monday night? It was what I was waiting for for 2 long years. To finally Return to Y's. More than anything else, going back to that place brought back all the euphoric invincible feelings I had when I was here before. I couldn't stop smiling as soon as I walked in the door. I was also really happy to get to introduce Y's to Jay and Angela, 2 of my best friends here in Ibaraki. It was tough to describe what made Y's so special. Of course 2500 yen for all you can eat and all you can drink for almost 5 friggin hours is awesome. But so much more is tied up into that place for me. I guess Y's just epitomizes what Fall '04 was all about, not caring about anything, least of all how much you've had to drink already. Yeah, so I went a bit overboard last Monday. Ha, I had to. It wouldn't have been a proper return any other way.

. . .

I think I knew as soon as I got back to NU after IES that there were certain things that I had lost forever. I had an amazing time not studying at Kanda Gaigo, but all that awaited me were the exponentially tougher classes at Northwestern. I fell hard for a girl that I had an amazingly shallow relationship with in Japan, and then ended up in an incredibly complex relationship with a girl that fell hard for me back home. Study abroad, at least at IES, was nothing close to real life. College already is nothing close to real life, and study abroad doesn't even approach the level of maturity required to graduate from NU. Heh, that's why Shin san will always have a job holding the hands of clueless American "kids" aged 19-22. Given that, getting back to NU, having to actually pay attention and work hard for classes, all to graduate and start looking for an actual job, was a little more than I could handle. I started wanting to go back to Japan almost immediately. That resistance to maturing and entering the real world only brought about negative consequences. I barely passed my remaining courses at NU, graduating but with a demolished GPA, I hurt someone very important to me repeatedly and seriously, and all I had to show for myself after 6 months of looking for a career was a retail job at a store that was going to close after a month.

When I applied for JET, I knew the experience wasn't going to be the same as the last time I was in Japan. I know at least part of me wanted it to be, and still does. That's why I enjoyed myself so much last week. Hell, I'd be willing to put up with an entire year of being bored and isolated in Takahagi for another week like last week in Tokyo. But I have also changed myself, at least in that I can see my life now for what it is. An intermediate step, closer to real life and real responsibilities, but not all the way there yet. Thus my goals from here are twofold: enjoy this almost real life in Japan to its fullest extent, and make sure I am ready to enter the real world back home come the fall of 2008. That will be my next return.

まったくのアホみたいに

2007-03-25T11:12:00.001+09:00

oh man something is wrong with me. so im supposed to pick up ari from narita in about an hour right? whoops, thats probably not gonna happen on time(；－＿－）
so i woke up a bit late and was killing time instead of getting myself and my apartment ready to leave. i needed to catch a 1300 train to meet up with ari in time. so, of course, i decide at 1230 that i really want to make some banana bread. for some reason. so i did, and actually finished about 5 to 1. only it takes at least 10 minutes to walk to the station... btw i lost my bike after i left it unlocked over an entire weekend at SATY. so i looked up train times on hyperdia, and it turns out there was another train leaving in 20 minutes that would be ok! success! i cleaned up a bit more and left. only to get to the station 2 minutes too late. oops. but! the station board said there was another train in 15 minutes! three trains in one hour? unheard of in takahagi! i got some food at the station kiosk and went to wait on the platform. i was listening to some high lows on my ipod, a great song called outdoor club. thats where the title of this entry comes from. its basically a guy remembering this time him and his girl went to the beach, and laughing at how ridiculous it was to go to the beach on a day when it looked like it was gonna rain. maybe my japanese is actually getting better if i actually understood the song? ill put the lyrics up and attempt to translate it on my other blog. (what? other blog?)

while listening to the high lows and feeling proud of myself for understanding it, and playing solitaire on my ipod simultaneously, AND sitting in a chair facing the northbound, in other words opposite, tracks, i felt a chilly breeze. shivering a bit in my light track jacket and t shirt, my concentration was broken enough to notice something behind me. turns out that breeze came from the train i was supposed to board pulling into the station. i stood up and turned around just as the doors closed and the third train in one hour left takahagi.

the weather got a bit colder, and i proceeded to wait. and wait. i started writing this as i finally boarded a train, over an hour after i first got to the station. ive still got almost 2 hours until i arrive in narita, and aris plane should be touching down right around... now. i hope he has my cell phone number, because i certainly dont have any way to contact him.

this is only the latest of many mistakes ive made this week. on tuesday, i had an enkai (work drinking party) with people from my board of education. thats where i got most of the grief that made me write my last blog entry. afterwards i wanted to relax a bit more by myself, so i went over to wild at heart, the one really cool bar in town. only it turns out tuesday that place isnt open. dammit. so i went to the indian place, had a beer, commiserated with the chef khari for a bit, but left as i was starting to nod off.

so last night was a similar pattern, but pay attention to the differences! i had another enkai, this time with a group of japanese teachers that i really like: nihei yatabe and kuramochi sensei from takahagi, shibuya and sakuyama sensei from akiyama, and suzuki sensei from matsuoka, all awesome english teachers. we had actual conversations! how awesome is that! i was having a great time, but unfortunately it had to end a bit early to give everyone a chance to catch trains home. i wasnt quite ready for my night to be over though. so when i saw onose sensei, a teacher in training that i worked with at takachu and later higashisho, i immediately sat down at his table and ordered a beer. i had to deal with another round of omg how are you so big type questions, but i think onose was commiserating with me there since hes a pretty big dude himself, aroundwise at least. ill have to go get some yakiniku with him sometime.

again though, i was starting to nod off a bit, and rightfully catching some slack for it. "oh bryan are you sleepy?" doh. i bowed out after my second beer, quite tired and quite plastered. ooh, but what happened to be quite close to the restaurant i had just left? the bar i had wanted to go to on tuesday! i decided to get one last drink. man the bartender there makes a strong gin lime. i was probably chatting a bit with the other customers, dont really remember, got halfway through my drink, and promptly fell asleep until 2am. as i regained consciousness, completely bewildered by the fact that it was 3 hours later than i last remembered, i overheard another patron say to his buddy, "is that the ALT?" (＿＿；)

i think sometime soon im going to have to tone down the partying. majorly. ive lived next to tokyo for 8 months but i keep going back to the same places: shinjuku, shibuya, and motherfucking roppongi, the expat epicenter of drunkeness. buut, this next week just happens to be spring break, ari is in town (ill get to the airport in about an hour) and the triumphant return to Ys Bar! i guess i will have to wait a bit longer before i cool down.

grr

2007-03-21T10:39:00.000+09:00

Sometimes I think it would be better if I couldn't speak any Japanese. At least then it would save me from having the same exact conversation in Japanese over and over and over.

はい、すしは好きです。よく食べます。実は、最近アメリカにもすしは人気があります。

はいはい、箸使えます。子供の時から、アメリカの中華料理屋とか他のアジア系のレストランで使いました。

あ、靴は３０センチです。うん、ちょっと不便です。身長？身長は１９２センチです。そうそう、頭は気をつけなくてはいけません。

ううん、まだまだです。日本語は話せますが、大学を卒業したらたくさん忘れていました。今、漢字あまり読めません。

Sure, I like sushi. I eat it a lot! Actually, these days sushi is very popular in America as well!

Ah, yes, I can use chopsticks. Ever since I was a child I used them in Chinese or other Asian restaurants.

Oh, my shoes are 30cm. Yeah, it's kind of inconvenient. My height? I'm 192cm tall. Yeah, I have to watch my head.

Oh no, I still have a while to go. I can speak Japanese, but since graduating college I have forgotten a lot. Right now, I can't read very many kanji.

Every single enkai and every single elementary and kindergarten visit I rehash this conversation, perhaps mixed in with comments about the weather and "un, nihon wa naratteimasu." I can grin and bear it when I'm introduced to new people. After all, my job is just as much about cross cultural sharing as it is about teaching English to middle school kids. But man, when I have the exact same conversation with the exact same kindergarten principal 2 times in 3 months...

My other concern is that I may just be reinforcing most of the stereotypes Japanese people have about Americans. I can't help it if I'm bigger than all the other people in this country. And dammit, steak and hamburgers are tasty. At least I don't have a thing for guns...

I really want to work on making friends with Japanese people, at the very least so I can move beyond the small talk bullshit. Luckily there are some cool people in Takahagi, but I have to make more of an effort. I think most people here are too shy to actually call me up and do something, and for me its much easier to just call up one of the other JETs or my friends from America. So, I think I will have to make the effort myself to accomplish my goal.

2007-03-18T23:35:00.000+09:00

i dont really remember weekends back in the states ever being like this. i think lately weekends have just been a huge production. all week long all of us ALTs are hard at work in our respective towns, pretty much without anything in the way of a social life, since there usually isnt more than one or two other people in the entire city that speaks english. so when the weekend and an opportunity to actually talk to someone comes around, you have to make the most of it. its 8 pm on a sunday night, and im writing this on my phone at a coco ichibanya curry place. i havent been home to my apartment in takahagi since i left for work on friday morning and i am fucking exhausted. i havent showered or shaved or cleaned up really at all since then. ive been through two double A battery chargers for my phone so far. again, i am a very tired individual. incidentally, coco's cheese curry is awesome. they even have a video game about this restaurant for PS2. and, it might not seem like it because the scale goes all the way to 10, but their curry is ridiculously spicy even at level 3. i routinely order a 3 out of 4 at the indian place in takahagi, but this is a whole other league. the scale goes up to 10, but to prove yourself you have to finish off a plate of level 5 before they let you go any higher. i wanted to try and challenge level 10 someday, but it looks like that isnt going to happen. level 3 was edible, but it was already at the point where all of the normal taste of the dish is just obliterated by spiciness. ill be ok without level 10, thank you.

speaking of gastrointestinal achievement, I ate at La Rochelle on friday night, which you may recognize as the restaurant of one Hiroyuki Sakai, better known as iron chef french! im no gourmet and ive certainly never paid 15000 yen for a meal before, but the food was amazing. the hot appetizer was foie gras with truffles, which takes care of 2 out of the 3 in the trifecta of the most expensive delicasies in the world. i went with 6 other JETs from ibaraki, kind of a random mix of people united by a desire to eat food prepared by an iron chef. of course, sakai wasnt actually there that night... but the food was still great. it was also fun to see everyone a bit out of their element and struggle to keep up the decorum suitable for such a classy place. i was definitely struggling too :) that night i went to vanilla in roppongi. roppongi is getting kind of old. i need to find something different to do with myself and the short time i have available in tokyo. woke up saturday, shopped and got some really ugly shoes in shinjuku, and finally got on a train back to ibaraki, just in time to catch the tail end of a st patricks day celebration at the drunken duck in mito.

the duck was crazy crowded, like tokyo levels. i think basically every foreigner in all of northern ibaraki was there. guiness and baileys flowed in great torrents to the amassed revelers, and unfortunately a bit too much went to a certain colleague of mine, so i ended up getting to ride along in a japanese ambulance to look after the guy. I've been in that position way too many times myself, to a lesser level of course, so I was happy to help out. also, japanese hospitals are apparently really cheap. an overnight stay for my buddy even without insurance was only about a hundred dollars. and i got to crash in a nice comfortable hospital bed for free too. woke up sunday (in the hospital) in time to go to the grocery store and get some beer and meat and go to a little birthday barbecue in a park in mito for Leo, then finally to coco's and now home finishing this on my laptop. I need to take it easier. spent way too much money over the past couple weekends going to tokyo and whatnot. It has been fun though.

Weekends

2007-02-05T22:36:00.000+09:00

It's been a long time since I've done a traditional weekend summary type post describing adventures in Japan. Mostly because they don't happen as much as I'd like. But maybe if I try and condense all the fun stuff that happened in the last month or so into one post it will be interesting enough to bother writing about.
A couple weekends ago while shopping for a copy of Parappa the Rapper I managed to inadvertently spoil a tactical espionage mission taking place in the store above Super Potato. However I was immediately CQCed and put down for the count. When I finally awoke, me and Jay decided to head over to Shinjuku where a chocolate show was supposedly taking place. In Shinjuku station we spotted quite possibly the tooliest human being ever. I'm not sure if you can fully comprehend the awful majesty of this hairstyle with only cameraphone pictures to go off of. Regardless, immediately upon seeing the king of all rat tails in person, a chase began to preserve an image for posterity. The fucker didn't make it easy either! I was like 80% jogging to keep him in range as he power walked his way to wherever he was going. Unfortunately westerners of this level of toolishness are not at all uncommon in Japan.

Back home in Chibaragi (apparently people in Tokyo use this word to describe the neighboring prefectures of Chiba, Ibaraki, and Tochigi, as they all blend together into one nothing place), I've mostly been spending the weekends going to Mito, drinking, passing out at Dan's, waking up and bumming around, usually in arcades, then relaxing with some ps2 back in Takahagi or sometimes Oarai. Lessee... memorable stuff... I went to the Drunken Duck, the most infamous gaijin bar in town, for the first time, and was pretty underwhelmed of course. But then the next time I went I managed to inadvertently break up an entire gokon as all 5 females in the matchmaking party at the table next to us surrounded me and started hitting on me. Kinda creepy actually, but also good for the ego.
Other stuff... in McDonald's in Japan, they had a special sandwich called the "Mega Mac" also advertised as "Beef Heaven." It's a Big Mac with double the meat. Ridiculously greasy. As I am American, everyone wants to know if I have tried it, and if its the size of normal hamburgers in America. In this picture Jon is not looking particularly pleased at the All American bounty set out in front of him. I didn't think it was that bad, but certainly not good, and certainly not something I would have eaten if not for the cachet associated with it.

Yeah those two stories just call to mind the whole experience of living in the countryside and being as stereotypically foreign as you can be. I think when most Japanese people hear the word "gaijin" they think: tall, blonde hair, blue eyes, big, hairy, meat eating monster. And uhh... yeah I'm kind of all of those things.

This has its advantages and disadvantages, which I will hopefully write about at a later date.

Allez Cuisine

2007-02-05T22:01:00.000+09:00

Well, I might have used cookware officially endorsed by the first Iron Chef of French cuisine, but yea Iron Chef I ain't. I thought this was kind of amusing, so let's take a look at the cooking process for tonight.

First, preparation. Wash the frying pan that has been sitting in the sink since the last time it was used last week, but then get too lazy to dry it, so just put it on the burner and turn the heat on. The water will just evaporate right?
Next, take stock of ingredients. Decide to cook eggs because of short preparation time. You need to have some kind of fat to make sure stuff doesn't burn and stick to the pan right? Add a little bit of olive oil to the pan since there's no other kind of oil or butter or anything. Wait, that pat has been sitting on the burner for a long time. It's probably too hot, better turn it down. Add eggs to the pan, maybe with some salt or pepper.
Hmm, that doesn't look like much food. What else could go with it? Right, rice. It's all set to go in the rice cooker from the last aborted cooking attempt. How long has it been in there... Maybe 5 days? Ooh, yeah, its pretty nasty. Half dried out and half soaked and gunky. Ah well, just put it in the pan. That's how you make fried rice right? Better stir everything around in the pan for a bit too.
Just plain eggs and rice doesn't sound very tasty. Need some flavor. That's what hot sauce is for! But rice is like Asian, and Tabasco isn't... so use the Thai sweet chili sauce. Better put a lot on. Wait, some meat would be good too. The only thing in the fridge is bacon? Ah well, in it goes. Oh shit, those eggs have already been cooked and scrambled for like 5 minutes. Gotta finish this soon or they'll burn in there! Is this bacon cooked already? Probably. Eh, looks done enough. Plate it up.

The end result

Man that was nasty. Greasy and way too sweet, since apparently both the hot sauce and bacon were mostly sugar. That rice really had no business being eaten in any way either. Maybe cooking isn't really the best course of action.

sorted (basically)

2007-01-25T23:26:00.000+09:00

well I haven't signed anything yet, but long story short, I've decided to give Takahagi another year. i feel like i should have a more definite reason that i can write about and tell people when they inevitably ask why, but i'm gonna have to think a bit more before i can do that. i know there are things i still want to get out of living in japan. i want to get better at japanese and at least pass the nikkyuu. i want to make actual japanese friends. i want to buy a mark II touring V and learn how to drift. and while i do worry about missing another year back home, i think in the end it will have to wait. honestly, i know i will greatly miss out on being able to see my friends and family back home. but also, one thing i have to thank the JET program for is providing me with the motivation and clarity of purpose in going to law school. my last post was completely true, but maybe it came off as being a bit negative in how i view the day to day activities of my job. in the end, i still don't want the weekends to be over, and i still can't wait for friday night to come around, but the time in between isn't all that bad. i really really like my job. i have more "damn, life is good" moments than any other time I can think of. but, JET hopefully has shown me that there is a lot more to life than just a "fun" 9-5 job. i have no real idea of what law school would offer me, but i know now that i want to go down that road next. i only hope that after giving me that desire JET hasn't taken away my ability to actually accomplish it, as I can feel my grasp on the English language lessening every single day...

anyway. i will come back to america eventually. please wait for me. i miss everyone back home, and it was not an easy decision to postpone our reunion for another year. i know my path will bring me back in line with the people that matter to me, but it will have to be just a little later. in the meantime, come to japan! you might not ever get the chance again to have such a knowledgeable tour guide that you know so well :) also, i think i wasn't completely telling the truth last time when i said i didn't really have any girls on the mind. turns out thats impossible.

2 weeks or so to figure this out

2007-01-16T23:18:00.000+09:00

hey hey, look at that. it did in fact take another month and a half for me to write a new post (I just finished the post from December 20th a couple minutes ago). first off, i never got around to linking in all the pictures that i talked about a couple posts ago. but you can take a look at the gallery of all my pictures of takahagi here . i feel like there's a lot more that i want to share about this town. unfortunately i already have to decide within the next couple weeks whether or not i want to spend another year working and living in takahagi, and its a hell of a question.

here's my daily routine: get up, bike to school (or get driven to kimida) and get there maybe 2 minutes before the first class starts. if i have to teach, then i go to class, and talk with my JTE on the way to figure out what we will do. more often than not, my role in class is to read out of the textbook, wander around the room and help kids as they do worksheets, and occasionally something more interesting. i have lunch with a different class each day, which is mostly eaten in silence, unless the kids are feeling talkative. but really, they barely have enough time to finish all their food in the lunch break, so I cut them some slack. when i don't have class, i sit in the teachers room and attempt to amuse myself, or to do something productive, but usually just end up dozing in my chair. at 4:15 i leave, usually feeling slightly guilty about not attending the basketball practice. (but im gonna start back up with it! really!) after school i usually have some errands to run, and then i go to the gym with tim, get back, eat some food and chill for an hour or two on the internet or with some video games before i go to sleep. on weekends, I will usually meet up with friends in Mito, or, if someone comes up with a good enough reason, I will spend the change (about $60 round trip) and time (at least 2 hours each way) to go into Tokyo.

it might not sound like it from that description, but my job is actually my favorite part of life these days. my job is easy and pretty stress free, if not particularly challenging. overall i really enjoy working with (all but one) of the japanese teachers. and every day one of my kids will end up doing something or saying something to make me smile or laugh. sometimes even on purpose. and when we actually plan out lessons, and they work, i get a huge feeling of satisfaction. the flip side of how easy my job is is that its not particularly fulfilling. however, i know from experience that its mostly because of the lack of work i put into most lessons. as i said, when it works, its a great feeling. but, even when I feel like I have accomplished something in my job, there is still a nagging feeling that I should be doing something more with my life.
I think what I ideally want out of my job is to do something that I enjoy and I feel I am uniquely qualified for. So overall JET gives me half of that, which is better than the last job I had, which gave me neither. one of the things holding me back from truly being fulfilled in my job as an ALT is the sense that I am replaceable. which I am. which is why JET is a temporary position. this feeling stops me from getting everything i need even when I'm thinking to myself "this job is awesome."

and for the past week, I haven't even been liking my job very much at all. unfortunately the A part of ALT stands for assistant, which means that the Japanese teachers we are assigned to work with control a large part of the job experience for us. I feel lucky in that I am perfectly happy and content with 8 of the 9 junior high school teachers I work with. but that last teacher makes me dread work. i realize that much of my frustration and anger at working with her is in no way her fault, but that doesn't stop the situation from making me want to get the fuck out of the country. the worst part is how my frustrations carry over to other people at that school who aren't even involved in teaching english, or the kids themselves.

to add onto that, life outside of the classroom leaves much to be desired as well. the weekday routine isn't bad. going to the gym at least 3 times a week is a pretty good habit to get into. but unfortunately thats basically all I have time to do. the biggest problem with takahagi is its location. being 45 minutes to an hour from the nearest group of people i can hang out with means that i have to invest a serious amount of time just for traveling to and from my destination. so, i can't really go to the gym, then meet up with friends, and then get home. and thats just if i want to go to mito, which is a nice place, but no tokyo. going outside of ibaraki is an even bigger investment, and straight out impossible on a weekday. even on the weekends it means finding a place to stay and paying even more money, or leaving to catch the last train back to takahagi just when things are starting to get fun.

so life is fairly solitary. and isolated. which I have actually been dealing with pretty well. in fact, living by myself was one of the things i was looking forward to doing in japan. not that i havent enjoyed having roommates in the past, but it is very very comforting to come back home and have it be your home, and no one else's. im also finding being single and not looking for any kind of relationship nice. More than just the fact that that this is the longest I've gone without having a girlfriend since soph year of college, this is the first time in a long time when I'm not obsessing or worrying over one girl or another. i like having all that time and mental capacity open once again. But, do I really want my life to just be something I can "deal with?" the past couple weekends I have been going to Tokyo and having a great time. but that train ride back home to ibaraki is hell. more than that, I can tell that the isolation and solitude could get to be more than i can deal with sometime soon. but thank god for the weekends.

ok i basically just vomited up the entire contents of my brain onto my blog space. there's always more to say, but i still need to sort a lot out. i basically wrote this for myself, but if you actually read all this, thanks! i would definitely appreciate any thoughts.

teaching

2006-12-20T16:00:00.000+09:00

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

2006-11-27T11:12:00.000+09:00

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

2006-10-09T13:40:00.000+09:00

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...

2006-09-26T23:33:00.000+09:00

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

2006-09-19T17:20:00.000+09:00

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?

2006-09-10T14:12:00.000+09:00

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

2006-09-10T14:00:00.000+09:00

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...

2006-08-30T14:22:00.000+09:00

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

2006-08-25T11:32:00.000+09:00

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

2006-08-23T17:07:00.000+09:00

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

2006-08-11T23:14:00.000+09:00

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.