Kenn's Engrish Adventures

Today was a beautiful day not too hot and not too cool it was just right. I meet up with Luke, and took the path he takes back to his house from Jusco. On the path he follows there are like a bunch of things like a batting cage, karaoke place, steak restaurant (hellz yea!), other restaurants, and arcades, so that street is definitely the street to go to in my area it seems. Let's move on to a few Engrish signs that can be seen in Yamagata.



The first is my personal favorite this is a sign for a clothing store called Dark Hollow, at first from a distance the sign looks inviting it has a helpful finger pointing potential shoppers to the store, but as you get close you will notice exactly which finger it is. And as you get even closer you will see the words "FUCK", clearly written at the bottom of the sign, so I am not sure if they want people to shop there. It seems to me, like this store is full of itself; the message I get from that sign is, "hey in this alleyway is a store but, we don't want you shopping here, so fuck off!".



The next sign is from a store affectionately called PUNANNY! This store unlike the last store seems very inviting this is one PUNANNYthat is open to all old or young rich or poor everyone can go into this PUNANNY. But sadly I have yet to purchase anything from PUNANNY. And while we are on the topic of PUNANNY I should maybe take this time to update my readers on my status in the land of Punanny. As many of you know I have been striking out pretty regularly. Well Saturday I went to Rough Roll which is like a British style pub, which means you stand apparently (not one single bar stool), and at Rough Roll I knocked back a couple of shots of Jameson which were expensive and weak, and then I decided to talk to two "young" ladies sitting in a bench near the front door. It turns out they weren't "young" at all one was 37 the other was like 34, so that was a bit odd. But Japanese people seem to age slowly (yes that is a stereotype), the 37 year old started getting a bit touchy-feely and I decided to exit stage left. So after a few more drinks I departed and rode my bike home on what was a cold and bitter night.

I know what your thinking nothing has changed!?! Kenn you still suck bawls. But I am not done yet, I was already supposed to meet up with a girl this friday, and then tonight another girl called me to hang out with her Saturday. So I am thinking now damn I went from nothing to maybe doing too much. So I guess I will need to take my pick. Neither one speaks good english, however. When I asked one what she likes to do upon first meeting her the answer I got was: "I enjoy receiving the long walk on the beach, after the anal sex has been successfully made", and I was just sitting there trying not to laugh as I said, "me too, we have so much in common". So at this point without having done anything with either one, I am leaning towards the girl I will meet on Saturday, since she is a bit older, 24 I think, and I want to see what it's like dating an older woman, just not too old, I don't want to date anyone's mom. Saturday, I am going to a barbecue with the older woman, she is going to pick me up in her car and drive me to her friends house. I am sure it will be a long and awkward card ride, with neither of us understanding one another, but I am excited anyway at the sheer awkwardness of the day. Friday I have no idea what is going to happen, it is just going to be random, but it should still be fun, plus I have an opportunity to help out a friend as she is bringing one of her friends and instructed me to do the same, so it's like a Japanese double date with one of the dates being blind. So for now I am going to eat Japanese frosted flakes and update you guys later, hopefully this last part made sense my mind kept going blank hahaha.

And on a side note: STFU Anthony!!!

???

I don't know what to title this blog entry, so it will just be a random blog. where I will recap a few things from the past here in Japan. Number one is that first night I went to that bar there was one detail I left out, which I will mention here. You see as I was drinking something strange happened this japanese guy walked up to me and started C-walking!?! I was drunk so I was just like umm すみません　WTF!!! Then it hit me after it was over I realized that I had just been served, so too ensure that never happens again I am teaching myself how to C-walk I am sure I will be served many more times before I can officially battle someone on the dance floor but I will beat someone one day. Next thing I left out is any details about my job. I like my job and I like my students; I thought I was going to hate kids, but that isn't the case. And there is nothing like the time I have in between classes, nothing like picking your nose in the bathroom for an hour will singing I sit down when I pee. Also there is a video of me being drunk in the park I haven't decided if I should release it or not, because what if I want to do something important one day like run for Mayor of some city, that video would blow up in my face. And speaking of blowing up Japanese toilets suck when it comes to handling American shit. Like I have to turn on the bidet, and have it squirting into my butt hole at a 45 degree angle just to soften the bricks I am passing. The bidet softens and obliterates most of the crap, but tends to leave feces splashed on my wall and everywhere else. And lastly I have uploaded an official apartment tour so you can see how I am living, the production values are a lot less than like MTV cribs or Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, but that is because my budget consisted of a pineapple rind and a dead bee, I didn't have money to spend on rental Gorillas and explosions; maybe next time. And the final, final thing is if you fart and your fart smells like a dick then you are gay, there is no discussion on this matter, it is written in stone. So for now I must practice my C-walk so until next time.

Monday night

As many of you know I missed work on Monday and decided to spend the day in the park drinking since I was officially off on Tuesday, which is today. I drank Shochu for the first time which is like a rice based alcohol. I was drinking with Luke and then I started playing a bit of soccer with some small kids who were playing near where we were sitting. As I was playing soccer a Japanese guy ran up and started playing too and then I like gave him a shot of Shochu and then he like introduced us to his friends, and I think I drank a bit with them too!?! I have no idea what all happened because shortly after that things got really blurry and I ended up face down on the ground in a puddle of my own vomit shaking because I was cold. Yea so not my proudest moment, I was awoken later on that night by some of the people I meet earlier they asked where my friends were and if I think I should head home, but I was still drunk so I just laid on the ground and said what little words I could form. Eventually I got up and decided to look for my headphones because I had no idea where they were, in my search I meet some other people. I am pretty sure I smelled like vomit and there was vomit on my clothes, but the new people didn't mind so I sat with them for a bit and talked it up, when all of a sudden another gaijin named Guy showed up and then we all had a good time, I got some girls number, I don't remember what she looks like haha. That is a reoccurring theme it seems. But yea Monday night was a blur for the most part. After awhile everyone started to leave and I asked some guys on the other side of the park if they had seen any headphones. Some guy said something to me in Japanese and then tapped my crotch and tried to maneuvr himself into a full on grouping session, so that was like not awkward at all. I equate that moment to like getting a BJ or something in your car and as you finish you are looking at some guy walking across the street and you lock eyes, now all of a sudden you are gay because you climaxed while staring into some guys eyes, and then your girl friend is like lets go all the way, and you are like no thanks I am gay now. That is what the moment felt like in a nutshell. But yea once again the night was largely unsuccessful in terms of my luck with the ladies. It's not like I am striking out though, well not completely but now I am getting lazy, and I kind of don't even care anymore I am just going to say screw it and just do what ever. Ohh also I went to Tendo this weekend I think!?! I went there sometime maybe not the weekend and saw like a human chess game, I forget what the festival was called, but it was pretty nice. We meet some other gaijin and got invited to a wedding which will have nomihodai which is all you can drink!!! So that should be fun, but yea I will end it on this note because I am tired.

Cherry Blossums

Last week I went to Kajo park to see the Cherry Blossoms, and it was quite beautiful I just hated that the week the bloomed was a very rainy week. But I still got a chance to see them though so I was happy. I just wish I could have gotten drunk underneath them :( in true Japanese fashion. But, I had work the next morning, so I have a responsibility to not going to work smelling like some drunk gaijin. Here are some pictures that I took last night with my camera phone. I must say my phone takes some great pictures especially at night!! The camera on my phone was better than my friends stand alone cameras, suck on that nubs.

I will upload these pictures and some more in their original size on like flickr or something I have to make an account. So I will post that link so you can see bigger pictures ^_^. But for now I am going to eat lunch and maybe poop. Until next time.

Sundayyy (日)

Hello again today has been another otaku day where I just sat around and did nothing. But last night was round 2 of last Saturday. This time was a lot better. I was hanging out with some other gaijin in the city they are pretty cool guys. We started off the day drinking at Luke's house I had about 6 can's of Guinness (おいしい！). On like my 2nd beer Collin came and joined us, he was drinking some Sapporo I think. After we finished drinking the beer then I took a large shot of Rum and like a shot of some Japanese plum liquor, that Luke poured me, I could tell that I was going to like these guys already. After getting nice and buzzed we headed off on our bikes towards J's bar which is where I was last Saturday. This time instead of just walking in and not paying any kind of cover charge I had to pay like 2,000 yen. And that got me a free drink and a stick of gum and some lame ass glow sticks. The first thing I did when I walked in was realize I lost my drink ticket, I told J and he was like I got you man but then I found it so it was all good. Although I should have just taken the drink he was going to give me and used my drink ticket later on in the night.

I sat at the bar and ate like all the strawberries from a fruit tray, and left all the kiwis in an ash tray in front of me. Collin was like who wasted all these kiwis and I was like it was me! Ain't no shame in the game. Let me mention here that last time I was in J's I was wearing a back pack and had all these translation books and I looked like a tool. This time I left the books behind and the bag and I didn't look like such a tourist. Now with that said back to the night. I used some of the Japanese I had worked so hard to learn the day before, on a few of the local ladies. But being drunk I forgot most of it so I was just like screw it I will talk in English and say what I want, whether they understand or not. This actually proved to be a good tactic, but I still used some of my sleazier Japanese like lets go talk over there in that dark corner, but that didn't work to well. Actually most of the night went like last Saturday in the beginning it wasn't till like the last hour that I actually started getting some numbers. And so now I have all these numbers and I don't know what faces go with what numbers, so I just took a random crap shoot, and texted one girl who I thought would know a bit of English. At first her English was okay but then it turned into Engrish really quickly, so I was like ummm let's use simple Japanese so I know precisely what you are trying to say, other wise I would probably get the wrong ideas or just be utterly confused.

So after a very good night of drinking and mingling another gaijin Max shows up like super late and like he is like let's get Ramen! At this point Luke is missing, so it's just me Collin and Max. We get on our bikes and me and Max take off I look back and Collin was lagging behind, and he just kind of got left behind. Every place we went was closed so we just parted ways and I headed home. On the way home I bought like a Bento box at a convenience store and some rice balls. Now this is where it gets odd I was pretty drunk, and I rode my bike all the way home no problem. That shouldn't have been the case, here you have a drunk guy on a bike riding on streets with no lights!?! So I was like yea I am not as "Trunk as you Drink I am". I am on the home stretch I am literally 20 feet from my front door, and out of the corner of my eye I think I see a frog so I turn to look at it, I crashed instantly right into a drainage ditch on the side of the road, I scraped up my face and some guy delivering pizza who was leaving stood there and looked at me as I rolled around in the street in agony, finally I regained my composure and walked my bike the rest of the way too my house. I got in and spit blood on my floor (which explains the picture) and checked to see if anymore of my teeth were broken. Yea I never mentioned this here but like last week I chipped one of my teeth in another biking accident involving drunken biking. The moral here is don't bike drunk kids! I never learn lessons so I will keep on doing it till all my teeth are gone then I will get some sweet hard plastic replacements with spinning rims in them.

It's just another rainy day! (ええ おてんき ですね）

This is where the magic happens!

Well it's another beautiful rainy day here in Japan. I had to check my address to make sure I wasn't living in perhaps London. So today I just kind of laid on my floor and let my mind wander. And that is something that shouldn't happen; when my mind is allowed to idol, and go into autopilot it thinks of the sickest and crudest crap imaginable. I thought my ideas were ingenious and that is why I majored in Marketing in college. But as it turns out the only other people that find my ideas ingenious are: teenage boys that fart in the shower and then laugh uncontrollable, and the inbred hick who talks to squirrels in the back woods of Alabama and believes himself to be the squirrel messiah. So now let's jump into want insane things I thought of today since the rain will prevent me from doing much else.

So the first thing that sparked off my thoughts was someone telling me that 21 is the legal age of consent in Japan and I was like OMG I am barely legal (scandalous). So right after that I look around my room bored again and see a picture of Spiderman. And I start thinking about how quickly Hollywood goes to cash in on something. And what really makes a superhero so super tight spandex in bright colors? If that is the case then a couple of internet predators in their tight wrangler jeans and pink Kim possible shirts can be superheros as well, there super powers would include crotch moistening action, X-ray vision (from their 1980s rapist glasses), and leech powers from living in their parents basement and eating all the freaking Apple Jacks when they know damn well they don't taste like Apple, but rather cardboard and sorrow with just a pinch of cinnamon sprinkled on top.

Right after that I decided to listen to Soulja Boy, yes that's right I consciously decided to listen to Soulja boy. So as I am listening to "Yuuuuuuuuuuu" over and over again it hits me; Soulja boy should market cleaning supplies! Got tough stains on your dishes let Soulja boy "Yuuuuuuuuu" it right out. Toilet clogged from shaking your "booty meat" no problem because Soulja Boy is "cocking on it's bitch ass" and "if [it gets' to clogging] then he's jocking on [it's] bitch ass". See that is pure genius.

Ok this is a Japan blog so I have to put something in here about Japan. So let me point out a peculiarity that I have noticed and I don't think I have mentioned here before. In my travels I have seen a lot of Japanese girls walking with their feet bent inwards at like a 30 degrees angle. It almost seems like Kimbo Slice lives in Japan and is having intimate relations with every girl in Japan, because they walk like he just put a hurting under their skirtin'. When I get a close female friend or meet another Gaijin who has lived here for awhile I am going to be sure to ask him about this. But man is it fun to see the ones afflicted with this walking condition run. One girl was wearing a suit and running to the station; she looked like a retarded homosexual penguin. That was a 笑　moment. Speaking of laughing I have to take a crap so I have to go for now. またね！

This is my bed I took this with my new phone

I officially have a phone now! I decided to go with Softbank in Japan, now the phone I have is cool and all but I feel like I wanted a different model, something more slim and with less Megapixels in the camera. But w/e it was too much work to get the phone it took 4 hours because the sales representative was talking with a translator program. She would look something up write something in English on paper then pass the paper to me and I would write my response in English. Some of the stuff that was said was funny; one message said "I am cheap and I take it hard from a foreigner". So I was trying my hardest not to laugh at some of the absurd things she was writing down. The only complaint about my phone is how thick it is. It's about the same depth as a DS Lite. I like to have small pockets on my pants, so things in my pocket can be close to my balls, and make it look like I have like 6 testicles with all the bulging going on. Plus the amount of crap I put in my pockets makes it also look like I am wearing a utility belt under my pants.

In other news I have found a grocery store that sells Guinness, which is like my favorite beer of all time. And speaking of drinking last Saturday I went to a bar down town, and tried my luck with the ladies. I am not sure if it was because I smelled of whiskey or that I didn't know much Japanese, but it was a disaster, I got shot down by like every girl I talked to. I think I tried to talk to about 8. And it was freaking hip hop night at the bar so me being a black guy I was like okay that should give me some extra points, WRONG!! So I rode back out to my place drunk and defeated that night and just passed the hell out. It was at this moment I was like damn I should have went to Tokyo, I probably would have had a baby by now. But whatever it's only been a week well almost 2 now. Ohh and I signed up for a language partner yesterday. I was able to put down a preference so I said I wanted a young Japanese woman. The guy behind the counter looked at my request and said, "Are you trying to study Japanese language or Japanese women". To which I was replied "ummm, where is your daughter?", at which point he put my form at the very bottom of the stack. So yea I will continue to teach myself Japanese. I still have not started work yet, so I am just doing nothing with my life but eating, but hey the food is good. But I will end this here for now so I can go back to doing nothing.

Old people suck

A picture from my tenant manual regarding trash

It is 7:25 here in the morning and I am really hating old people right about now. Because they are useless! In Japan garbage has to be sorted into separate bags and placed in a specific place or you get fined. And each day is a different type of garbage. Burnables on Monday (月）and Thursday (木), Non-burnables on Wednesday (水), PET Bottles on Tuesday (火), and mystery day on Friday (金). Now for the longest time I didn't even know what went into what category. Being an American in my book everything is burnable Apple cores, batteries, Styrofoam, buckets made out of lead, and even fire (you can burn a fire with an even hotter fire). So I just threw my trash on the floor of my apartment and made it into a slimey carpet (some of it is still on the floor). But then one day I decided to be a bit more civilized, so I bought individualized trash bins to help me sort out my garbage. But even then I still didn't know what went where, so I just threw the bins on the floor to and just stepped over them, they were the speed bumps of life.

Eventually I did figure out how to sort my garbage (I think!?!). So I was feeling pretty good now I just needed to know where to put it to be collected by the sanitation workers? No problem I thought I would just ask one of my elderly neighbors who are always in tending to their gardens in the wee hours of the morning. WRONG!!! And this brings me to the specific reason I hate old people. I walked up to Neighbor A and asked her nicely "doko ni garakuta" (where trash?) she replied "No". I was thinking to myself here ummm surely you must know where, I mean you have to put your garbage somewhere. Then I started thinking maybe she thinks her garbage is too good for my garbage and she doesn't want the two to intermingle. So I go to neighbor B same question same response!?! At this point I am just like WTF!!! See if I was to be a typical American and just throw my garbage over the fence into one of my neighbors' yards, they would be all like "young people today don't have respect for the elders, and they don't follow the rules". Well old people maybe if you tell young people what to do they will follow the rules.

So now I have all my trash around my washing machine like some kind of filthy moat. In fact the trash is kind of like acid; like when I was a kid jumping on certain tiles in school, black would be safe and white would be acid. So if I take clothes out of my washing machine and they fall into the trash moat they instantly become trash too, I don't feel like trying to salvage clothes that have fallen into a pool of blood from meat and rotten vegetable juice and what ever else is in my trashy moat.

The arrival pt. 2

This was what I made for dinner tonight ^_^

Ok I have no idea where I left off on the last blog, but let's just skip to the flight itself. The flight from O'hare Airport to Narita Airport was about 14 hours, and it was perhaps one of the best flights I have ever been on. The meals were great, I think the liquor was free!?! I don't know I didn't want to get drunk, and then have to just sit still for hours. I was sitting next to the window and there was a lady sitting in my row in the aisle seat, so she monopolized the bathroom access so it was a waiting game to see who could out last the other. Seeing as how I have a bladder of steel I won every time. Let me mention that the closer I got to Japan the more afraid I became, like I was having like a small anxiety attack, I didn't know what to expect, and I was questioning what I was doing. Once I made it through customs and I was sitting outside the Airport my anxiety subsided and was overtaken by exhaustion I hadn't slept too much on the flight, and not at all the day before. Which was now like 2 days since Japan is a day ahead. That's right boys and girls I live in the future. I took a bus to my next destination and that was another 2 hour journey, when I finally arrived at the hostel I was staying at I was ready to take a hot shower and relax.

When I went upstairs to where my room was my boss was waiting for me and I immediately had to start filling out paperwork so that took like another 2 hours. After that was done they told me that I was staying in a room with 2 other people, and I was thinking back to dorm life ehh. I had trouble opening the door I forget everything is reverse here so turning the key to the right locked the door instead of unlocking it. So for the first couple of days I was afraid to leave the room because I was afraid I would look myself out. When I finally did get the door open with the help of my boss I was greeted to a cozy living space that consisted of one room with tatami mats on the floor. This was my first experience to live in a traditional Japanese style apartment, it wasn't too bad. The guys I were staying with were both from California and they were pretty nice. After talking to them I decided to see about that hot shower. After a bit of walking I discovered that the shower was like a community shower with a few shower nozzles on the wall and one big bathtub in the left corner, it was also unisex! So I slowly backed out and just went back to my room and went to sleep. Sleeping underneath the Japanese futon was a bad idea, I sweated like some fat guys ball sack after he had been walking around all day. I woke up all sticky and I was like now I really need a shower. I thought since it was early no one would be in the shower. . .WRONG! There was an entire Japanese family in there with their kids, and I didn't just want to waltz in there like "Konnichiwa bitches" with my bratwurst flopping all about. I mean my wang is like Secret antiperspirant strong enough for a man but made for a woman (yes this joke is old and lame, I know).

For the first week or so I just stayed near the hostel, not because I was afraid but rather because I was either doing training or under the watchful eye of my boss. And as anyone who has worked with me can tell you I am a very professional worker with an extremely high work ethic, so I try to carry myself in a respectable manner when I am at work or among co-workers. Unfortunately I can't say the same for my colleagues who wasted no time ad all descended on the beer vending machine in the lobby. Some people were walking in and out of the training to go and grab another beer, talk about a great first impression for your boss to receive.

I missed some of the training myself but because my boss needed me to leave to finish getting my Visa and to complete a health check up. I was somewhat surprised at the health test the doctor asked me if I was a long distance runner. I was like umm no I lift weights and that's about it, he said "You are the healthiest person I have seen in years". That was good news to hear because the last thing I want is to get sick while I am here. After the training and everything was complete I prepared for another long trip, (4 hours this time) up to Yamagata-shi （山形市）, which was where I would be living. On the way I bought some chocolate covered Almonds called Lotte, and I have been eating them ever since, in fact I just ate a box of them while I was writing this blog. Upon arrival in Yamagata-shi I was thinking of one thing and one thing only taking a shower, it had been about 4 days since I took a shower, and I was feeling like Swamp Thing. Tune in for the next installment on my apartment.