Short -n- sweet

"Japanese is the french of the east. People want to learn it because it's cool, not because it's useful."

-L-

I <3 Fixies

My new bike

Just came back from a short morning ride on my new Fixed Gear Bike! I didn't know how fun riding a fixed gear bike could be, but I don't think I will ever ride a normal bike again, at least not in the city. I plan on making some changes to my new bike new wheels and maybe a color change orange isn't exactly my favorite color, but for now I will enjoy the ride!

School

So I have a video I took which is pretty much a tour of my school, I have been meaning to get that video up for awhile. But various things have prevented it from going up mainly the length it is over 10 minutes long and youtube doesn't allow videos over 10 minutes long. I guess the length is imposed to prevent copyright infringement. But of course that doesn't work as I watched some copyrighted material on youtube just yesterday. So today at work was a pretty fun day I was holding back laughs all day. In my first class I completely messed up and read the wrong thing, and the teacher just went with it I realized when I finished reading that I had completely messed up but the teacher adjusted the lesson around my accident, so that was cool. The next class I was playing a game with the students called Ball & Bag where I play music and the students pass around a ball and a bag full of questions. When the music stops the person with the bag reachers in the bag and pulls out a question and asks the person holding the ball. The game was going smoothly till the music stopped on a student who didn't want to answer the question; he just stood there stalling for time. One teacher kept yelling がんばって while the other teacher just stared at the student getting more pissed as the seconds went on. The student mumbled his answer but the teachers made him say it again, which caused for more standing there stalling I wanted to intervene but I knew it wasn't my place, so I just watch as the student stood there. So he must have stood there for like 6 minutes and then one of the teachers snapped and started yelling at him I wish I knew more Japanese I wanted to know what was said. 

So then after that class I had another class with the same teacher where I messed the lesson up completely. In this class we were going over some new words, and two of the new words were "e-mail" and "e-pal" (do people even use the word "e-pal"). So the teacher asked the students what does the "e" stand for, the answers were interesting. One student shouted out "english", to which I started laughing. Then another student said "eleven". So to help the students out the teacher wrote out part of the word "ele. . .", surely the students would get it now! One student said ohh "分かった！ erection" I think he was trying to say "election" but nevertheless it was hilarious. And then teacher gave them one more chance, and the final answer was. . ."elephant". Nothing like reading a new "elephant-mail". So that was amusing and then I realized I had to take a fat shit and the laughter turned into OMG I have to get out of here, but I had another class right after the one I was in. So the next class was longgggg, and when it ended I ran to the bathroom to release what was brewing inside. This was like the second time I took a shit at school, I try not too because the school has those archaic toilets where you squat over the toilet and hold a rail (I hate these type of toilets for obvious reasons). So the first time I took a shit at the school I was sleepy and trying to squat and stay awake is hard. To make matters even worse I had like diarrhea so I was basically peeing out of my butt at a high velocity so that woke me up because I definitely didn't want to fall into the toilet. So today turned out to be a pretty fun day at work! I wish I could have said the same for the rest of the day but it rained pretty much all day so I guess I am taking a break from drinking and trying to meet random girls tonight, and just enjoy a quiet evening at home. Well I am going to eat some natto so I will write again soon. また〜

Really long time

So yea I noticed that I haven't updated my blog in awhile, sorry to the 2 or maybe 3 people that read. But yea there is a lot to talk about since it has been a long time. Since the last time I blogged I have been to a beach here. The water was cold as hell, and the beach was strewn with tons of garbage but it was nice nonetheless, got to shoot off a couple of fireworks for "Canada Day"!?! I know I never head about Canada Day either. I still don't know when it is, because like everyday that week Colin was like it's Canada Day!! And so maybe it should be called "Canada Week" or perhaps he was just milking it for all it's worth. I also went Cherry picking all you can eat cherries for 40 minutes sounded like it would be a lot of fun, but 6 minutes into it I was sick of cherries, but it was still fun. I don't really feel like typing a whole lot now, so instead i will just upload a ton of pictures, and you can speculate on what I have been up to. 

But seeing as how the upload image function isn't working for me either right now I will just do that later as well.

Slackers the leaders of tomorrow!

Birthday weekend

So this past weekend was my birthday here in Japan! I wasn't expecting anything big or planning anything out, as I haven't really done anything for my birthday for the past couple of years. So I just drank mostly dark beers this weekend, to celebrate the big 22. On the actual date of my birthday it was raining so I cleaned up my room and did laundry (exciting!). So I figured after such an exciting birthday in Japan, that maybe I should celebrate the American date, since Japan is a day ahead and all, so it was like traveling through time to celebrate again. And it worked out even better because the American date was on a friday here in Japan. So I was very excited for the prospects this weekend would hold, not because it was my birthday but rather because it was (an still is) an extended weekend!

So let's jump into this particular weekend. Before I left school I wished all my students good luck because they were all competing in a big city wide sports day. I had big plans to go and see most of my students play on saturday, but Friday nights don't make for good Saturday mornings. So Friday I went to Loop, after going to nomihodai, and every time I go there something goes wrong. This time someone got the idea that I told a guy there named Marvin fuck you. I was like umm I definitely didn't do that. And of course last time "I got in a fight". I am not sure why every time I go there some horrible twisted tale concerning me comes out of nowhere. So I am just done with Loop, too much of a hassle every time I go there. So for all intents and purposes friday night was pretty bad. So I was kind of relieved when Saturday came around, gave me a clean slate to start from. ^_^

Saturday I just went to J's I skipped everywhere else and just decided to keep it simple. Saturday was a lot better than Friday! Got nice and drunk, and even made some great progress with a couple of the ladies, although none of them lived in Yamagata, but rather in nearby prefectures. But I saw a cute gaijin girl at Mos Burger earlier I wish I had talked to her, since I am pretty sure she spoke English, maybe. She looked like she was French though!?! So I am hoping to see her around the city again, granted she lives here, and wasn't a tourist. One thing that does suck is that I have to work tomorrow. I was supposed to be off work but since I missed a day I have to make it up. Which reminds me I need to contact my boss to make sure they know I am making this day up so that I get reimbursed for the pay I was docked awhile back. Ohh and to make it fair I will upload a picture of me drunk since I have shown everyone else passed out, it's only fair.

Another weekend in 山形市

What inebriation looks like

Last weekend I was in Tokyo, and I plan to be there again next weekend, but this weekend was spent in good ole' Yamagata. This weekend was eventful. Of course I did the same stuff as usual went to Sandinista and J's, but I also went to a few new places as well. All day friday at work I was waiting to get off so I could go drinking and start the weekends festivities. I didn't know it was friday the 13th, so when I was asking one of my classes "What day is today?" and "What's the weather like?", when they said it's Friday the 13th I like thought about watching a scary movie later, and completely blanked out in class for a little bit. I came back to reality when I heard the teacher whispering ask them "How are they?". Then later on in that same class, when it was time for the listen to the CD part of class, the CD player went crazy, and it was skipping and speeding up randomly, I told the teacher today is a day of bad luck in America and the teacher said I know. So as I may or may not have mentioned before my school has a tradition called PSP which stands for Physical Strength P?? (I forgot what the last P is for), in this tradition the students run around the school, it's good exercise but I don't really like to run and get tired before going out friday night. But I ran anyway, figured I would be doing some heavy beer drinking so I might as well do one thing that is relatively healthy.

So after running a random dust storm blew in and got sand and crap all in my eyes, so I decided to hang around at the school for a bit until dust wasn't being blown all around. I watched the boys and girls volleyball teams practice for a little while. Some of my students have started saying "Fuck You!" but never when another teacher was around. So I was standing near the wall talking to another teacher when a student walked up and said "Fuck You!", and I was like ummm ok time to go see you! Hey I didn't want the other teachers thinking I taught the students those words.

So I got home and changed clothes and then went to JUSCO to get some beer nuts and Guinness, I walked around for a bit and went to Toy R Us thought about buying some Funyuns or some Doritos, but the bags are so freaking big that I just said screw it. I want to eat SOME Funyuns not a garbage bag full of Funyuns. Plus the costs of the Funyuns was the cost of a beer. Once again my economy runs on beer, I don't think in USD or YEN I think in beers. It's like opportunity cost, so remember don't ask "how many dollars that shirt cost?", ask "how many beers does it cost?". So I went back to buy the grocery section to buy beer nuts, I was pissed to find out that the big bag of mixed nuts where gone!! So I had to pay the same amount of money for less nuts. I usually get the big bag because it costs the same as other bags of nuts, but you get almost twice as many nuts!! So I settled for the regular nuts, and grabbed 7 Guinness then set about on my path home. On the way I passed 2 young ladies on bikes that were headed in my direction, one looked pretty cute and the other one just barely had the requirements to be consider a female. One day I am going to party in this area because I know that there has to be something to do close to my house.

Since it was Friday the 13th I watched a scary movie One Missed Call, it was okay I suppose. Then I called Yuta to see if he was up at his shop, but he was at a friends house at a party, (sounded like he was having a good time). I told him we should meet later he said okay. . .never saw him hahaha. So I meet up with Luke and we were going to go to Sandinista we drank a few beers in front of a 7 11 and I saw some of the regulars at Sandinista outside so I talked with them, and then headed over to Sandinista. Danced a bit there and then went to J's, actually now that I think about it I don't really remember too much of friday, so. . .let's just move on to Saturday.

Saturday I was woken up by an earthquake! I usually never lock my door and sometimes I have things in my door like shoes holding it open, so I thought that someone had came into my apartment and started shaking me. So naturally I woke up like WTF, who is this? But it was just an earthquake, so I just went back to sleep, wayyy too lazy to try and take shelter under a table. A bit later I headed up to town to meet up with my language partner. I was hoping she would be cute. So I got to Kajo and I saw a group of Japanese sitting at a table and they said something to me so I thought maybe one of the ladies in this group was my language partner. I knew one of the ladies worked in Kajo I had seen her before, the other lady looked unfamiliar so I thought she surely must be my partner. "What is that?" that was the first thing that popped into my mind, in reference to some scaring on her lip that looked like herpes, I was like ohh great I got the lady with herpes as my language partner! But she wasn't my language partner, SAVED! Collin was like your language partner isn't here yet and I was relieved.

I read an earthquake manual while I waited, then my real language partner showed up. She was decent, おきい　おっぱい (nice chest for a japanese woman), although I am an ass man, so I didn't really care. So we exchanged contact info and set a date for the future lesson. I was sleepy I was considering going back home to sleep, but I was too tired to make the trip back, so I called Yuta and we ate lunch. Then I took a nap on his couch for awhile. Then Collin called me and said "hey there is a new place that has nomi. . ." I interrupted at this point saying "SAY NO MORE LET'S DO IT!". Collin had just awoken a sleepy monster of beer drinking, and now this monster was ready to stalk it's prey. Collin showed up to Yuta's shop and then I told Yuta that we were going to go to nomihodai and he was kind of sad that he couldn't go, he said to bring him back a beer, and that we should join him and Max for sushi later. Then Collin said beer and sushi will make him through up on Yuta's pants. Yuta said in reply "Throw up on my head or face please, that way I can have something to eat." I started laughing at this absurd request, and said you can get a little drunk as well as get something to eat, we all agreed and had a good laugh.

So then Collin and I went to a beer garden, it was pretty nice, although it was a bit cold outside. They played this old hawaiian music that made it feel like me and Colin had been married for 40 years and were about to eat pudding. Definitely going to go back to the beer garden again, hopefully on a warmer day. After that me and Collin went to a convenience store and grabbed some pizza pockets and drank some beer, then a clerk was like sorry we don't do that here, referring to the beer, so we drank our beers outside. At some point I meet back up with Yuta, and we went to his friends bar near Rough Roll, it was a nice place, but there were like creepy dolls everywhere. Later on that night Yuta got mad, asking why we don't care about his friends bar? I guess because Max and Ian just got up and left with out saying anything. So Yuta didn't come with us when we went to J's bar. I had never seen Yuta mad before, I tried to tell him it was probably a misunderstanding. Hopefully everything will be okay.

As the night went on me and Collin kept drinking and were pretty wasted, Collin was about to leave when David showed up, so then he didn't leave and drank more, and then fell asleep on the couch at J's, I "rested" for a bit too, and then when I woke up figured I might as well make my way home since I am falling asleep here as well, so I snapped a picture of drunken Collin. Everytime me and Collin go out drinking he ends up passing out haha. Well I am going to watch Family Guy so I will end this here until next time.

This past weekend I was in Tokyo. It was my first time actually spending time in Tokyo. I took the つばさ Shinkansen, the trip was like 2+ hours, I had been falsely told before that you can't drink beer on the train. I still brought beer anyway to drink (I am always one for breaking Japanese laws). On the train I found out that you can bring and drink beer, as almost every salaryman on the train had a beer in their hands! If I had known this I would have brought more beer, but it was okay, I guess. There were tons of people everywhere, people were rude as hell, it was everything I expected and more. The first day I went to Roppongi and had some Mexican food, とても　おいしい　です！It had been so long since I had Mexican food that I had almost forgotten how good it was. I miss it again already.



Yes this burrito looks like shit but I assure you it tasted like heaven! Mexicans where never big on presentation it's all about the substance when you are dealing with the Mexicans (yes that is a sweeping generalization don't take that seriously).

Didn't stay out for too late, but Roppongi looks like it is a pretty fun place, a bit overwhelming with the sheer amount of people walking about. There were tons of drunk people in the streets when we left, my friend Taiga dubbed it "Drunk town". I stayed at Taiga's house while I was in Tokyo, his house is nice (I wish I had a house). I saved a bunch on living costs that way. Japanese hotels can go to hell! So to make it so I wasn't a total leech I paid for Taiga's food and entertainment when ever I could. 

On saturday I went to Akihabara and Shibuya. Two very different places Akihabra is a haven for おたく, and Shibuya is like a fashion show where everyone is dressed up to be looked at by everyone else. Of the places I went on my first excursion to Tokyo I think I like Roppongi the best. Because it looks and feels dirty, every breath of air in Roppongi tastes like expensive beer and gonorrhea ^_^! And I am quite fond of the dirty seedy life in Japan; not America, things are a bit to dirty and shady back home. I like to think of it like Goldilocks and the three bears, America's dirty is too dirty, and Japan's dirty scene is just dirty enough.

On a side note I just missed a murdering spree in Akihabara by one day. Talk about being lucky, I have never seen anyone being stabbed to death nor do I want to start seeing it now. And actually that picture of me was taken in Akihabara down the street from where the rampage started.

So at Akihabara we went to a Maid cafe which was a very interesting experience probably would have been better if I spoke Japanese, though. But I guess it is worth checking out if you are in the area, plus some maids go that extra (you know what I mean). Also me and my friends went into a giant adult superstore which was like 5 floors of dildos, random sex toys, and costumes, so that was interesting. Of course photos were banned at all of these places, so I couldn't take a picture of me holding huge fake boobs.

Moving along though in Shibuya I went to a club called Pure. Entrance was 3,500 yen with nomihodai, that was the deal of a lifetime. I wish Yamagata had something like that, could save a ton on drinks. But Club Pure was packed with people drinking and dancing. And I am talking western style dancing here, dick to butt grindin' action (oh yea!). So I danced with quite a few ladies. Some Japanese girls weren't to fond of western style dancing though so they like weaseled away, one even like hip bumped me away (haha). So that was interesting. I tried to talk to this girl who was amongst all her friends, and her friends protected her from me like a eagle watching it's young. As I approached there table I was greeted with a warm "FUCK YOU! Go away!", I could have said something rude back but I just drank my beer, and said ok. Later on I danced with all of the girls at the table especially the one I set out to talk with. And they apologized for their rudeness. Nice guys don't finish last, more like somewhere in the middle or kind of close to the end. Well I will retire for now until next time, おやすみ！