No....no this can't be?!?!?!

For two or three of my classes, I have spent time AND effort preparing lessons. Not only have I planned lessons, but planned lessons that review and reinforce the things they learned in the previous lessons. I actually cared whether they were learning or not. Is this possible? Am I growing as a person? Could I really be maturing as a human being? How could this have happened in a single month, what cosmic colonoscopy could have reversed my karma so fast? For a few hours after class today I had feelings of self-worth. I might as well start chiseling my name into a tombstone. What’s next, remorse? I am extraordinarily unhappy with the sudden turn of events, and despite the fact that it’s Thursday, I am going to do my patriotic duty, and go to a bar, get drunk, curse and yell and scratch myself in inappropriate places at inappropriate moments, mock Japanese culture and objectify women. I’ll talk to you when I safely feel like a bastard again.

Johnny Walker will drown the Devil's Strudel

Saturday began as most Saturdays do, at around 3 PM. La Escueleta Corriente’s 30th birthday extravaganza was due to begin at 7 PM, and I had to bring an American dish. I asked her if she’d ever been to America, our job is to take the unique foods from every culture around the world, add sugar, fat, or additional meat, and make it taste better. She was not satisfied with my reproach, so I endeavored to make Hamburger Helper…from scratch mofo. I threw a couple of pounds of ground beef in a pot, cooked it, added a buttload of elbow noodles, some onions and peppers, and a huge swath of tomato sauce, and being able to find only what I could assume was mozzarella cheese, a whole lot of that on top, and let it simmer for about a half hour. It was delicious, I guess American, food.
El Charro came to pick me up and we rode off to the party, and boy was it kicking, by 7:30 the entire party consisted of myself, El Charro, La Escueleta Corriente, another gaijin teacher who we’ll call El Jesus Aviendo, and a Japanese teacher who has expressed interest in reading the blog and as such will now be referred to as Muchacha Reservada. El Jesus Aviendo is the type of person I like to refer to as one funny &%$! though, so everything was ok for the time being. We blew up some balloons and waited for the festivities (drinking) to begin.
The gaijin began pouring in, in ones and twos and threes until there were about 15 Americans, Brits, and Aussies at the party. La Escueleta Corriente knows what she’s doing so she also invited the neighbors, who brought their two little girls, and 2 cakes for the birthday girl. Apparently not everyone brought food, but there was a lot of booze, and good booze. It was a nice feeling to have about 4 pounds of food completely eaten by the end of the party, possibly the first time in history Hamburger Helper has been consumed with chopsticks.
Then the Austrian’s showed up, and Senorita Blitzkrieg looked even hotter than last time. El Charro and I have had long discussions about her. She has the kind of natural beauty you could easily imagine yourself waking up next to for 20 years. We have both agreed that she’s the hottest thing we’ve seen in this country thus far, and because she’s taken and she flirts like there’s no tomorrow, we’d rather her not be anywhere around us. It’s an exercise in sexual tension torture. But suffice to say she baked an apple strudel which caused an event later in the evening, but first to the drinking.
The birthday girl was given 100$ (10,000 yen) drink coupon to a liquor store by someone or other, so she bought two excellent bottles of French Wine, and a bottle of Johnny Walker Black Label, which I don’t think I’ve ever had before. It’s about the smoothest, tastiest whiskey I’ve ever pounded 5 shots of without a chaser in an hour. We spent a good deal of time making each other’s acquaintances, sharing travel stories, the highs and lows of our jobs. Most of the people at the party worked at other English Schools, or had opened their own. Some were just as wet behind the ears as I was, and others had been here 5 or 6 years. It was slightly overwhelming being in the same room as everyone, I haven’t seen this many gaijin in one room since the Toga Party before I left.
Then it came to the point where I was sitting next to Senorita Blitzkrieg, and she asked me if I had tried the apple strudel yet. In fact, I hadn’t, and since the drunkening (thanks Brian) was apon me, I’d love some apple strudel. Completely ignoring EL Charro’s warning, I walked into the other room, where a single piece of apple strudel lay on a plate in the middle of the floor. A dim halo emitted from the crust as if it was the lost Holy Grail. (Which according to Indiana Jones is held in some Nazi bunker anyway).
Suddenly the world fell into a deep silence, my brain felt disconnected from my arm, moving as if the air was thickening concrete, and El Charro leapt into the living room, as if from the top ropes of some wrestling ring in a spandexed Tijuana bloodbath and screamed, “Steve, do not eat the apple strudel.” But it was too late, he fell to the floor with a sickening thud as I put that devil's brew in my mouth, sprinkled with the sugar from Satan's fetid cane fields, where the tormented souls of rapists tend the crops, cooked in an oven heated by the boiling juice of pedophiles exploding eyeballs, with fresh apples picked from the orchards of misery by a thousand naked despots, flailed for all eternity by the peasants they starved and..."is there cinnamon in there?" I asked sheepishly. The answer was “yes, and nutmeg,” this is the best god damn baked good I'd ever tasted, I turned to El Charro, and said, "I must marry this girl." He sighed when I asked him why he was on the floor.
The girl was perfect, and she bakes with evil in her heart, which really turns me on. Soon after the party quickly split in two, since El Charro lives in a neighboring apartment, the more intense partygoers moved next door for a spell.
The birthday had peaked and its downward parabolic arch was pointing straight to a club. Someone who spoke decent Japanese lined up 3 cabs for us, but some people had bikes, and some people were bailing, so we only needed two. However, if we ordered ten cabs and only used one, none of the drivers would have said a word to us. They would have shrugged gotten back in their cars and left, giving respect to those who don’t deserve it is built into Japanese culture, and we’re going to abuse that fact until they realize caustic honesty and derision is what makes the world go round. Before we left though La Escueleta Corriente and I for some reason took turns punching the monkey hanging from her living room light. The shit eating grin is thanks to Mr. Johnny Walker Black Label.
The cabs mosey down to a bar called Suzie Wong’s. It’s fairly large, has a medium sized dance floor, nice catches to chill on toward the other side, and relatively but not outrageously overpriced drinks. There was only one aspect of the bar we were concerned with really, that it was empty. We stayed for about two minutes because we were waiting for the folks biking down, and then we decided to wait outside. Suzie Wong’s was an abysmal failure, but we’ll have a decent Suzie Wong’s story next weekend to make up for it. One of the other reasons we left is because one of the gaijin teacher’s who we’ll call T (because I don’t feel like spending 5 minutes on Babelfish right now) happened to be smuggling the bottle of Johnny Walker into the bar with her, and as the bar was completely empty, felt rather conspicuous about it. The smuggling will be a continuing theme throughout the night.
We waited outside for a wall, there were a lot of new faces for everyone, so we had plenty to talk about, El Charro went to vomit his Johnny Walker somewhere as I swigged a little more at sporadic intervals. The people on bikes finally showed up, a few people went home, and most of us agreed to meet at the Q-Bar. The stomping ground of the Russian Working Girls the night before. This time I knew better than to steal a bike and tool around though, I was sure my stomach was going to find plenty of reasons to be mad at me by the end of the night anyway. As we were walking away some Asian girl begged us to stay as Suzie Wong’s, we gently informed her that Suzie Wong’s sucked, and the owner of Suzie Wong’s was the same owner of the other bar we were going to, that would no doubt suck as well. She pouted as we left, but I don’t think anyone noticed or cared when she appeared or left. The translation, folks, is that she wasn’t attractive.
We rolled ten deep into Q-Bar, and T was toting the bottle of Johnny under her jacket and disappeared into the bathroom. The rest of us quickly ordered a beer and surveyed our new temporary surroundings. It was the same dark hole as it was Friday night, the music was a little better, and we had brought a big enough posse to keep everyone entertained, so life wasn’t so bad. About 5 minutes later the ugly, pouting girl from Suzie Wong’s showed up with what could be called two moderately attractive compatriots. During the course of the next few minutes or hours a few minor incidents occurred, I would say they weren’t even blogworthy, but I’ve seen what bored 16 year old girls put up on their blogs. I tried vigorously to get one of the shy Japanese teachers, Muchacha Reservada to dance. It did not work, so I danced with my wingwoman La Escueleta Corriente for a little while, so I could check out the Asian girls from a distance. Not that this was necessary, because Japanese girls don’t play mind games, but it’s a force of habit. I quickly decided tonight was leading in the direction of impossibility for any kind of sexual performance so I got a double jack and coke after a quick swig of Johnny in the bathroom and stopped dancing for a while.
About halfway through the jack and coke I decide it will be more fun to flirt with El Jesus Aviendo’s wife. This is much more playful than it sounds though, as she went to school in the US, she not only speaks English but actually acts like a person with feelings and emotions. This is a rarity among Japanese girls, and the two of them have a really great sense of humor. This is why I can ask her if she’d want a gaijin who actually wants to go somewhere where she can get a green card, or if she’d like to upgrade from a man with a bicycle to a man with a shitty car. No human being driving around in the car we drive around in should ever feel confident talking to a woman, in any country but Japan.
Eventually I managed to get El Jesus Aviendo’s wife and Muchacha Reservada on the dance floor at the same time. I had to keep hold of one of their arms, which rather severely limited actual dancing, but they were on the dance floor nonetheless, and despite repeated attempts they did not make out.
Whatever time it was after this happened was agreed as the time to go, so everyone packed up their jiving, the bottle of Johnny Walker was left behind, it may in fact still linger under the same very sink, and we prepared to vacate, El Charro however, had decided to stay behind and hit on one of the Asian girls, he said he would meet us a half hour later at the Karaoke Bar, I estimated at the time that we would see him in about 6 and a half minutes. The funny thing is he was staying to hit on this girl because it was really obvious she wanted nothing to do with him, and that made her the most appealing Japanese girl he’d seen in the country so far. Two other gaijin remained dancing with her two friends for a while. It would result in neither of them going home with a Japanese girl.
On the way out of Q-Bar we ran into a half dozen Japanese dudes, who may have been nearly as drunk as we were. They quickly recognized the significance of 7 gaijin standing out on the street at 4 AM and began making conversation. I was at the point of the evening where I was probably a few volume notches higher than necessary for conversation, and as such drowned out most of the group. He asked if we were all English teachers, and I pretended to take horrible offense at the assumption, telling him we were all CFO’s and VP’s of various parts of Saikyo Bank. Since the president of the bank is one of my students, I could name drop fairly well. But my credibility may have been suspect since I was probably slurring a good deal of my words, however, one word I managed to get out was Karaoke. At the very mention of Shidax, the karaoke bar, the gentleman’s eyes lit up, he reached into his shirt, and I shit you not, handed my a tambourine. Just like that, all of a sudden the walk down the street was taking on completely new vibes, because I’d been randomly gifted a tambourine. Soon after they headed into Q-Bar, and we took off toward Shidax, following the barely rhythmic shaking of a tambourine toting drunkard.
El Jesus Aviendo was riding his bike, as he turned his head to say something about the tambourine he ran into the clear wall of a bus stop. The laughter was nearly vomit inducing. He claims it was on purpose, but I don’t believe him, for the next five minutes what he did was on purpose. He said he always did it when his brother came into town. In Tokuyama people of all ages have bikes, they’re parked everywhere, they don’t have gears, but they have baskets. I call them Dorothy bikes because they are the same model Dorothy rode in the Wizard of Oz circa 1955. These bikes are parked in near rows, tightly packed together. El Jesus Aviendo ran full speed into one, and a column of twenty Dorothy bikes fell like Dominoes. In the course of a 5 block ride he must have knocked over 200 bikes. I nearly sneezed, burped, vomited and poo’d myself at the same time.
As we were collecting the group in front of Shidax, the Karaoke place, an exceptionally wasted Japanese guy was jumping around screaming Ozzie Osbourne, El Jesus Aviendo and I looked at each other, and he quickly grabbed his camera, saying quietly, “stall him, stall him, my flash is charging.” I quickly started doing my Ozzie schtick, which can be quite funny unless prolonged to the point where the very impersonation makes you want to eat live rodents. However, I don’t think the Osbournes had penetrated Japan yet, so I belted out the opening lines to crazy train, and he ran with it, and we got this picture.
It was quickly apparent the tambourine under my jacket was in fact stolen from this very establishment. El Jesus Aviendo asked me why I was hiding under my jacket when I was bringing it back to the place it came from. “It’s because drunks don’t return stolen property, they steal property, and that little man down the street will not have drunkenly stolen this in vain,” I blurted. I was going to take this out with me again, and the great cycle of drunkreprocity will be complete.
It immediately dawned on me that crowding people into a little box with no air conditioning in our currect collective state was not the best Idea, but they had cold drinks and I wanted the mic in my hand.

“Reluctantly crouched at the starting line,Engines pumping and thumping in time.The green light flashes, the flags goes up,Churning and burning, they yern for the cup…

The cake was flowing, the beer was on the way up, and the night was not yet over. We belted out some American feel good rock tunes, the girls sang some feel good girl tunes, and general frivolity permeated the room.
Then El Charro stumbled into the room, with the three Japanese girls from the club in tow.
He has no idea how he got them to come, or what he said to them to get them out of the bar, but he was officially in bad shape. We smiled and kept singing our songs, they ordered beers they didn’t drink, and sang some Japanese songs. El Charro began freestyling over Eminem beats, and the Japanese girls were becoming more uncomfortable, they ordered another beer, despite barely touching their first beers.
Then as soon as they came, they left, without saying a word, and most importantly without paying. El Charro decided to take a nap on the floor a few minutes later. Ignoring the consequences of the events transpiring around me, I set to work on Pearl Jam’s “Alive”. Soon, T the handler of Johnny Walker for the evening left money on the table and rushed out. Our time soon ran out, and we walked downstairs for the invevitable paying of the tab. Most of which would fall on El Charro for drunkenly inviting the bitches who ordered drinks and ran out on us. El Jesus Aviendo’s wife managed to talk down the tab a little bit, and we left.
I got home sometime after dawn, and woke up sometime before dusk. Sunday would be a quiet night.

And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Russian Prostitutes

The middle part of Friday was rather unremarkable; I probably taught somebody something resembling the English language. There were probably some minor confrontations with our boss, the 4 foot 7 matriarch known as el dragón minusculo.
Since the school is within site of El Charro’s window, and we know when she is still in the office because the lights are on, driving past it has become something akin to Frodo and Sam crossing the plains of Mordor avoiding the gaze of Sauron’s Eye. The eye of SES is a thing of wonder and terror, and is not to be crossed while wearing “The One Hangover.”
Anyway, El Charro, La Escueleta Corriente and I came to my place for dinner after work, we stopped to grab ingredients and a 6 pack of half liter beers and I set to work making some confection or other. All I know for sure was that the meal was delicious, the beer was drunk, and we were on the way downtown. Although La Escueleta Corriente doesn’t drink, she still enjoys coming out with us, because well, we’re fairly funny little maniacs, and consequently we love when she comes out with us, because we’re toting a hotty around who has no problems being possibly the best “wingman” in history. She lovingly refers to Japanese girls as toys that you can pick up and play with and when you get sick of them in a week, throw them away. When we first came to Japan and asked her where the girls congregate, she suggested just wandering around 7-11’s and convenience stores at night, because you can literally pick them up anywhere. Bear in mind she’s one of the sweetest, genuinely kind human beings I’ve ever come across, but when she lays down the street knowledge you listen, and then laugh.
We meander down to this gaijin Irish pub called El’s Ditch where all the whiteys hang out, picking up a beer on the way for good measure (public drinking rocks by the way) and settle down to some Brooklyn Lagers and Anchorheads. Yes, they have good beer from microbreweries in New York, and San Francisco, for only a dollar more than the garbage on tap. While El Charro was discussing matters of great personal importance with the bartender, La Escueleta Corriente and I began chatting with a local private English School owner, el Asesino Británico, who as a former SES teacher had much to say about our current trials and tribulations with el dragón minuscule.
Over the course of the conversation it swang to talks of monogamy and polygamy, his almost vitriolic hatred of his wife, his current writing project, a book he’s been writing, and at one point he managed to turn an empty cigarette box into a crude mock-up of a person, with a working erection. I’d be impressed sober, but that was damn close to David Copperfield in my current state.
After we left the bar, el Asesino Britanico, decided to share our further adventures that evening, so we decided to wander to a dance club called Q-Bar. On the way there, I stole La Escueleta Corriente’s bike and rode around. It was one of the red Dorothy bikes with a huge basket in the front, so I started barreling around Tokuyama as fast as I could and skidding to a stop by sweeping the back wheel around. Apparently this is not common behavior here, because drunk businessmen and ne’er do well passerby would react rather dramatically as the wheels screeched to a stop within a few feet of them. But luckily we have a cure all phrase here, “sumemasen gaijin.” It basically translates to excuse me I’m a foreigner, but it must have much bigger cultural implications because no matter how stupid you are, how dumb you look, they’ll just stop and laugh and keep going. You could be speeding down the wrong side of the road and get pulled over by the cops, but if you start by saying “sumemasen gaijin” it’s basically a white guy admitting he’s not culturally, mentally, and physically superior to a Japanese person, and they instantly feel better about you ruining their country.
So after about a dozen or so skids, I finally almost fall over, stuff flies out of the basket, I finally feel as dumb as I look, and I give the bike back. My stomache has decided after 4 or 5 hours of heavy drinking, that a half hour of full tilt bike riding was not in its best interests. But I had plenty of time to think about that problem while I was drinking, we’d arrived at Q-Bar.
We showed up about a half hour before they were slated to close. I started with a water, because all the vitriol in my stomach wanted to come out and play. By the time I finished it I was feeling better, so La Escueleta Corriente, El Charro and I decided to break it down, I went through my patented series of white guy dances (the hand on head, other hand on foot hopping thing – the shopping cart – Saturday Night Fever – some 360 turns – and the penultimate bust your granny hip show stopping finale of a Curly Shuffle)
And the only people who saw and appreciated this succession of awesome were my Mexican Wrestling cohorts, the bar was completely empty.
After the dancing stopped, I once again realized the vometer was climbing again, so I went outside for some pacing in the fresh air. Once again, the urge to spill my dinner on the concrete was subdued and I returned to the smoke filled bar and got a beer. Halfway though said aperitif the carnival pulled into town.
Three amazingly hot Russian girls and their two massive Russian handlers strolled into Q-Bar after closing, and we all knew the place would stay open until they left. The girls immediately started dancing, in .6 seconds El Charro and I brought our wingwoman out to play and we were all shaking it like Russian girls in Japan were on the line. I’ve been to enough bars to know when girl’s don’t find me even remotely attractive, want to have nothing to do with me, or summarily wish the space and air I was taking in their club could instead be given to someone with a tighter Abercrombie Polo, dyed hair, and a lobotomy. This is not to say I know when girl’s are into me, I would never assume that, I do know however, how to recognize the opposite of revulsion, and this was it. These girls were wide eyed and ready to play. The two Yakuza wannabe handlers who brought them in, had a distinctly different look on their faces, mainly contempt bordering on murderous rage.
They were constantly glancing at el Asesino Britanico, as he was looking properly dour, and angry, it also helped that he spent a good many years as a body builder. As the music flared from techno-jargon, to R and B jargon, to 80’s American Pop jargon – El Charro and I had made our decisions and narrowed our focus to a single Gulag Maiden.
Then the DJ had the balls to bust out a slow song, at a techno club, I think he wanted to spark the powder keg that was this post cold-war smash and bash coming to a head any minute. So I had a blonde Russian girl pinned against me, and El Charro had the crazy ass Redhead. We danced close for a while, screaming sweet nothings at the top of our lungs into each other’s ears. It’s funny to trace a Russian Prostitute’s thoughts through a drunken haze as she’s trying to scream through the music.
RP: What’s your name?
Me: Steve (That’s a rich country name)
RP: Where are you from? (Does your country offer asylum? How long will it take to get a green card?)
Me: New York
RP: (Her eyes lighting up) You’re from New York? (He can totally get me out of the human slave trade, in fact he could probably even trade a green card for a sham marriage just to show me off to his friends) I work at Club Moscow, I play the saxophone

At this point I’m assuming saying this is a way of trying to make me think she isn’t in fact a prostitute, which although in the realm of possibilities is not my first, second, or fourteenth guess. She’s still ridiculously hot though, and this is her night off after all.

Me: Saxophone? (If this skinny ass girl plays saxophone, I play professional basketball for a living) How long have you played?
RP: 8 years (He is so interested right now, get him to book a ticket back)
Me: I’m a basketball player, I play center in Kudamatsu for the Flying Tigers
RP: What?
Me: (Damn it, that was *$&ing funny and she missed it) What’s your name?

It turned out the name she gave me was Oxana, and if I was going to come up with a fake name, it would have been much hotter than that. Anyway after the slow song was over, Ivan Drago and his friend KGP Olaf were visibly anxious. They came here so the girls could have some fun and forget about their indentured servitude to club Moscow, and a bunch of Americans were dancing with them, and the rest of their posse sat in the corner of the bar getting drunk and meaner looking by the minute. I forgot to include the fact that we towed along a bunch of Japanese ravers from El’s Ditch to Q-Bar. So all the chips were on the table, what was going to happen next? Would these guys just come and bust our skulls right now? Would they grab the girls take off and hire some hardcore assassins to kill us in our sleep for our impudence? Would they call up another 6 Ivans and brawl in the street like Gangs of New York?
No, Ivan got up, and came out to the dance floor. I’ve seen plenty of people without any rhythm, and I happen to be one of them. But Stephen Hawking could have wriggled on the floor and kept better time with the music. As far as intimidating gestures go, this was not a well conceived plan. At this point Oxana sat down and I went to laugh myself silly in the corner with the rest of the crew. El Asasino Britanico leans over to me and says, “These are the dumbest &*%$ing wannabe Yakuza I have ever seen in my life. Look how nervous these guys are. They have no $#&^ing idea what they’re doing.” Now, he’s been in Tokuyama for 7 years, he owns his own school here, he’s been out to all these clubs plenty of times, he’s seen the Russian girls all over, so if he makes an observation, El Charro and I keep our ears open. These guys were ridiculous, intimidating people smile at little shits like us, or they look mean, these guys despite their size looked like scared puppies. So we got the girl’s email’s and phone numbers. I’m sure they’ll have another day off eventually.
Eventually the girls were taken back to their cells in Club Moscow, the club closed down, and we too were off. After all, La Esceuleta Corriente’s Birthday party was tomorrow night, and every gaijin in a 30 mile radius would be there.
So El Charro and I walked home to my place, La Escueleta Corriente got on her bike and rode home, and we got a beer on the way back. It was already dawn and the club was supposed to close at 3:30, they stayed open a solid extra two hours.
We talked in great length about our Russian night laborers. Eventually we had even convinced ourselves there was a chance they actually did play instruments for a band as Japenese business men ogled the fact that they were from Russia. Then he dropped this bomb.
El C: That girl was smoking; she said her name was Lilu. That is hot.
Me: (stopping in the middle of the street and laughing, knowing specifically that El Charro was a big sci-fi fan) So the beautiful skinny Russian girl with dyed red hair, who we thought was a prostitute, just dropped Mila Jovavitch’s character from The Fifth Element on you, and you didn’t even notice. She’s the god damn spitting image of the character, she probably saw in translated on Siberian prison TV.
El C: F&^% dude, you’re right
Me and El C Simultaneously: They’re prostitutes

I Hope they serve Sushi in Hell

So much happened this week, it’s hard to remember what days correspond to what insanity, but I’m going to give it a go. On Monday I had the three kids I played twister with last week. This week I decided to buy them guns. So before class I popped over to the 100 yen store (dollar store, 105 yen with tax) and bought 4 toy guns for 420 yen.
I proceeded to draw an almost anatomically correct human being on the board, and identify the various parts a gun could blow off in combat. I then set them into teams, to take turns shooting each other ruthlessly with machine guns, and making them scream, “Ouch! You shot my arm,” or “Ouch! You shot my stomach,” etc…They almost played by the rules for about a third of a heartbeat , and then it degraded into a full-scale little kid shit-fit of saliva, guttural sounds, flailing limbs, and most importantly Japanese gibberish, I lost control of a mob consisting of three 10 year old kids. I made them put the guns away and then thought of some other asinine project for them to do.
Apparently GH cancelled my class, claiming there was some kind of “conference” after my subtle yet ingenious reproach with the backpack last class. CEO’s of nationwide banks never go to “conferences” so I think I may have shattered his self-esteem. Steve .7 – Japan 3.4
After that I met up with my Japanese Sake brewer who promised to bring a nice bottle of Sake to our next lesson. SHAZAM! Easy job, free booze, what’s better than this?
On Tuesday I have a class at a chemical company, it consists of one extraordinarily cute 19 year old, who for some reason works in the research and development department of a Petrochemical Wax Company, and 9 assorted less attractive cohorts. It’s funny because the “grunts” and the “big boys” attend the same class, and when one of the bosses makes fun of someone, they’ll sulk and not say a word back, but they’ll pester me all class. Somehow I arrived at the bottom of the totem poll to TEACH them. Anyway, I had told them about this Cherry Blossom Liquor I'd seen at OPA, and none of them (some avid drinkers, one of the bosses comes in every week with liquored up stories) had ever heard of it. They said I was lying to them, ME, the gaijin was mocking them. Despite the fact that there was still a half bottle of it left at OPA, I would have to drink it before next week and bring it in.
Flash forward to 11 AM Wednesday – Hangover.
The night before, El Charro and I went to OPA because we didn’t have to work until 4 PM the next day, in what will probably be our last week of freedom before early classes (10:15!) start. Suffice to say we drained the bottle, it tasted good, we were happy. I believe I sang “Hotel California”, “Layla” (Unplugged and Plugged) and “Help!” with the owner and his accompanying keyboardist. I imagine it was not good. We also have not been back since, because of the incident during the ceremonial paying of the bar tab. The young bartender, who I like because he thinks I’m super cool, (which according to my mom, is absolutely correct) happened to tell us the shots were much cheaper than they actually were. When we got our tab we were shocked to appalled at the number, but then a cultural butting of heads ensued, we said it wasn’t the bartenders fault (though it was) and for the first time in a month I saw the owner of OPA get heated, he said the kid was an awful bartender, we disagreed, it was in fact the first time I’d seen him show anything towards his patrons other than a gratuitous smile, or utter indifference, and assuming we thought if we underpaid there would be a good chance the bartender would lose his job, we did the most utterly un-American I’ve seen anyone do here, we paid the inflated tab. This good deed by my math should wash 16 or 17 much worse deeds from my permanent record.
Friday morning was something new. I drove down to a town called Hikari, with La Esqueleta Corriente to teach English to thirty 3 year olds in a kindergarten. I haven’t seen this many Japanese running around since the air raid drills in Nagasaki. There were easily two hundred kids running around this building, the teachers looked like they could drop dead on the floor any minute of the hour we were in there. I haven't felt this sorry for another human being since I watched people waiting in line for the opening night of a Carrot Top performance in Las Vegas. Suffice to say my pity eroded seconds before the kids starting pouring into the class room like a screaming midget tsunami. La Esqueleta Corriente was teaching the class, as she had observed it once before, and I was there to help out, since I’d be taking over the class afterward. These kids were utterly and completely in awe of us the second we walked in, we strolled into their lives like anime characters bursting out of a tv screen into their living room. A white girl with blue eyes and blonde hair and curves, and a white guy with facial hair, body hair, and blue eyes are not something the children of Tokuyama Japan see every day. They would almost break into fights trying to get our attention or hold our hands, or make any conceivable contact they could. They would hug our legs until we pried them off and put them into a seat. It’s remarkably endearing for about 15 and a half seconds, and then you see a blur in the corner of your eye, and when you hit the ground you realize one of the little tyrants just punched you square in the nuts.
The cleverly orchestrated attack was on, I was Custer, and this was my Little Big Horn, the kids quickly started pulling out arm hairs, and rubbing the stubble on my face, two aspects of my genetics I would have no problem surrendering, because they themselves have older brothers and fathers who probably don’t have a single hair on their face or arms. Then the hair-pulling began, and my scalp’s taken to throwing them off by itself recently so pulling out more is not what I needed, and I think I finally recovered my faculties when someone tried to poke me in the eye. At which point I brushed the kids off me and pointed at the chairs until they sat down. This class was on, 3 year olds 15 – Me
-6 and a half.
So we began the lesson with the hokey pokey, the class split up into two circles, one with La Esqueleta Corriente and one with our hero. Apparently they’ve never seen a full grown gaijin man give 110% to the hokey pokey, because my circle quickly devolved into a puddle of children while La Esqueleta Corriente’s circle maintained its relative circlativity. Afterwards the lesson came down to flashcards for a while, and then we played the color game. The game is simple, you hold up a flash card for a color, let’s say green, and then tell the children to run and touch something green. La Esqueleta Corriente is wearing tight black from head to toe. When she yelled touch black, one 3 year old boy runs behind her, grabs her legs, and plants his face straight into the crack of her ass, Freud would have a field day I’m sure, I almost fell down I was laughing so hard, because after the initial rush, about 12 more little kids grabbed her legs until she was wading through a sea of tiny limbs, watching a stunning 30 year old woman staggering around a classroom with 15 Japanese kindergarteners holding on to her for dear life, while urine stain in a classroom funny, was not the highlight of my Friday.
Towards the end of the class I just started picking them up and tossing them into couches as they laughed gregariously. It probably all amounted to riling every single kid up right before we left and essentially making the Japanese teachers deal with a bunch of crack babies.

Ladies and Gentlemen, now for something completely different

I'm sorry to say that due to the fear of retribution from much less entertaining blogs, harassment from fundamentalist religious groups, overactive parents, the DEA, the KGB, the organization for the unionization of midget bowling, the organization for the blacklisting of unionized midget bowlers, the NRA, the NAACP, the band Creed, South Dakota, Chuck Norris's left bicep, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Rainbow Pride Union, Bob Dole, seven half-naked Spaniards tripping on acid in Miami, the Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity, the Confederation for the Use of Land Mines in Mcdonald's playplaces in Kentucky as an expirement in Social Darwinism, Darwin, Jesus, Prime Minister Koizume, Primus, Optimus Prime, Emperor Hirohito, Your Mom, Google Pics where I stole this picture from, Mexico, the WWE, the WWF, WorldWidePants, the inventor of the ring-pop, NAMBLA, a French bakery owner who consequently lives in Poland but nonetheless still makes excellent croissants in Warsaw, bangbus,com, a bus driver in Phoenix who still refers to President Bush as a man he'd like to sit down and have a beer with, Budweiser, Wise Potato Chips, Chip and Dale's Rescue Rangers, The New York Rangers, The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers specifically the blue one, a woman in Istanbul who's last Blueberry muffin was stolen by a one armed leper who thinks he's a snake because he sheds his skin, and the estate of James Dean. All side characters and minor acquiantences found in Sense and Senseibility will hitherto be referred to by nicknames. The worst kind of nicknames, those of Mexican Proffessional Wrestlers.

Sensei Steve's Hungarian Drunktacular - Day 3

The next morning/afternoon I woke up and mosied on down to the bridge in question. Then the five of us went to the very intuitive subway line and got on a train for 45 minutes to go to the Baths. I didn’t realize until then how massive Budapest really is. When we exited the train we were in what looked like a huge park, hot dog (or some sub-par meat) vendors, and cotton candy vendors, and balloon animal makers, were everywhere we looked. We finally got to the “Bath” and looked like deer caught in headlights for about 20 minutes because we had no idea what to do. We finally figured out how to buy a ticket and get a locker and all that jiving. Changing was remarkably uncomfortable with a bunch of shriveled old Hungarian men jaunting around the locker room.
I finally managed to slather myself with sunscreen and move outside. For any of you right-wing Christians who have homosexual tendencies and Jesus won’t love you if you pursue them go ahead and visit a Hungarian Bath. If you think the male form still has anything resembling symmetry or beauty you’re definitely gay. A 350 pound bald man, whose body hair makes my chest look like the Gobi desert, frolicking in a speedo so small it doesn’t bother to hide the fact that he’s a well hung-arian is enough to blind a man for life. The women weren’t all that great either.
The bath itself was more like a public swimming pool, one pool was heated to body temperature, 98.6 and the other pool was a lot colder, maybe 60 degrees. Then their were the sauna’s. They were heated about equivalent to the surface of the sun. The first time I went in the sauna my eyes started boiling and I began speaking in tongues. After about thirty seconds I counted to ten and left. The little pool right outside the sauna would make a penguin’s member shrink. There were chunks of ice floating in it, but I dove in for about a third of a second, and then went back to the hot pool again. We repeated this cycle a dozen times or so over the course of the day; hot pool, cooler pool, sauna, freezing water, hot pool again.
The second time I went in the sauna I saw a bunch of old men, who looked like the blood and muscle had been sucked out of them, and all that was left was sagging wrinkly skin on bones. While I was counting to 30 before running out of the sauna, trying to pretend I was still a man, these guys were reading the god damn newspaper in there. We had a decent meal there, and some beer, we sat around chatted, read a little bit, I wrote a little poetry, and then we bailed on the bath and went back downtown. Before we did though we met up with one of the American guys from their hostel, I think he was from Prague. He mentioned they were celebrating tonight as a specific bar one of the British guys knew about. I asked what they were celebrating, and he informed me that today was in fact, the 4th of July.
As we left we had to say our goodbyes, the hot Brindian girl and her not as attractive friend were getting on a train and leaving the city in a few hours. The two British guys and I went back downtown, and went our separate ways, we would meet back at the bridge at 8 PM and head for the bar.
I wandered around the city for quite a few hours, and realized the lens of my camera was severely smudged so none of my pictures would come out, and went to 4 different camera stores that didn’t sell lens cleaner. I ate dinner somewhere and eventually wandered to the bridge to meet those British chaps.
Then the girls walk up to me, they missed their train, and after I laughed for a good spell we made our way toward the bar. On our way to the bar where the 4th of July was being celebrated we turned around six or seven times and gave up in a head on the sidewalk. The Brindian called the British guys on their cell and we told them we’d be waiting for them in front of this church, relating directions somehow. The funniest part about the whole conversation is that we must have passed 3 dozen churches and they all look exactly the same in the dark. So we waited for a half hour in front of this non-descript church for help to arrive. Eventually we told him we’d meet him back at the bridge, somehow.
Eventually we met up and made it to the bar, where everyone from the Hostel was sitting outside at a huge table. Collectively the group was comprised of 6 Americans, 6 Brits, 3 Norwegians, 4 Irish Girls, and 2 Canadian guys. We sat there for a long time talking about topics ranging from Philosophy to Pornography and closed out the bar. After that there was only one place to go.
So for the second night in a row, we found a 24 hour convenience store, bought a huge amount of cigars, beer, wine, chips, water, and snacks, and headed back to what has become our north star in Budapest, the sprawling courtyard in front of St. Peter’s Basilica. We got there and sat in a huge drunken hippy circle, and had an unaccompanied Karaoke jam, with every song people from five different countries knew. A lot of Beatles, Zeppelin and Rolling Stones mixed with Pink Floyd, pop music, and we all learned some Irish Folk ballads. Some of the highlights include a two man re-creation of the American Revolutionary war between me and one of the Brits, and 14 drunk internationals screaming the American National Anthem at the top of their lungs at three o’ clock in the morning. At one point the group was joined by 3 Israeli’s with a little dog named Elvis who sat and hung out for the rest of the night, and 3 Hungarian guys stumbling back from some party, who all happened to speak English. We returned to the corner store to re-up on supplies 2 or 3 times, and I loaned the most attractive Irish girl some cash for wine, with the promise of meeting up at the bridge at 2 PM the next day.

Sensei Steve's Hungarian Drunktacular 2005 - Days 1 and 2

Wait what? I thought you were in Japan. Well I told you it would be anachronistic. I spent 4 amazing days in Budapest last year and I randomly found a huge write-up of it on my computer, as it was a personal high water mark for me in my travels, I'm going to share it, and you know what, you know you're going to read it anyway. It is also the first city I've visited in a foreign country completely on my own, not in a hostel, no friends, no family, and I managed pretty damn well.

So as my time in Prague finally ended it was time to go to Budapest, Hungary by train. I kind of almost gathered that the 7 hour train ride departed from Prague sometime around 4PM maybe, and maybe everyday, maybe. So I went and bought a ticket at main station, Havli Nadrazi, unfortunately the train didn’t leave from that station. So a quick fifteen minute ride on the metro(subway) lugging around my ginormous 7-ton suitcase, laptop, and backpack, naturally there were no escalators at those stations, and I was on the train. I ended up making conversation with a pair of kids from Ireland and England for a couple hours before I fell asleep. When I woke up there was a Slovakian girl in the car, so we talked a little bit and I got her e-mail, she lives in Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia, and I think I’ll be putting in a brief appearance there before I come home.
I get to Budapest, which is really like two cities, Buda and Pest, the two sides of the city are separated by the Danube river. I take a cab to my hotel at midnight for about 15 dollars, which was fine, since;
A: I had no clue where the hotel was,
B: I don’t know how to ask where it is since I don’t speak Hungarian,
C It’s midnight and nothing’s open anyway, and
D I’m hoisting a Hungarian college tuition worth of Electronics.
Most people in that situation, traveling alone, would probably get to the hotel and hunker down for the night, try and figure out tomorrow’s plans, and go to bed so they can wake up early to explore what appears to be an amazing city. Well, I guess I’m not most people, I went to the concierge told him to call me a cab, and told the cab to take me to a club. After about a ten dollar ride the driver drops me off on what appears to just be an abandoned fair ground in a place called Citadella.
So I see people stumbling around, which is good because it means there’s alcohol nearby. As I continue walking, up a fairly steep graded hill I begin to hear music, and as I round a turn I see the club. Two outdoor bars are straddling a dance floor in an outdoor club, which in itself is pretty awesome, because most of the time clubs are really just large basements in the middle of a city where you sweat through your expensive clothes and get overcharged for drinks; but here you get the benefit of a cool breeze as you get overcharged for drinks. But the best part of this little place was that when I turned away from the dance floor, drink in hand of course, and looked over the railing, I realized I was standing 1000 feet above the entire city of Budapest looking straight down on the Danube. It was just stunning to see this carpet of lights running down the length of the river and reflecting in the water, a 1200 year old fortress glowing from green spotlights overlooking massive suspension bridges, and an orange lit Byzantine church that has a design closely resembling Westminster in London; and I would have never seen it if I was planning out some tourist adventure, I was just being a hormonal, somewhat functional alcoholic. So if we’re keeping score, (Beer 6 : Tour Guides 2). I stayed out at the club, wandered around the area, and generally frolicked around until about 4:30, when this phenomenal view was replaced with an unbelievable sunrise – don’t worry I didn’t have my camera on me. As I walked down to where the cabs were, a sea of girls kept stealing all the cabs, so I wandered down the hill a ways and figured I’d catch one on the way up. So as I’m sitting on the side of a hill looking like a lost puppy waiting for a cab two Hungarian guys walk by and jibberjabber something Hungarian at me, and I respond with, “sorry, English,” to which they respond by smiling and yelling, “Oh, English, come on my friend.” I figured eh, why not, so I started walking down the hill with them, one guy turns out to speak pretty good English from working on Parkinson’s awareness projects in England and Australia with his mom, and the other guy named Peter was just too drunk to function, Paul was 35 and owned a chain of Karate Dojo’s in Hungary, and his friend was celebrating his name day, it’s like a birthday except everyone with the same name celebrates it on a certain day, and as such was in bad shape. So we went down to a little corner store which was either opening up or didn’t close, because it was close to 6 AM, and bought some beers and sat around in a Park chit chatting. Peter not drinking so much as vomiting, and was very worried about how badly his fiancé would beat him whenever he got home. Eventually, they got in a cab to go home and I figured since I had only seen the city at night through cab windows I would be perfectly capable of finding my way back to wherever the hell my hotel was, it was a few hours past dawn so I started walking, in what would be the first of four days in a row of trying to get back to the hotel long after dawn. So as it turned out I only took one wrong turn and the cab only took about 5 minutes to get me back to the hotel. But the sheisty son of a bitch wanted to charge me more than the cab driver who drove me 20 minutes from the train station to the hotel did. So sitting in a cab in front of the hotel at 7 AM, still drunk I’m arguing with a Hungarian cab driver, who didn’t turn his meter on, about the price of a cab ride, I told him there’s absolutely no way that the fair was right, and he tried to explain to me that the fair was based on kilometers, not time, and I told him that unless the cab was moving the speed of light there’s no way we covered that much distance, and when I began to explain that we would have returned before we left and I would be younger so I’d have more time to make money which I still wouldn’t use to pay for the cab he got flustered and graciously accepted 1000 forints, down from 4000, so I’m not entirely sure what I did, but it was damn good negotiating on my part, especially since I hadn’t bothered to tell him I didn’t even have the original amount in my wallet to begin with. I then fell into my bed and slept until about 6:30 PM the next day.
Since I got up so late I put off trying to figure out the bus system to get into town, I just called another cab, but before I got in the cab we agreed on a decent price, and he then dropped me off at an ATM so I could actually pay him. I strolled around downtime Budapest for a little while and decided I would not stop at a restaurant to eat unless it looked like it actually served Hungarian food and wasn’t one of the ten million burger joints for scumbag tourists with no sense of adventure, but after two hours I just gave up and went to one anyway, but I was damned if I was going to eat a hamburger, I had pork medallions wrapped in bacon with mashed potatoes and some kind of sauce on the side with two beers for about 15 dollars. God f-in bless Eastern Europe. Afterwards I was wandering around looking for a decent bar, as it was starting to get dark out, and an attractive Brindian (British-Indian) gal came up to me and asked if I knew where any good bars were, she was with another girl and two other British guys, so I joined them on their quest for a large wooden structure filled with alcohol. By quest I mean jaunt down the block, where we found an outrageously expensive, yet crappy bar, but they had outdoor tables so we sat down for a half liter of god aweful Hungarian beer, made each other’s acquiantence, and moved on. All 4 Brits were medical students at Leeds, and oddly enough the two pairs met randomly in town, not even knowing they were traveling at the same time. So we left that bar in search of a club, and after stumbling around for a couple hours couldn’t find one, so we stopped for ice cream, considered our options and pressed on into the night. We then snuck to the girls hostel, because it had a bar, and a cheap bar upstairs. The bar was called the Mellow mood, where we inhaled cheap shots of Hungarian schnopps and vodka, and spent the better part of two hours making ridiculous toasts to anyone, and anything that popped into our heads. We would have a toast to filling our passports, to traveling, to one night stands in hostels, ad infinitum. We gave up around 2:30 or so, went to a 24 hour corner store, loaded up on beer and junk food and starting trolling around the city looking for a nice spot to sit and chat in Hungary. We ended up sitting in this sprawling outdoor courtyard in front an a gorgeous 11th century Bassillica called St. Stephens. I remember scrawled across this black mass of marble and stone were the words I am the way and the light, in English. I was happy the words rang so true for having a good time outside of a church, although in our present state, being in the Church would have been a lot of fun too.
Around dawn we agree to meet the next day at 2 PM at this very recognizable suspension bridge and go to a Hungarian Bath. I walked across the bridge as the sun was coming up, it’s parabolic arch comes almost directly over the Danube, and it’s quite striking (no pictures). That morning I made the two hour walk all the way back to my hotel without taking a single wrong turn.

Cherry Poppin Daddies

On the left is Yama, my 1991 Suzuki Alto in my apartment complex, in front of the fairly impressive Cherry Blossoms that grow in my parking lot.

On the right is the school, I love this picture, because it captures the noise of the traffic, the odd shape of the building, and the huge ugly tower in the backyard. Talk about a picturesque place to work.

Oh, the entendres. I wanted to take a little while to explain Cherry Blossoms, because I've mentioned them a lot, and I'm sure some of you are wondering about my obsession with a tree. Cherry Blossoms are native only to Japan, it's the only place in the world where they grow naturally, in Washington DC there's a row of them that were traded for dogwoods from the Japanese government sometime after we made it apparent that Tokyo was going to do what we want. (What do you tell a country with two smoldering craters? Nothing, you already told it twice.)

Anyway, in Nihongo (Japanese) there is a verb whose only use, is to watch the Cherry Blossoms bloom, Hanami. Cherry Blossoms are more intrinsically tied to Japanese culture than Samurai's, Sake', Sushi, Small Eyes, Cartoon Porn, Bamboo, and Kamikaze's put together. There are probably about 700 trillion Haiku's written about them, thousands of books with them as the central theme, and they make liquor (quite tasty, 22%) from them. The biggest reason that they have become so precious is due to the amazing fragility of their blooms. A cherry blossom only blooms for two weeks a year, and after they reach full bloom, a single rainstorm knocks almost every single petal off them.

Some of my students have gotten into arguments over whether this year the Cherry Blossoms would reach full bloom on Saturday or Sunday. It's a horticultural science that almost everyone deeply follows. So arriving here two weeks ahead of the Cherry Blossoms and seeing them reach full bloom after a rave in the mountains has a heavier significance to it than, "Oh, that's cool." The Cherry Blossoms start blooming in the south in March at some point and they bloom in the northern, colder island of Hokkaido a few months later. People will literally chase the plants blooming up the latitude of the country.

Sorry to drop the knowledge on yo' fool asses, but I figured I would clarify.

Wheat Out

Fear and Loathing in Translation

Ok, so the first picture is right after we arrived at our destination, that small white dot in the sky on the left is the three quarter full moon.

The white trees behind the amphitheatre on the right hand side are all cherry blossoms.

The last picture is off the park we were in, but this picture is not even close to capturing anything up there.




Ben, Cathy (French), Rieko (Japanese) and I left Ben’s house around midnight on Saturday, a day spent mostly pacing around the house in confusion and snacking. Our destination was a psychedelic trance rave, in an open air amphitheatre, in the middle of a national park, on top of a mountain, that goes until 8 AM Sunday, in Japan. I could just stop there I think, but I won’t.
The four of us piled into Ben’s 1991 Suzuki Alto, the sister vehicle to my own toy car. It’s about 4 feet wide, the wheel’s all look like donuts, and the rear visibility is almost completely compromised by the fact that the school’s logo, SES (Shunan English School) and its phone number are written in opaque white lettering across the entire damn rear windshield. We were following directions written by a girl named Mika in broken English on a piece of paper where she scrawled a fairly detailed, but ultimately incorrect map of how to get from where we were to the rave an hour and a half away.
The first turn Ben took to get to a town called Hofu, was a wrong turn, three seconds into the drive we needed to make a u-turn already. Ben and I had resolved the day before that if we left on the trip we had to consider secondary options in the likely event that we got so lost that it was easier to just go to some random city and find something to do. I bought a six pack of 24 ounce Asahi’s (bieru) ((beer)) for myself, but I’d be damned if I was going to drink a ton of beer on a car ride that had the potential to take 4 hours, my bladder is about the size of a walnut. Cathy doesn’t drink at all, she is in fact healthy enough to make the average person look like a walking corpse, and Rieko is a typically shy, reserved Japanese girl, who pledged to get drunk so she could open up a bit.
We drove without too much fanfare for about an hour, there was confusion regardless of how dead straight the road was, and we skipped a few parts of the directions because the route we were on seemed more convenient. We stopped at a few convenience stores to load up on non-alcoholic supplies. An hour and a half or so into the drive (which was the ETA for the whole drive) we came to a town called Ogori, and we find Route 9, the road we need to take, we have no idea which direction to go in, so we picked one and went. For about 10 minutes down this road, we did not see a single functioning car, we didn’t see any animals, we saw maybe a half dozen broken down cars on the sides of the road, and then eventually we saw an umbrella, casually drifting between lanes in the middle of the road. It’s a pretty freaky little piece of driving in our packed up little Alto, and then Cathy pulls out this gem:

Cathy “Do you know, umm what is the word, the wolves under the full moon”
Ben “You mean werewolves?”
Cathy “Yeah, those are scary”

Eh, maybe it was just the timing that made it funny, and the French accent, but I nearly wet myself. That seemed like as good a time as any to turn around, so we turned around and went back down Route 9 the other way. For some reason it immediately felt like the right call, not that there were any cars on the road. It’s almost surreal how Japan, one of the most densely populated countries in the world, can feel like a post apocalyptic world, everyone safe in their bunkers waiting for the fallout to recede. At night the whole country is almost deserted even in the built up areas, most of the streets aren’t lit, and the silence in a lot of places can be desolate, no crickets, or birds, or scurrying animals anywhere. When we stopped for a while to relieve ourselves, we were greeted by the small swathe of sky not blotted out completely by the smokestacks and ambient light of a nearby city, and an occasional breeze rustling the soon to be naked Cherry Blossoms.
Eventually we crept back into civilization, and thinking about the sky I related an article I had just read about two black holes in a distant galaxy NASA has just discovered on a collision course to become one supermassive black hole, with enough power to swallow 100,000 Suns. When Cathy asked if a black hole destroyed everything that was sucked into it I explained that practically it did, but that wasn’t entirely correct, “In fact if a black hole swallowed a 2006 Chevy Suburban, it would come out looking much like a 1991 Suzuki Alto.”
We had now been driving for about 2 hours in our hour and a half trip, without seeing any of the landmarks drawn by Mika’s less that artistic hand on the Japanglish (broken English mixed with Japanese) map. Then we saw the car dealership we were supposed to see, and then a sign, and then *$&^, “Ben what the hell was that?” My face still smashed into the seat in front of me, Ben said “Akeyoshi-Di, the sign right up there said it.” So he took the corner at high speed and we were maybe off on the direction of the party. About 10 minutes later, there hadn’t been another sign, we hadn’t driven through the tunnel we were supposed to drive through, or seen this thing called the lotteria. We hung another U-turn and went back to the main road. We drove down route 9 some more when Ben thought he saw the tunnel, and Cathy thought she saw a tunnel, and I thought I saw a dark tree against a slightly less dark hill. Everyone whooped and hollered for about a minute and a half before we realized it was in fact a dark tree, in front of a slightly less dark hill. We hung another U-turn and decided to go back the empty road that at least had a sign for where we were going, we hadn’t seen a tunnel, or a lotteria, the only two landmarks on the map that signaled the end of the drive.
Then the road began to climb, and we all perked up a bit. Then we went through a tunnel, and we all perked up a little more, and then we went through three more tunnels and cursed Mika’s god damn map. At any rate we kept climbing up through the 2 AM darkness of blotted hill after blotted hill, the landscape was like a leaking inkwell, everything was simply different shades of darkness, a geographical Rorschach. The signs finally led us to believe we were 6 Kilometers away from our destination Akeyoshi-Di. What we didn’t know at the time, was that arriving at Akeyoshi-Di is a lot like arriving at Yellowstone National Park, when you enter you can still be 30 miles from Old Faithful, but old faithful wasn’t spinning trance music and dispensing beer and other illicit substances to a boatload of Japanese girls.
We climbed up these mountains for what seems like an hour, there were parking lots, empty parking lots, everywhere. We had decided if we saw even a group of 3 or 4 cars parked together it meant, get out, and find the damn party. We had been warned by one British guy that the “rave” might only be 20 people, but we were ok with that. Then as we reached the very top of the mountain, it happened. We started going back down again, no party, no music, no girls, nothing, we just kept sinking back into darker and darker turns in the road. Eventually we stopped at the next pull-over, having almost given up completely, we’d been driving near 3 hours, we were in the middle of nowhere, we hadn’t seen a car in at least 20 minutes and we finished the last of the snacks we brought. We called Mika the map-maker but since it was almost 3 in the morning she didn’t pick up her phone. My vote was to keep going the way we were going for a while, Ben completely disagreed, and the girls were ambivalent. Bear in mind each one of us had made one wrong decision about which way to go already. The decision was ultimately solved for us; a car came, the first car in what seemed like months. We jumped in our car and sped down the road to follow it, and not three &*$!ing minutes down the road, was a massive parking lot, PACKED with cars. There must have been at least two hundred cars in the lot, we got out, we could hear the music, and everything that happened during the drive instantly faded from mind.
I grabbed my bag and a beer, Cathy took a group photo, and we headed toward the thumping bass ahead. Since the party started 4 hours ago nobody bothered to charge us, and we walked to the “rave.” When I hear the word rave, it instantly conjures up images of seedy abandoned wearhouses across broken industrial and meatpacking districts across every city in the country, where underage girls and men of all ages inhale ectasy and grope around in the darkness for 8 hours or until the cops swarm in and break up the party. Raves have that illicit sub-cultural quality and the allure of danger, specifically because they are so illicit.
This was an actual amphitheatre, the dj’s or mc’s or whatever they happened to be called spun from a little booth under this angled wooden building, the dance floor sprawled out for 50 feet in every direction in front of them, and ten huge rows of wooden stadium rows rose up the hill around the dance floor. There were no authorities there, no police, no security, no event staff, just a horde of Japanese ravers and some gaijin out in the open air dancing to trance music, with no judgements or sidelong glares. There were no defensive cliques of girls dancing together, or guys standing around the bars waiting for the girls to get too drunk to care that they’re only there to pick up girls. The vibe, as we young kids say, was incredibly positive, everyone came to have a good time and lose themselves in the overwhelming immensity of the music and the surroundings.
I immediately began snapping some pictures, the moon lolled between two sets of mountains directly behind the dj, booth, and a hundred Japanese men and women, girls and boys, most undoubtedly on “E” gathered and un-gathered on the dance floor and lost themselves. Ben is a huge fan of electronica music, and he knew this sub-culture existed here, so for him, this was his nirvana. He and Cathy cruised down to the dance floor, while I wandered around a bit, trying to drink away the cold, and drink up the buzz for a little while. Rieko being the reserved girl she was, sat on the bench and cracked open a drink for a little while.
Behind the stadium seating on the hill, dozens of tents, and campfires, and drum circles, and people covered the grass. One group had brought those sticks that are about three feet long that you twirl around. I know that fairly ambiguous, but you hold two of these wooden or rubber sticks in your hand, and the third stick has two bulbous soft ends, and you twirl the third stick, or spin it around, or throw it in the air and catch it with a single stick. I’m sure whatever they were on at the time made it incredibly fun, I had a good time watching them for a little while, and all I had was a couple of beers.
Eventually after I had wandered my fill, and drank a half dozen beers, I took my bag back to the car, just as I was heading back to the rave I remembered I had my spelunking light with me. For those of you who don’t know, it’s a small flashlight attached to a headband, and mine happened to have a red-light option on it. You can ask why I would need a red light on my flashlight, I certainly have in the past, but right then I finally realized what it was for. It was for raves in the mountains of Japan in pitch darkness, so I grabbed it and headed back to the dance floor. I turned on the light, moved the bulb down so it shone directly on my face, and then proceeded to do everything which a human being could not truthfully define as dancing, but it didn’t matter, because I looked like a total badass doing it. Ben was a big fan, Cathy thought it was hysterical, and my new Japanese lady friend was a big fan as well. After a solid hour and a half or so of dancing, I walked off the dance floor to talk to a girl I had seen dancing who at least spoke broken English. After some aimless chit-chat we’d both decided it was getting colder, and we’d be much warmer in the car. So we left the party for a spell to “warm-up.”
Afterwards, dawn was finally breaking. The music never stopped, but all of a sudden the whole black rave became a vibrant playground of colors. There were about 50 massive, sprawling Cherry Blossoms right behind the stage, that were a bright pink and white, and we didn’t even notice a single one of them on the way to the party hours before. The campfires behind us were becoming ash, the sun rose with the beat to peak over the mountains, and we all stood together in silence for a while, as all people who know they’re witnessing a moment which will shape their lives in unforeseen ways do.
The rave was coming to a close, and we’d all started wandering away from the dance floor for different reasons, Cathy met a Japanese couple and engaged them in conversation. When I came over for a good vantage point for a picture, she handed me the flyer they’d given her. There was another similar party, during our week off. A two day rave was happening during our week off…in a volcano. In a &*$#ing VOLCANO. Done, I was sold, I don’t get paid before this vacation, and I’d wanted to do something in Japan, now I’ve found it.
Ben was talking to three very hot Japanese girls he was dancing with for a while, Cathy came over and took pictures of them, and he got some e-mail addresses from them I think. Knowing how this type of sub-culture tends to be I’m sure we’ll see them again at the volcano. The last half hour consisted of a lot of snap shots and we got in the car and began the trek home. It was about 7:30 or so in the morning.
On the road back, this entire sprawl of ink spots, and dark unintelligible masses became a national park. Winding back through the small curved roads, every valley filled with a morning mist, as thick as clouds, the sun sprayed small rainbows through the moisture and the air was as fresh as any I’ve ever smelled, at the first turnoff we stopped to take some pictures. After such an amazing night, the morning proved that Japan wasn’t done with us for this trip yet. For the first time since I’ve landed, standing next to an idle car soon after dawn in the mountains, I admitted this was in fact the land of the rising sun. Nothing I have ever seen is comparable, and I know for a fact none of the 4 megapixel images will do it anything resembling justice. We stood there reveling for what seemed like a long time, talking about the distant night and the new morning with the sound of motorcycle drivers tearing down the mountain paths in the background. Cathy lived in Nagoya, a much larger city than Tokuyama for three years; she said this was the best experience she’s ever had in Japan. My initial thoughts about the country receded with the dark air of that night in the mountains, I’m beginning to warm up to the place, and I knew as we got back into the car, that a year from now, I would definitely miss it.

Colonel Sanders has Yellow Fever

I just love this picture. This is the statue in front of the KFC near the school. Juxtaposed with the sign in Japanese characters. They love their fried chicken here, and their American southern dixiecrats. We salute you Colonel. The secret ingredient is Japanese tears.

The photo to the right is at El's Ditch, Ben has no idea that I'm taking the picture apparently and the other two are the Austrian's you'll read about in a few paragraphs.


So I’m skipping the rest of my work week and moving on to last night. To sum it up, the classes are usually younger with older ones mixed in. I ended one lesson to a bunch of Japanese housewives explaining the difference between heterosexual, homosexual, transsexual, bi-sexual, and cross dresser for some reason, I don’t know why it came up. Also for some reason I taught a high school girl about plate tectonics.
Anyway, last night started as I think many nights here will start. Ben came over with beer and I cooked dinner. Yes, I’m easily bought and very domesticated. So I was going to cook chicken Katsu, which is essentially the Japanese version of chicken cutlets, the problem was I superheated the oil, so the first batch of chicken was flash-fried almost instantly. I put them in the oil and thirty seconds later they were black and the chicken was completely cooked. I remedied the situation, but there were, literally, massive clouds of smoke hovering throughout the apartment. So we opened the backdoor, the front door, turned on the hood over the burners, and the fan in the bathroom, and the smoke still lingered for about ten minutes. However, though I don’t like to toot my own horn, or at least admit the fact that I like to toot my own horn, the food was awesome. If Ben were a petite Japanese girl, I’d probably still be in bed right now. So we ate and polished off a six pack of 24 ounce Asahi’s (Bieru) ((Beer)) and headed off to meet some of the other Gaijin (Whitey’s) at the only Irish Pub in town called El’s Ditch.
On the way to the bar we bought a beer at the nearby 7-11, because one of the only laws more liberal here than the US is that you can drink in the streets, thank god. So we make our way down the hub, the nerve center of Tokuyama, a city of 120,000 people, at midnight, on a Friday, and there is no one on the streets. It’s like a gold rush city after the veins have all dried up. When we get to the bar ( I have pictures but I think Cathy stole my cable when she was using her camera) there are 4 other teachers there, and a few Nihonjin (Japanese folk). There were also two Austrians at the bar, from a tiny town nearby called Hikari, they work for a silicon company called Siltronics. I remember this because on the card the company’s motto was “perfect silicon solutions,” and I commented to Martina that in the US the only people who use that phrase to describe their business were plastic surgeons.

So the Austrian dude was 25 and the extraordinarily hot Austrian girl’s name was (deleted to protect the author from Blitzkriegs). This young lady, who is 23 is just drop-dead knock down gorgeous, so naturally I made it a point in a small bar, to engage her in a very long, I am clearly hitting on you, conversation. We spoke for the better part of a couple of hours maybe. When they two Austrian’s left the bar, after I gave her a hug, and got her card with her e-mail etc…The other Steve turns to me and says, you know the Austrian dude is her boyfriend right. I laughed my ass off, literally, the two lobes of my gluteus maximus disengaged themselves from my tail-bone. In America if you hit on a girl in a bar, she will almost always work in a way to mention, “oh, my boyfriend” etc, and this girl didn’t drop the old routine once. So despite the fact that I made a huge ass of myself, and apparently Ben did the same thing a week ago, for much the same reason, it’s become pretty apparent that this girl is not very happy with her relationship, or she’s just a massive flirt.
So the other people at the bar were Rob (the x-factor) the other Steve and wife, I only call her that because I have no idea what her name is, but she is very attractive and has a lot of personality, and a Japanese teacher Rieko. There was also this Japanese character who spoke broken English, slurred, because he was fall on the floor drunk, and the source of quite a bit of amusement. At one point he was claiming Rieko as his girlfriend, so I asked him why he had a ring on his finger and she didn’t, at which point he yanked his wedding ring off of his hand and gave it to Rieko. He also tried to set me up with the Austrian guy, who I said was very handsome but not my type. Just your typical drunk who’s very personal with a lot of people he doesn’t know, and doesn’t realize both how uncomfortable he makes people, and why he was so damn funny in the first place.
So when we left, Steve and Wife, and X-Factor hopped on the bicycles. Steve saw the look we gave him and made a point of telling us he ripped the Dorothy basket off the front of the bike, but then he made a point of ringing the little bell on the bike. Nobody can escape looking lame here, but it’s refreshing that it’s accepted.
So Ben Rieko and I went to my favorite place in Tokoyama, OPA (The Elvis themed Karaoke bar where the owner performs) So when we walk in at 2:30 or so I greet the owner, who I had forgotten I taught the old college handshake too (regular shake, then up a little to lock at the thumb and then use the edge of your fingers to make a snapping sound at the end). He’s a cool guy, there’s no way around it. So we order two beers, which were horribly poured, so I had to get behind the bar and show the kid bartending, again, how to pour a beer without too much head. I don’t think the owner had any intention of playing that late, since there were only the three of us and two other patrons sitting in the bar, but when I asked him he got right up there and played, Country Roads, and we requested Blue Suede shoes.
After that I finally did it, I sang at OPA with the guy, I looked at the book and picked out Come Together (Beatles tune) and rocked it out, to much applause from the two Japanese people. But I’ll be honest, I did the song a little justice, it wasn’t horrible, one might almost call it…ok? We were probably in OPA a little past closing, around 4:30 or so, still pounding beers and carrying on as young people in Elvis themed Karaoke bars in a small city in Japan do, when we said our good byes and left. On the way back to Rieko’s car we stopped at a 7-11 for some beer and microwaved meat products. When we got back to my apartment complex it was past dawn, so Ben and I sat in the grass and chatted near the three really beautiful cherry blossom trees in the parking lot, it was our own private Hanami (the Japanese verb for watching cherry blossoms). We came back to the apartment, I cooked some rice and then crashed until 3 PM or so today.
Apparently Ben parked in someone’s spot though. Which is a huge fucking deal here, and he had an e-mail from another teacher that the head of the school wanted to talk to him. Because luckily for us, the company cars have the telephone number of the school plastered on the back of them in huge fucking numbers, so Ben returned to the tenant who complained and brought her some candy and apologized. Tonight we are going to a huge rave on top of a mountain around here which apparently ends sometime after dawn when you can look down on the surrounding cities near all of the mountain cherry blossoms. I expect no short story to come from it.

Wheat Out

Specialist in International Humanities

According to my visa I am a Specialist in International Humanities, according to my Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) certificate, I am qualified to Teach English to Speakers of Other Languages, but by all practical measures my only necessary skillset to do the job I’m doing, is to make sure as hell I was born and raised somewhere where they spoke English. So being born in the USA is essentially what qualifies and entitles me to the position I hold here.
My first week of “work” as we shall refer to it, started with a class of three ten year olds. We started by passing a plush, oversized strawberry around the room and saying every food we could think of, which the overweight kid is really good at. He comes up with gems like avocado, calzone, and fried chicken. We then passed the strawberry around and counted to 30 or 40. After that it was time to learn. So we played leapfrog, we were reviewing prepositions, so after they leaped one another I asked them who was in front of them, and who was behind them. Then we played twister, after each contortion I would ask them which foot was next to them, who was under them, who was on top, etc…Then we did a few minutes of work in their book, and class was over. Man I wish I was still sitting in a cubicle.
After that it was off to the infamous banker’s office. I feel like I’m starting to collect my own Seinfeldian characters at this point. Though I don’t have a “man-hands” yet I think we can now appropriately refer to this character as “grab-hands” or GH. So I went to GH’s office, due to the fact that he’s exceptionally busy, even though it’s slated to be a two hour lesson, it will often run only 45 minutes or so, and will often be interrupted to some phone call or other. The class itself consists of me waiting in a small waiting room, walking into his office, drinking tea and eating little sandwiches, and talking to him until he gets tired of me and tells me to leave. I brought pictures of the house, the family, (he knows where you live) and of places I’ve traveled. And oddly enough before he kicked me out he gave ME homework. He gave me a small book of Who’s Who in Japanese history, which, I have to say, is perfect for me because it’s exactly what I was looking for to get a little perspective on the culture.
Now to the important part of our meeting, the exit, that small corridor between the office and the elevator which separates the men from the boys. Ingeniously I wore a backpack to this meeting, and as we walked out of GH’s office he had his hand on my shoulder again, and I think it moved a little bit down the bag, but then I think he was frustrated with no clear way to surreptitiously slide down to the naughty place. So, on the one hand I’ve found an easy way of triumphing over this assiduous awkwardness, but on the other hand I feel a little sorry for the guy. I mean this guy probably knows almost everyone there is to know in Japanese high society, he bought one girl a bike, he hooked one teacher up with some gig in Tokyo just by picking up the phone, so in the long run, if letting GH cop a feel every once and a while is what it takes to ensure stellar connections, maybe it’s worth it to go a little above and beyond the call of duty. I can pretend I just hit a triple or something and the third base coach does the olde ass-pat. I mean for some reason its ok in baseball, why not in international banking and language coaching.
You see how I’m torn.
So after that class I went to the “Rune Rune Club” to teach some more businessmen. Now this is a really difficult assignment too. I have to show up, and talk, and subsequently listen to them talk, for an entire hour. Seriously, this is my job. So this one gentlemen owns a Sake Brewery, that’s right, he brews Sake, and then travels all over the world to secure exporting deals for it. The other guy in the class wasn’t there, but I’m sure he owns something valuable and useful as well. So we talked about his travels, my travels, and I actually learned a great deal about the Japanese political scene because I brought in an article from BBC.com. There are essentially two Kennedy families in Japan, a conservative one and a liberal one, and they’ve both pretty much established dynasties on the main parties and the Prime Minister’s office since the second world war. Hooray for democracy on the march. Day 1 is over. I’m a teacher, it’s a damn tough job but somebody has to travel around the world talking to people.

Wheat Out

Mr. Beer and Chicken a la Samurai

Your hero in the foreground, rockin the camel hair jacket, the other Steve right next to me, British Rob (who I've dubbed the X-factor of the group) and computerholic canadian Sean in the midst of some alcoholic squat thrusts


As I sit here eating dinner, a concoction of rice, ham, shrimp dumplings, octopus dumplings (apparently that’s what they are) soy sauce, and two other sauces I can’t identify but taste tested, mixed with some sugar, I realized I haven’t told you how our hero faired during this excellent weekend in Nihon (Japan).
Friday ended my observation period, and oddly enough it ended with me actually teaching a woman who was a potential student. All of the gaijin (whiteys) and Nihonjin (Japanese) teachers were meeting at this area an hour from school called Sunzoku. So Cathy (French), the other Steve (USA) and I jumped into a Japanese battle van driven by one of the Japanese teachers and drove off. Her choice of music on the way consisted of Kings of Leon and The Strokes. I was not really ready for how surreal the whole place was going to be, because I thought we were just going to a restaurant, it turns out to be like the Japanese version of Medieval Times. Although disappointingly there were no colored samurai to jeer and taunt, the area was built entirely to look like Fuedal Japan, everything had a thatched roof, hanging lamps everywhere, weird doll things floated around, and opium dens as far as the eye could see. Well, not so much opium dens, but suffice to say if it actually was feudal Japan, and not a crude knock-off, there would damn well have been opium dens somewhere.
The spellbinding power of the buildings really died as soon as we walked out of the car though. We strolled past six rows of chotchky, useless crap being sold to get to the restaurant, which brings me to the title of the post. Once we got to the restaurant the interior was definitely realistic of…something. All the teachers were gathered at one table, I would say there were 16 or so of us in all. We all sprawled out on pillows on the ground because the table was only about a foot off the floor. But it’s surprisingly comfortable and for some reason much more social. All around the table were huge pieces of wood, like two hundred year old tree trunk size, and we had to duck, or climb over, or jump, or veer out of the way of a rolling boulder Temple of Doom style everytime we needed to get a beer or use the facilities. Though the four of us in the battle van walked in fashionably late, we only missed about a beer’s worth of conversation, so Ben and I quickly moved to remedy the situation. We didn’t order more beer at the restaurant, but we did walk outside about 50 feet away to the beer vending machine, which actually turned out to be about the same price as a supermarket. So I put in 350 yen, and out popped a 24 ounce Kirin. Rinse, lather, and repeat 5 or 6 times. This ice-cold box of brew will now lovingly be referred to as Mr. Beer.
The meal itself is where the real medieval times reference comes in. When I say that everyone at the table was eating chicken on a stick, I don’t mean yakitori, or a kebab of some kind, it’s literally a giant chicken breast on what’s essentially a wooden sword. Whatever you can't gnaw off with your mouth, you pick at with your hands, and it was drenched in a tasty sauce as well. So the "chicken a la samurai" was a great hit with all the gaijin (whiteys). So we all paid and left the restaurant around midnight, and then as is typical with gatherings of co-workers, stood around outside for about an hour trying to figure out what to do next, who was driving where, who was going to keep drinking, who wanted to go to sleep etc. In the end, two steve’s, a ben, and a cathy decided to go to a proper karaoke club. So one New Yorker, one San Franciscan, one Frenchie, and one other Steve, who was undoubtedly born somewhere, went to a Karaoke bar where we were later met by Steve’s Japanese wife.
We had one decision to make when we entered the Karaoke bar, which was if we wanted the 2 hour all we could drink price, or the regular price with ordering overpriced drinks occasionally. So three seconds later, after we’d paid, we went to our room. Now, this will take some explaining for the folks at home. Apparently a real Japanese karaoke club is much different from anything you might know of. In fact I like it a lot better than anything we have in the states, or even in Turkey where rows of Karaoke bars seduce drunken brits to sing Soccer Hooligan songs until the break of dawn. So at a Japanese Karaoke bar, you pay a flat fee, and then you go into your own very comfortable room with couches and chairs, and there is a large TV and some microphones inside. So basically you can go with your friends and get drunk and sing without an entire bar hearing you. I (tone deaf) really appreciated it’s discrete nature. The room also has a phone to call down and order drinks. Which we may have used a solid 8 to ten times over the course of two hours. So the five of us (Steve, Steve, Cathy, Ben, and Steve’s Wife) sat in a room picking out American songs (although Cathy sang some Japanese songs as well) ranging from Eminem to Aqua’s classic hit single, Barbie Girl. Which I’m proud to say thanks to the men nailing their part (Come on Barbie, Let’s Go Party) we achieved our highest score of 9.7 on the song. There is a rating system, but I have no idea how it works or what it measures. The highlights of the night were probably when Ben gave up on hip-hop lyrics and began freestyling about sushi, teaching English, and Tokuyama, and then ended one rhyme with “so why don’t you kiss your wife.” The rhyme was so impressive that it was followed by Steve trying to oblige Ben by leaning over to kiss his wife, and summarily falling straight onto the floor in the process. After our 2 hour drinking period ended we didn’t have much of a reason to stay at the Karaoke bar so we left, although the fact that it was around 4 or 5 AM might have had something to do with it too. So Friday night was over, I came, I karaoked, I conquered.
Saturday was mostly spent in a daze after waking up at about 4 PM. I don’t think anything remarkable happened, and I decided not to go out Saturday because I was meeting Cathy to run to the top of Tycozahn, which is the tallest mountain in the area, where I assumed I could get some good pictures, and I would try to purchase a cell phone.
But, of course, I woke up Sunday and it was pouring. So I met Cathy and then we went to Vodaphone to procure a portable communication device. Cathy lived in Nagoya for 3 years so she speaks close enough to fluent Japanese to seem like a native speaker to me. We got to Vodaphone, I picked out a plan where I got unlimited texts and e-mails because actual minutes are ridiculously expensive here, and bought the phone for 58 bucks, the only thing I’ve seen that was cheap. I was told I needed to present my papers I got from the Tokuyama government office (because I don’t have my alien card yet) and everything would be settled and they’d give me my phone, and put the bill on my debit card. However, when I dropped Cathy off, picked up the papers, and returned they said my address wasn’t on the papers, so I couldn’t get anything. I’m in the process of having the school snail mail me a memo because they said any mail with my name on it would do the trick. But, as usual I have the sneaking suspicion nobody involved in this situation knows what the hell they’re talking about.
After that Cathy, Ben and I met up at around 7 PM, and we went to the 100 YEN STORE!!! It’s a dollar store for those of you reading this in English. Dollar stores in Japan are nuts, they make Wal-Mart look like Tiffany’s. Apparently what happened is that Japan looked at itself and said, “Wow, shit’s really expensive here, maybe we should utilize the fact that 9 out of every 10 workers in Asia are slave labor, and import something.” So this place had hardcore pots and pans, clothing, gardening equipment, food, dishes, glassware, plates, sick-ass sharp knives (for the kitchen) office supplies, shampoo, conditioner, soap, and everything is good quality stuff.
Then we went straight to the second-hand store and I almost wet myself, wait, nope remembering it now I did just wet myself a little. The whole bottom floor, that’s right this is a multi-floor salvation army (although maybe the Buddhists call it the enlightenment army or some such tree-hugging rapture-less nonsense) consisted of books and electronics and musical instruments. Although they only had about 6 books in English and they were all children’s books, it’s still a big used book store, which excites me nonetheless. Upstairs was entirely devoted to clothes and furniture. I’m not too proud to say I bought a Winnie-the-Pooh pillow, because it’s the first pillow I’ve come across in two weeks, but Ben bought a really nice couch, and a huge desk, and is having it delivered to his apartment for 150 bucks. When you consider that a bag of rice, in Japan, is like 12 dollars, that’s a pretty disgusting deal. After that your hero went home and planned some lessons for his first day of work.

Wheat Out

First Week Roundup

Well like any alcoholic or alzheimer's sufferer, there are moments I remember with crystal clarity and everything else passes through my head sponge in a watery blur. The bulk of the week was spent travelling to my accustomed classes. On Tuesdays and Wednesdays I teach until 9 or 10 PM, but I never have any classes before 11 AM, which I am very excited about. Not just because I have a lot of options as far as boozing and carousing go, but I like being a night owl, and I won't have to change my post college twenty-something timetable of pacing and listening to music until 3 AM every night.
Driving. Holy Crap, driving is crazy here, the first time I got in the car and drove was pretty crazy, the whole left side of the road thing. Everytime I need to make a turn I repeat the mantra of tight left, wide right, so I don't cause some limb severing pile-up. All the street signs are in Japanese but luckily all the major arteries are numbered, most of my driving to class happens on route 2, so I'm ok there. My car is a tiny Honda from the civil war era, it couldn't hit 100 if you dropped it out of a plane, but I've been driving Saturns my whole life so it's not so hard to get used to. Also, I'm constantly getting in on the wrong side of the car, since the driver's side is also switched here. Other than the main roads, all the back roads here are tiny, most can't fit two cars side to side, but almost all of them are two way streets.
Karaoke is quite an interesting endeavor here. I've gone to an atypical Elvis themed Karaoke bar a couple times, the owner speaks pretty good English and I think we've reached a rapport at this point where he undercharges me a little bit if I decide inebriation is in order. The owner also is the headline act, he plays guitar and sings a wide variety of English and Japanese songs, and if he knows the one you want he lets you sing the song. The last time I stopped in I ended up drinking with a trio of Japanese real estate agents who were decent chaps, they said thankyou about a hundred times when they left, which makes me feel pretty good because people thank me just for my company here.
I also taught my first two classes this week. Which I will have to remind the school's administrator that according to my contract I should be paid for. Both classes were private lessons, the first one, which I think was on wednesday or thursday, was one woman who wanted to brush up on her English because she is getting married in Hawaii in a couple months. So we talked for a half hour or so, I tried to gauge what her weak points were, and then I used some kind of travel English workbook to do some listening and reading excercises etc. The important thing is that the class was a trial class, and afterwards she decided she would come in every week, so I just earned the school a student on my first lesson, which I assume looks pretty good for me. The second lesson was a Japanese High School girl who was pretty shy and nervous, and we talked for the entire hour because I had no idea what else to really do for the first lesson, for some reason I ended up explaining Plate Tectonics at some point during the class, but she said she understood what I was talking about. The funniest part is when I try to explain something, she will tell me the Japanese equivalent and all I can say is, "umm, maybe" so it makes it a little hard to know if she knows what the hell I'm talking about half the time, but nothing catastrophic happened so I'm satisfied.
The weekend isn't over yet, but It's already proving quite interesting so I'll try to cover everything on Monday.

Wheat Out