A weird thought...

So, a song by Skid Row happened to pop into my head today. It's called "Wasted Time" and it's a totally kick ass power ballad. So I decided to download it, and I've rocked it three or four times tonight already. I also realized that "Slave To The Grind" was released in 1991. I got it when it first came out, so that means I was 7 years old and listening to songs with titles like "Get The Fuck Out." Man, what a badass I must have been.

This had nothing to do with Japan.

Attention: Secret Santa

Are we doing secret santas this year??

If we are, I desperately, desperately NEED this!

Farewell To The World

A new-found sense of Pride

This weekend ROCKED!!!

Friday, I got off of work, came home to shower and change, then headed off to Noda, Chiba (where Manami lives). We met up in Kashiwa and walked around a little bit. Very very unfortunately, the Jethro Tull shirt I found but didn't want to buy cuz I hadn't been paid yet has been sold. Sucks, it was an amazing shirt, and it was yellow. Still, I got over it fast and we headed to Manami's house for dinner. Her mom cooked a delicious kind of white creamy soup with potatoes and carrots and the like, and also sticky rice with oysters, shrimp, and squid in it. It was really good. I brought them a bottle of shochu as an omiyage (gift), so we drank it with dinner and I got a nice little buzz before bedtime. Her parents are cool, even if I BARELY understand them.

Saturday, we visited a shrine because Manami needed to pray for a job. Fairly amusing. It was fun though, and it's 3-5-7 season, so there were a lot of people there and adorable little kids in kimonos. 3-5-7 is a time of the year when kids aged 3, 5, and 7 celebrate and go to shrines and stuff like that. They get presents from their family and go out to eat and stuff. These three numbers are considered lucky numbers in Japan. They also had yatai set up (food stands), which I absolutely love. I ate a obonyaki, which is a cream-filled kinda pancake thing. So good. Here's a picture of the shrine.



After that, we went hunting for work clothes for Manami. I found a kick ass reversible sweater-jacket thing that was really cheap. I left it at Manami's house though, so you all will have to wait for a picture of it. It's SO BADASS though.

Went back to Manami's house, chilled for a while, and headed to Tsuchiura. There was a Halloween party at my part-time, so we went. I was Ryan Hime (Princess Ryan), because I was too lazy to look for a costume and Manami had a crown at her house. It was fun, here's some pictures.


L to R- Richie, one of the ALTs. I think he's from California, nice dude. Me, I hear he's cool. Tomoyuki, the manager at my part-time and the bass player in the band I saw a few weeks back. Cool dude, amazing English skills. Mei, one of the students at TIA. She's cute.


Manami, myself, and some random guy. No idea who he is or who he's supposed to be.


General shot of the party scene with Manami doing an interesting pose in the foreground.


Awww cute.

Manami, some of the other English teachers, and myself topped the night off by hitting up a club in Tsuchiura called Pride. There was a reggae show, so we went. It was pretty sweet, and kinda made me respect Tsuchiura a little more for having such a sweet show in town. I danced, got way too drunk, had fun. Some Japanese girl tried picking me up, which I think made Manami angry, but it wasn't my fault goddamit. I'm just too cute, I guess.

Anyways, I guess I had a little too much fun because I woke up with an absolutely brutal hangover. Puking and everything. Sorry mom and dad, it happens sometimes though. Actually, this is the first time I've had a puking hangover in a long time. Oh god, it sucked. But i'm better now, if not a little tired. For dinner, I had a tonkatsu and soba set. It was delicious.

I had an idea for a book. Basically, I would take pictures of everything I eat in Japan for maybe a year or so, and have a little write-up on each thing. Like what's in it and stuff. It would be like a coffee-table book. Anyone think publishers would go for that? Easy money would be my main intention here, of course.

Staying on the subject, let's finish this blog with a picture of a meal I had last week. It's from a fast-food joint called Hokka Hokka Tei. It's ridiculously cheap and ridiculously delicious. I think I will revisit it this week. Here you are folks.

Today started as what I thought would have been the worst day in my Japanese life, but now it's the end, and it really hasn't been all that bad.

Today was one of those days that makes me bitch my one complaint I have about Japan- it rains way too fucking much. Sorry granny and poppa about dropping the f bomb. Anyways, I woke up to a downpour and massive wind. I had to pedal hard going DOWNHILL. That's how windy it was. Oh god, and I was teaching at a school farther away than usual. So, here I am soaking wet, making a turn onto the street near the school, when a van starts turning and doesn't stop. I didn't have time to stop, but I was so blatantly there, I couldn't believe he didn't notice me. So we collided. Basically, I just hit the side of his car and side mirror very hard. I knew on my way there that if there was a day to get "hit" by a car, it would have been today. Then, litereally 50 meters ahead (yes, i'm used to the metric system now), another van comes sooo close to hitting me, I turn hard, and fall off my bike. Sometimes Japanese drivers can be so fucking stupid. Okay, two complaints about Japan.

So, I arrived to elementary school where I had to teach 3rd graders (9 year olds) and this is where the day started getting better. As most Japanese people are, the teachers were so nice to me, gave me a towel to dry myself off, and took my cotton jacket thing and actually put it in the drier for me. They then hung it up so it would completely dry. They also brought me lots of snacks, coffee, milk tea, and green tea. And of course, when face-to-face to 30 something 9 year old Japanese kids, it's pretty much impossible not to be in a good mood, regardless of how dripping wet I was in front of them. Each class ended with me signing autographs with them, and letting them touch me. Uhh, I just mean on the hands and stuff. It's amazing how crazy they get about an American in their school.

Then I came back here to dry off and relax for a couple hours. My next mission was my part-time job. I taught Fumiko, who I taught last week. She's a totally sweet, maybe 35 year-old woman who's going to see Foo Fighters next month and shit. It's an interesting class because I'm teaching her how to give better speeches. It's not really "English class." Unfortunately, TIA hired a full-time employee and he will be teaching her from now on. That bastard. After that, I had a man I taught before. Can't remember his name but he's like 60 and speaks absolutely horrid English. It's actually very interesting teaching him, though.

Besides that, I had two nikuman for dinner. Nikuman are these circular bread-type things stuffed with meat and various sauces based on your choosing. You can get them at any conbini (7-11, sunks, family mart, lawson, etc) and they're only 100 yen ($1). Score. I think I've lost some weight in Japan, which is nice.

So a bad day got better, and that's all I've got to say for now.

I promise I'm gonna try and keep updating as much as possible. Sorry to anyone who stopped reading for my lack of updates, but it's not like you're reading this right now, so kiss my ass!!! (Just kidding, of course...I mean, unless you really want to kiss my ass, that's fine).

-ryan

Weak End.

Nothing much too exciting happened this weekend.

I want to start this blog off by asking anyone in Rockford an urgent question. It has come to my attention that Leonardi's Steakhouse is no longer Leonardi's Steakhouse, but has become some kind of "Bar & Grill" (as if there aren't enough of those in Rockford already). While the fate of Leonardi's always seemed sealed in my opinion, due to the lack of customers there all the time, tell me it isn't so. Can someone confirm if they are still serving delicious, garlic-infested skirt steak with heaps of mashed potatoes? If they dropped this from the menu, consider my returning to Rockford an impossibility.

That's a joke of course.

Anyways, Friday, little ol' Manami came to Tsuchiura, we hit up a brand new izakaya and ate some standard izakaya fare like okonmiyaki with cheese and mochi (yum), some yakiniku, fried chicken bones, tako wasabi (slimy, raw, spicy, and so delicious), a potato augratin thing, and maybe a couple other items. All this accompanied with two massive beers and I was a happy camper. It's cool when new places open in Japan because they place beautiful flowers all over the business, and it smells good everywhere and is nice to look at.

Saturday, we ate at a Kyushu ramen restaurant that was good and about 5 minutes walk from my house. Kyushu is the region with cities such as Fukuoka, and the ramen is prepared in a different way. I think it's more miso-based and a bit more oily. It was pretty good, but nothing on my sweet genkotsu ninniku ramen. We then walked god knows how long to find a park in Tsuchiura I had never been to before. It's on Lake Kasumigaura, the 2nd biggest lake in Japan, and features a massive windmill. It was nice. The weather has been beautiful here all weekend.

I watched Suicide Club last night for the first time since I came to Japan this summer. I was dumbfounded at how much I understood without having to read the subtitles compared to the last time I watched it. It was a satisfying feeling, biatch.

Today, beautiful day, so I rode my bike to Tsukuba and ate sukiyaki. It was good, the beef was a fine quality. Now I'm gonna study some more.

So is anyone sending me cereal? Let me know, because I will gratefully receive.

Don't you feel better about yourself after reading this whole blog that was fairly pointless and talked almost completely about food?

Sorry, next weekend should be more exciting. It's a 3 day weekend, and I plan on raging Shinjuku hard. Peace.

Okama, oppai, onabe, sharapoa.

What do all of the words above have in common? They're all slang used to describe either gay people or breasts. In addition, they are all words I would never have known if it wasn't for my sweet yon-chu students.

Anyways, holy god, the last update was 8 days ago already? Sorry about that. Let's try and get all you crazy bastards up to speed.

So Wednesday, I kinda had the day off. Actually, I headed to Mito, the capitol of Ibaraki (the prefecture where I live) to get my Visa. I can officially stay in Japan for a year without having to worry about immigiration crap. Solid. Mito's a pretty nice city. I'd probably rather live there, except for the fact that it's much farther from Tokyo.

Thursday, I taught at an elementary school. I've taught so many random elementary schools now, that I get them mixed up. I can't remember anything special that happened there. Well, the teachers loved me because of my passion for Japanese food. Go figure.

Friday, back to yon-chu. I taught 3rd graders. They rule. Then what the hell'd I do. Hmm. I don't know. Saturday was the Hanabi (fireworks) festival. It was pretty cool. I didn't realize it at first, but it was half-show and half-competition. So they announced fireworks one-by-one and it was cool, some of the fireworks actually made flowers in the sky ("hana" means flower and "bi" means fire, so in Japanese, they are called "fireflowers"). Like, the firework would shoot up, then explode to the left, then to the right, left, right, making a stem and then the big circle was like the actual flower. Here's some pictures that don't portray that, but I think are cool anyways.



As it turns out, I ended up getting pretty drunk and taking great interest in the yatai (food stands) they had set up. I ate delicious beef on a stick, fried chicken (called "karaage" in japanese, served with mayo and very delicious), obonyaki which is like a batter-based kinda pancakey sandwich filled with custard cream, and my favorite thing- jyagabata (that last part is the japanese pronunciation of "butter"). What these are are steamed potatoes with a massive slab of butter thrown on top. You can also put miso on it (not the soup, but the actual base of miso soup...it's an orange/brown color), giving it a salty kick. Let me tell you, it's fucking good. Here's a picture of it in Manami's sweet ass hand.


Here's an okay picture of the crowd and a small portion of the food stands. There must have been several hundred food stands, but they all served the same stuff.


Anyways, Sunday, the kinda manager guy at my part time job, named Tomoyuki, had a rock show with his band in Tsukuba. So I went. There were 8 bands. His band was pretty good, they were kinda funny. I was blown away, though, by the band that came after them. They were like Japanese prog and reminded me of Dream Theater and Mars Volta. Amazing drummer and a hot little keyboard player too. I bought their demo from their guitarist, and he seemed pretty psyched that a gaijin (foreigner) was buying their cd. He shook my hand vigorously and did a thumb-to-thumb handshake thing with a big smile on his face. It was cool. It was also kinda funny watching the band, because they were shredding their instruments and all rocking out and stuff, then between songs, the singer would talk and sound like a polite little japanese guy. It was funny. Here's a picture of Tomoyuki's band.


Monday, I headed to Kashiwa in Chiba prefecture to meet up with Manami and have a little goodbye party for her friend who is going abroad to Australia. We hit up a buffet restaurant called PARTY PARTY that was delicious and cheap, then went to The Hub and had a drink. Then I went home.

Tuesday, I headed to Shinjuku (in Tokyo) for the almighty Cheap Trick. Manami came with me, and Rick was nice enough to hook us up with all access passes. Cheap Trick was really good, actually, probably better than when I came here with them 5 years ago. Anyways, we headed backstage and hung out with Karen, Aaron, and Rick for a little bit, hada couple beers. Rick was funny...he kept saying little comments about how cute Manami was and stuff. She didn't realize it though, because he was using roundabout-ish English, until I explained it to her after we left. Good times indeed. Here's a shot of CT from above.


Next we walked around Shinjuku for a while. They call walking around with nothing to do "bura bura." Anyways, here's a shot.


I didn't have much of a chance to see Shinjuku when I was here before, and now I realize how awesome it is. There are shabu-shabu restaurants everywhere and bars that play 70s music and stuff. I will be returning soon.

Monday at school, I was hanging out with some 3rd graders during cleaning time/recess. 2 girls came up and started talking about "okama" (gay men) and stuff. They asked how to say it in English and I said "gay." They started giggling and then walked away. As they were walking up the steps, I hear them asking each other and other students "Are you gay? Are you gay?" Good ol' international communication.

I have a new favorite little food here in Japan. I don't know what they're called, but they look like this.

It's mochi (pounded rice that's very soft and chewy) stuffed with anko (red bean paste, not to be confused with "unko" which is a slang and vulgar term for "poop" or "shit"). Delicious, naturally sweet, and actually healthy.


To end this blog, here's a picture of a place in Shinjuku. I never realized that a man could have a hot box, but apparently anything is possible in Japan.

Read on all ye faithful!!

Yes, to all my faithful readers, all three of you girls, here is a new blog post. Sorry for the lack of updates this week. I have been either busy or had nothing worth writing about. Yes, things are starting to slow down for me here on this little island known as Japan. That's okay though. We'll start with Thursday.

Thursday I taught little, little kids. They were so effin' cute. I think probably 7 or 8 years old. We learned parts of the body. I held up flash cards, sang "Heads Shoulders Knees and Toes" a bazillion times, then had them sit in a circle and play a game. Basically, I would call out a part of the body and then they would have to pass a ball around the circle with that body part to the other person's body part while saying the part out loud. Ie, I would say "HEAD" and hold up the flashcard, then they'd pass the ball from head-to-head while saying "HEAD!" It's a good time for the kids, and let's me just stand there not doing much. Here's a kinda crappy picture of that action.


Again, not the best picture.

Anyways, Friday it rained like I've never seen somewhere rain before (Okay, MAYBE in Mustique). But the rain and wind combination was RIDICULOUS. Of course I had to ride my bike and this is where the weekend started to suck. I finished work at Yon-chu and it was still raining. However, Saturday, Bloc Party tickets were going on sale and I had to make sure I knew how to get them. So I rode all the way to the train station (about 25 minutes in hardcore downpour) and worked the machines at the combini (conveniecne store) then came home. Utterly soaked. I stayed in my apartment the rest of the night.

Saturday I woke up early, headed to the combini to get the tickets. Bloc Party sold out in 5 fucking minutes. I was pissed. Even though I got there early, I couldn't get tickets. I still got Mars Volta tickets, which is good, but still. Goddamit.

Manami came to Tsuchiura and we hung out and cleaned my apartment and stuff. I had a cold and am still kind of sick, most likely from the downpour. Of course, the rain brought sunlight, and we went on a walk. We found this shrine.

One pretty cool thing about my city is that it's on Japan's 2nd largest lake. Because of this, it's a very old and fairly historic town. I ride through neighborhoods of traditional-style Japanese houses all the time. You can see old architecture all over the place (as well as newer buildings downtown and stuff). This shrine is an example of that antiquity.

Sunday, we headed in to Tokyo. First, we went to Harajuku. There was a flea market and I met Manami's friend, Ha-chan (nickname, i can't remember her real name...Did I mention Japanese people LOVE nicknames?). She was fucking hilarious. I wish I had a picture of this girl to show you how she was dressed. She had a huge hat on with red-white-and-blue USAs all over it. Anyways, she was selling stuff at the flea market, and Manami and I walked around. I found a Rush shirt but wasn't interested enough to buy it.

Next, we went to Shibuya to get some food. We hit up an all-you-can-eat Indian restaurant I found when I was here this summer. Indian food in Japan is soooo good in Japan. That reminds me, I didn't realize it until Wade mentioned something in an e-mail. Then, I went over my blog and realized, "Wow, I really am oddly obsessed with food." That's okay though. Anyways, then we walked around, shopped a little, then met up again with Ha-chan at The Hub. It's a total gaijin bar, but it's okay, because it's cheap and the music is good. Here's my one picture I took in Shibuya.

I hope you think this is as funny as I did, because I had to deal with some embarrassment of being a man and taking a picture of this so close.

Anyways, yeah, Monday brought not much excitement. I rode my bike to Tsukuba and ate at a tabehoudai yakiniku place that was okay, but kinda gross. Do you all know what tabehoudai yakiniku means? You should if you keep up with this blog!!! Just kidding, but it means "all-you-can-eat thinly sliced meat that you grill yourself" all in the convenience of 2 words.

Today, I worked an epic day. First yon-chu, then straight to part-time work from 5-9:30. For that second job, I'll be getting paid about the equivalent of $100. NICE! And I got more hours. I'm gonna be banking so hard, at least relatively speaking in terms of jobs I've had before....ahem. The yon-chu work today was great though. In the morning, I taught 4 classes, blah blah, ate lunch. Then for the last 2 periods I chilled with the kids in their cooking class. Some of the kids stuff was pretty decent, but I had to be nice and say the "marble cupcake" and "banana lemon pancake" were good, even though they were dry and pretty tasteless. One kid, who I thought was semi-retarded, made a delicious Okonmiyaki. I was impressed.

Okay, that's about it. Next weekend is the hanabi matsuri (fireworks festival) that was supposed to be this weekend but was delayed because of the rain. It's the largest fireworks display in Japan, and it happens to be in little ol' Tsuchiura, so I will try and take some awesome pictures. Hopefully my cold's all gone by tomorrow. That's it. Peace.

-ryan

Good times.

Today was a nice, relaxing day at yon-chu. It was art day, so the kids painted pictures all day. The first- and second-graders went to various parks to do their work, while the third graders went around the school and drew. It was great, because I got to know the 3rd graders a lot better. Unfortunately, I teach 3rd graders with the teacher who is a bitch, so I dont really have the opportunity to feel comfortable and mess around with the 3rd graders in class like I do with the other kids. So, this was a good day. I started trying to draw a picture myself, but it sucked, so I gave up and walked around to see what everyone was drawing. Some of the kids were really good.

For the most part, I chilled in a classroom with four girls who are very cool. They always test me to remember their names, so I actually remember them- Risa, Mizuki, Yuka, and Eri. Now, Japanese people have a tendency to shorten words or names as much as possible. For example, Brad Pitt is often referred to as "Brappy," a cool band called Beat Crusaders are often called "Be-Cru" and things like that. So, we were talking about restaurants in Japan, when I mentioned First Kitchen, a delicious japanese fast food chain. Well, apparently they shorten this to "Fir-keen." Now, with a Japanese accent, this sounds EXACTLY like "fucking." Man, when I heard Yuka say that I burst out laughing and she had no idea why. I explained that this is "Eigo no waruguchi" (English badmouth) and they laughed a lot too. Good times!

The following picture is from a 2nd grade picture. I had been waiting for a time when there would be no one in the classroom so I could get this picture. I think it summarizes all that is funny about Engrish.



Need I explain anymore?

In all honesty, the whole L-to-R confusion with Japanese people makes a lot of sense when you've studied the language, but who cares. This is too funny. Especially since it's plastered in the center of a public junior high school's classroom.

Here's a picture of Manami and me. It's actually from a couple weeks ago. Aren't we cute?


Oh, and I shouldn't forget to mention. Today was my first time being hungover at work. Oh god, the morning sucked. I thought a puking session was imminent. Last night, I got waasted at an izakaya with the other Tsuchiura ALTs (assisstant language teachers) and also one of the vice principals at a different school. He was cool and apparently liked my drinking ability, because he wanted my number and email. Sweet, I have a 50-year old Japanese friend. That's all.

Weekend Roundup with this badass.

Good weekend. Friday I taught four 5th grade classes at a different school (Shimokatsu or something) and it was fun The kids were cool, maybe not as cool as the last elementary school, but cool. Still, if I had to sing "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes" one more time that day, I probably would have done something terrible, like urinated on one of the kids or something. It was fun anyways.

I got out of work early, which was great, because I had time to go to City Hall and get my gaijin card. Yes, I am officially a gaijin! Basically, this is an ID card that says I'm allowed to stay in Japan as a resident teaching english. Gaijin is kind of a slang term for "foreigner," and actually often has negative connotations. The correct word is "gaikokujin" which literally means "outside country person." I enjoy being an outside country person.

After that, I went to the bank to get an account set up, but they needed a goddamned hanko. A hanko is a little stamp that all Japanese people have. The stamp contains the kanji for their names. I figured since I was an official gaijin, I wouldn't need a hanko, because it's impossible for kanji to represent my name. Still, they said I can get a katakana hanko, so I had to go to the store for that. It won't be ready till monday, so no bank account yet, but my hanko is on the way.

Next, I headed to Manami's house in Noda, Chiba. We went to the grocery store with her mom and then Manami made Japanese-style curry. It was delicious. Her mom also bought a couple sanma (i think that's what it's called), which is an autumnal fish. It was good. We ate it straight up, whole fish is on your plate and you slice right in and pull the bones out and all that. Tasty.

Saturday morning, we were watching TV and eating breakfast, when randomly on a TV show, they started playing "Surrender" by Cheap Trick in the background. I explained that this was the band I came here with during my first stay in Japan. Cool. Next, Manami had a sayonara party for one of her colleagues, so I headed to Harajuku and shopped a bit by myself. And by "shopped a bit," I mean I got the coolest shoes I have ever had. Check these out.



Sorry Jonathan, but these put Dunks to shame. I'm just saying!

A word about these shoes for anyone interested. The company is called BAPE, short for A Bathing Ape. It's a Japanese clothing company that has made it's mark on Japanese culture by selling everything in limited edition quantities. While that means fairly exorbitant prcies for some things, I got these shoes at a decent price (read- not even a dent in my mofo paycheck! BOOYAH!). Excuse me. Anyways, yeah, BAPE stuff rules.

After my shopping extravaganza, Manami met with me at Harajuku and we ate at the legendary Jyungara Ramen. It's famous, it's all over the internet. It was delicious. I wanted to take a picture, but it was really crowded and I didn't want to look like a lame tourist.

Today, I spent all day cleaning my room and doing the laundry. I tried a new shrimp burger from McDonald's and it was deicious. For dinner, I had TakaraJima (yakiniku, thin meat you grill yourself, blah blah). It was good. Now I'm gonna study and go to bed. LATES!