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.