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!