Having a good week!

Okay, so last week, things were starting to slow down, I was getting a liiiittle bit homesick and had been happier in my day. But this week is totally kicking ass. I made some new friends on Tuesday. We met up and played poker at a bar called VIP in Sakura Machi. Sakura Machi is a little area right outside of the train station that is filled to the brim with slezy bars, "pink" salons, hostess clubs, and all the rest of the kind of places that leave little to the imagination. Understandable, as "sakura" means cherry blossoms, which are pink and often have sexual connotations, and "machi" means "town" or "city." BUT, this place was different! I PROMISE! VIP doesn't charge you $30 an hour just for sitting in their bar. But, the girls do dress up in skimpy french maid outfits, which, i'm not gonna lie, is pretty awesome.

But alas, I dwell. There were 7 of us playing poker and I came in 2nd place and won 1000 yen. NICE. But I ended up spending said money on beer that night, so really I just had a free night of entertainment. It was actually my first time going out to bars in Tsuchiura and it was pretty fun. I got a little too drunk, stayed out a little too late, and was hungover and absolutely exhausted at work. But work is easy, so who cares.

Today, I hung out with the dude who took first place in Poker, named Nam, and his friend Yu. We went to Tsukuba (Nam has a car...solid) and ate delicious DELICIOUS Korean food. Korean food is fuckin' good. I had a spicy noodle bowl with good meat and some carrots, daikon, kimchi. I didn't take a picture though.

But, we went to an arcade and I did take a picture of this:


It's probably a little hard to tell, but it's one of those catching machines that grabs things like stuffed animals. Except instead of stuffed animals, this prize was a double-headed shot dispenser. I thought that was pretty awesome, funny, and picture worthy.

Then we went bowling. I got a 95. Not bad for being shitty at bowling.

That's it. I smell like Korea, thanks to poor ventilation in the restaurant. BYE!

Concerts, food and other shite.

Long time without an update. My bad! I hope you all had a fantastic Thanksgiving. Send me your leftovers. Actually, don't. That'd be gross.

Okay, catching up where I left off. Two weekends ago was fun, but nothing special. I don't really remember what happened, but Manami's mom wanted me to come to their house to eat nabe with them. Nabe means something like "one-pot" and is basically any food served as such. Very family-oriented and Japanese. You sit around the thing and eat. Here's a picture of me looking cute in front of the nabe.



Flash forward to Wednesday. I headed to one of my top 3 favorite areas in Tokyo- Odaiba. It was time to see Mars Volta, and they blew me away. Actually, they blew my senses away, because the next two mornings I woke up with vertigo. I hope that's the reason I had vertigo anyways. All good now. Yeah, I went with one of the other English teachers in town. In the extremely rare event that you're interested in reading a review of the show that I wrote, go here.

Odaiba has one of my favorite views of Tokyo. It's actually a man-made island that was originally created to fend off Commodore Matthew Perry, the American who forced Japan to open it's doors to international trade in the 1800s. And yes, he had the same name as the Friends star. So, it's kind of like you're on the opposite side of Tokyo and can see the city in all it's glory. Here's a bad picture I took with Christmas spirit in the foreground. The blurry, thin red/white thing on the right of the tree is Tokyo Tower, a tourist-trap Eiffel Tower ripoff that is still kind of cool, and the huge bridge is Rainbow Bridge.




Wednesday was also Manami's birthday, but we celebrated over the weekend. I got her a scarf and some chocolate and a body shop gift box thing. When I gave her her presents, she cried. She was really, really, really disappointed...Just kidding, they were tears of joy. How cute is that?

We went to Tokyo to celebrate her birthday and I treated her to dinner at a nice restaurant called Fujimamas in Omotesando. The food was delicious. We started with a calimari appetizer and I got steak and mashed potatos but forgot to take a picture of the latter. Here's the former.



Refined, right? Yum.

Here's a picture from the same area where we had dinner. These dogs were just chilling there, having no qualms about wearing glasses.



A new mall opened near Manami's house, so we went there on Sunday. It was probably about as big as Woodfield, but filled with 80% more junk that you would never need- a cafe' for dogs being a good example. Additionally, it has a grocery store inside of it. Here's a scene you wouldn't see in most American groceries.



That's a man slicing a massive tuna fish into small pieces. He then took each piece of meat, packaged it, and put it into people's hands for buying. Pretty nasty looking, but I don't think you can get much fresher.

Here's another cool thing.



What the hell's that, you say? I don't blame you, I said the same thing. Basically, you put an apple in there, close the lid, then I don't know, maybe it sends an X-ray or something. Whatever it does, when it's finished with the process, it tells you the percentage of sugar in the apple as well as various other information that I couldn't read. I thought it was pretty awesome.

Finally, it's now monday and a new ramen shop opened up right by my apartment, so I tried it. It was pretty good, but was much different than the other types of ramen I've had. You'll notice the broth is a light brown, and I'm not sure but I think it's some kind of tonkotsu ramen. That means the broth is made with crushed pork bones. It was pretty good, but I think I prefer the ol'-fashioned soy sauce based shoyu ramen. Here's a picture.



That's about it for now. I might go to Tokyo Disney this weekend. If I do, I'll be sure to take pictures. Miss you all. See the mustiquers in 25 days...nice.

A post before the week-end.

Just to space things out more, I thought I'd update about my day yesterday, since it was a special one. Warning- I'm exhausted, so if this post lacks any of my clever and awesome sense-of-humor, forgive me.

Last night was wednesday, and I had heard about a cool event going on in Roppongi (foreigner-central) in Tokyo. Keep in mind, I usually hate when there's other gaijin (foreigners) around, it's a weird sort of self-loathing reverse-racism thing that I can't explain, but most gaijin in Japan feel the same way. Don't ask me why. Still, for the most part of last night, I felt like I stepped out of Japan and was back in America or maybe somewhere in Europe.

Anyways, after teaching SIX GODDAMNED CLASSES to elementary school students (my longest day ever), I booked it to the train station. Arrived in Roppongi around 5:30 and met with Manami. We had dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe. I thought it looked cool, and I think the last time I'd been to an HR Cafe was 5 years ago in Fukuoka with mom, dad, and Jonathan. After living in a country who's main source of nutrition is based on soy sauce, rice, and small portions, can you blame me for wanting a massive, American-style meal? Didn't think so. And let me tell you, Hard Rock Cafe is damn good at satisfying that crave.

Here's what I ate. Yes, my first mashed potato experience of Japan (besides the mashed potatoes they fry and serve as croquettes, which don't count, I tellz ya). Oh, and sorry about the next few pictures Venetia ;)



Manami got a pulled-pork sandwich, and beieve me, I took bites. She dispised her baked beans, which I thought was funny, and very "not American" of her. We then split a massive hot fudge brownie sundae. It was DANK. Oh yeah, but Japanese cherries are kind of sour and have big seeds. Not cool.



Here were my two favorite pieces of memorabilia:


Fuck yeah, one of Ian Anderson's (of Jethro Tull) flutes. So badass.



And some Skid Row memoriabilia. Damn, them boyz some youth gone wild!

After Hard Rock, we headed to a little place called Super Deluxe for a film screening by Donald Richie. For those who don't know (I'm assuming that's everyone), Donald Richie is THE film critic when it comes to Japanese Film. He's lived here for like 60 years, is fluent in Japanese, and has written some awesome stuff on the history of Japanese movies. This was the last of a 6 part event of avant-garde, artsy Japanese cinema, and he actually showed 5 movies that he made himself (in Japan). Very pretentious and artsy stuff, but I kind of expected that. Not to mention the club was playing jazz with uncountable time signatures and all I heard were foreigners talking about shit they thought they pretended to know all about, but really just sounded like assholes. Still, it was fun, and one of the movies featured a family eating one of their members at a picnic.

Yeah, so it was a good night.

Completely unrelated, I don't know if I've mentioned this, but Japanese people love random old music. For example, there are many MANY students at yon-chu who will tell you they love The Carpenters and Abba. Additionally, you'd think Queen was a new, living band in Japan. There's this one Queen song, I'm assuming it's called "I was Born to Take Care of You." Does anyone know the song I'm talking about? The people here love that song, it's on TV and all this shit. Second graders at school were singing along to it while doing their English exercises. I don't know. It's crazy!! The song is pretty good, but it's like "why?" Also, picturing Freddie Mercury writing lyrics like "I was born to take care of you" makes me laugh. I mean how GAY can you be? No offense Amy, Nikki.....Gerry.

Tomorrow, I have a very short day- only two classes. I will be teaching 4 and 5 year olds. Yep, kindergarten. Additionally, all the moms are going to be there, and I here they will have cameras and all this type of shit. Yay....

Finally, here's a picture of some place in Roppongi that was closed, but still amused me. Manami found nothing perverted about this estabishment, but I did.



Bedtime.

Starting to get a little chilly in Japan.

Today the high was 62, and for the first time, it felt a little chilly in Japan. Still, tomorrow the high is 69, so it's all good.

Had a three day weekend this weekend, which was nice. I learned that there's a word for such weekends. They are called renkyuu. I wish all weekends were renkyuu weekends. So, Friday, I was thinking about going to Tokyo and hanging out, but decided to be cheap and stay in Tsuchiura. Manami came in to town (surprise surprise, right?) and I told her I wanted to go to a restaurant that I'd be too intimidated to go into by myself. She was cool with this idea, so we found a place pretty near my house and it has now become one of my all-time favorite restaurants in Japan.

Basically, this place was a teppanyaki restaurant. But when in Japan, "teppanyaki" doesn't imply a benihana- or JMK Nippon-style restaurant. Instead, these are places where you sit and there's a grill on your table and you do the work yourself. This restaurant, called Aoi ("blue" or "green"), was delicious, cheap, and offered HUGE portions. We actually ended up going there 2 nights in a row, because it's close to my house and it rained all day Saturday. It was cool too, very "Japanese" feeling, as you have to take off your shoes before sitting at the table, and your feet hang down into a pit. Check out the pictures.

The daily special was a garlic okonomiyaki. Could this have been more perfect? So they bring you a bowl that you mix and then pour out like so: (by the way- all pictures on this blog are clickable and enlargeable)



Then, you let it simmer, add bacon (yum) and fry up an egg. Then you flip it, and it looks like this:



Manami insisted on being in a picture, and this one shows how the grill is right at your table:



The massive okonomiyaki concoction costed all of $6.50 or so. We also ordered some other stuff, including scallops and butter.




Yum, delicious, so good. I could go on about this place, but I think we all get the point.

Sunday, I took it easy. I was actually a little bored. However, on Friday, Maatsura-sensei said I could take the isshobin of sake that had been sitting in the teacher's office. What's an isshobin you say? It's a bottle that equals around 1.8 Liters. So, I took a hot bath and drank hot sake, then passed out. It was nice.

I couldn't even dent the sumabitch.



Today, I went to Tokyo, met up with Manami, and we ate at MoMo Paradise (the all-you-can-eat sukiyaki/shabu-shabu place). I got fat. Then we walked around for a while. Now i'm tired.

That's all folks!!

Mars Volta in 9 days. Mustique in 39.

I am listening to Jethro Tull.

Today was a unique and fun day. Instead of going to yon-chu, I was picked up by Zach, one of the other ALTs (Assisstant Language Teachers). We drove to meet up with all the other ALTs at the community center kinda place where you can go camping and stuff. Kids from a different school were staying there, so all of us gaijin went to play games and make curry and stuff. It was fun. The first half of the day, we chopped potatoes, carrots, and onions and made Japanese style curry. It actually turned out delicious, and I got exposed to a sweet culture point at the same time. I had never seen this done before, but we took hollow bamboo that were filled with rice, added water, and placed tin foil under them and on a little hole in the top. After letting the bamboo roast over a fire, we took them off and sliced the bamboo open horizontally. Once opened, you had a little bamboo boat of cooked rice. Plus, the rice had a really good smokey, stickey, bamboo kinda flavor. It was awesome. I wish I had a picture to show of this, but I forgot my camera.

However, Justin, a good man and one of the ALTs, brought his camera and took some pictures. They are from the 2nd half of the day when we went to the gym and played games with the kids. Without further ado:

Here's a shot of me and some of the other ALTs not working.



Shot of some of the kids:



Me doing something stupid to make the kids laugh and point.



After the workin' day was done, it was photo-op time. Here's all the Tsuchiura ALTs and some extras (the three guys on the very right and left and the two women work somewhere else):



That's all.

Thank you mom for the cereal. I indulged in my first bowl today and it was oh so delicious.

This weekend, I gotz another 3 day weekend, so I might go into Tokyo. You know I'll keep your sweet ass updated. LATES.

And you thought only The Grateful Dead could steal your face...

Before getting into my new blog post, I'd like to say Gerry- It's good to see you are fully recovered and back to posting comments. Cheers, brah.

So I decided to call it a weekend a little early this weekend, because even though it's Saturday night, I am damn tired. Also, it was a three-day weekend, so it started on Thursday. Work on Thursday was excruciatingly easy and boring at the same time. I sat on the computer in the teacher's office literally all day. But, I'm getting paid so I can't complain too much. The kids had exams to determine what high school they'd be getting into. The school system in Japan is very stressing on the students and ridiculously competitive. I feel bad for the kids sometimes. Like I ask them "Kono shumatsu wa nani o shiteru no?" or something along those lines, like "What are you doing this weekend?" To this, they almost always answer, "Studying." Poor bastards.

Anyways, after work I headed to Manami's. Her mom made a delicious dinner called Nikujyaga which means, almost literally, "meat and potatoes." Of course, cooked Japanese stylee it's pretty different than what one might be used to in America. It was really good though. We also had miso soup, pickled cucumbers, rice with stuff in it that tasted good, some fish, and mushrooms. It was good.

Oh yeah, then after that, her parents took me to a yakitori-ya (chicken-on-a-stick-shop). It was awesome. Totally a place that I would NEVER go into by myself because it's SO Japanese looking and no one knows any English, the menus are all kanji, etc. So it was cool, we ate a little more, drank shochu (a Japanese liquor, it's good and strong) for a while, and then they busted out the karaoke. Shochu and karaoke, you know what that means. I hit the mic hard. I started with Cheap Trick, "I Want You to Want Me" to represent the hometown. I think one or two (of the fifteen or so) people there knew the song. Then a couple other people sang, then it came back to me and I sang "Daite Seniorita" the best I could. Manami's dad helped out on the kanji I couldn't read, but I pulled it off and well, impressed the fuck out of the Japanese people there. You heard me, no being humble about that one!

I meant to take a picture of the place, but forgot.

Friday, Manami and I went to Roppongi. She had an interview and got the job, because her English is so good (Roppongi has the heaviest concentration of foreigners in Tokyo). We then met up with my friend John Suzuki (the only red-haired Asian kid i've ever met, he's half-Japanese and half-Irish), who is from Chicago and was studying abroad here in the summer with me, but lives in Nagoya. We walked around a little then went to Shibuya to meet up with Hoko and her friend who is also from Chicago but is here with the US Marines. He was okay, nothing to write home about. Or more specifically, nothing to write in your blog about. Here's my attempt to be artsy and capture a Roppongi skyline. Tons of cool architecture in that area of Tokyo.



Still, we had a good night. The 5 of us headed to a restaurant I found online called Kushiage Monogatari. This translates to "The Tale of Fried Food on Skeweres." It was awesome. All-you-can-eat for 2 hours. All the food is stuck onto sticks, then you bring it back to your table, dip it in batter, breading and fry it right there. There's everything from mussels to bacon to broccoli (yes, deep-fried broccoli...it's a gastronomical oxymoron). It's so dangerous, but so delicious. There's also like 10 different sauces, most of which were delicious. This is a kind of restaurant that would NEVER fly in America. Not only are you handling raw meats, but you have a deep-frier in the middle of your table. Like so-



Speaking about the danger aspect, on more than one occasion, grease "popped" out of the frier. I was handling a little desert rice ball and accidentally dropped it in the frier. We all forgot about it, then like 15 minutes later it exploded and grease went everywhere. I got hit the worst, as about 3 big drops of grease landed on my face. Now, there's little areas of skin missing on my face. Hopefully it won't scar. Yes, this restaurant will quite literally rock your face off.
Don't worry, though, it's nothing too bad.

John, Manami, and I then found a small small little bar to chill at called the Beat Cafe, I think. It held maybe 10 people and played all punk, ska, indie rock, and 80s britpop and stuff. It was very, very cool. I want to go back. The bartender said he'd met Bloc Party like 3 times.

Crashed at Manami's house because mine was too far. Woke up, went to Kashiwa, and ended the weekend on a high-note. This CD store had a MASSIVE section in the center of the store labelled "Progressive Rock." I about shat myself right then and there. They had a ton of Yes bootlegs, and I found one from 1971, when they were just finding themselves as a band, and now i'm listening to the double-disc from 1977. TOTALLY BADASS.

Here's a picture of the reversible coat thing I got last weekend. Pimp right?



Finally, ANA has just started flying direct Chicago to Narita, and there's commercials on it for TV. I think you can get some really good rates, so come visit me. Oh yeah, and I fully encourage communication in the forms of my blog comments. Keep it up family and friends. Peace.