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.