Look what I missed!

So, this is kind of an illegit post because I'm not actually in Japan. I'm en route to Mustique, BOOYAH. So I'm in New York. I ate buffet dinner at the hotel and then headed to the fitness room, because I did some pre-flying research on beating jetlag, and they suggested eating a good dinner and working out. So I did that.

Onto my point, holy crap, when did I miss all these Deal or No Deal premiers? Bob Sagat hosts a show now? Identity? What the hell?!?! Did someone say reverse culture shock? Not to mention being surrounded by fat, loud Americans again!

I'm digging this "1 Vs 100" show, but Identity was pretty lame.

What do you think?

Either way, it beats TV I can barely understand featuring people with green hair talking about the latest fad in ramen.....or does it????

Last blog of 2006.

So here we are at the end of the Japanese semester, and I'm leaving tomorrow for Mustique. As excited as I am, I just got home, and must say I'm actually a little sad to leave Japan, even though it's only for 2 weeks. It makes me wonder if I'll ever be able to leave Japan (at least anytime soon) for an extended period of time. It's just too awesome here. Still, I miss home, the family, the ol' friends, and of course, Leo (my dog). God, I miss Leo.

Anyways! It's been a while since my last update. Last weekend was pretty relaxing, but Manami and I made sure to eat a special dinner. We decided on a kobe beef joint in Kashiwa, Chiba. Here's a couple pictures...food, what a surprise right?


This ain't no Nippon's. This is the real deal.

Yum. The filet was especially tender and awesome.



Good dinner. Manami got me some kick ass kicks for Christmas. They're Nike Court Force Low Premiums featuring a purple/blue/light blue colorway and two different colored nike swoosh logos on each shoe. Pretty loud and badass. I would upload a picture, but they're already in my suitcase.

The next day we went to Shinjuku, one of the more lively areas in Tokyo. We just kinda walked around all day, shopped for Xmas gifts, and I ate one of the better pizzas i've had in Japan. It had salmon and salmon eggs. Salmon eggs are called "ikura" in Japanese. Additionally, "ikura" means "how much" (as in "how much does this cost"). So there's a japanese joke- "Ikura wa ikura da" (how much do the salmon eggs cost). HOW FUNNY IS THAT?? Right, uh yeah...anyways...My students taught me a bunch of other similar "jokes" like that. They're fun to use and impress Japanese people thoroughly.



This week, I had a pretty relaxing week of classes that required little to no work. Tomorrow is the end of the semester ceremony, and I think I'm going to have to give a goodbye speech in Japanese. That should be totally awesome, as I enjoy butchering the Japanese language whenever possible. The last two nights I hung out with Nam, the JET in Tsuchiura. Tonight we went to four, count em, four arcades. Took some pictures and shite. Maybe I'll upload them here in 2007. Oh yeah, we also ate pretty decent mexican food, thereby popping my "Mexican food in Japan" cherry. Good stuff. Also, I ended my night with my first Japanese microwbrew. I think it was called "Heart" or something like that. It was actually really good, and i'm slightly buzzing. It was a big bottle.

I hope you all have a very awesome Christmas and New Years. That's all for now.

If my plane goes down, play "Don't Dream It's Over" at my funeral. Thanks and I love all of you!!!

-ryan

Just a quickie.

Here's a quick blog update to hold you over.

Monday a funny thing happened. I went to VIP for the weekly game of gaijin poker and lost my 1000 yen (around $10) in about 10 minutes. That's not funny, so stop laughing. Anyways, there were a few new people there this week and I shake one dude's hand, named Calvin, and he tells me something like "Oh yeah, I know you." I'm like "Eh? What?" and he's like "Yeah, I read your blog once." Heh, trippy bro. He stumbled upon in coincidentally. Small town, I suppose. Good guy though. You reading this Calvin? What's your freakin' email address?

Anyhoo, I learned recently that in Japan, the ABC song is different than ours. It goes like this "a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, j, k" but instead of the "lmnop" combo, they just keep at the same pace, with a "l m n" and continue on in the same melody with "o, p, q..." I'm assuming this is because the sounds made with "lmnop" and the many sounds not ending in vowel sounds are difficult for Japanese. Now sing that to yourself. Doesn't it sound funny? I cracked up the first couple of times I heard this version. Not to mention, when you reach z, it sounds like a terribly abrupt ending. And they don't say "double-you" either, just "double." I don't know, it's funny, though.

And as for the comments- Ryanami. I like it. Clever. Surprised I didn't think of it, because I'm that frickin' clever. I'll take it, though.

Anytime I meet new Australians here, I ask if they like Crowded House (who are from New Zealand). Most people give them the respect they deserve, and i've even met some Split Enz fans. Gerry (or anyone)- do you know Split Enz? I guess their hit song was "I Got You" and went something like, "I don't know why sometimes I get friiightened." It's pretty good, but way cheesy new wave sounds. Any takers?

That's all.

Disney Sea Pics.

Better late than never right? Here are some of my favorites from Disney Sea.


This is right when we got there. DisneySea is LOADED with "picture opportunity" places, guaranteed to sucker any Japanese person into taking a picture (and yes, them Japanese take just as many pictures at Tokyo Disney as they do anywhere in America...believe the stereotype). I'll spare you the many that I was forced to take with Manami, but here's one. The mountain/volcano in the background is a kick ass rollercoaster ride, complete with real fire.


This is me in sheer amazement that somebody created strawberry-flavored popcorn. It's delicious. And notice that girl (I think it's a girl) in the left corner of the picture, looking at me like i'm a crazy foreigner. Well, hey lady, do you see me wearing pink fuckin' bunny ears?


I got some action at DisneySea, too. It ruled.

Don't worry, though, Manami wasn't left out.


Here's us being smiley and cute.


If I had a solo career, I'd use this picture as an album cover, because I think it is so cool. Like how some things are blurry and some aren't, and how I'm the only person with brown hair in the picture. Cooooool. This was taking at the all-you-can-eat place. Delicious.


DisneySea is actually very pretty. Here's a shot that tries to capture that.


That's all. Christmas is huge in Japan, even though only a VERY small population of Japanese people are Christian. Still, they love it, and they love any song that has the word "Christmas" in it. Seriously, if I hear Mariah Carey's "All I want for Christmas is You," I might shove a chopstick up someone's asshole. That said, Wham!'s album with "Last Christmas," I would assume, is selling like freakin' hotcakes right now.

Oh and unless you're one of a VERY select few people, don't expect shit from me for Christmas. Bah Humbug!

I'm just kidding, well I'm not, but I mean, I love you and all, I'm just a super cheap bastard!

That said, I'm having a kobe steak dinner this Friday. Muahahah!

Epic brah!

Another great weekend has come and gone. Let's get right into it, shall we?

I went to Tokyo DisneySea on Saturday. It was so much fun. Actually more fun than I expected. I'm sure you can guess who I went with. She has a ton of pictures on her camera and will be sending them to me, but right now I don't have any pictures. But, DisneySea is a pretty ridiculously awesome and very original amusement park. It doesn't even really feel like a "Disney" park, because that's more of what Tokyo DisneyLand is for. All the rides were different than the ones in Florida's DisneyWorld and they have crazy food at the stands, like strawberry popcorn (so good), shrimp kinda roll bagel things, gyoza, and stuff. Actually, I was surprised by how good the food was, in speaking of both quality and nutrition. We hit up the buffet restaurant and stuffed our faces with shephard's pie (oh so good), karaage (japanese fried chicken), tons of deserts, and other shit. It's funny, because in America, I wouldn't dare step into a buffet restaurant, but in Japan, I am all about them.

What a surprise, my tale of DisneySea turns into talking about food. Well, about the rides. We started with StormRider because it had no line, and it was like a interactive movie theater ride where you're caught in the middle of a raging hurricane. Oh yeah, there was one ride the same as Florida, my favorite ride of them all- Tower of Terror. Except in Japan it's "Towa ah-bu Tellah" and they removed the "Twilight Zone" theme. I guess that wasn't a famous show in Japan or something. There was a couple sweet roller coasters and an Indiana Jones ride, and suprisingly, not a lot of slimy gaijin. It was also hilarious, frustrating, and interesting watching the Aladdin and Little Mermaid shows in Japanese. Especially the latter, because the songs like "Under the Sea" were sung in English, but all the spoken dialogue was in Japanese. This is one confused country, and I love it!

Pictures coming soon.

Last night was my buddy Nam's birthday. We went to an okonomiyaki restaurant and cooked the food ourselves. It was fun and I met some other JETs and some Japanese girls and various other people. Good times. After the restaurant we all headed to VIP (the bar where we play poker) for some more drinks. One of the girls from the birthday party brought the two japanese people who own the store where I bought some old Pez a looong time ago, like when I first got to Tsuchiura. Somehow the girl remembered me and said "Petzu no hito!!" (Petzu is "pez," and that literally means "Pez person!") They were really cool and we talked about classic rock and movies until about 1 in the morning.

I was a little tired at "work" today, but it was okay, because something totally random was in store. There was a rock concert in the morning brought to us by a famous Japanese surf-rock guitarist who apparently was huge in the 1960s. Funny thing was, he was only on stage for about 30% of the show. It was pretty funny though. Here we are in the school gym, 680 students and the teachers, watching some ancient surf-rock band in their matching white suits. Still, the bass player was really good and the drummer had an epic drumset complete with two bass drums and a massive gong behind him. Totally...fucking...random.

And here's a random piece of Japan trivia for you. Did you know that in the winter time, all the subway seats are heated? I didn't, but I really enjoy it! Heated toilets, heated subway seats, happy bum.

Oh! I almost forgot to mention. Last night, I'm sitting and talking with a girl and she asks me where I'm from. Naturally, I say "Chicago" because usually people don't know what Rockford is. I reciprocate, asking where she's from, and she very matter-of-factly says "Rockford." I about shit myself right then and there. This world is much, much too small.

That's all for now. And i'm out.