The weekend and then some.

Let's start from Thursday.

I had an interview with a company who's name I forget, just because I want to keep my options open as far as living in Japan and such. Needless to say, the interview went really well (knock on wood) and one of the two woman who interviewed me kept talking to her friend about how cute I was. She was in her mid 50s probably, nice lady, and I don't think she realized I could understand her Japanese. But I could....bitch.

After the interview, I was in a happy mood. I then met up with Hoko who I hadn't seen since like November or something. We went to Ikebukuro (again) and ate dinner at MoMo Paradise (again...all-you-can-eat sukiyaki or shabu shabu...we shabu shabuded). This time, though, we also opted for the all-you-can-drink. Well let's just say I drank-all-I-could! AND HERE'S PROOF!


I think we all know what happens when I drink- I TRY AND TAKE PICTURES WITH PEOPLE I DON'T KNOW! It's the same deal in Japan!!


And here was my failed attempt to get a picture with some J punk girls on the train. Also in this picture, you can notice how terrible I am at tying my tie. I have 20 years of mom and dad tying my tie to thank for that one :-P


After some running around Ikebukuro, I went home. It was a fun night, until I woke up still drunk and had to be at work. Poor Japanese students of mine.

Anyhoo! After work Friday, Manami came to town and we ate at the always delicious Aoi (teppanyaki). We've eaten there so much that the next time we go, we get 1000 yen off. Solid!

Saturday, Manami was working, so I hooked up with a gaijin buddy of mine I met a couple weeks ago. He is exactly like Paul Bouegois, in case anyone who is reading this knows who that is. So somehow, the guy knew about a punk/hardcore show going on in Ushiku, so I thought I'd check it out with him. It was fun, small little "raibu hausu" (live house) with like 6 bands, cheap beer, and I had my first green experience whilst in Japan. I'm talking about these crazy green limes I ate....yeah, that's it!

Cause Punk Revolution!



Sunday I headed to Chiba to hang out at Manami's house because it was her last day in the country for about two weeks. She's in LA now, which kinda sucks, but is okay so long as she's safe and having fun.

And finally- a picture of a giant stick of pocky. It's hard to tell the size of it, but the box they come in is the size of a ceral box. Woah.


Oh, and for dear, sweet, delicious Venetia- Here is everything you could possibly need to know about the past, present, and future of the derrogatory term that is "Kurisumasu keeki." (Click that)

Cool shogakko

Today, I had elementary school (shogakko). It was a school I'd never been to and it was totally cool. Not only was it a fun lesson to teach, but the school had several kids who were from different countries. For lunch, I happened to be sitting with a boy who was half Brazilian, half Japanese and he could barely understand/speak Japanese. That was a trip. In addition, I was sitting with a girl who was half Japanese, a quarter Filipino, and a quarter Spanish. She could speak Japanese, Spanish, English, and Tagalog. It was the first time I had a conversation that I could really call "interesting" at an elementary school.

On top of that, the one class I had after lunch had a girl who was from the English speaking part of the Phillipines. She was fluent in both English and Japanese. I said "Sorry, this lesson must be pretty easy right," and she was all "Yeah, but that's okay." Cool shit though, first time that's happened.

And that's it. Back to watching stump porn....I mean, I'm going for a run, because I'm trying to get back into a running routine.

If you don't get the stump porn joke....don't ask....or maybe you should....

A little bit of dat action...

Okay, before an update...let me just say WOOOOFUCKINGHOOO!!! Why? Courtney, Gerry, Wade, Amy, listen up- CROWDED HOUSE IS REFORMING!!!!! It's possible i'm a little more excited about this than you guys, but still, FUCK YEAH!! Apparently they've got a new drummer (their original, who was pretty damn good, hung himself in 2005, RIP), and their first show is at Coachella this year (a huge, ecclectic festival in California every year)...followed by a new album and world tour. Cream dream supreme!

Anyways, here I am with my second update post-Mustique. A disclaimer right now- i've been slacking on the picture front, but will do my best to find cool things to take pictures of as soon as possible. Alas, no pictures in this update.

To be honest, there isn't all that much to write about. I went to Tokyo last week and hit the club scene hard again with the same dudes as last weekend. My friend Seth left Japan to go back to school, but his friends who are Swedish, French, and American gave me their contacts cuz they want to rage Tokyo some more with my sweet ass. Not to mention I always have the cute Japanese girls with me :-P

Saturday I had an epic dinner courtesy of Manami's mom featuring nikujyaga (meat and potato a la Japan), some fish, some soup, mochi, and rice. It was delicious, but don't worry mom, I miss your crawfish etouffe like no other. Mrs. Sawada also cut my hair. It's short but not too short. She's a beautician so she did a pretty good job, even though my hair is very non-Japanese.

All's well at san-chu, my school, too. I had a meeting today with Heart (my company that places me in the school) because of my low evaluation score from last semester. The nice people at Heart, having just come from yon-chu, were shocked by Tachihara-sensei's evaluation of me and pretty much told me to ignore any kind of feedback she gave me. The people at san-chu had nothing but good things to say about me, which reinforces my opinion that Tachihara-sensei is the biggest bitch of a whore in this country. Actually, the guy from Heart rationalized that she is going through her "big change" that happens in middle age. Hmm, possibly. She's still a bitch.

Oh yeah, this weekend I received my January paycheck which was accompanied by a PHAT tax refund. Needless to say, I blew much of it on a way overpriced, but totally kick-ass Evisu 3/4 shirt and alcohol. That's how I roll.

What else can I mention...Umm, toilets in Japan have a "big flush" and a "small flush." I'm sure you can figure out why. Somewhat related, the toilet in the teacher's bathroom at san-chu BLOWS. At yon-chu they had one of the nice heated toilets where water squirts up your anus hole, but at san-chu, the toilet seat doesn't even stay on. It's dangerous I tellz ya.

That's all for now. Miss you all very much and much love.

Oh Mustique...and more.

This blog should have been posted days ago, but blogger.com wasn't working with me...so here it is.

I'm writing this entry at school right now. I decided to bring my laptop to school so I could stay connected ALWAYS. Unfortunately, I can only do chat; browsing the internet doesn't work. So, I'm writing this in a word processor, and will upload it when I get home.

Enough nerd talk. What's up, mother fuckers! I'm back from Mustique, after what was probably the most kick ass year in Mustique (except the lack of Lucy Fenn), albeit my shortest one. Measuring in at 13 days, I managed to party hard every night but one or two (blame that on the jetlag) until about 4:30 in the AM AT LEAST! I love Japan, but i'd be a lying sack of shit if I said I don't miss Mustique.

But alas, I'm back in Japan and I started work at san-chu (that means 3rd Junior High School, because public high schools are numbered). As opposed to yon-chu (4th JHS), every teacher is really nice and I don't have to deal with the stupid bitch of a head English teacher that was Tachihara-sensei. In fact, everyone here is ridiculously nice and I absolutely love it here. The kids are awesome, too. I was talking to the 3rd grade english teacher in class while the students were doing work, and he said he'd been to the town next to Chicago. I said "What town" and he says "Rockford." I about shit myself. Again, I realized how small of a freakin' world this is. Not only did I meet a girl who is from Rockford about a month ago, but now I meet a teacher who visited Kennedy High School and somewhere else. Blew my mind.

Last night was poker night with some of the other gaijin in Tsuchiura. It was only 500 yen buy-in, so I didn't play very well and focused more on consuming whiskey and having a good time. It was a blast. Nothing beats playfully hitting on waitresses dressed in maid outfits while butchering their language at the same time. After the game was over, we went outside to the kebab stand and got some chicken pita sandwiches. I didn't though, because i'm watching my weight, baby. Still, there were 3 youngish japanese dudes who walked up, and being drunk, I launched into conversation. I asked what they were doing and, being in Sakura Machi (the sex-club infested area of Tsuchiura), I knew their answer. He gave a back and forth motion with his hand, which prompted me to use my Japanese slang on him. That cracked him and his friends up, and we had a good time. Then it got weird when the guy and his friend started mimicking buttsex on each other, but I guess that's Japan for you. Our conversation ended with the guy proclaiming his love for me. It was pretty sweet, and I impressed the other gaijin with my Japanese ability. God, I am the shit.

That's all for now. I got a new camera (Thanks mom and dad! much love) and will take pictures in Japan soon, but for now, here's some of my favorite Mustique pics. Much love to you all, and here's to hoping my jetlag is almost gone.

I'll start with Halle and Spencer, cuz they're cuter than anyone else in the rest of the pictures-



And for a stark contrast...a mustached Jonathan pooping.



One day, the brothers Marks had nothing to do (or is that all days on Mustique), so we drove around and had a photo session.



Possibly my favorite picture of them all- the first sunrise of 2007...I took one picture of it and it happened to turn out amazingly well.



If we started a band, it'd be called Peterbuilt, and this would be our promo picture.



I call this one "Gouginstock" because it's from the Gougin House and looks like Woodstock, even though we weren't even that effed up at this point... an hour later would be a whole different story



Macaroni after a phat 5:30 AM drunken skinny dipping session...except the only people who went skinny dippinger were jonathan and me...dammit.



Low-res picture of Jonathan jamming with the original bassist from Blue Oyster Cult and Andy Hilfigger-



Just enjoying a martini consisting of vodka and sake...classy.



Chilling at Tetto Rosso on one of my earlier days of the vacation-



Spencer smiling at the Xmas picnic.



Venetia pimping on Bumper-



And would it be my blog without some food? Here's some of my favorite meals from the trip-






Okay, from this point down is a "new blog." It's newer material that I hadn't planned to put in the same post. But here we go anyways:

This weekend was pretty kick ass. One of my friends from IES Summer in Tokyo was in Japan this weekend, so we met up and hit the town. Actually, first, Manami and I found some dinner in Shibuya at this little izakaya place that served pretty good food (I got a tonkatsu shabushabu, or shabu shabu with a pork-bone based broth), made weird, possibly Hawaiin style cocktails, and blasted old school reggae music. Pretty cool place with a private feel to it. Then I met up with Seth and his buddy from France, as well as Manami's adorable tiny friend Hacchan, and we went to Tasu Ichi, a Tatsunomiya (literally standing-drinking store). This is a place where there are no seats, everyone stands, and then gets drunk. It's cheap with 200 yen Asahi, but I think because of that, it's packed with foreigners. I'd seen the place before and had always been turned away from it, but this time it was actually kinda cool because it's a really international environment. I met people from all over the world, and easily impressed any Japanese person there because I could talk to them (at least a little).

After Tasu Ichi got too crowded, we moved next door to the beat cafe. I think I posted about this bar when I hung out with John, one of my other buddies from IES. It's small, very small, on the 3rd floor, totally random, but plays awesome music. Well this time, it was still small, but there was a different guy working there. I started talking to him (in english, his english was great) only to realize that he knew everything about most any music. Apparently, he's a promoter and has put out a lot of records for American bands. He even knew what The Empty Bottle in Chicago was. We talked for probably a good hour or so, and he told me that after the Mars Volta played here (which I saw), he took them to a karaoke place and got wasted with them. Lucky bastard. Here's a picture of the bathroom wall of The Beat Cafe, signed by Omar from Mars Volta and The International Noise Conspiracy. Following that is a shot of the bar.





The guy in the striped sweater is the dude who knows what's up.

Here's a picture at Tasu Ichi. R-L- Seth, my friend's friend, from Switzerland I think, me, Seth, some Japanese ho.



Oh and the night didn't end there. We hit up a club called Womb. Pretty sweet place, I'd been there over the summer to see Roni Size, a drum-n-bass DJ. It was fun, but the main DJ was kinda whack, spinning trance techno, so we hit the lounge in the basement. The atmosphere was much more chill, not as crowded, and the DJ was spinning house. Actaully I walked in and he was mixing Bloc Party to house music. I was a happy boy. Then I requested some Daft Punk and he did it for me. I just yelled to him "Dafto Punku!" and he understood. Fast forward to 4 AM and I passed out on Seth's floor.

Woke up in the beating heart of Shibuya, grabbed a Freshness Burger to nurse my hangover with Seth, and met up with Manami. It was time to go shopping! Everything in Tokyo is on sale right now in honor of the New Year, so we hit up the stores hard- Paul Smith, BAPE, Energie/Miss Sixty, and all the random skater shops and such along the way. I bought a kick ass jacket featuring Jesus wearing sunglasses.

On the way back from Harajuku to Shibuya, we happened upon a man in bright yellow and rainbow clothing singing a song. It went something like "MOUNTAIN SONG MOUNTAIN SONG" over and over, and it's hard to describe so here's a picture.



I think he liked that gaijin were watching, so he let me take a picture with him. Before we could strike this pose though, he made me stand with arms straight up in the air and then yell "Itsumo kokoro ni...." then strike the following pose and yell "MOUNTAIN!"



That translates to something like "Always in my heart- MOUNTAIN!"

I don't know, it was fucking funny though.

And this epic blog post is OVER. Happy new year everyone.