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.