Bounenkai time!

O-hisashiburi everyone! Today's japanese word is "bonenkai." You'll usually find it translated as an "end of the year party," but a better, and a more literal translation would be "forget last year party." It's a time to drink and forget the troubles of the last year, and it's a great part of japanese tradition. So, tonight I'm having my own little bonenkai. Forgetting all the bad things from last year, and going over the past 20 days of not posting. Well, well, well... what's been happening...? I guess I'll take a look at some pictures and see what I've been up to...

I guess we'll start here:

A couple of weeks back I sent home some presents for the kids to celebrate the first annual "Uncle B Day!" The presents got there on Dec. 23rd, only 5 days after I sent them, a bit faster than I had anticipated. The kids all said that they liked the presents, and that makes me happy :) It was sad that I couldn't be with them all for christmas, but it seems that they had a good time.

Next, we have this:











Just a couple of pictures of food I made... that's all...

Next, I've been on vacation now for a few days, and god, let me tell you, it's been great! I love vacation! I've taken a couple of walks around the neighborhood, and taken some pictures, here's a couple of them:

The last one there is a picture of a Japanese cemetery, just thought maybe some people might be interested in seeing how different they are from western style ones.

Lastly, hubun and I made a trip down to Roppongi to see "Letter's from Iwojima." At least I think that's the english name. The movie was pretty blah, but the acting was good. Both Watanabe Ken, and the little guy (can't remember his name, but he's from the singing group "Arashi") gave great performances, especially the little guy, who I think was in his first big role, maybe only role? But anyway, it was my first trip to Roppongi Hills, and only my second trip to Roppongi ever. Although I must say there were more "gaijin" than I could have imagined there, the buildings around there are freakin' beautiful! Really really superb architecture! I was very impressed, especially at night. Here's one of the pics I took that night:

Anyway, it was pretty!

So, here I am, hanging out in Tokyo, hunbun went back to her hometown for New Year's and so I'm just relaxing and chillin' out. I hope everyone had a good christmas, and I hope everyone has a great new year! Rock it hard! I'll let you know if I do anything special for the holiday, I have some ideas...

The best of what's going down!

So, I gotta say I'm a little sad, I just googled "no airplay" and I'm down to #7. At the peak, I was up to #2... what's up? Maybe because I haven't put up post in a while, or maybe I just need to talk more about the "Seattle sock job." That seems to help out most websites. Anyway, first I'll say a little something about why I haven't posted anything, and then I'll move onto what I've been up to outside of that. So, the reason I haven't put up anything is because I've worked about 17 of the last 19 days and just really haven't had time, even on my days off I've been busy with laundry, cleaning, or entertaining the ladies... well, the lady at least. So I had such a hard go recently because of a couple of shift swaps that I did because of moving and K-1, but anyway, that's almost all been taken care of now, I do get three days off this week and that will end that whole thing, so, wahoo! I can't wait, on more half day of work and I've got my first consecutive days off in about a month and a half. wahoo!

Well, so the first thing I gotta talk about is the futsal tournament that my school was part of. Of course I(we) represent Gotanda, the best place in the Shinagawa ward of Tokyo, and we took on such famed locations as; Toranomon, Shinbashi, Oimachi, and Hibiya. Well, it was our first go round, and we ended up at 2 wins, and 2 losses, not a bad showing I'd say! We were pretty happy, but of course we would have liked to come away with the trophy (more on that later) Here's a group shot of the greatest team to ever take the pitch:

After an uneventful 9 days straight of working I finally got to spend some time with hunbun. We spent Friday night and Saturday together, and it was good. Friday night I made Mabodofu and we watched "The Amazing Race" and on sunday I made breakfast, and then we watched "Ice Age 2" and in the evening hunbun made stew! What a great weekend!
Then there was today... what a crappy morning! 2 teachers called in sick and f'd up the schedule, but it wasn't too bad all-in-all. Anyway, this evening we all met up and went to a place in Shinbashi for a Nomihodai and Tabehodai. Japanese lesson! Well, something-hodai means "all you can." In this case, adding "tabe" makes it "all-you-can eat" and "nomi" means "all-you-can drink." Both of these combined to equal 3000 yen, or about $25. What a deal! and it was good stuff! Self-serve beer on tap, Sake, and Shochu, as much as you want, along with sushi, curry, beef, pork, chicken, french fries, freakin' what ever! It was great! Anyway, Great times, and the walk to station looked like this:

Anyway, at dinner, surprisingly, the trophy from the Futsal tournament made its way into our presence, here's kinda what it looked like:

Anyway, this week is gonna be great! Three days off, relaxed schedule, and just all around more time, the one thing that I am a bit sad about is that A.O.S. is gonna head home soon. Several other teachers are gonna go home for the holiday's but, A.O. S. will only be coming back for month after the break, it's too bad, gonna miss ya man!

Jesus built my dryer

Happy Thanksgiving all! Deja vu? Nope! Today I celebrated turkey day with hunbun! However, before we met up for the festivities I had to do laundry... well, that was an adventure! I walked over to the laundry room and encountered a contraption that I hadn't seen before... this thing is a "washing machine" supposedly. Well, it's not your run of the mill washing machine, and I was dumbfounded as to how to work it. Well, after figuring out how to get water into the thing, I then had to figure out how to get the water out. I was pretty pleased that I had made it that far, but then, I ran into the difficulty of how to get the water out of the clothes. I finally figured that out, but it ended up taking me about an hour and a half to do a 30 min load, but now I've got it baby! So after my triumph I headed out to Ebisu to meet hunbun for some shopping. After striking out with the boots in Ebisu, we headed to Shibuya and there we found some good ones. Finally we headed back towards my place swinging by KFC and the grocery store to pick up the fixins for out thanksgiving dinner. Not a bad spread, not like back home, but pretty decent none the less... good day!

Que pasa?

Hola amigos! Que dice poop? How are things? I just wanted to put up a couple of pictures I took today. This top one is the view from my window. On the far left you can see the train station I use everyday, pretty close eh? (shout out to my north of the border friends on that one) Anyway, I haven't had much to talk about recently in my blogs because I don't really like to talk about news and stuff like that because there are people who get paid alot of money to talk about that, so usually I just talk about what I've been doing or seeing, but I haven't done anything special lately. Things are good though, couldn't be better! I'm loving my apartment, and I'm just living man, just living! Anyway, today I did do something, not particularly special, but it's the best I've got. So, this morning I went down to Shinjuku to take back my key from the old apartment to the head office, or the "womb" as I like to call. Anyway, I was only down there briefly, but I did take some pictures that I'd like to show you, please enjoy!

Gobble gobble!

Hey everybody! Happy Thanksgiving! You might be happy to know that in Japan today is a holiday, "Thanksgiving?" you ask? Well, not exactly... it's "Labor thanksgiving" as they say, which roughly, really means it's labor day. Not so exciting but oh well. It's just another, in the long line of days off for Japanese workers. But for me the real Thanksgiving is going down on Saturday, hunbun and I are gonna go out and do some shopping, some errands, watch "Amazing Race" and eat some KFC. I've decided that since it's near impossible to get a decent turkey over here, we're going to have chicken instead, but the 'ol mashed potatoes and biscuits will be part of the dinner of course. Well, I really wish that I was home for this holiday, it's my favorite, I miss the family, and I hope I can see them soon, I wish them the best on this holiday, and to all of you too.

Coming to you live from Snow Valley!

So how is everybody doing? So I've been here in Snow Valley Big Mound (Yukigayaotsuka) for about a week now and I've got to say... It's freakin' great! I love having a place of my own where I can come home and not have to fake interest in people I couldn't care less about. However, there is good news and bad news. First the bad news is that being in my new apartment, I never want to leave and this has led to me being almost late to work on more than one occasion so far. When I was back at the old place I was always at least 45 mins early for work because I couldn't stand to be there, but now, I just don't want to leave until I absolutely have to. The good news is everything else! It's all good. Later y'all!

T'was like the night before Christmas...

Here it is! My last night in Omori! Thought I'd give a peek at the place that I've spent the last 8 months. Pretty great yeah? So, the packing is done, I finished it last night, and so all that is left is to sign the papers and pay the rent tomorrow morning in Shinjuku, and then the keys are mine. I won't really move stuff in until tomorrow afternoon with hunbun and a mover. I can't wait to not be in this apartment anymore. I'm sure I'll miss some things... can't think of what they are yet, but there might be something later. Who knows, but I am just really excited to be out of here, and to have a place of mine, where I can't hear my roommate playing "Ace of Base" or some other garbage at midnight. peace out y'all, catch ya in Yukigayaotsuka!

By the way, that name kinda sucks, it's long and really not as cool as Omori. Much harder to translate anyway...

The beginning of the end... and the end of the beginning...

Today I started packing! Right on me! I think I have underestimated the amout of crap that I have gathered in the past 8 months. I came here with 2 suitcases and a big 'ol backpack, but it seems that I'm gonna need all of those and a few boxes and some good 'ol fasion carrying. Hunbun has graciously offered to pay for a mover to take my stuff as a birthday present, sweeeeet heart! She's great, and I think it's probably a good idea, I think we'll be able to take it all in one trip. It's really not a ton of stuff, but for sure more than what I came in with. The problem with starting early like this is I just never know if I will need something or not. I just want to throw it all in a box and be done. So here's the plan for the week: Tomorrow is work until 5:20, so I plan to come back and grab some more boxes from the super market on the way home. Monday is again work, but a short day so I plan to finish most everything on that day just leaving things that I will need for sure until thursday, mostly clothes and my computer. If there's anything left to do, I'll take care of it on Tuesday. Wednesday back to work, and then Thursday morning I head down to Shinjuku to pay my rent and sign the lease. That afternoon I'll meet up with hunbun, and then the moving person will come over and we'll be on the way. I'll probably put up another post before that, so I'll holla atcha later!

Oh baby, can't wait to miss this

So, everyday I've gone to work for the past 8 months I have stood in the same spot to wait for the train at Omori station, and every day infront of where I stand sits one of the worst advertisements I've ever seen in my life.

It's a painting done for a place called "Budou-ya" and it depects a family hanging out with some Kappa. So, "Budou-ya" means grape-store, but really it's a restaurant that has yakitori and such, and "Kappa" means... well it's a mythological creature that parents tell their kids about so they don't go wandering by the river. It's green, lives in the rivers and has a leaf on it's head, pretty weird stuff. It's a ridiculous picture, and just a really bad painting. Anyway, I hate this stupid painting and in a week I won't have to see it again! Yeah!

whatever may come

A few points I want to talk about, and here we go... First man today was a crazy windy unbelievable day! It was so windy today I couldn't even put my laundry out on the balcony for it to dry for fear that it would blow away. Crazy wind! Now it's night time, and it's cold, I'm sensing a frost-a-coming. In preperation for my upcoming move I decided to put together a little project. Using a program I've had for some time, but rarely use I put together a panarama of my current living place, I hope you enjoy, if you click on it and view the big version it'll probably come across a little better, check it out.
9 days till I start da move! Yeah baby!

If you guys are looking for entertainment, here's some things to check out. First TV shows. Prison Break, Dexter, Amazing Race, Avatar, Without a Trace, and Numb3rs. If you want a movie, you can check out "the root of all evil." and if you need some podcasts to check out, got with "7th son" or maybe "The Rookie" they are podiobooks, or "The moon masters," "Herro Flom Japan," and if you can find it, old episodes of "the Apocalypse Dowell Show."

That's about it for now, check ya later.

poor bastard

So, in all of my time here I've taken alot of pictures, and so far I have two favorites. The first was posted awhile back as the coolest parking job ever. The next best was taken on the train ride home on friday. Man, this guy had a rad night, and probably woke up with some really bad neck pain, cheers my friend, or in this neck of the woods, KANPAI!

T-minus 11 days and counting!

Hello there sir or madame, I hope this series of words finds you in good spirits. By the way, anyone know what's up with the "t-minus" thing? weird... Happy 11 days away day! Cruising into the home strech baby. I know I've only now been waiting for about 3 days, but it seems like forever! AHHHHH! Can't wait! But anyway, this weekend I had some fun. Friday night, after work, I headed over to Nakameguro to meet up with some old friends that I hadn't seen in years. Some I hadn't seen in 4 or 5 years, and others 6 or so years. It was pretty cool, all of them at one time went to my old community college back home as exchange students, and a couple of them I was really good friends with. My friend jun-chi-chi came up to Tokyo from Nagoya and I hadn't seen her since the last world cup, and another friend Oka-chi came down from Sapporo and I hadn't seen her in maybe 5 or 6 years. It was all pretty cool, we went to a bar, called "ping-pong bar." The name comes from the fact that they have a ping-pong table in the middle of the place, and that you have to ring a doorbell to get in, which in japanese, makes the "ping-pong." So anyway, the place was cool, but you would never know it was a bar from the outside, it looks just like a regular apartment, and on the inside it kinda has the same feeling, with couches and such around the place, but it was actually really cool. After the bar, and just in time for our last train, we headed back to Omori, myself, jun-chi-chi, and mack-e (who had missed her last train) and went to sleep. The next day mack-e had to get up early to go to a flaminco lesson and jun-chi-chi and I slept in until noon then went to Mos Burger for lunch before heading out to Kawasaki. We went to a new mall called Lazona which is kinda semi-attached to the station and is brand new. Man the place was packed! But it was really cool, have a look!

I sent a pic to hunbun because she was out of town doing some family stuff so she wasn't able to meet everybody unfortunately, but she thought the mall looked cool and wants to go sometime soon, I'm sure we will. After the mall J-chi-chi and I head to Shibuya to see another of the previous night's group preform at a live show at Club Asia. We'll call her "summer fruit." She was pretty cool, but I guess wasn't preforming with her normal band and was doing some kind of experimental techno-rock-fusion kind of thing, it was pretty interesting and the keyboard player was crazy man! They were called "Cosmic club experience," and the strange thing is that she not only went to the same college back home as I, but also, her really good friend works as a staff member at my work, small world! There were 3 other bands that played, one was called Bonsai Apartment, and they weren't too bad, there was also a rap-hip-hop-rock-group that was really weird and would have been cool, but one of the 2 lead guys was just a jackass, but they did have a pretty hot back-up singer, so it made it ok. The last group was pretty decent too and they kinda had a horn/olde tyme 50's vibe going for them. All of the groups were kinda hard to put only in one genre, but they were all pretty decent. Finnally j-chi-chi and I said our goodbyes and went out for some Yaki niku at the best place in the world, An An, and then called it a night. That's pretty much it, said goodbye this morning to her as she went back to Nagoya, and I went off to work... sad times... but I'm sure we'll meet again soon, and next time hunbun will be there too!

The future is now!

So, I guess congratulations are in order? Well, yes they are! I put down the deposit for my new apartment this morning! Wa-freaking-hoo! I'm really excited to move out of this place! I can't even put it into words, just really excited, two weeks from now, I will never have to see this place again. The 16th I get the key baby! Yeah! I'm really looking forward to it. The place isn't the best in the world, it's a bit old, and there's a bit of noise coming from the street as I expected, but all-in-all, it's leaps and bounds better than here. The walls are thick, and it's really convenient, I love it. The only problem I forsee is money money money. My current apartment takes rent at the end of the month, and the next apartment takes it from the beginning, so for my next 2 paychecks, I'm gonna be paying double rent basically, leaving me with scraps until the middle of January. Not looking forward to that very much... elipses...

Ninniku-man!

The title of this post is a clever play on words, and if you figured it out, kudos! Today's japanese lesson is "ninniku." It means "garlic," and somebody cooked something with it, and the apartment has stunk for 2 days. Ooooooh it's potent! My only refuge is my room, as always...

a new beginning?

Tomorrow morning I'm going back to Yukigayaotsuka to check out the inside of the apartment that I checked out the other night. Here's a picture of the outside, showing which window would be mine:

So, I don't want to get too far ahead of myself because I haven't actually seen the inside of the apartment just yet. But, I figure that by the time I come home tomorrow, and possibly put up another post, I will have made my descision so I wanted to go through the positives and negatives of my current and (possible) future apartment.

1. My current place is a 15+ min walk to the station, with another 15+ min train ride to work, including a train transfer, clocking in at about a 30 min commute, whereas the new place would be a 1 min walk to the station with about a 14 min ride on one train line.
2. Time to hunbun's: current:32mins (including walking) future:14mins
3. Noise. My current place like I said is 15+ mins to the station, however I can constantly here the trains passing by, and when they reach this area, they are at full speed, so fairly noisy. The new place is very close to the station, but as far as I can tell it is quieter because the trains are always either slowing down and pulling into the station, or just heading out on there way. The road traffic noise here is also terrible, there is only a one-way street infront of the building, but there is a constant stream of noisy cars and motorcycles and the noise is funneled straight into my room... There is a big road infront of the new place, but when I was on the roof of the place it seemed fairly quiet, we'll see how that is. My current place is also next door to the place where all of the garbage trucks gather before heading out every morning to pick up garbage, oh wait, the don't do it on sunday, but every other morning between 7:30 and 8am, I hear about 25 trucks beeping as the back into their parking spots etc. it drives me crazy! The last part of noise is from the roommates. At my current place, my room is next to another room and I have paper-thin walls that provide absolutely no sound insulation. I can here my roommate lay down in his bed, cough, laugh, and listen to music all day, it's terrible and it's the worst part of living here. A critical factor of whether or not I will take the new place is the thickness of the walls.
4. The one thing that my current place does have going for it is the amount of restaurants and shopping available in the area. There are countless more options in this area, and as far as I can tell, there are few of them around the new place, however the first floor of the building is a grocery store, so I wouldn't have to go far for food.
5. Roommates. I don't really get along with my current ones. That's all I'll say about that for now, but I share an apartment now with 2 other people. I have a 6 tatami mat room, and share a kitchen, living space, and bathroom with them. I hardly use any of those because I do not like to see them. The future place would be a 12 tatami mat room, including my own kitchen, with a shared bathroom, and shower that I would share with 3 other people. I wish I had my own shower and bathroom, but beggers can't be choosers I guess, and the apartment has alot going for it. It just has a final test to pass, I'll let you know how it goes.

Move along little dawgie.

Well howdy doo? Things are good here. I'm feeling good, works been better lately. Things are good with hunbun. I am working on fixing the other thing.
Yesterday I went to a place called "yukigayotsuka" to see the area that I'm hoping to move to. I'm currently on a waiting list, with no real idea when the place will come available... but I went to check out the area anyway. It's not too bad, the place is about a min walk from the station, and a grand total of about 14 mins to work, it's a pretty decent place, the best part is that it's only one train line to work. I'll let ya know if anything happens!

Ham-mer Time!

I lied, one more post tonight, one more thing to talk about. CONGRATULATIONS NIPPON HAM FIGHTERS! Tonight, Nippon Ham won the Japan Series with a 4-1 win over the Chunichi Dragons at the Sapporo Dome in Hokkaido. The Fighters won the series 4 games to 1 to win their first Japan Series in 44 years, the second one in their history. The Fighters are from Sapporo, in Hokkaido (moved from Tokyo a couple of years back, because of the over-crowding of teams in the Tokyo area) and the Dragons are from Nagoya, in Aichi prefecture. I'm not really a fan of either team, but I would say that I probably dislike the Dragons more. This time I was pulling for the Fighters because of their center fielder, Tsuyoshi Shinjo, more commonly known simply as Shinjo. He proclaimed during the season that this would be his last year after, I believe, 14 years as a pro. He spent some time (I think 3-4 years) in the US, and before that was a member of my favorite team, the Hanshin Tigers. Anyway, congrats Nippon Ham, and congrats Shinjo! It was a good ride!

i love elipses...

Well, hello reader, how are things? Things good? It's been awhile, I just haven't felt like writing anything lately. I did try to write something last night, but blogger was down, and I spent like an hour just trying to get into where I could post a new entry, so I just gave up and here I am today... oooh, there's the elipses again, love 'em! So, I googled "no airplay" again, and guess what, up to #15! wahooooo! Don't know why that matters, just interesting. So, last night, I busted out my cold weather clothes. As evidenced by this picture: well, that's gonna have to wait because blogger isn't being receptive to uploading photos. But the jist of it is that the seasons, they are a changing. It's getting colder, and it's nice, I love this time of year, but I've been down lately. I haven't been motivated to do really anything lately, work, shop, cook, clean, blog, whatever it is, I haven't been up for it. I'm not sure why, I guess the easy way out is to say it's because of the changing seasons, but I don't really believe that... elipses... I think it's mostly from stress, I guess that's an easy answer too, but I think it's probably a big part of it. Stress, of course at work, stress at home, and stress in my relationship. Let my clarify, first at work: it seems like the past couple weeks at work I have had an unbalanced number of difficult students. I can deal with them most of the time, but in smaller doses, not all of my lessons, everyday, it's difficult. Today was better, I actually had 2 classes with students I really like. yeah! So, next I'll skip to the relationship difficulties. Don't get me wrong, things are good, everytime we meet, we have fun, and it's great when we meet, the problem lies only in the chances we have to meet are few and far between. We met yesterday, we had fun as always. It's just that we are both busy. It seems that lately hunbun has been making a real effort to come see me, and meet me for dinner, or lunch, but I haven't done the same. I feel guilty about that, but on my days off I haven't wanted to do anything at all, I've been so tired... so... something. Sorry hunbun, I'll try harder. The last in the list is the problems at home. I haven't liked this place since I moved in, for many reasons, too far from the station, too old, too dirty, too loud, too exspensive and so on, but the worst part has been the roommates I've had here. I have to move out, I can't stand it anymore, and so today I put my name on a waiting list for a Sakura House apartment. Sakura House is a company that rents apartments, guesthouses, and dorms to forieners here in Japan. There's no idea when the apartment will become available, or how many people are already on the waiting list, but it's a cool looking apartment with a private kitchen in the room. The one drawback is that it has a shared bathroom/shower. I can live with that. It's located in a good place, close to several convinent stations, a little bit further from work than where I live now, but not too much. It's also closer to the station, now I have a 15-20 min walk (however, I use a bike) and the other place is about 8 mins to one station, or 12 to another, or 15 to a third, good location. Anyway, I think I've just about run out of stuff to talk about for today, anyway, enjoy, later...

back for the first time

No airplay is the place to be! I just thought I'd throw that in because when you google "no airplay" this site shows up at about #23 in the listings. It also pops up with a quote from probably my worst post, the "sometimes you feel like a nut" beauty. Anyway, by including the title of the blog in the post I might bump that off and replace it with this one... we'll see. I'll google it again after I finish this post.

Anyway, onto the fun and games!
Saturday night I headed up to Matsumoto city with hunbun to visit our friends who are living there. Matsumoto is located in Nagano prefecture which was the host of the 1998 Olympic winter games. While we were there we did some hanging out, we visited Matsumoto castle for a Soba festival.

We walked around, and ate some soba and other food. It was pretty cool, the last time I went to Matsumoto castle I couldn't visit it because it was under construction. I wasn't really planning to visit the castle, but since the soba festival was there we went to check it out, and it was pretty cool, glad we went. After the festival we went back to fu-chan's and had dinner and drinks with her, and her husband. It was pretty cool, really good food, and geat tequilla! I love tequilla! Fu-chan and I burned though a bottle (with hunbun and yu-chan chippin in a little, but I drank probably more than half myself) and partied on until they all passed out. I was the last one standing eventhough I put down quite a bit more than anyone else. It was a good evening.

The next day we said good by the the happy couple and tooled around Matsumoto, hunbun and I, for a bit. We had coffee, and did a little shopping, and then borded the train back to the mighty Tokyo.
It was a bit bitter sweet, well, bitter.




Back in Toyko hunbun and I hung out, had dinner, and went to bed. The next day, was... my b-day! Yeah! The big 27! congrats me! Hunbun and I slept in late, and had a nice breakfast, took a nap and then went out to Azabu-juban, an area in Tokyo that I saw on TV earlier in the day, and they had a bean shop that I thought looked interesting, so we went there and then just walked around. We saw a couple of cool shops in the area, of course hunbun wanted to stop at all of the bread shops. We went to the bean store and picked up some cool snacks (very tasty.) We also found a cool organic grocery store, not that I'm really into all of that, but it was pretty cool anyway. Later that night, for my b-day dinner we went to.... you guessed it! An An! But wait, not the regular An An, this time we went to one in Meguro, it was pretty much the same, delicious, and cheap! Wahoo! The next day, hunbun had to go to work, and that was the end of that. I spent the rest of the day doing laundry and watching movies and such, and today, back to work.... :(

untitled

Well, where to begin... I guess my last post was on friday (sat morning) and it was a doozie. Anyway, since then I've had some good times.I went bowling, and got to wear a bowling pin costume, and it was rad! I didn't do so hot, but it had been a long time, and had fun anyway.




On Tuesday myself and Jacky (code name) went to an exibit in Akasaka-mitsuke. First time I have ventured to that part of the city, and it was fairly cool. We went to see a French artist, named Henri Riviere's work.
Between 1888-1902 he created what he called "Les Trente-six Vues de la Tour Eiffel," or "36 views of the Eiffel Tower." It was an homage to Japanese artist Hokusai, who's "36 views of Mt. Fuji" is probably the most famous collection of Ukiyo-e (wood block prints) ever made. It was quite impressive the way he captured the feeling of the japanese style in a completely un-japanese setting. Really good stuff. Afterwards Jacky and I walked around and enjoyed the garden area outside the museum/hotel. Later in the evening I met up with some co-workers at the 200 yen bar again and enjoyed drinking and soccer until late in the evening, it's always a good time!


Next on the list was today. I hopped on a train to Chiba to see the grand master of the Ukiyo-e style, Utagawa Hiroshige. It was really a treat. I've been a big fan of his for a long time. It was a special treat, and well worth the hour trek out there. The showing had about 200 pieces of work from several different artists (around 100 of them were from hiroshige.) The show focued on the Tokaido, and Kisokaido areas. It was really good stuff. It was also the first time I've been out to chiba to do something besides visit the airport, so it was interesting to see things like the upside-down monorail.














Oh! I almost forgot! I finally tried the squid ink curry! Hunbun and I went to coco ichi and she ordered it and I tried it, and to be honest, it was actually pretty good, who knew!?! Here's a pic of it, and it's too bad, I think I'll have to wait till next summer to try it again, I think the end of September was the end of the run, but if I see it again, I might give it another shot!

Sometimes you feel like a nut...

Well, good evening all! I just want to start off with: If you have ever met me, you will know one of two things about me (maybe both) First is that I hate to meet new people. I've been moved around alot in my life, and I've become very good at making new firends, but I f'n hate it! The other thing is that no matter how much I've had to drink, I do not act like I'm drunk. This has come in handy at certain times, especially passing sobriety tests issued by officers of the law, but really, I just don't seem drunk. Ask anyone who has know me for any deal of time, I could have drank 20 beers and they would have never guessed that I was drunk. The only real tell-tale sign is that when I'm drunk I tend to speak more Japanese, and that's about it. Well, tonight, I got drunk! I went out after work with all intention to return home after a couple of beers or so, but got hooked into the situation and ended up having.... oh, I guess 15 or so... who really knows? It was fun, I enjoy seeing my colleagues having a good time :) They had a good time, and I had a good time too. We went to the 200 yen bar in Shibuya and had a hell of a night. I'm not much for crowds, so, it wasn't my deal, but I had a good time myself. Funny people, I work with! Anyway, after making it back to my station (on the most crowded train I've EVER encountered) I called up hunbun, and we talked about some things, some good, some bad, but just talking... the most important thing is my days off. I recieved a fax today saying that I had the option of choosing Sat. Tues. off and holding out for a Friday, or taking Sun. Mon. off straight away. I'm leaning towards sat. tue. because the possiblilites are pretty good (considereing hunbun has sat/sun off) but of course, that's a crap shoot.... Sun/Mon is good, but as far as meeting up with hunbun, it really doesn't help too much... I don't know what to do.... ahhhhh!!!!!! Anyway, I feel like a nut, I know I went into Lawson and spoke perfect japanese to the clerk, but I still feel like I'm a stooooopid foreign idiot sometimes, what can I do? I'm never going to be mistaken for a Japanese person, no matter how drunk I am :)

I'm a ramblin' man...

So, I've been here in J-pan for alost 7 months now and I feel like it's been pretty... fruitless for the most part. I've had some good times, work's good, life's good, but it's just so... so... normal. One reason is that I haven't been studying enough. The main reason/excuse I have is that it's very difficult to find any motivation to study when I come home after teaching English all day. I did however get a chance to actually speak alot of Japanese the other night when I met up with fu-chan and her husband, but besides that I rarely get to use anything besides "fukuro ha ii desu" (I don't need a bag) and "tamanegi nuki de" (no onions). It's a bit dissapointing, I mean my japanese has held up pretty good, but really I haven't put in much study in the past 4 years or so, just been stagnant... I gotta do something about that...

The other thing that is kinda depressing me is that I haven't been out of this city much, not enough. I've been out to Osaka once, and I've been down to Kamakura. I've also been up to Saitama, and over to Kanagawa, but it's not enough. Even travelling around Tokyo has been kept to a minimal. I've been to the baseball stadiums in the city, and I've been to some new places, but seems to be few and far between. Inspired by my venture to Ueno on tuesday I'm planning on possibly visiting a couple of other museums next week if I have time, and money. I've got the money, just trying to save for the trip up to Nagano (more on that in a min.) Anyway, I'm planing possibly to head out to Chiba and take in some Ando Hiroshige prints. I've never been out to Chiba (except the airport) and I've never seen Hiroshige's prints before, and I'm a big fan, so I really would like to get out there. There is also a show in Akasaka Mitsuke featuring a French artist who kinda took inspiration from another famous Ukiyo-e (Japanese woodblock print) artist named Hokusai. Hokusai did a series of prints called "37 views of Mt. Fuji," and this French artist, named Henri Riviere, did a series called "37 views of the Eifel Tower." Seems like it could be interesting, I'll report on them if I get out to see them. So the next trip is happening the weekend before my b-day when hunbun and I head up to Matsumoto to visit fu-chan and her husband. It should be good times, drink some Tequilla and get out of the city! The last trip, currently under consideration, is a trip to beijing. "Beijing?" you ask. Yes indeed. August 2007! Dude? and I are thinking about heading out there to take in a game. "What kind of game?" you ask. Well, good question! A football game! The Seahawks are slated to play the Patriots in Beijing in August 2007. First game ever in China, and it would be a great experience I'm thinking. Could be an event! And for sure a trip out of this city! I'll keep you updated.

Tha King

I told some students awhile back about a picture that I had made when I was in college. I made it probably 7 years ago or so for an art history class I was taking at B.C.C., and worked it into 2 final class projects. It worked out pretty good, and I'm pretty proud of it, only took an afternoon :) Anyway, shout out to No-rico, hope you like it!

Typhoon, or not typhoon...

Well, it's been awhile since I've posted anything, mostly because I'm lazy, but also because I've been busy. Got some good stuff to talk about, namely saturday, monday and tuesday. First I wanted to say that again my weekend was washed out. Last week it rained a bit while I was at the Baystars game, but it wasn't to bad at all, but this week, my-o-my, it was a raging storm for the most part. Yesterday it rained almost all day, and today it was just dumping all morning. It's been mostly clear this afternoon, but when I woke up this morning there was some crazy lightning and thunder, I don't think I've ever heard thunder that loud before. Anyway on to some better things than the weather...

Saturday: Saturday was the 6th installment of the "Harajuku Cocktail Experience." It was probably the best one I've been to thusfar. I've been to about 3 of Master Slayer's parties, and this one was raging! Really good times, everyone had a really good time it seemed, that is until the fuzz showed up... They came by around 12:30 or so, and just told everyone to move it inside, and quiet down. It was really different than the cops back home, they were actually pretty cool. Anyway, thanks master slayer, it was a rad time! See you Oct. 21st for vol. 7!

Monday: On monday I worked until 5:40 and then went home, changed, and headed out to Shibuya to meet some friends. I never go down to Shibuya cuz it's full of young and crazy people. Anyway, I met up with and old friend, Fu-chan, and her husband, Yu-chan. Fu-chan is hunbun's best friend, they go way back, and are from the same town up in Nagano. Hunbun and I are going to visit them up in Matsumoto in about 2 weeks, and I'm very excited, but they were in town to visit Disneyland and so we had the chance to go out to dinner, hunbun showed up late because she had to do some more overtime :( So, we went to T.G.I. Fridays in shibuya and had a good time, it had been about 4 years since I had seen Fu-chan, and the first time I had ever met her husband, it was really cool. Fu-chan is like a sister too me, and so all night we just talked about old times and stuff, it was really cool, and her husband was really cool too. Yu-chan's sister also joined us and she, in fact, works for the same company as me but at a different branch. She was pretty cool too, and all together it was a pretty cool night, thanks guys, see you in 2 weeks!


Tuesday: Tuesday was of course a fairly miserable day weather-wise, but I took a train ride up to Ueno, and visited the "Ueno no mori museum." They were having a special "centennial retrospective" for Salvador Dali. It was for the 100th anniversary of Dali's birth (which was actually 1904 so... a couple years late?). Anyway, it was pretty cool, I saw many of his famous works and it was really cool to see them in person since I am a big Dali fan, interesting to see the actual size of the pieces themselves. Some of them were much smaller than I had imagined. They, unfortunately, didn't have on hand my favorite painting of his, "The Temptation of St. Anthony," so that was a bit dissapointing, but I got to see some of his sketches, and that was really neat, much cooler than seeing the paintings that I've seen a hundred times in books, actually seeing his hand drawn sketches was really cool!

So, that's my week(end) in a nutshell, if anything else happens between now and later, I'll let you know, peace out homie!

Baystars Bazooooooooka!

Happy day! How is everyone? Great! Tuesday I went to another Baystars game. That's the team that represents Yokohama. It was the first team that I liked when I came to Japan, because I was staying in Yokohama at that time. It was great, the first time I've seen them win. They are pretty much the worst team in the Central League. I would say the worst team, but there are the Rakuten Eagles over in the Pacific League, and they are just terrible. Yokohama Baystars do pretty much scrape the bottom of the league.

But, anyway, it was really cool, I went with deuce, who is a big baystars fan, and we had a great time. Baystars went up 7-0 and ended up holding on for an 8-5 victory. At the same time dude? was at the Tigers game, watching the Tigers beat the Swallows to put them within 5 games of the league leading Chunichi Dragons, who the Baystars beat. Anyway, with probably about 10 games left in the season it's gonna take a miracle to get the Tigers into 1st, but I'm still holding out hope... In the Pacific league there's also about 10 games left in the season. The difference is that in the Pa League there are playoffs. So, now, the top three teams are jockeying for position. The top three teams are: Fukuoka Softbank Hawks, Seibu Lions, and Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters. I'm pulling for the Lions of course, and it's important for them to finish in first because the other two teams would have to play eachother for the right to play the lions.

Anyway, after the game we went back to deuce's homeground of Tsunashima. We went drinking at Shirokiya, and then afterwards we let off some bottle rockets on a bridge near the Tama River. It was good times.

In other news, I busted out my long sleeve shirts! It's cooled down considerably over the past couple of weeks, and I'm just about ready to give up my cool biz short sleeve shirts and go back to my regular long sleeve dress shirts for work, it's pretty exciting. I spent awhile ironing them out, and I might bust one of them out for work tomorrow if it's cool enough.

Old people rule!

Well, what's happening? Oh, not much, you? Not alot. But guess what? Monday was a holiday, it was old people's day! Yeah! Well, I guess nicely translated it's "respect for the elderly day." But that's boring, and I like "old people" better, so happy old people's day everyone! Anyway, it's just another in the long line of holidays over here that really mean that everyone gets the day off of work except me... sad... Oh well, it wasn't too busy at work, and monday's my friday, so, whoha! or something. Well, really the big news was that Yoshinoya was serving Gyudon for one day only! Yeah! About 100,000 bowls for the whole country, and I got one of them. I also got a "tenugui," which is a kind of thin washcloth, as a gift, for being one of the first 10,000 people! Yahoo!

It was actually not such a big deal at my neighborhood Yoshinoya, I came at like 11:30 (they started serving gyudon at 11:00) and I waited in a line for maybe 10 mins at the most, and then sat down and ate my (american beef) bowl. The line for take out seemed to be much longer, and I'm not sure why, but I think I heard that it was about an hour wait at the time I went, but, all together it took me about 20 mins to wait, eat, and get out. At Yurakucho (also Tokyo) apprently there were some crazier lines and such, as one university student lined up at 11:00pm on Sunday to be the first one in Japan to eat a bowl. The dude waited 12 hours for meat, rice, and onions... crazy fool! Anyway, Yoshinoya's Gyudon has kinda a cult following over here. Overall it wasn't too bad, the gyudon itself was a bit lacking on the taste side compared to what I remember, but I guess it's to be expected when they have to make so much at the same time, it doesn't get to simmer long enough or something, but it was a nice treat, I haven't had real, yoshinoya gyudon in about 4 years or so. Good times!
Tonight I'm heading out to Yokohama stadium to watch a game with Deuce, I'll put up some pics later.

Herro Kitty!

So, as requested by grandpa, here is a picture of the famed Hello Kitty bike that haunts my existance. Enjoy!

margaritaville!

Payday baby! Friday was payday, so a bunch of us teachers went out to Ebisu and visited a place called "Zest." It was pretty cool, and I had totally forgot about it as I had actually been there about 6 years ago. It's kind of a tex-mex restaurant and I ended up getting some make your own tacos deal, and it was good, but a bit spendy for the amount, but the highlight of the evening was the pitchers of margaritas that were plentiful! There were 3 types to choose from: Strawberry, Mango, and Lime. We got a couple of the mango, none of the lime, and tons of the strawberry. Wow, it was a heck of a night, lots and lots of margaritas! They were good, and they were pretty strong. Well, after mountains and mountains of margaritas,
we headed off to Harajuku, where the art of seduction lives. Rock n' Roll! We walked from Ebisu to Harajuku and it took roughly an hour... possibly more... I don't really remember. It was a kinda crazy walk, lots of good conversations all around. About 8 of us in all made the trek. Anyway, after arriving we drank some more, and had some more great conversations, but ended up going to sleep around 5:30 maybe, and had to work the next morning at 10. Of course working at 10 means getting there around 9:30-:45 and we ended up getting up around 8:30 or so. Anyway,it was a rough day... wowza!

On the aisle

So, here it is, my weekend again, and wow, it's raining again! Wahoo! I'm thinking that's about 6 weeks in a row where it has rained on one, or both of my days off. CRAP! Well, I decided to make the most of it and catch up on some movies that I haven't been able to check out before, and watch some classics as well. I thought that I would run down the list, and go through and review them also. So, to start with, I injured my leg playing futsol sunday night, so I didn't go play on monday night, but I had done a shift swap, so I ended up getting off at 2 in the afternoon. It's now about 8pm on thursday, I gotta go back to work tomorrow, but it's been almost like a 3 day weekend. Anyway, I had alot of time to watch movies...
So, the list goes: 40 year old virgin, Talledega Nights, Anchor Man, Over the Hedge, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Office Space, Ace Ventura Pet Detective, Fast and the Furious Tokyo Drift, and X-men Last Stand.

40 Year Old Virgin: **
So, this movie was alright, it was kind of like a dumbed down version of Office Space. It had some really good lines in it, but all-in-all, it was less than great. The acting wasn't too bad, but the plot was just eh... it could have deffinately been better.

Talledega Nights: *1/2
This movie was, well... a way to kill an hour and a half. It, like the 40 year old virgin had some decent lines in it, but they were pretty rare, and the plot of the movie was pretty poor. I would have to say that Will's performance in it was probably the best I've ever seen him, but the movie was pretty corny.

Anchor Man: **
I watched this one and wasn't really dissapointed. It was pretty much what I expected. Never really had a desire to see it before, but I was bored. Again, a way to kill some time. It had a few good moments (my fav was Jack Black booting the dog off of the bridge) and there were a few good lines in this one again. The reason it got a bit better rating than Talledega Nights was really the plot. Will's acting was OK, but the story was decent, until really the last 30 mins of the movie or so, it got stoopid.

Over the Hedge: *
Wow, I've never heard the term "kill you," or a variation of it, so many times in a kids movie before. It was really quite disturbing... The animation in this movie was really good, some excellent work really, but the plot, the over use of star power for the voice talents, and the script were just dumb. That's all.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind: ***
Well, I'd heard alot of good things about this movie, but I was worried it would be a bit too artsy for my taste, but I always was interested in it because of Jim. It ended up being pretty good. It had alot of cool direction in it, alot of interesting camera effects as they told the story. The story was pretty good, somewhat predictable, but well written, well acted, and really put together well. There were a few parts that were lacking, mostly the people in his bedroom while Jim's getting his memory erased.

Office Space: ****
Some people might question how I could give this movie 4****'s but I love it!!! I've seen it many times, and I still love it! It reminds me alot of being in college. It has a great story, great acting, great lines like "no talent ass clown" etc. It's just a really good movie, if you haven't seen it, you must.

Ace Ventura Pet Detective: ****
Now this movie, if you don't know why it's a 4 star movie, watch it, just watch it. It's f'n brilliant. The story is corny, but any movie about a pet detective has to be. But really, it's all about Jim Carey's acting. This was his breakout, his first gig after In Living Color (which if you haven't seen that, please, please watch it!) and it was really cool. It's just hilarious all around.

Fast and the Furious Tokyo Drift: 1/2
Wow! someone dropped a bomb on this one, what a stinker!!! whoa! Not that it had alot to live up to with the other two previous installments, but good lord! I gave this one a half star simply because of one shot of shibuya where I said, "hey it's shibuya!" Other than that, this movie sucked, big time.

X-men Last Stand: **1/2
Don't know really what to say here, it was pretty exicing, good for a #3 in the series, but nothing spectacular. I would like to argue the casting of Frasier as Beast though. Not that I'm all geeky about X-men or anything, but, c'mon, I thought the Beast was like a big dude right? I know he's all smart and stuff, but Frasier is a wimp! Still the movie was entertaining, a bit over the top, and to my surprise (since it's called "last stand") sets itself up for another one...

hello kitty strikes again!

well, well, well... I took a quick ride to 99 shop (kyu kyu shop) to pick up some juice. I've been drinkin vodka and juice this evening, and I ran out of juice, and I rode down to the 99 shop to pick up some more. I rode like the wind! It took maybe 5 mins there and back, and when I got back, guess what!?! the hello kitty bike was in my spot! damn! it's amazing, it's like the hello kitty bike has it in for me! ahhhhhh! as I said before, I wanna burn it!!!

ball games, beef bowls, and pulled groins....

Whassappining y'all! (shout out to e-diddy!) It's been awhile, how ya doing? I gotta tell everyone that the new Audioslave album is worth checking out, if you like rage against the machine, you'll here guitar work that sounds just like the old stuff, and if you liked the later soundgarden (which I really didn't, but I like the audioslave version) you'll enjoy it also, just been listening to it today, and I never really talk about music much on here. Anyway, I thought I'd start off with, what else, a baseball game!!!
It was decided that there would be a venture to the Tokyo Dome this time, and many of you (like "many" people read this!) may know, I'm not much for domes, but it really wasn't my choice. I went with a couple of co-workers, GD and Deuce (New Balance), previously referred to by different names in a blog some time back, but from now on referred to as GD and deuce. We went to the Giants x Swallows game, and it was ok.... i guess... I mean, I had fun, but the game and the stadium is pretty much shite. Swallows lost, which means the G&%#ts won. It was a close game, but the Swallows couldn't do anything on offense and dropped the game 2-1. Dissapointing as GD and his friends were all Swallows fans, and I, myself, am an anti-giants fan.
There were some highlights to the evening, one of which was this scene, and the fact that visiting the Tokyo Dome was kind of a homecoming for me in a couple of ways: the first game I ever saw in Japan was a game in the Tokyo Dome (and in fact it was a game between the Giants and Swallows then too) about 6 years ago, on my first trip to Japan. I ended up sitting fairly close to where hunbun and I sat o' those many years ago, and the Tokyo Dome is also one stop away from where I used to attend college. I didn't stop by my old school, mostly because I was in no shape to do so, and it was late, but I did happen to go by the station (completely on accident, I took the train the wrong way....). Anyway, the highlight of the evening (for everyone) was an encounter after the game at Korakuen station (the subway station in front of the Tokyo Dome) between us and a fellow foreinger. Now I am ashamed to admit that I think he was american, but this guy was a piece of work. We were having a good time reveling in our loss, singing songs and such, and all the giants fans around us were enjoying our spectical, but this american dude decided to make it his personal mission to ruin our time. He got in my face, and GD's face, and was talking about "beef." I think his exact words were: "you want beef?" "something, something something," of course we didn't really, but there was also 6 of us, and only him and his gay lover (there's nothing wrong with that), so he really should have just kept quiet, but he was just trying to be a big man to impress his "partner." Anyway, nothing happend really, we just laughed at him a whole bunch, but the real moral lesson is that the only person who ever talked about "beef," and was cool, was Biggie Smalls, a.k.a. Notorious B.I.G. (R.I.P), so people, don't do it, just don't do it!
But, speaking of beef, I have wondeful news!
Beef bowls are back! Yoshinoya, Japan's premiere Gyudon (beef bowl) establishment, is going to have a one day beef bowl extraveganza! So, in japan, for about 3-4 years, there has been a ban on american beef. This was in reaction to the discovery of mad cow desease found in U.S. beef. Yoshinoya claimed that their recipe was only good with american beed, and thusly has not produced their famed beef bowls since the ban (aside from one day when they unleashed their remaining stockpile on the Japanese public causing a frenzy) selling only a weaker version, the "buta-don," or pork bowl. Well, they are back at it. About a month and a half ago, the ban was finnally lifted, and now it's cool to buy beef from america again! So, I'm not sure why they are only doing it for one day, but maybe it's just the beginning....

So, the last thing is my pulled groin... well, it's not really a pulled groin, but I thought I might get another couple of listeners using it in the title. I hurt myself playing futsol last night. It's roughly an upper-inner thigh pull, and it's painful. Unfortunately I couldn't join in on tonights game :( Anyway, that's about it for now, peace out y'all!