Day 28: Welcome to my jungle!

In an effort to avoid studying Japanese the other day I put together some pan-o-ramtific pictures of my room that I'd like to share with you now.

I've spent a whole lot of time here lately... a lot of time...

Day 26: Another meeting in the womb...

So, on friday I again ventured down to the womb in Shinjuku to attend an "information" meeting. Again I returned home with little information. I know that it is best for me to wait out the storm and wait for my company to declare bankruptcy so that I can get my money. It is still undecided when this will happen... feels like I've said that before... should be next week... we'll see...

Day 22: the waiting game... again...

So, here's the news... wait. FUCK!!! Now the announcement has been delayed until the 8th. I'm pissed!

Day 22: D-day...

So, here it is. November 5th, 2007, the day that at the meeting was stated as being D-day. This is the day that we should all find out whether or not my company will be able to continue, or if it will declare bankruptcy. It's still only 2:00 am, so I don't expect any news for awhile yet, and really not at all, but we'll see. I'm a bit nervous.

Day 18: balls full throttle...

Well, the clock had ticked over to November now, and I've decided now is a good time to start studying for the JLPT. For those who don't know, the JLPT is the Japanese Language Proficiency Test, and it goes down December 2nd. The test is once a year, so this is the one shot. For the next month I'm dedicating myself to the passing of the test and thusly I've established some rules.

Rule 1:
Japanese only.

There ya go, that's the rule. Means, no English movies, TV shows and the like. There are some exceptions however...

Exception 1:
1 hour a day, and only 1 hour, may be used to speak English.

Exception 2:
One day a week I am allowed to speak my beloved English as much as I want, and to watch it as well.

Exception 3:
If engaged in the act of teaching (ha!) then "Rule 1" does not apply. This should be only 1-2 hours a week if at all anyway.

Exception 4:
Of course, if I'm hanging out with someone who doesn't want to join me in this endeavor, then "Rule 1" again doesn't apply.

Exception 5:
Anything dealing with football, and podcasts such as PTI, and Around The Horn are OK. Also, this blog.

That's pretty much it. We'll see how it goes. Wish me luck.


Here's a look at the books I'm gonna go through this month!

Day 12: the meeting...

Again my fellow instructors and I (along with the staff from our school, and hundreds of other instructors and staff from other schools) met up in Shinjuku at our company's head office, AKA "the womb" (for the Kanto region at least) for an informative meeting about the status of the company. The one thing they forgot was the "informative" part. After a stand-up routine performed by the interim-leader (which pissed off more than a few unpaid teachers), the show began. An hour later we knew 2 things: no money, and no decision for the next 10 days. Great. Oh, I guess we did find out one more thing, no one was going to be working over that time period either (way ahead of the game!). After the "speeches(?)" there was a Q&A session, which brings about a couple questions of my own. Does it count as a Q&A session when there are no As? Is that ironic? I do know one thing, it was BULLSHIT! Anyway, that'll be the last thing about this situation at least until I see some $$$s in my bank. Just don't really like talking about it very much, and if I ever read back through these posts in the future to remember this time of my life, I don't want to read about this.

After the "meeting" we all headed over to BK, yes, that BK: BURGER KING! It's back in Japan now after a 6-7 year absence. I remember 1 or 2 of them here the first time I came to Japan, don't remember if I ever went then, but it's been a solid 2 years or so since I've been and it was a nice stroll down memory lane. Bacon Cheese Whoppers rule!

Day 3: a protest in the park...

So, my vow to put up at least a weekly post has, well, been broken. Sorry. But I'm back! Starting on October 15th 2007, I have not gone to work because I haven't been paid. Anybody who'll read this, will already know that, and that's why I haven't really wanted to write about that, but I should post about something, so, I'll post about what's been going on during my hiatus.


Day 3: a protest in the park...
So on October 17th my fellow teachers and I all met up in Yoyogi Park to protest not being paid. It was nice, drank some beer, some god awful Tequila, played some hacky-sack, and best of all, we played FOOTBALL!! We didn't have an American Football, but one of the Aussies brought and Aussie Rules Football so we ran with it, and it wasn't too bad, a little bigger around than your average football, which made gripping it to throw down field a little more difficult, but not too bad. My team ran away with the game, final score was somewhere around 70-35. Awesome! After the protest in the park, we all headed over to A.O.S.'s house for some poker action and that cost me 1000 yen. Not a great showing, but not terrible either, oh well, it was a good day.

I totally Oeshikied myself

Wow, I know what your thinking, 2 posts in 1 day, yeah, I know. Anyway, what we have here is actual happenings, last night I went down to Ikegami, a station near my house, and the namesake of the train line I ride roughly twice a day for a Oeshiki. Oeshiki is a Buddhist memorial ceremony, and this one was remarkably like a festival, tons of people, fair foods, games, floats and the like. It was wicked times, Deuce, A.O.S. and his girlfriend and I all partook in the festivities that went through the town and into the famous Ikegami Honmonji temple. It was the 2nd time I've been there, but last time was during hanami season and the rain struck, so this was the first time that I've gotten to take much of a look around the temple, and it's cool, like almost all other temples you'll see here, but with more stones than most. Not really much to go on here, but it was fun, drinking, eating, and watching people twirl there stuff in the air, good times.

from the top to the bottom, and back to the rock!

Well, well, well... ellipses... man I bet you all missed that huh? Wait, no one reads this except Deuce, shout out! Anyway after a sweet little 6 month hiatus I'm back, and way wickeder than ever, as shown in these first couple sweet ass lines of prose, frame it! No excuses, but I have a lot of catching up to do, and I think that might have been the main reason I didn't get back on the horse as soon as I probably should have, but I've decided to just go forward from here, and if you're lucky I'll go back in time and post some stuff about the crazy 6 months lost, hey maybe that'll be the title of any future past posts from here on outro. God I missed my wit. Anyway, look forward to, at least, weekly posts from here until the end of the year, I'll start with at least one new one tonight about the most recent rad thing that I was witness to. Cheers all, here's to No Airplay!

6 months lost... post #1: "Play balls!"

Here's a post I wrote way back when (maybe may?) but never put up. I'm putting it up now because if I wait to put pictures with it, it might never show up. So, pictures will come later, enjoy!


Hey hey hey! So it's that time of year again, the smell of the grass, the crack of the bat, and the drinking of the beer. It's a great thing. Over here the baseball season starts slightly before the start of the season back home, and so this year I got out to my first game on April 1st. This season started in Yokohama, at Yokohama stadium with a game between the Yokohama Baystars, and the Yomiuri Giants. The day began with a trip to a penis festival in Kawasaki (that'll be saved for another post) and ended up with a blowout. The Giants put a beating on the Baystars 10-1, with Yokohama's 1 run coming late in the game, while several of our companions were on the way home with someone who had a bit too much to drink in the scorching hot sun. Seems that baseball + beer + heat seems to spell disaster fairly regularly.

Two days later I headed deeper into Tokyo to Jinju Stadium to root on my Hanshin Tigers against the Tokyo Yakult Swallows. It was a real exciting game with spats of rain, a grandslam by Kanemoto (on his B-day), Esteban Yan's Japanese debut, and a free hamburger (given to me by a fellow Tigers supporter) all rolled into a 4-3 Tiger's win. This sweet game was the home opener for the Swallows, however it was far from a sell-out and heavily populated by Tigers fans. Roughly 2/3rds of the crowd was Tigers fans. It was great.

April 7th came around and it was off to Urawa up in Saitama to take in my first J-league game. I must say I'm not the biggest soccer fan, however I have been to a World Cup match, for the experience mostly. I am a fan of the Urawa Red Diamonds (known more commonly as the Urawa Reds), mostly because my favorite Japanese player plays for them. The stadium, Saitama Stadium 2002, which is also the Japanese National Team's stadium of choice, is a bit far from me, but it was worth the trip. Reds fans are super! hunbun and I got there close to 2 hours before kickoff, and all of the seats in the super fans section were already taken, so we ended up sitting just to the left (our left) of them. I'd say that they were just about as exciting as the game itself which ended in a 2-1 comeback victory over Jubilo Iwate. Thrilling victory really.

To wrap up the month of April, Deuce and his lady and I headed back to Yokohama Stadium, this time for a game between the Baystars, and the Chunichi Dragons who were in 1st place at the time. The game was really good, the Baystars were able to come away with a 5-4 victory, the key was that the Dragons' big bopper, Tyrone Woods, struck out 4 times, most of them with men on base. Suck it Woods! The day ended with a trip to good ol' An An, scrumptious!