Matsumoto-Jo

Matsumoto-Jo is about 400 years old. Thats about all I know about the castle and the town. Hopefully Yuka will want to get drunk early and that will make everything a little bit more fun.

I have plans to meet a student of mine next weekend for a few beers (he's close to 50 I think and a dentist, but he's funny and he has one of the highest English abilities at our branch). Either that same weekend or the following one, I have plans to go to Osaka with Tom. When Pat and I went down we didn't get to see any of the sights, so I guess that's the focus of this trip. The weekend after that, Tom and I will go to Tokyo to take in the nightlife. Tom gave his notice less than a week ago and his last day is the 18th of next month I believe. He hasn't really seen anything in Japan yet so this is his attempt to see everything at the last minute. I'm happy to tag along. And by tag along I mean lead him to all these spots since he doesn't know anyone in either area and doesn't want to spend any money. I'm gonna miss him a little bit I think. Mmmm.... maybe.

More updates about nothing

I'm going to Matsumoto-Jo in Nagano prefecture tomorrow. Its about a 3 and a half hour bus ride from Nagoya but hopefully its worth it. There are 12 original castles (feel free to correct me here Sahil) in Japan and of those, four are considered national treasures. Two castles near Nagoya, Inuyama and Hikone, one past Osaka at Himeji, and the one we're going to in Nagano. I visited the Nagoya Castle and it was ok but the interior seemed very museum-like and modern. The stairwells had neon exit signs and every room was wired with electricity. People who have seen the originals have said they're incomparably better. Also, I'm going with one of the Japanese staff at the Higashiura branch, Yuuka (on the left). This is one of the few pictures I have of her and its obviously not very good. She's cute though. You have my assurances.

Today I had an interview with some hippie from Toronto who runs his own school (although its not really a school) in Gifu and Nagoya. He had three kids classes (on Wednesdays from 4:00 to 7:15pm) that were about to become teacherless. It would have been an extra $120 a week, which would have been nice, but the job no longer exists. The teacher decided to stay in the country at the 11th hour, so I got a text last night from this guy telling me that we should still meet in case anything else comes up, but its now an interview for nothing. It seemed more like an opportunity for him to tell me how awesome his 'business' is. He asked me a few questions that could have been easily answered by just looking at the resume I sent him, and he seemed disinterested for the most part. He charges students 5000 yen per lesson and pays the teachers 4000 yen. He meets potential students and directs them where to meet the teachers. Thats it. I'm not even sure where I would have been teaching to be honest. I would have showed up at Obu station on Wednesdays to be picked up (by who exactly?) and driven somewhere to teach the kids. There are no lesson plans and he doesn't even have any input into what I should be teaching them either. It sounded pretty sweet (I would have been making twice what I make at Nova, per lesson) and I could have even stolen the students away from him and kept the full 5000 yen myself. Ah well. I'll keep looking.

To answer Bruce's question, it looks like nothing is going to happen between Amy and I. Her boyfriend is visiting right and she seems really happy with him. He's also a really nice guy and I think its probably where she should be. I don't want a long-term relationship with this girl, I just want some ass right now and so he's probably the better choice for her.
When she first mentioned that she had a boyfriend I thought it was like, one of things that girls think is cute to say but doesn't really mean anything. She is 7,000 miles away or whatever, right? She's still pretty cool and we'll keep hanging out but I'd be surprised if it turned into anything and I'm not gonna force it, so there you go.

We're scared little girls

I took a stupid video of the Praying Mantis that somehow got into our apartment. Its completely lame but I've never seen one before so I got my camrea. Don't watch it.

Stupid Government Warnings

I have this fantasy of traveling from Japan to France or Ireland, stopping in China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Burma, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, Greece and some European countries along the way. So I was looking into Visa requirements and fees, and the US government has put a travel warning on some of those countries, namely Pakistan and Iran. Is that the kind of thing that should deter me from going? It would totally ruin my backpack across Asia and Europe thing I got going, so my question is: Should we take government travel warnings seriously? Thoughts? Or is that just the government covering its ass and being overly cautious?

Barbecue pictures

Not the most successful barbecue in the history of barbecues, but fun nonetheless. These pictures create the illusion that food was cooked that night when in fact it was consumed pretty close to raw. All the beer helped to kill the germs.

I had a student ask me what 'pretty' meant in the sentence 'its pretty big.' I never really thought about it, but it could mean either 'very' or 'kind of' in that context, depending on the intonation. Usually I give whatever answer is easiest but I was determined to explain this one as accurately as I could. I think they understood the concept but intonation is lost on most Japanese, whose language lacks it completely.

Pictures

Yes, you're reading that correctly. This statue outside of an electronics shop in one of the busiest parts of Nagoya is wearing a shirt that says 'Looking 4 Poonanie.'

Osaka

I've signed myself up for a bunch of overtime this month. I figured if I'm not traveling or doing something constructive, I might as well be at Nova earning money for my future trip through Asia. I had gotten a half-day of overtime for tomorrow, Wednesday, approved a week ago but it never got reported to my branch, so I didn't get it after all. This is actually quite convenient for me because yesterday Pat invited me to go to Osaka with him for the weekend to visit a friend of his. We're taking a train tomorrow at 3pm to meet his buddy and go out drinking. This will be my second time to Osaka if you count my first night in Japan. I've been told Nagoya and Osaka are very similar cities, with the distinction being people from Osaka are a lot friendlier and more cosmopolitan, and the food kicks the ever-loving shit out of Nagoya's.

Listening to Gogol Bordello. Its different, but I recommend giving it a listen. Enjoying The Killers a lot more.

Two weeks later

I spent last Wednesday reading about the Adolf Eichmann trial and studying Japanese before going to Red Rock with Amy. We got pretty drunk and then crashed at a friend's place in Kanayama. Amy has been on a kick lately about Carmen, her, and I moving into a place in Kanayama and getting out of Kyowa. It's easy to be enthusiastic about the idea because I don't think its actually going to happen.

We spent all of Thursday together and it was just a perfect day. I am unable to sleep in after a night of hard-drinking and apparently neither can she. We went back to Kyowa on the 9:30 train and hit up Royal Host (see crappy American-style family restaurant) for pancakes. You could just tell by looking at the picture that they were gonna be outrageously small so I outsmarted the menu and got a shrimp sandwich. This guy named Brett called Amy while we were eating and reminded her that they had made plans to meet at Kanayama station in 10 minutes. She flaked on him, but we had just enough time to run home, brush our teeth, and then show up at Kanayama station only an hour and 20 minutes late.

Brett is a cool guy. He works for Nova but he's in another area so I never come into contact with him. His roommate Jeremy works in Okazaki (my area) so I had at least heard of him. Brett is from California and he taught history back in the States before coming to Japan. We borrowed Jeremy's and Jeremy's ex-girlfriend's bikes and went riding. The three of us took a basketball and headed to a half-court near Yaba-cho. We split an extra tall 6-pack and shot around for a little while. I was able to hear Brett's theories on Japan and teaching English. Everyone has their own opinion about Japan and Japanese people and its interesting to hear about it. After that we went to Osu and poked around the trendy used clothing shops. When we got back to his place in Kanayama the sumo matches for the day were starting on NHK so we drank some more and he explained in detail the inner workings of sumo. It was quite educational.

We had a few more beers and then decided to barbecue in the park near his apartment. We went to the grocery store in a giant mall near his place to buy lighter fluid, meat, beer, and chips. The barbecue was a dismal failure. Japanese charcoal is really thick and its hollow. Theres obviously some special way to light it, but I didnt know what that was. I wasn't worried though because Brett assured us that he's a master barbecuer. It turns out: not so much. Despite using an entire can of lighter fluid and plenty of newspaper we couldnt get the damned thing going. Some of the coals got hot but not enough to really cook anything. He put two burger patties on the grill, so Amy and I left him to it and played on the swings. When we got back to check up on the 'master barbecuer' the burger meat was all mushed up and spread out, not to mention barely warm. Close enough. Brett and I ate that and then we wisely gave up before even putting the chicken on the grill. We did manage to eat a lot of chips and drink beer though, so it went pretty well as far as I'm concerned. We cooked the chicken back in his apartment and watched his And 1 tapes before some girl he was interested in showed up. He was clearly entertaining her and we were getting tired and bored anyway. Home together on the train. Probably one of the best days in Japan so far.

Cultural odds and ends

Normally the Japanzine is crap but this month's issue, about weird Japanese fetishes, was interesting. The artist Hokusai (1760-1849), most famous for his woodblock prints of Mt. Fuji and for every piece of Japanese art that you can identify, was also (maybe) the first artist to depict tentacle porn. As far as I know tentacle porn is endemic to Japan, but I find it extremely interesting that the first example of this is found in The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife (third picture down), which is almost 200 years old. I've seen enough anime and manga to know that interest in monsters and creatures with tentacles having sex with, and often raping, women is alive and well.

What's up with that?

Alcohol

I went out last Saturday with all of the teachers from Handa for a Sayonara party. This cool Canadian guy named Matt is leaving. We went to some Japanese restaurant/bar in Kanayama and for a mere 2500 yen, it was all-you-can-eat and drink. The Japanese staff at Handa had made reservations and I think there were about 15 people in our party. The food (outside of the yakitori which was delicous) wasn't great but we drank more than enough booze to compensate for that. We put down so much beer that there was hardly any table space available for the empty beer mugs (I'm not bragging; its important to the story). Amy, Carmen, their new roommate Corey Mudge (nobody likes her and we call her Mudge behind her back), and I arrived at around 8:30pm and we were cut off at 10pm. In that hour and a half I managed to get absolutely blasted. There was a karoke set in the room with us so we turned it on and started to belt out the classics.

Anyway, at some point someone threw some noodles across the room (it may have been me) and we all got into a food fight. In the confusion, someone (maybe me again) jumped onto one of our two tables and caused the whole thing to come crashing down. I broke so many damned glasses in the fall that the Japanese waiters and most of my coworkers spent the next 15 minutes working together to clean it all up. The restaurant charged everyone in our party an extra 500 yen for all the damage I caused. I don't remember cutting myself then, but I woke up the next day with a giant chunk of my thumb missing. I'm going to have a nasty scar. I guess it happens.

At some point in the night my roommate Tom left the restaurant and went swimming in the Nagoya River. Picture the Charles River in Boston but with all of the water gone and motor oil in its place. Not the cleanest place to take a dip. He also neglected to take his shoes with him when he left the restaurant, lost his glasses and digital camera, and ruined everything in his backpack when he went for a swim. I found him the next day in Kyowa with two black and completely worn-out socks, stinking like I couldn't even begin to describe. He couldn't get rid of the smell even after multiple showers.

I slept that night in Matt's Kanayama apartment with Amy and the next day went to work completely drunk. I thought I could sober up in the two hours I had before work but my first lesson was a mess. I couldn't sit still for a minute without readjusting myself, I was wobbly, and I had to keep closing my eyes but the girl I had in the lesson has a crush on me and didn't notice. She probably just thought I was flirting with her. This same girl admitted that her dream was to marry a foreigner. She then blushed like crazy and peeked at me from behind her hands. That's so cute that I want to run and hide.