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.

Eikando

You would have had to have been there, but visiting the Eikando temple was a special experience. Drinking green tea from one of the porches and watching the garden was as close as I got a spiritual feeling in Kyoto. I would recommend seeing it to anyone who is going to be in Japan and who isn't bothered by fire-breathing dragons. Cause they got one. And it hates foreigners. But it loooooooves taffy.

Shout out

Conor, Kevin, Andre, Wu, Mark, Bruce, Ari, and Jeff got back from Ireland recently. Thanks for the Egan shout-out guys. I bought a T-shirt and a permanent marker today to let you all know how much I miss you. 'Rosenthal North 401 and Bruce and Ari' was too long, but its implied.

Nara, Kyoto, Takahama and back

My 9-day holiday began August 23rd and lasts until tomorrow, the 31st. I spent the first day of the trip looking for a giant backpack in Nagoya. I found one for 11,000 yen but I had to let an old salesman feel me up to get it. Bargain in my opinion.

I left for Nara on Thursday. I saw the stupid temples there and a bunch of good-for-nothing tourists. The only things that would make me want to return was the Daibutsu (big Buddha) and the deer. The deer are believed to be messengers of the gods and they're free to roam the city and eat anything that isn't tied down. A lot of tourists get their maps eaten and if you're lucky you'll get to see a little kid crying because a deer is eating something out of her hand that wasn't being offered. I saw a deer hold up traffic, shit, and then a tourist fed it some senbei (Japanese crackers). Where's the Nara deer application? I have excellent qualifications.

I was able to pet almost every deer I walked by and I named the cutest one Daniela.

The big Buddha is housed in the largest wooden building in the world but the last structure built around it was even larger. The last time it burned down the Japanese decided to scale it back to the bare essentials. Lazy asses.

So I left Nara the same day for my buddy Irvin's place in Uji-shi (halfway between Nara and Kyoto). He called me, thinking this whole time that a different Ben was coming to visit him, while some Japanese guy was telling me I looked like a martial artist and that I should grow my hair out. Funny guy. He teaches English to middle schoolers and started writing down everything I said about where I work and where I'm from. He was on his way to some conference and I think I was quickly becoming an anecdote. He said that while a lot of people want to learn from native-speakers, its just as good or better to learn from Japanese. I needed clarification. He said that native-speakers clutter their phrases with expressions that confuse Japanese students. Instead of saying 'Well, in order to comprehend what I'm saying consider this' you could say 'for example' and its better understood. I completely agree. So now I'm now learning Japanese from a deer.

I spent the night at Irvin's and we went out to an Uji bar. The bartender, Katsunari, was a cool guy and on the second night he played a ton of Common. He did watch me piss near his car though to make sure I wasn't fucking with it. It was awkward.

I was in Kyoto for the following two days and I got to see the Imperial Palace, Ginkaku-ji, the Heian shrine, Okazaki shrine, the Eikando (my favorite), Kiyomizu dera (click here to see some people drinking from its spring), and something else I forgot the name of. Most of the temples run together and I don't suggest anyone look at all the pictures I took. The exception was the Eikando. Architecturally it looked similar to the others but you got to walk around the place, go into most of the rooms, pray to their Buddha, and drink free Green tea while you sat near the gardens. It was much nicer than say, Heian shrine, which has landmines, or Kinkaku-ji, which everyone who visits gets Hepatitis C from. By the Kamo River I saw this guy selling cats but I don't know how to cook cat so I passed.

On Saturday night, Irvin and I went ambitiously into Kyoto to drink all night long. Kyoto's subways stop running around Midnight so its either drink all night and skip sleeping, or go back early like some kind of loser. I met him after a day of sightseeing at the Nijo subway station and we went to an Irish pub. It made me think about all of my friends from college (in Ireland at the time) and bummed me out a little bit. By the way, here in Japan we're paying 850 yen per pint of Guinness. Whats the cost in Ireland? We met some random foreigners, Russell from Melbourne, Australia and Cybelle (sp?) Egan from Wisconsin. He was quiet and weird and she was loud and weird. She freaked out because we have the same last name. I tried to downplay it because she was so dumb and annoying. She opened right up though and said she has family in Massachusetts (before I mentioned where I was from). I asked a few questions, mildly interested, and she said she had a grandfather or great-grandfather named Michael Frederick Egan. Well, I happen to have a grandfather who was named Frederick Michael Egan. This caused her to get even louder. So we decided that we are probably distant relatives and she agreed to shut up after that. She was so god-damned lame. Russell was flirting with her all night (maybe even buying her drinks) and right before she up and leaves she mentions she has a fiance. Ugh. I guess jackass distant relatives are better than hot ones you want to see naked. That would have been worse. Maybe.　We are probably pretty distant.

We went to some little bar near the Kamo River (Kamo River in Japanese is Kamogawa, and all the tourist maps write it as Kamogawa River, which is Kamo River River) after that and Russell and Irvin wanted to sit in this bar that charged 1000 yen to sit down, per hour. I didn't feel like it after we just paid 8 bucks per pint of Guinness. I took the last beer that we had stashed away in Irvin's bag and told him I would go sit near the river and try to talk to some girls. We parted and I wasn't to see Irvin again until 7am. Russell could be dead for all I know or care. He was pretty lame. Anyway, so I took the beer and went down by the river. I walked up and down the beach a bit, looking for a group of cute Japanese girls with which to flirt. I came up empty. It turns out not a lot of really cute Japanese girls like to sit by the Kamo river for no damned reason at 2am. So I sat down and drank my beer and fell asleep. I woke up an hour and a half later and realized I had totally fucked up. I went back to the bar only to discover that I had no idea where the bar was. I wandered around for the next 45 minutes unable to do anything but wobble on my feet and look tired. I made my way back to the river thinking that maybe they would return to find me. Not so much. I went back and sat down but couldn't get comfortable. Nothing like being drunk at 3am, sitting in wet sand, far away from everyone you know to get completely lonely and depressed. I would have given anything to get home except the cost of a taxi. It actually never occurred to me to take a taxi home since I thought I might still bump into Irvin. I started to search bike racks for unlocked bikes and by God I found one. I stood near it and mentally debated the morality of stealing a bike to peddle home. On one hand, its wrong. On the other hand, I really want to. It came down to a complete lack of direction. I had no clue where I could find Uji. So I went back to the river and fell asleep with my head on my knees and arms wrapped around my legs. I hopped on the subway after the sun came up but took it in the wrong direction for quite a while. I eventually figured it out, corrected myself, and got back to Uji after 7am. Irvin was already there and had been since 4ish since he bargained with a cab driver to take him home. Behold genius: 'Excuse me, this is all the money I have. Can you take me home please?'

I slept until about noon and then got up to continue my adventures. I was on trains for the rest of the day and got to Takahama beach by 4:30pm. I met these three Filipino guys who are living in Japan to learn woodworking and they told me that I could camp out anywhere. I walked to the far end of the beach and saw an actual campground, so I stayed there. I didn't get to swim that day because I was starving and had to hunt/gather on the beach. Sleeping in my tent at Takahama beach was the worst night of sleep I've had in a long time. Even dozing off by the river was better. The only thing that topped that night of sleep was the FOLLOWING night when I did the same thing all over again, in the pouring rain. I did get a video of myself on the day after the rainstorm, which you can see here. I was able to swim and read my Hemingway short stories all day Monday and part of Tuesday. It was awesome and yes, of course, I got burnt.

I packed up my things on Tuesday when storm clouds started to gather in the distance. After just a couple hours of sleep the night before, the prospect of sitting in that god-damned tent all day in the rain was enough to get my ass moving. I was carrying my pack towards the train station when it started to rain and I felt like a genius for not getting caught in it. I quickly lost that feeling when I found out that the next train out of Takahama-Wakasa station wasn't for two hours. So I took out my Lonely Planet and tried to figure out where I was going. There was nothing back towards Kyoto I wanted to see and my original plans were to go to Kanazawa, on the water, and then on to Takayama in the mountains. The prospect of sleeping in my tent again in the rain made Kanazawa an inferior choice. So I thought I would just press on to Takayama and get a hotel room for the night, a much needed reward for my perseverence. So I caught the train to Tsuruga station and a nice old lady helped me read the train board. It turns out that it used to be possible to catch a bus to Takayama from Fukui (not too far away) but a bridge collapsed or something and there was no longer service. The fastest way to get to Takayama was to either take a train up north to Toyama or south through Nagoya and both ways were going to take a long damned time. If I went south, I could sleep at home that very night and as long as no one bothered me on the train, I could get the whole ride home for free (thank you Japanese train pass system). So I looked in my guide book and there wasn't shit to do in Toyama as far as I could see, so home it was. I got here last night at 7 or 8 and the ride didn't cost me a single yen. I was jazzed. I slept in my bed last night and just couldn't move this morning. I guess my trip is over. I studied Japanese and read some Roddy Doyle at the Gasto in Kyowa. Now I'm uploading my photos and trying to get deer shit off of my sandals. I feel pretty good but the week could have been planned better I think. Takahama was way the fuck out in the middle of nowhere so it left me with few options.

Love from Kyoto

I'll write later. Kyoto Station on August 25, 2006.

More videos

I don't think these videos are interesting, but I'll let you judge for yourself.

Inside of the lodge at Station 8 (second video)

The top of Mt. Fuji

The coy pond at Ise Jingu (this is from July)

There is a fifth video forthcoming of the festival in Kyowa but for some reason it isn't working yet.

Summer vacation

I was at Nova today from 5 to 9pm. When my last lesson was wrapped up, my vacation officially began. I got cookies, gin, tonic, red wine, and tofu to celebrate. I have to go into Nagoya tomorrow to buy a big backpack. After I get that I can load my sleeping bag, tent, clothes, and liquor into it and leave this god-forsaken area for something better. That something better is Nara, Kyoto, Takahama in Fukui, Kanazawa, Takayama, and Inuyama. I have a friend in Kyoto who I'm going to crash with for three days. I'll leave early in the morning on Thursday and spend the day in Nara. There's a giant Buddha statue, the oldest wooden structure in the world, and these famous deer that bow before you feed them. I'll take a train or a bus to Kyoto for the night and crash with my friend, Irvin. I'll spend the next two days in Kyoto seeing all the sites and temples and crap. After that, its off to Takahama and Kanazawa on the Sea of Japan. It's jellyfish season but it shouldn't be a problem. I'll spend another three days just reading, swimming, and drinking cheap beer on the beach. After that its off to Takayama in the central Alps. I'll hike and camp there, high in the mountains where its cool, before going to Inuyama for a day. Inuyama has one of Japan's four castles that escaped bombing in World War II. It has its original interior, which, I've been told, makes it far superior to the much larger castles in Nagoya and Osaka. I'll come back here for work on September 1st, 1:20pm. I'll take pictures and video now that I know how to post it.

Hope you guys are having fun in Ireland. Conor: keep your filthy Protestant hands off the glass.

#1 Nightlife shots

I've added some more photos to Flickr. Those of us who live in Kyowa went out to #1 Nightlife more than a week ago. If you've ever really wanted a picture of me and some Japanese guy in rubber masks: you're welcome.

Fuji Post 3 - Amy

I'm cool with traveling alone and I find that most things are more enjoyable that way anyway, but I wouldn't have enjoyed the hike up Fuji without Amy. She was in favor of carrying beer to the top of Fuji and getting drunk, but was also cool when I said that there was no way I was adding a six-pack worth of weight to my bag. She bitched a little bit right when we started hiking but not after that, and was very talkative and funny even after I got tired and quiet. After we got to the summit and I bought a wooden hand-painted Fuji charm thing, she said 'Let's get out of here, you've got wood and I'm wet.'

Hiking in such miserable conditions can still make for an awesome trip if you have the right person with which to be miserable.

However, after the first time she referred to Mt. Fuji as 'The Fooj' it was no longer funny.

Fuji Post 2 - VIDEO!

We stopped at the 8th Station on Fuji to get some hot food and dry off for a minute. This is the first time that most of you have seen me in the past six months. I'm still as sexy as you remember.

Fuji Post 1 - The details

Amy and I climbed Mt. Fuji on Wednesday night and Thursday morning. Since it was my idea to climb it, I felt like I was obligated to do most of the planning. Normally I don't handle this sort of thing. Your Kevin Skobacs, David Shutoffs, and Daniela Jacobson-Frieds are usually much better at this stuff than your Benn Egans. If I had traveled alone, I wouldn't have thought about it for a second and just headed off into the general direction of Mt. Fuji, caution to the wind. I'm glad that I did research this to some degree though, because before I started reading it hadn't occurred to me to take a flashlight even though I knew that most of the climbing would happen between 11pm and 5am.

My plan was to take the JR Tokaido Shinkansen (bullet train to the lay person) from Nagoya Station to Shin-Fuji Station in Shizuoka prefecture. Everything I read told me this would cost no more than 4,000 yen. I even made a phone call to Nagoya Station and some woman quoted me 3,410 yen for a non-reserved ticket on one of the two trains that leave every :13 and :33 past the hour. A bus could be taken to the mountain from Shin-Fuji 'until pretty late' according to someone's blog. I tried to call the bus station in Shin-Fuji but no one there spoke English and I didn't really attempt to explain in Japanese what I wanted. So then I looked at some advice on what to pack and was after able to relax, the trip having been all but a guaranteed success. Such a perfectly planned trip the world had not yet seen.

Amy got out of work at 5:40pm but we weren't able to meet on the Kyowa train station platform until 7:15pm. I had packed a flashlight, extra batteries, some candy, 2 liters of water, a waterproof shell, 2 sweatshirts, my iPod, camera, roll of toilet paper, sunglasses, bandana, knit hat, and sunscreen. Amy packed inari and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich past what I had. We took the 8:01 Shinkansen (not the 8:13 or the 8:33 which I had been told were the only ones available) for 6,800 yen and change, which was $30 more expensive than for what I had planned. It took an hour and a half to reach Shin-Fuji. When we arrived everything there had already closed down for the night. I asked a Shinkansen employee where we could catch the Fuji-shuttle and he said across the street. Starting tomorrow morning at 9.

I asked some cabbies how much it would cost to get to Fuji and the first guy said 7,000 yen but it wasn't clear to where on the mountain he would be taking us. The second guy said 10,000 yen but made it very clear that it was to the exact spot I wanted to go. Sold. So instead of taking the 2,400 yen bus we were splitting a 10,000 yen cabride. We got to the fifth station on the mountain, Fujinomiya trail, by 10:50pm. This, somehow, was exactly the time I had planned on starting our hike.

Naturally, the further up the mountain you go, the colder it gets. The average difference in temperature between the base and the peak is 68 degrees Fahrenheit. So, even at the fifth station we noticed a considerable difference in temperature.

The hike usually takes 4 and a half hours to the top from the fifth station (the fifth station is where 'nearly all climbers start from' according to my Lonely Planet). There are little huts to rest at on the mountain but it wasn't clear what we could expect from them. So Amy I put on our waterproof stuff because it had started to rain a little bit (it rains often on Fuji so we weren't surprised or unprepared) and I got out of my flashlight (she hadn't brought one) and we started up the mountain. We bypassed the first station altogether because it hadn't stopped raining and we wanted to keep moving. We decided to stop at the 7th station and rest for a bit because we were both quite wet at that point (it STILL hadn't stopped raining and the wind was getting worse the higher we went). It turns out that at every station on the mountain you have to pay to rest. At station 7, to be in the warm hut for any reason, it was going to cost us 1,000 yen per person, per hour. We decided to wait outside the hut under the eaves, slightly out of the rain and wind, for just long enough to catch our breath and eat Amy's PB&J sandwich. I contributed these little brownies that I had bought back in Kyowa. Because of the altitude and the difference in air pressure inside and outside of the package, it had swollen up and looked ready to burst. We were feeling a lot better after we had eaten something and started back up the mountain. At this point, we were completely drenched and getting quite cold. Amy commented that she was glad that her iPod and digital camera were safely wrapped up in a plastic bag. I had neglected to do the same. I checked quickly and yes, of course, they were both wet and I was convinced at that point, ruined. I moved my stuff to her plastic bag and was ready to pitch someone over the side of the mountain in misplaced aggression. With a little bit of luck though, it would stop raining soon and everything would be OK. Such was not the case.

We were on the mountain from 10:50pm on Wednesday until 8:00am on Thursday, and it rained, non-stop, for that entire period. Hiking in the darkness, in the rain, without many other people on the trail, in strong winds, is something that I don't want to do again for a long time. The trip itself was great and I'm glad that I did it, but the actual hiking was exhausting and miserable.

We made it to the eighth station alright but the longer we hiked, the further behind Amy fell. As I was the only one with a flashlight, she was in complete darkness for most of the trip. We kept switching places so we could share the light, but as she didn't want to carry it, it was unavoidable that she spent most of the time hiking without seeing the trail. I'm amazed she didn't sprain her ankle or something because Fuji is composed entirely of loose rocks and things to trip on.

We reached the 8th station at around 2:25am and there were quite a few people resting there. We met some people who spoke Portugese and they told us in broken English that there was a restaurant inside of the station and it opened at 3am. Amy and I waited for half an hour in the downpour and wind, huddled together near a glowing vending machine, in what was easily the lowest point of the trip thus far. When the station opened up, about 20 of us poured inside and paid out the ass for hot coffee, rice and what not. I got a bowl of plan white rice for 500 yen. Amy got coffee for 400 yen but her hand was shaking so badly that she spilled some of it. I got some video with my camera at that point and if I can figure out how to post it, you'll all have a chance to see it before I come home.

From station 8, it was about an hour to the top, so we waited until we could reach the summit at sunrise, and started out again. Putting on cold and wet clothes after you've dried out a little bit will always be one of the worst things that you can do to yourself.

We made it to the summit right after 4:30am, but thanks to the rain we couldn't see the sunrise. The summit was freezing cold, literally, and we didn't stay there too long. It was obvious that the rain wasn't going to stop any time soon so we bought a few souvenirs from a little stand and had our picture taken in front of the Shinto shrine. I think being at the summit and facing the descent was the low point of the trip for Amy. We stood together in the back of the souvenir shop, shaking violently, and I think I saw her tear up a little bit. She's tough, and did very little complaining or bitching during the trip, but I could tell that she was hurting at that point. She beat it down though like a champ and we ventured back out into the rain to hike back down. For almost 40 minutes right after we left the top, it stopped raining. The sky opened up a little bit and we could make out the ground below us, the sunlight, and some of the higher clouds off into the distance. It was exactly what we needed right then. We dug our cameras out and got the pictures that we had climbed the mountain to take. I've posted everything of mine on Flickr, and I'll add Amy's pictures when I get them.

The rain started again but as we got lower the cold was becoming less severe. We got back down to station 5 in about 2 and a half hours and then had to wait for an hour for the next bus back to Shin-Fuji. The next 7 hours would be spent dripping wet on buses and local trains. Thanks to the lack of dry clothing (it wouldn't have mattered even if I had packed some because my bag did a poor job of keeping the water out) I discovered a couple of nascent rashes when I got back to Kyowa in addition to the sore muscles, bumps, and scrapes. After a hot shower and a 6-hour nap, I went out to meet Amy, Carmen, David, and Tom at a bar in Kyowa before coming here to post everything.

The trip was uncomfortable and one that I'll probably find stuff of mine wrecked from in the days to come, but that was all part of why it was also so enjoyable. I would recommend to any and everyone to climb it, even, as we did, in a typhoon.

Fuji

Amy and I have plans this Wednesday and Thursday to climb Fujiyama. I'll bring my camera.

#1 Nightlife and Karaoke

When I arrived in Japan there were five Nova teachers in Kyowa. Sunshine (from Melbourne, AU), Amber (from San Diego), and Erin (from North Carolina) lived on the other side of the tracks, and Brian (from Boston) and I lived in Sun City Windy Courts. Now, Carmen (from Melbourne, AU) and Amy (Long Island) live across the tracks, and David (from Tasmania), Tom (Washington State), and I live on this side.

Another American is going to move in with Amy and Carmen on the 24th of this month.

Amy and Carmen are much cooler than Erin and Amber were, and we've all been hanging out recently. The other night, after drinking at their place for a bit, we went out for Japanese curry. We discovered a new bar called #1 Nightlife. We got a few drinks, split a pizza, and had a pretty good time. There were some Japanese girls in yukata (summer kimono) but I'm not sure what the occassion was. There was karaoke there and we were drunk enough to think that's a good idea. I dazzled the entire bar with my renditions of China Girl and Break on Through.

At some point the owner of the bar joined our table to chat with us (foreigners, especially drunk ones, are always the center of attention) and find out where we were from. He brought over these rubber masks for some reason, so of course we put them on and got our picture taken with everyone in the bar (I'll post the pictures later). When we were ready to jet after 2, the owner himself brought us the bill. It was a white piece of paper with the suspiciously round number 9,000 written on it. That's not a ton of money for 5 people in a bar, but two of us weren't drinking and the pizza was cheap. We couldn't ask him where that number came from either, so we just put everything we had on the table. When we hit about 7,000 yen he told us that was close enough and forgave the remainder. Maybe that was an awesome one-time favor from the owner, or maybe the number came right out of his ass and the fact that we were willing to pay any of it was good enough. We were all on early shifts the next day so we got ice cream from 7-11 and went to bed.

Cicadas are assholes

If it wasn't enough that the sun rises here at 4:30 and all of my windows are made out of paper, the tatami in my room kicks up an incredible amount of dust, and a thick blanket separates from me from the floor every night, somewhere in the neighborhood of a trillion cicadas live outside of my window. They start chirping before 8 or 9am (I havent been up when they start) and go non-stop until I get home from work at night. They are unbelievably noisy and have caused me to turn up my iPod on more than one occassion.

In addition to this, they like to dive at my face when I'm running. I almost fell onto the railroad tracks the last time I got attacked. I don't care if you need to use napalm, someone should spray these damned things.

Reversal of fortune

So as quickly as I made my China plans, I've canceled them. I was operating under the assumption that my trip would give me 8 days in China. Looking at my itinierary I realized that the first and last day were completely lost to traveling. That only gave me 6 days in China. In addition to this, I was flying into and out of Shanghai which means that I would spend a couple of days there, leave, and then lose another day in traveling back.

I think I'm going to wait until the end of my time here to see China. I'll take the Osaka-Shanghai ferry that I found, one-way, for $162 instead. I'll be able to spend as much time as I want there, and then I can take a train out of the country which will be cheaper than covering that distance twice on a plane.

For this vacation I'll either travel around Japan, which I still haven't done (I have my Lonely Planet and I'll just use that to figure it out as I go), or head to Korea for 4 or 5 days. To be honest I have no desire to see Korea (or Taiwan which is also a cheap option) but it seems like if I don't them now, I never will. Is it better to have the stupid stamp in my passport than not? What the hell does one do in Korea? Besides getting kidnapped and tortured in North Korea that is.

Picked up Death in Venice by Thomas Mann and How to Read and Why by Harold Bloom.

What?

Some random Japanese person posted a comment on my 'Pretty Keiko...' post. What the fuck does this mean?

この投稿は投稿者によって削除されました。

kono 投稿 wa 投稿者 ni yotte mae 除saremashita.

This comment, comment writing ... ... to ... before erased/removed (???)

This writing (the subject of the sentence) removed by comment writer

AH!

This comment was removed by the person who posted it.



Ah, that sucks. I wonder what they wrote.

I really wanna go to China BUT

I dont want to be cheap, but its going to cost 56,600 yen to get to Shanghai and back. That's 500 bucks for 8 days. If I waited until I was ready to quit teaching here, I could take my time and spend only 18,000 yen on the Osaka-Shanghai ferry (it takes 2 days to cross the Sea of Japan) and with that extra money spend who knows how many additional days in China. I feel like I've already committed to traveling with this week off, but it suddenly makes more sense to me to see China at the end of the trip and pocket the difference.

Maybe I'll just do both.

Pretty Keiko, China, and Fuji-san

I went to an izakaya with my roommate David (photo, left) and his friends last Friday night, where I met Pretty Keiko (photo, center). Thats how she introduced herself because she's 36 but looks like she's in her mid-20s. She told me she has a boyfriend, but when I said 'that sounds nice' she said 'Does it!?!?' She also told me my ass was sexy and I think tried to sit in my lap but was kind of drunk and missed it. Thankfully in Japanese izakaya you're usually sitting on the floor, so she didn't fall too far. Anyway, you see that body language? She digs my shit.

I reserved a seat on a Northwest flight to Shanghai for the 23rd of August. I'm paying 56,600 yen, but I'm unsure whether that's a deal or not. I have to put money down tomorrow so I'm looking around for something cheaper. I need a Chinese visitors Visa (which costs $60 for US citizens) and a reentry permit added to my Japanese Visa. I haven't booked anything in China (hotels, tours, or otherwise) and when I land I'm just going to wander around and figure it out as I go. When I told my Japanese students about my plans they couldn't quite wrap their heads around it.

I was going to climb Mt. Fuji tomorrow night, but Amy from Long Island asked me to wait a week so she could tag along. I do plenty of things here alone, so some company will be a welcome change of pace.

NOVA's Handa branch

I heard from my ex-co-worker Sunshine today for the first time since she left a few weeks ago. She's back in Melbourne now but sent me this photo from Handa. That's Paul, Andrea, and me (from left to right) in between the fast-paced and exciting world of NOVA lessons.

Sunshine went to Thailand on the way home and said it was a blast.

JTB and No. 1 Travel

When I was looking for flights to Ireland two months ago, JTB and another travel agency told me that flights would be more than $2,000. I pretty much gave up after that. I tried to find last-minute deal websites but my lack of Japanese prevented me from getting too far. Today I went to JTB again to find a deal for my Aug. 23-Sep. 1 vacation. I chose that week without having any sort of a plan, and I'm only now, with three weeks to go, asking around. This is I how I do things.

Trying to communicate with the woman at JTB was aggravating but I made some progress. I told her my days off and said that I didn't care where I went as long as it was cheap and fun. She gave me some phamplets for Hokkaido and Kyuushu (no thanks) so I gave her a dollar figure to work with, hoping that she would give me something more imaginative. I suggested $600 for the flight and she gave me Korea. Korea is about as far away from where I am as North Carolina is from Boston. Pass. How about Cambodia? Cambodia is too expensive. Thailand? Thailand is too expensive. Indonesia, India, or the Phillipines? Too expensive. Ok. I gave up and left.

Then I went to the NIC and asked the English-speaking staff where I could look to find ACTUAL deals on traveling and not the crap JTB was trying to sell me. They suggested No. 1 Travel and showed me their website (http://www.no1-travel.com), which, thankfully, is in English. Hello!? Why did no one show me this before? For my $600 I could take a roundtrip flight to almost anywhere in Asia except India. I could get to Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, Cambodia and a few other places for less than $500, round-trip. In Thailand, I can expect to pay less per beer than we did in Costa Rica, which is saying a lot since Imperial was so damned cheap. I stopped in a liquor store and bought some wine in celebration. Now I'm going to the Nagoya Cathedral to pick up a Bible and a rosary to play with, and then, maybe over to No.1 Travel to book a flight somewhere. Does anyone have any suggestions? I'm not picky I just want to get out of Japan for a little while and avoid Yellow Fever if its possible.

Laaates

I've been ignoring this girl's text messages and phone calls recently but yesterday I noticed that she hasn't been to Nova all week. Most people don't come in more than once a week or so, but she's a regular fixture so I got worried. If she's staying away because of me (which is certain) then I feel bad because Nova lessons aren't cheap. The individual lessons are cheap but you have to buy them in these big packages that make them expensive. I think a single lesson is between 20 and 25 bucks but you need to spend over $1000 for the package. You get a year or more to use all your points up, but most students don't and are left with expired lessons at the end of their contract. Nova isn't looking out for the teachers OR the students, which is why being berated by its middle management is so exasperating. When my friend Andra told Nova she was leaving for Pfizer, Cathryn told her that she was only hurting the students. I'm sure Cathryn is so fucking concerned. You care so much about the students? Fine. Pay me more money and I'll stay. Oh, I see, this is all about ME making sacrifices for the students. Eat shit.

Anyway, so I texted her (the Japanese girl) to make sure she hadn't killed herself and she replied with something like: 'After you don't meet me, I get very lonely... Are you as lonely too?' Nope. In fact, I've sort of replaced you already.

New people have been showing up lately. We have a new guy from Australia named Shannon, a douche-bag from Colorado named Casey, an Australian girl named Carmen and a girl from Long Island named Amy. Casey likes craps and giving other people advice about work despite only having been here for 10 minutes. Shannon used to be a competitive runner in Australia and claims he was the fastest person under 20 in Australia when he was 19. He seems ok but made a terrible first impression. Pat said to him, 'I thought we were getting another American' to which he responded 'FUCK NO!' Carmen is quiet and has correctly identified everyone else as annoying so I expect to see very little of her. Amy is loud and says really abrasive things that are starting to annoy everyone else. She has a boyfriend back home but I think that's going to prove to be a joke. She's cute too.

I have to fill out my taxes (almost 4 months late) but I have pictures of the Kyowa festival (it was a fire or ancestor celebration... I'm not sure which) which was a ton of fun.

Japanese Spaghetti and The Talk

My clingy proto-girlfriend came over again last night and cooked for me. Spaghetti, Japanese-style. Instead of using pasta sauce, she used ketchup. I did a superb job of hiding my initial shock and disgust, but it wasn't half bad.

We watched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind because its fantastic. Last weekend we watched her favorite film, Between Silence and Passion (or something like that) so it was her turn this weekend to be let down by my suggestion. She was able to follow the story despite its circular narrative and slightly confusing transitions. I was actually quite proud of the fact that she understood everything. There were a bunch of different expressions in English that were translated to one thing in Japanese, so I figured a lot was being lost in translation. Maybe she understood it because her version of the movie in no way resembled mine. In the end, it doesn't matter because she didn't care for it.

After that I tried to get rid of her but thanks to some teenage anctics in the parking lot (and no Bruce, we are not fornicating yet) she refused to leave. She sprung the Talk on me in my room, for which I was wholly unprepared. We've hung out a grand total of four times and last night was the first night anything happened between us, but she thought it was a good time to chat about 'us.' She's leaving the country in less than a month and she wants me to wait for her. Adorable as that is, I wasn't aware we were dating. Compounding the problem is the fact that the only adjective she can use to describe any of this is 'serious.' Part of our conversation last night actually ran something like this:

Terrifying: 'I am serious about boyfriend. I think you are serious too.'
Confused: '...Uh-huh...'
Terrifying: 'Really!?'
Confused: '...really what? You didn't even ask me a question.'
Terrifying: mmm mmm mmm... what?
Confused: Exactly.

So basically I'm planning my exit strategy. On one hand, I can't piss her off because she might get me in trouble. On the other hand, up with this I will not put.

My Yahoo junkmail

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Clisk here http://www.iamtheterror.net

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----------------------------

Are there people who want to increase their sperm volume by 500%? Even if there are people who want to improve their ability to produce sperm, doesn't 500% seem a bit high? Also, are there well-known brands of sperm-volume enhancers? Are there people who sit around and debate the merits of the different brands? The world wide shipping in 24 hours is impressive though.

Yikes

The text I just received:




[blah blah blah]. I'll miss you after I come to [blah]. because I like you so much.
Now I can't say I love you easily. but I think my feeling that's kind of love. I'd like to do time when I can be together with you importantly.




Tonight was the third time we've hung out.

Additions

Added some new links. Does this cat not look like a wizard?

Hazukashii

Thats the word for the night. It means embarassing. I had the girl I've been seeing come over and she cooked me dinner. She actually made it earlier at her place and only heated it up because I blew her off until 8pm. She's an awesome cook. She made Japanese curry, mashed potatoes, fried chicken (karage), and she sliced up some veggies. She also brought some Japanese wine that I can only describe as spicy. Not in some abstract wine way either, I mean like Mexican food. She either didn't understand what I was saying about it or couldn't figure out how to read the bottle because she responded with 'rosehips and maka' as some sort of explanation. We searched our dictionaries but couldn't come up with anything on 'Maka.'

Anyway, the word for the day is hazukashii because while I washed down our counters, sink, and stove before she came over, I neglected to take out the three-weeks worth of garbage that had accumulated in our kitchen. How that could have escaped me is something I can't give a satisfying answer to. So, when she arrived and noticed that our kitchen is disgusting and smells, I acted surprised and took all the trash outside. That didn't help though, because when I moved the giant pile of cigarette butts, tea bags, and rotting vegetables, it kicked up a storm of flies and tiny bugs. They didn't follow the trash that I carried, dripping, down the hallway either, but remained buzzing around the kitchen the whole time she was over. I created a pile of trash juice in the middle of the kitchen that smelled like week-old Santorum. She then proceeded to wash every dish and piece of silverware she took out of our cupboards because she no longer trusted a single thing in our kitchen.

We watched her favorite movie, a Japanese film called 'The space between passion and silence' (...nani... to ...nani... no aida). It was terrible and made no sense to me but I lied and said I liked it.

Last night and a Sumo match

I may or may not have hung out with a 29-year old Japanese girl last night.

Tom's friend is going to a Sumo match today at around 5 and I left him my phone number if he wants someone to go with. I'm leaving everything up to him, but I wouldn't be opposed to watching some Sumo wrestling today. The grand tournaments (or whatever) are being held in Nagoya this season so I have the ability to see the best wrestlers in Japan. Maybe not today, but I mean in theory.

I've seen a handful of Sumo walking around Kanayama Station, taking the trains, and doing other normal crap. Its neat though because they're always dressed up in kimono and have their hair put up in the Sumo style. I saw one guy who's head was almost rubbing against the roof of the subway car, but for the most part they're not so tall. Today I saw a guy who must be in a low weight-class because it crossed my mind to topple him over and mess up his hair. Watching the matches on TV though I know that while they seem fat and out of shape their legs are fucking powerful.

Sumo matches only last a few seconds and the season isn't long either. When they're not competing, they're training and eating like crazy. A student told me that standard Sumo fare is something called Chunko (or Chanko). I don't know what it consists of, but they also drink lots of beer for the calories and carbs. So, Sumo wrestlers are treated like celebrities, eat and drink beer, train, and then only have to compete for a few seconds at a time. Sounds like a sweet job to me.

If you're reading this you're holding the economy down

I read a book by the economist Paul Krugman (a quasi-socialist according to Bill O'Reilly) recently, and he mentioned something that I can't get out of my damned head. He wrote that for all of our new technology (advances in computing, improved telecommunications, blah blah blah), we're not actually seeing increases to productivity anymore. The Microchip Age (or whatever the hell this is) is no longer paying off. One of those who is running his mouth about how amazing the age we live in is Tom Friedman (a fellow Brandeis alum, and, along with Krugman, an op-ed writer for the NY Times). I read two of his books, but The Lexus and the Olive Tree deals exclusively with globalization and the technology that's driving it. To sum up the entire 512 page book in a single sentence: Globalization is neato and the world has fundamentally changed. The book is full of interesting anecdotes that I guess are his evidence. While we can do more now than ever before, Krugman is pointing out that we shouldn't be impressed. At least, from an economic point of view.

Before I read Krugman's book I didn't question the benefit to society from advances in computing technology, but I really only used my terminal at IBT to read books online and check out OverheadinNewYork.com. The amount of time that I spent actually working on it was small. That's because the second I got my work done, I would fuck around and do nothing with the rest of my day. All of that potential benefit to the company was eaten up by my lack of motivation. This isn't true for every company, but I wonder how much productivity IBT would actually lose if they switched back to pencils and calculators. It would save a ton of money in operating expenses even if it's employees would suffer for it.

Krugman also claims that getting new computers in schools is a waste of damned money. Interesting.

There's no point to any of this but its my blog, so you will sit down and LISTEN TO EVERY DAMN WORD I HAVE TO SAY!

Lyrics Born Sucks

I found a Japanese-American rapper named Lyrics Born that I was unfamiliar with and who I was hoping would redeem Japanese hip-hop. Well, he sucks like everyone else. He sounds like a shitty version of Gift of Gab (they're both part of Quannum Projects so maybe he just thinks its ok to rip-off his buddies). DJ Honda and DJ Krush are good, and I found a song by DJ Tasaka that samples that 'ding ding ding a ding ding ding' thing which is Pop but dope regardless. As Kool Keith/Dr. Octagon/Dr. Dooom says:

'And ya'll been trying to figure me out for years
Trying to reduplicate me, but they can't, so they hate me
While white boys rub the heads of black music with a Japanese assistant
What does a Chinese kid know about the rap game, it's a shame...'

Thats pretty cold and racist, but since all the Japanese rap I've heard so far sucks, I'm forced to agree. But not with that Japan=China thing. I'm not going near that.

For anyone that's unfamiliar I strongly recommend Kool Keith by the way.

Oh yeah, and since my mom, dad, aunts, uncles, sister, and friends' parents check this blog, sorry about that Japanese stuff in my previous post. Just ignore it if you haven't read it yet.

essential japanese

otearai wa doko desu ka?
where is the toilet?

daiben o shitai desu kara.
because i want to take a big shit.

omanko wa oishii desu ka?
is your pussy delicious?

omanko wa nurete imasu ka?
is your pussy wet?

Waste of Time

I really wanted to like Japanese rap. I really did. Its crap though. All of it. Don't waste your time.

Himakajima

I found a website for　Himaka Island. I didn't take any pictures when I was there, but if you're curious, there's this website in English: www.himaka.com/english.

If you go to the 'Sightseening' section, the first picture is of the beach that I went to.

Blah blah blah

I just downloaded a copy of IBT's W2 request form. I can finally fax this to some woman named Keisha and get my taxes done for 2005. For anyone who's curious, when you get an extension approved by the federal government you get until like October to get your shit together.

I have work today from 5 to 9pm. My days off have been changed to Wednesday and Thursday but it doesn't matter since I spend my weekends alone anyway. I haven't made any plans for myself but if I get restless I can go hiking in the Japanese Alps which are only a few hours away on the train. I'll probably do exactly what I always do though, study Japanese at Mister Donuts and drink about 15 cups of coffee. I tried to switch to decaf, but I couldn't figure out how to say it in Japanese and my gestures and drawings (go ahead and try to draw decaf) weren't helping the girl at the counter.

The other day at Nova I had a man-to-man lesson with a woman in her 50's. She's a nurse and we were just chatting about nothing when she started asking about my love life. I said that I wasn't really seeing anyone right now so she tried to set me up with her daughter. I hesitated in responding so she dropped the subject. I think if I could do it again I would just give her my number and throw caution to the wind, but my reasons for hesitating are excellent. First of all, this woman seems like she might want a traditional Japanese relationship to blossom. By traditional I mean that marriage and children might be expected from me in a pretty short interval of time. Also, even if this girl is beautiful and intelligent and has all the same interests as me, her mom told me that she can't speak any English. Also, this nurses' husband hates English and won't even let her study it at home. The whole thing sounded like a bad scene and even if I started to date this woman's daughter and things went well, I would eventually break up with her and then would be forced to see her mom in lessons about once a week.

The students at Higashiura are awesome. The students at Handa were cool too, but there are some really great personalities at this school. I may dread going to work on most days but when I'm actually teaching, I really enjoy this job. Its fun, its easy, and the days fly by. I've saved up about 430,000 yen so far (5 months worth of saving), which is about $4,000, so the money isn't so bad either. Granted, I haven't traveled much since arriving here, but if I keep the course, I should have a nice bit of money to travel with before coming back home.

Man this post is boring.

My oyster

I just applied for jobs in Tokyo, Beijing, and Shanghai. It was a pretty half-ass attempt if I do say so myself. The cover letter sounds short and generic and the version of Word on this god-damned computer won't stay in English for more than 5 seconds at a time, so there are probably errors and stylistic mistakes.

What am I qualified to do other than teach English? Not that teaching English is so bad but isn't there something more glamorous that my $120,000 brain can do? Like harvesting organs from prison populations (free-lance) or spying for the US government?

I'm here and people seem to trust me, that's all I'm saying Bush administration.

Who knew

I had raw octopus for dinner. Its delicious.

I like you. Just not in a toe-up-the-ass way.

I'm editing my resume and sending it out tonight for teaching jobs in Tokyo and in other countries. My quasi-friend Andrea just gave one-week notice because she found a job working for the pharmaceuticals company Pfizer. I think its either teaching English to employees or editing technical documents. The job required a background in that kind of crap and she majored in... that kind of crap.

The worst part of my week is the weekend. I'm busy with teaching and commuting and whatever else from Friday to Tuesday, but without any friends or hobbies, I just study Japanese and get depressed in my free time.

Teruko sent me a text earlier asking me if I wanted to go out for drinks tonight but, like I said, she's annoying. I blew her off. Being lonely and depressed is better than hanging out with someone who sucks. I can only hear 'REALLY!?!?!!?!?' from someone so many times before it starts to sound like my soul dying.

I was drinking Japanese beer (which sucks) and watching the Japanese version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire earlier. The differences (aside from being completely incomprehensible) between the US and Japanese versions are that in Japan, you play to 10,000,000 yen. Thats less than $100,000. Who cares? Also, they give a short biography of the contestants (although this was a celebrity version) before they take the 'hot seat.' They still say 'final answer' to lock in their guesses, but when they get to the 100,000 and 1,000,000 yen marks, they run video clips of their friends wishing them good luck. There are the same three life lines but the pauses between 'final answer' and the revealed answer are TOO DAMNED LONG. They try to build up the suspense for 20 seconds or more. I was trying like hell to translate the questions but only caught the four possible choices to one question: zeus, poseidon, saturn, and something else. Poseidon was right.

Gnarls Barkley on the iPod.

Hooray!

Nothing much to talk about. I finished my first week at Higashiura. I was nervous about the change but I like this new place better. I work in a mall now. I don't know if that's funny or not. I feel a tad lame, but working in a mall has its advantages. First of all, the food options have gotten much better. In Handa City I ate at the grocery store or McDonalds almost everyday. Now I have tons of options and nothing is particularly expensive. I've been eating ongiri for the past week. They're rice balls, wrapped up in seaweed, with different kinds of fish as the filling. The tuna and mayonnaise ones are fucking delicious.

I haven't heard back from Teruko since we went to that Salsa club. I hadn't planned on talking to her again after that night and I guess she came to the same conclusion.

My roommate Tom won't leave me the fuck alone. More often than not I don't want to talk to him, or anyone else for that matter. Jah help me when we're home at the same time because I find myself his captive audience. He seems completely oblivious to my body language and one word answers. Even when I retreat to my room he'll follow me and talk to my from the doorway. It wouldn't be so bad but he's boring, can't listen to me without interrupting, and is pretty insulting in an unintentional way. I was cooking yesterday and he came up to me to see if I could help him remember the 10 commandments. Good question. Let me think. I got it! Thou shalt not ask your roommate pointless questions when thou hast a computer and internet access in your room. His room is coincidently where its nice and quiet and I'm not currently located. I told my other roommate David that he was annoying the shit out of me and he said that they're both aware that I don't like to talk sometimes and maybe Tom's just doing all of this to fuck with me. If that's the case, then him and I are going to wind up in a bad place very quickly because I don't have any more patience for him and could smash him into the ground.

I had my first level 2 student the other day. The highest level at Handa is a 4, but we do a couple of level 3's in man-to-man lessons only. They're all pretty weak 3's too. So this 2 lived in San Francisco for 6 years, and went to San Francisco State where she majored in Psychology or something. So our conversation went something like:

Unprepared sensei: Hello!
Cute Level 2: Hey, how're you doin'?
Unprepared sensei: Oh. Pretty good, how about yourself?
Cute level 2: Fine, but this morning I got caught in traffic and it took forever to get here.
Unprepared sensei: I see... ummm... so you lived in the States?
Cute level 2: Yeah, I lived in San Francisco for 6 years before coming back to Japan.
Unprepared Sensei: Oh. What do you do?
Cute level 2: I teach English to little kids.
Unprepared sensei: Ok... Do you like art?
Cute level 2: Yeah, I'm really into Pop Art right now. I just finished a book that I think Andy Warhol wrote or something, and he just seemed so sad to me.
Unprepared sensei: Was the book 'A to Z with Andy Warhol' or something like that?
Cute level 2: Yeah, it might have been.
Unprepared sensei: Yeah, I read that back in Boston.
Cute level 2: Cool.

Her fluency was just a little bit slower than mine but her vocabulary was as good or better than most native speakers'. So we just chatted about art and America and her (god-dammit) boyfriend. Why she needs Nova I have no idea since I was unable to tell her anything she didn't already know. She looked a little Emo to me with her big square frames and second-hand t-shirt. I like it as a look though.

Other than a kid's class in which this little shit likes to scream in my ear, Higashiura is pretty awesome actually.

is this back on now?

come on you bitch

Its getting hot and humid...

I bought a manga last night for 350 yen and I'm determined to translate the damned thing. From what I can understand so far (and this is all true) its about a high school in Japan and its new Russian foreign-exchange student. All of the students are scared of him until he shows up and the girls fall in love with his shit. Sadly, his fans include this one girl, Miki, who is the secret crush of our hero, .... ... I don't remember his name. When this Russian student is introducing himself to the class he says something like 'Japan is weak at sports.' Our hero uses this to get in his face and, maybe, to win his girl's affection. Anyway, our hero is about 2 feet tall and scrawny and gets his ass kicked about 10 consecutive times by the Russian guy for reasons I can't begin to understand, until, Michael Jordan (this is all true) shows up and fights the Russian. I think Michael Jordan loses, and somewhere else James Brown makes an appearance. The whole thing is batshit crazy and I'm quickly learning that my Japanese sucks.

Lets see. Its already 3:28pm here and I really don't want to go to work tomorrow. I might give my 30-days notice on my apartment tomorrow so that at the end of the month I can leave this place. Maybe head to Tokyo, maybe South Korea, maybe somewhere else entirely. I left the United States for an adventure and living in Japan isn't enough for me. I need more. I want to go even farther away and deal with even weirder shit and I don't think I'm going to be able to come home until I've done this. Then again, I never do what I say I'm going to, so this means nothing.

Sunshine is leaving tomorrow. I'm really sorry to see her go since she's one of my only quasi-friends here. Before we parted today she said 'good luck with life.' I wish I thought of something clever to say.

My weltschmerz and the hours

I went to Himakajima yesterday. That's Octopus island for those of you who can't even read Japanese. Honestly. Get with the program.

It was alright but most of the island looks just like the rest of Japan. Tiny houses inhabited by tiny people with even tinier children, all of them pretending that they're not staring at me when I walk by.

The water was nice and I finally got a chance to go swimming. Kelp still scares the bejesus out of me. Its something I don't think I'll ever get over. There are two beach areas on the island (east and west) and from the east side you can see other islands off in the distance and its actually quite beautiful. I would have taken pictures but the battery in my camera was dead and I wasn't willing to wait around for it. Sorry guys.

I stopped a group of four women to ask for directions in my indechiperable Japanese. The woman closest to me when I said 'sumimasen' actually shrieked out loud and ran behind one of the others. After I calmed them down by explaining what I needed, one of the other women indiscreetly backed up and took a picture of me. I felt like Finbar McBride must have felt in The Station Agent. Yeah. That's pretty obscure but if you know it, appropriate.

I got lunch on the island and it was fucking delicious. The restaurant had six fish tanks, each large enough for me to lay down inside of, filled with so many different kinds of fish that the place felt more like an aquarium than a restaurant. I made friends with a doomed ray that was like 2 feet wide. I got the 'ranchi seto' (lunch set) and had an eight-dish spead placed before me for under $10. I was happily eating from this little bowl of what I thought was salty noodles, until I looked closely and found that the noodles were actually tiny fish. The heads were still attached and only the tails removed, but they were so small and unassuming that there wasn't a noticable change in texture, even for the tiny eyeballs. They were quite good. You always have to be paying attention though.

I finished King Lear in a cafe on the way home and then went to a bar with my roommates at around 10.

Hey mama, (something) that thing that makes you go (something something...) blah blah blah... I hate the music in this place.

Political insight from those who know

I think Angelina Jolie and Pink missed their mark by almost 5 years, but if you enjoy the political opinions of people who aren't fit to have opinions, than enjoy:

this article:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060621/ap_en_mo/people_jolie


and these lyrics:

Pink ft. The Indigo Girls
'Dear Mr. President'

Dear Mr. President
Come take a walk with me
Let's pretend we're just two people and
You're not better than me
I'd like to ask you some questions if we can speak honestly

What do you feel when you see all the homeless on the street
Who do you pray for at night before you go to sleep
What do you feel when you look in the mirror
Are you proud

How do you sleep while the rest of us cry
How do you dream when a mother has no chance to say goodbye
How do you walk with your head held high
Can you even look me in the eye
And tell me why

Dear Mr. President
Were you a lonely boy
Are you a lonely boy
Are you a lonely boy
How can you say
No child is left behind
We're not dumb and we're not blind
They're all sitting in your cells
While you pay the road to hell

What kind of father would take his own daughter's rights away
And what kind of father might hate his own daughter if she were gay
I can only imagine what the first lady has to say
You've come a long way from whiskey and cocaine

How do you sleep while the rest of us cry
How do you dream when a mother has no chance to say goodbye
How do you walk with your head held high
Can you even look me in the eye

Let me tell you bout hard work
Minimum wage with a baby on the way
Let me tell you bout hard work
Rebuilding your house after the bombs took them away
Let me tell you bout hard work
Building a bed out of a cardboard box
Let me tell you bout hard work
Hard work
Hard work
You don't know nothing bout hard work
Hard work
Hard work
Oh

How do you sleep at night
How do you walk with your head held high
Dear Mr. President
You'd never take a walk with me
Would you

Its fucking raining AGAIN

I went to the NIC and got King Lear, the unabridged Moby Dick, and a collection of American plays. I won't start any of them until I finish The Brothers Karamazov, which was a present from Daniela.

While considered poor art in Japan (despite being the most popular Japaese art in the West even today), I rather like the wood block prints of artists like Hokusai. This is his 'Ghost of Kohada Koheiji.'

Are You Experienced?

I bought an extra-tall Kirin Green Label last night at midnight with pocket change. I was wearing my bandana, mesh shorts, and a T-shirt with holes in it. I used no fewer than 11 1-yen pieces, which have 90% of the value of a penny. The 7-11 employee was convinced that I didn't have enough money, so he refused to sell me the beer. I had to count it in front of him and prove that it was, in fact, exactly 211 yen. He apologized for miscounting and dismissively gave me my beer. I then went over to the park near my apartment building and drank it, alone, listening to Jimi Hendrix albums on my iPod.

Gmail search

90 of my saved emails contain the word 'fuck' and only six contain 'snuggle.'

Thats sad.

Deep lows and laughing in their faces

So that everyone's caught up: I was given notice that I would receive TOEIC/TOEFL training about 2 weeks ago. Nova instructors usually sign these training forms without reading them because its just part of the job. Or so everyone assumes. I thought I would see what happens if I refused to do so. I dodged the Japanese staff for the rest of the day, threw the form away when I got home, and sent one of my superiors (that I'm cool with) an email asking him for advice. I talked to Cathryn a few days ago on the phone and aggressively (so I've been told) told her that I refused training.

Now, today:

I walked in to work expecting a pretty innocuous day. So, like I always do, I put my book, iPod, and bottle of water down and looked at the schedule. My third block for the day had the ominous looking 'G D H' written in it instead of the slightly less terrifying 'Kinder.' Maybe I'm a pessimist, but I could only come up with 'General Disciplinary Hearing.' One of the Japanese staff that we refer to as 'Bambi' told me that my boss, Cathryn, and the regional... very important... whoever were coming in to talk to me. I got a call shortly thereafter from Cathryn who said she was on the way to 'talk about the unresloved issues of our last phone call.'

I apologize to everyone for not being able to get my phone's voice recorder to work. I would love to have audio evidence of everything that happened in that freakishly long 40 minutes.

I was getting myself pumped up right before our meeting, and I decided, with no reservations, that I was prepared to lose my job, pack my bags, and either be on my way home or to Tokyo by the end of the day.

So, when you feel that you have nothing to lose, dealing with your company's shit management can be fun.

I walked in to the worst looking good-cop/bad-cop routine you'll ever see. Frightened and easily-bullied Cathryn was in the far corner and bad-cop was brooding (hunched over with his forearms resting on his thighs) on the opposite side of the room. I introduced myself and shook hands with both of them. I sat down and opened with a joke. I can't remember what it was but they both laughed nervously. I was completely in control.

Cathryn told me that we had a misunderstanding and they were there to make sure I was on the same page as everyone else, blah blah blah. TOEIC\TOEFL training is 'part of my job responsibilities' and no one's asking for my opinion on the issue. They are things I must do. I said something like: 'hahaha, ok, but question: why do you give me a form to sign at all?'

Cathryn: Its just our way of informing you of the change.

Benn: Fair enough. But why do I have to sign training forms and not have to sign the form that you sent me when you changed my schedule to teach Chibi kids.

Bad-cop: What does it MATTER how we INFORM you? The point is that Nova lets you know. Thats Nova's policy and...

Benn: Haha ha hahaha... ok, ok. We're getting sidetracked. At what point can I say 'no' to Nova?

Cathryn: Well, at no point.

Benn: Haha, ok, so what happens if I don't sign the form then.

Cathryn: Then what you're saying is that you're refusing to do your job duties. Is that what you're saying?

Benn: (Thinking out loud) Hmmm.... refusing to do my job duties... is that what I'm sayyyyyyiiiiiinnnngggg?... YES! Thats what I'm saying.

Cathryn: (Completely bewildered and unsure of what to do next) Well... (glances at bad-cop, hoping that he can come to the rescue).

Bad-cop: (Completely pissed off that I haven't stopped laughing or smiling since I sat down and his face has actually turned completely red) Do you think this is funny?

Benn: Haha, yeah, I find this all pretty funny.

Bad-cop: What do you find so funny... (raising his voice) can I ask you to sit up straight?

Benn: Me? (raising my voice higher) You sit up straight!

Bad-cop: I am sitting up straight.

Benn: No you're not, you're all hunched over like this (I mimick him but don't get the laughs that I would have if Bruce had been there).

Bad-cop: Well, I have to write on this pad.

Benn: Haha, oh, I see. Haha.

Bad-cop: Could you please STOP SMILING?

Benn: (When he said that I completely lost it and just started to really belly-laugh with the biggest smile you've ever seen on my face) Can I not smile in this room?

Bad-cop: (To Cathryn) I hope you're writing all of this down.

Benn: HAHAHA

Bad-cop: Cathryn, could I ask you to step out of the room?

(Cathryn actually gets up and obeys this request, leaving her dignity behind)

Bad-cop: (Completely calms himself down and starts to have a real conversation with me about what's been going on)

He was really losing his cool when I refused to treat him with any kind of respect but did a perfect 180 when Cathryn left. We sat there and talked for a long time while Cathryn waited in the hallway. When I told my roommate Dave about it he said that I should have yelled 'and get me a coffee while you're at it' to her. That would have been brilliant.

So we talked it over and he calmed down and I stopped laughing in his face and we came to some kind of an agreement. I'm not REFUSING training, but given that I have an unusual amount so quickly, they're putting it off into the distant future. However, since Handa needs someone who is TOEIC/TOEFL trained, they're moving me to Higashiura and bringing one of those guys to Handa in my place.

At the end of our conversation he felt it necessary to bring up my behavior again and tried to give me some 'good advice.' His advice was not to laugh during a meeting like this again. I laughed after he said it and give him a really mocking 'oooOOOOKay!' He wanted to sit down and get into it again with me but thought better of it and left. Before he got out the door I thought I would make some chit-chat with him (realizing perfectly well that he's Scottish): 'so, if you don't mind me asking, what part of Ireland are you from?' 'I'm from Scotland.' 'Ahhh.'

People seem to be pretty positive about Higashiura. The staff is less organized, the place is messier, but a lot of students who just want to fuck the teachers go there. So maybe this is the best thing for me.

To be safe, I just sent applications to the three other big English schools in Japan with Tokyo as my destination. If they respond quickly enough I can make the trip up there for this weekend or the next and maybe get myself hired before August.

I guess I really do look like Prince

Back in middle school I used to get picked on for looking like Prince. It really bothered me then, but I've come to terms with it.

The other night, my roommates and I went to Toriko's (an izakaya in Kyowa) and a drunk-ass Japanese guy that bought me a few drinks told me that I reminded him of someone. He took a long, slow sip of sake and thought for a minute. His whole face lit up and he announced to the bar 'He look like Prince!'

Not to be outdone, some other guy said, 'No no no... he look more like Mr. Bean!'

Thanks guys. The Mr. Bean reference is a first for me, but I guess I really do resemble Prince in some way. American 7th graders and a drunk Japanese salariman can't be wrong.

Mihama

I went to Mihama, a city on the southern end of the Chita peninsula, this past Friday. There's a 10km path to hike that runs through orange groves. It was a good hike and part of the trail runs along the ocean. The beaches in Mihama suck though as they look more like Oakland harbor than say, the Cape. Theres all this industrial crap built in the water and despite the long-ass beaches, no one was swimming or laying out. The trail was fun but there are some mutant species of wildlife in Japan. I actually ran away from a butterfly. Butterflies larger than my hand and anything that can jump as high as my face gets ran away from, no questions asked.

Also, the center of my chest hurts every time I try to do push-ups. How can I tell if I broke something? Did I already ask this?

There's a mighty judgement coming...

Its hard to find a reason to go to work when its so nice outside, the classes that I have to teach today suck, and I'm only on for five lessons. Its much easier to skip work on a half-day. Someone at Nova should make a note of this.

I went out to a beer garden last night with my roommate Tom and I didn't enjoy talking to him. He was a literature major at Evergreen College in Washington State and everything that goes along with that. He likes to make tons of unfunny references to books and authors and shit. So, I'll talk about books with him but our conversation sounds more like a list of books than it does an actual conversation. Its so lame. I'll ask him who he likes to read, and then he'll just list four authors without any real explanation and then he'll mention what some other author said about books or something. I'd gladly trade him to any of you for a jar of Teddy's Peanut Butter.

I'm gonna spend today at Mister Donut again, studying Japanese.

The spiders from Mars

its raining here. im headed over to mr. donut to study japanese and finish the 1,001 arabian nights today. i was going to either go to tokoname with teruko, head out to himaka island, or hike on the orange trail in mihama if it hadn't been for this stupid weather. if it rains tomorrow as well I'll need to take a day off from work next week to keep myself from attacking my co-workers and students.

i talked to daniela this morning which was awesome. in our conversation i mentioned that i've never laughed at so many bad jokes and non-jokes before.

bored sensei: how are you?
eager student: fine.
bored sensei: why fine?
eager student: because weather is shining!
bored sensei: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! good one!

thats not even a joke.

in my own opinion im a terrible fucking teacher. im not teaching anyone anything. i also believe that im a MUCH better teacher than most of my coworkers. This guy I dont like named Mark is actually pretty good at his job, but the rest of my coworkers are terrible. This Canadian girl I work with does an activity called 'Listen and Repeat' with upper levels that is such a bad idea. Its where the teacher reads a sentence out loud and then the students try to imitate the pronounciation. its for the lowest levels only and just bores higher-level students. i heard her doing that for level 6 students the other day, and a level 6 student is capable of telling you a short story about what they did yesterday. They have a lot of grammatical problems but their english ability is pretty good, so to read sentences to them is like asking a native speaker to come up with vocab for a day at the beach. Like, are you serious?

36-year old guy from Albany: Sand?
NOVA teacher: EXCELLENT!
36-year old guy from Albany: haha. ok. how about... blankets.
NOVA teacher: Good job!
36-year old guy from Albany: Ok. Whats the point of this?
NOVA teacher: Are you sure you can't think of just one more???
36-year old guy from Tacoma: The sea. As in, I'm going to drown you in the sea if you don't actually teach me something.


Sigh. Rain sucks.


"You spin me right round baby, right round
Like a record baby, right round round round

...

all i know is that to me
you look like you're lotsa fun
open up your loving arms
i want some, want some"

Dead or Alive, I miss you.

It breaks my heart in two...

So my roommate Thomas brought his sweet-ass Mac to Japan but apparently that doesn't mean anything for me. I wanted to use his Mac yesterday after work so I sent him a text message from the train. He said that I can use it as soon as he gets home. So fucking lame. He has a password on the damned thing so I can't get into it without him either.

Who wants to write emails, update their blog, and look at some hard-core porn with another guy looking over their shoulder? Plus, I have to use it in his room so when he's home I'm in his way the whole time.

If anyone knows how to break into a Mac, please let me know.

How to lose someone in 6 emails

Things took a quick turn for the worse. Observe.



EMAIL #1

To Benjamin

Hello!! I read language-exchange recruitment at International center.

Did you get good partner already??

I want to help you learning Japanese and please help me speaking English.

My name is Manami. 23years old soon. I am Japanese woman.

I work at Aichi prefectual office. I am a local government officer.

I can speak Chinese a litte too.

My hobby is Japanese archery and tennis and snow boading reading books,,,etc.

If you have a interest about me, please give me a contact and please tell me about you.

If you can, please send me your photo.

I wait your return.

Thank you.

Manami



EMAIL #2

Hi Manami!

What kind of books do you like to read? I snowboard and play a little tennis too, but my primary interest is reading. I also love English and Japanese hip-hop.

I don't mind emails but I'm much better at getting coffee. If you have free time next Thursday or Friday, I'm available.

I'll show you my photo if you show me yours.

benn



EMAIL #3

To Benjamin

Hello!! Thank you your immediate answer to my mail.

It is Friday today!!　It comes weekend !！ Iam very happy♪

By the way, I don't know your basic information.

Are you a woman aren't you?? How old are you? Where are you from??


Manami



EMAIL #4

Hello.

My name is Benjamin. I am a man from Boston in the US, and I'm 24 years old.

please text me at bennegan@vodafone.ne.jp if you want to get coffee this Thursday or Friday.

I don't check this email account often so if you send me messages, it might take up to a week for me to reply.

How are you!??!?!?!!?

benn



EMAIL #5

Hello!!

I am Manami. Last week I was very busy!! Sorry!

I try to meet you. But , you didn't send me a photo. So my mother and my boyfriend don't permit me to meet you. I think they are careful of me.

Sorry!!



EMAIL #6

No problem. It sounds like you have a pretty scary life though. I
dont think that you have room for a friendship with me.

Also, how does a picture of me help anything? It doesnt.

Have a nice life.

benn

From Kyowa

I am updating this from my apartment in Kyowa. My roommate Thomas has a bad-ass Mac and we found an unsecured wireless connection, so I'm in business.

Nothing to write about though...

Movies that suck

I saw The Omen and I thought it was terrible. Unless Damien's father is the priest with the 666 birthmark, the movie didn't make any sense. I realize that there's a second and third movie, but to leave so many questions unanswered was pretty lame.

I watched the DVD commentary afterwards. To hear the writer and director talking about their inspiration made me hate the movie even more.

The writer said that the idea came to him when he was eating lunch with a weird religious friend and he was asked: 'Hey, what if the anti-Christ comes back and is only a small child?' The writer then ran home and wrote the first 10 pages of the story. Wow. What genius. I don't think you can use the phrase 'the idea came to me' in that situation, I think the more correct term is 'the idea was placed gently in my lap by a former friend who no longer talks to me because I hella-ripped him off.'

I was going to skip the next two but I think Christopher Walken is in one of them.

Quit playin' bitch; get in.

At Sakae again. It could start raining at any moment.

I woke up today to find some of my Japanese homework corrected with a note attached telling me 'ganbatte ne.' I don't know what the word 'ne' does to a command, but the first word means to persevere. Who the fuck corrected my homework? I guess one of my roommates brought someone back to our apartment last night after I had gone to sleep and they thought they'd help me out. Remind me to thank you with a sandwich full of pubes. Persevere! Asshole. I AM persevering thank you very much.

I picked up two books on kanji and I'm about to head to Mr. Donut again. I'll send a few emails from this laptop before I go to people who texted me about meeting up. I haven't paid my phone bill so I can't text from my phone anymore. I can receive calls and emails but I've lost the ability to make them. I'll get on it. Soon. I promise.

I haven't weighed myself since January. I haven't been able to find a free scale yet. You've all seen the recent pictures of me, right? What do you think I'm down to? I hope its not below 160.

I'm going to stop at a few travel agencies today and ask about prices for Ireland in August. Keep your fingers crossed guys.

I hope this works

I'm changing my approach to NOVA. Today I was given a form to sign so that I can go to Toyohashi on the 26th and get TOEIC/TOEFL training. Training is pretty much mandatory, but you still have to sign this form and consent to be trained. So I'm not signing shit. That's my new approach.

I have the form in my bag right now and I'm going to tear it up and throw it away when I get home. Training isn't mandatory if they need my permission to go ahead with it. That much seems clear. So, if I can refuse training, what incentive do I have to take on yet more work for no additional money? Maybe that's not how things are done in Japan but that's also how things are done when you're dealing with suckers.

I'll call my boss and let him know that if they want me to get trained then I'd better see some more money or a change in my schedule. I want three-day weekends and no more half-days. Those are my demands. That, or one tobaggan ride, per week, with any NOVA student I want.

I think I'm actually prepared to lose my job over this. I don't think they can afford to fire me right now with the teacher shortages at both Higashiura and Handa, so this is definitely a calculated risk. If I do get fired over my refusal to sign the form, than I'll pack up my shit and go to Tokyo to find a new job. I would have enough money to get by for a couple of months and I don't think it would be hard to get hired again in that time. I think I'm also willing to gamble with my job because I came to Japan to have an adventure and working at a boring-ass job while saving all my money is hardly what I would call an adventure. I should quit based on that reasoning alone and try to join the yakuza. Or move to Mie and join the ninja town. Or set up a tent on Himaka Island and live off of the octopus there.


Octopus? Octopus(s)es? Octopi?

Pictures from Kevin

(sigh)

I miss you guys.

Moderately interesting

I'm about to open up to you all and I'm already feeling guilty about it. The woman I'm about to talk about is awesome and things could turn quasi-serious between us. I just don't want to do anything that I'll regret. On the other hand, check out how awesome this is:

I'm sort-of seeing a smoking-hot possibly fake-tittied 40-year-old Japanese divorcee. That may have been the largest number of hyphens I've ever used in a single sentence.

I had a date with her last Thursday, and I missed a call from her today. I'm actually only guessing that she's around 40 since she wouldn't tell me her age. She knows that I'm older than 23 (that was her guess) but I didn't tell her exactly how old I am because two can play that game.

At the end of the night she seemed concerned that I might miss my train home, and I assured her that I would be ok. Then it occurred to me that she might be inviting me to go back home with her, so I acted panicked and asked her what I should do if I missed the train. She said she didn't know, so I told her that I would be fine then. I dont know if I fucked up what she intended as an offer or I read into that too much. She's classy so I dont think she's the kind of woman who would jump the gun like that.

She worked at a securities firm for 8 years after graduating from college. Then she got married, divorced, and began a part-time job doing reception work at a real estate firm. She moved to Canada over a year ago to learn English. She returned to Nagoya a month ago and she stared a new job two days ago.

She has awesome boobs for a Japanese woman, but they were suspiciously perky for her age and I'm pretty sure her nipples were hard for the entire time we were together (at the time I thought she was just really into me...).

On a related note:

I got a few more texts from psycho stalker girl (like she has a chance with this kind of competition) and she announced to me that she has finally finished her classes at NOVA (Im assuming this means we can hang out all the time now). I deleted her messages and im actually thinking about blocking her number.

There is no finish line

If I didn't know any better I'd say a slightly out of shape Kirsten Dunst just walked in and started to email behind me.

A few beers and a beautiful day

Tenki wa ii desu ne. Thats going to be my opening line when I start to chat with Japanese people today. I had Irish coffee and a few beers for breakfast and now I'm loose. I want to make some friends and flirt with girls but without a few beers I'm just too god-damned shy to do anything about it.

So, I threw on my favorite shirt and bought a new gray and orange bandana with a dragon on it. I'm going to make some friends.

I had a talk with my Aussie roommate today and he really isn't such a bad guy. He said that one thing about having an ego, but I don't mind him at all. He showed me his sketch book for some reason and his stuff isn't bad. I mean, it eats a dick compared to my stuff (of course) but its good.

Work sucks the life out of me. I've been listening to a lot of Neil Young and I love the line from one of his songs: 'not a day goes by and I dont burn a little bit of my soul.' Awesome. Exactly man, exactly. I wish I could just win the lottery and drink beer, smoke pot, and flirt with Japanese girls, but its not in the kaado I suppose. I've been bitching to Daniela recently about how boring my life is and whatever else, but its not Japan's fault. I think of all the places I could be right now I would be happiest here.

I have plans to meet some guy for coffee today (his English seems pretty solid) but tomorrow I want to go to Himaka Island. Himaka is Japanese for Octopus and the island is right off the southern tip of the Chita peninsula (where I live and work). You can get really good octopus and raw fish there and its supposed to be just a great lonely little island. I want to read and swim and just fuck around and inch allah I'll be there tomorrow at this time.