Oh, Japan...

2008-01-06T17:51:00.000+09:00

Happy New Year everybody (if anyone still reads this).

Here's the deal. As part of my transformation to NewAndImproved 2008 Christine, I'll probably be phasing out this blog. The fact is, I'm tired of it. The "foreigner in Japan observing crazy Japanese stuff" thing is way overdone, and I no longer have the Tourist Mindset that lends itself to that kind of writing.

I need to turn over a new leaf.

Sorry.

So how am I gonna become NewAndImproved? Well, my vacation back to my roots gave me a new perspective and served me up a heapin' spoonful of ambition. Here are my TEN New Year's Resolutions, in no particular order:

1. Give serious thought to my career goals, and be headed in a non-English-teacher direction before I turn 25.
2. Achieve and maintain target weight, without any of that exercising-for-the-sake-of-exercise nonsense.
3. Accordingly, start taking vitamins every day, before I turn into a malnourished empty shell of a human being.
4. Write regularly. Not out of obligation, but because I enjoy it. This blog, having at some point become a chore, has got to go.
5. Cut back on certain bad habits by about 50 percent.
6. Pass the level 2 Japanese test, or at least become able to speak Japanese comfortably without stammering like an idiot or making ridiculous mistakes (at convenience store: "I'd like a bath. I mean A BAG! FUCK!").
7. Experience more live music and art. Talk pretentiously about it.
8. No more pukey hangovers.
9. Stay grounded and don't let certain aspects of Japanese society get to my head (prejudice, rigidity, superficiality, etc).
10. Wash the damn dishes.

In closing this post, I'm gonna include something I wrote to someone on Facebook the other night:

"How is living in Japan different than living in the States?"

How is it different? Let's see... People tend to either treat me like a celebrity or a freak, and I'm constantly self-conscious about how different I look. I have to speak Japanese a lot which often makes simple everyday stuff into a struggle, and I often feel like I'm supposed to be representing my entire country when I talk to people. My apartment is tiny (complete with 5'9" doorways) and has no central heat, no clothes dryer, no dishwasher, and no oven. Television is awful, but cell-phone technology is amazing (well, maybe not so much now that the U.S. has the iPhone). Grocery stores have very little that I like, and people don't really eat on the go, so I find myself not eating much in general.
I've been on TV pretty regularly (a children's show), recorded my voice for books on CD, and I was a poster model for my company last year and saw my face inside trains.
So yeah, I'd say it's a lot different. In some good ways and some bad.
Happy to be back, though. I love my crazy life :)

2007-11-09T17:30:00.000+09:00

Ever been lying on the couch watching TV and drooling on yourself, when suddenly YOUR OWN FACE appears on the screen, smiling and waving in extreme close-up?

...Yup.

Whoa. I am freaked out.

Oh, and the show finally updated its website. Check it out.

2007-11-01T23:24:00.001+09:00

OCTOBERRRRRRRRRR
(Christine's New Life in Tokyo)

They wouldn't let me get a picture until his head was fully on. Shame, he's kinda a hottie under there.

There's some weird stuff inside Sunshine City in Ikebukuro.

An adorable handmade flyer for the local elementary school's Sports Day

Hanging out with some drag queens in Kabuki-cho. The larger queen was obviously the leader, smacking around the smaller one and calling her "stupid" until she scurried away and came back minutes later for more abuse.

rofl.

The name and address of the ramen shop, printed on the seaweed. Brilliant.

Another shot from outside my front door

Just call on Jaws of Life Hello Kitty to save you from the mangled wreckage of your car

I seriously cannot get enough of this game. And I will kick your ass.

Wholesome fun at the Yokota Air Force Base keg party.

At Los Cabos, a Mexican-themed bar in Ikebukuro. As we made such a shameful scene, trying to get our drinks served in coconut monkey cups, we can never go back there again.

Lovely Takinogawa

Itabashi Station

Out with our new Air Force friends in Shibuya

Derek, Lori, and Jill

I come down to ECC Headquarters in central Shinjuku whenever I want to waste my bosses' time with stupid questions (read: often).

Derek at karaoke, no doubt singing a song about freakin' some fly honeys

The Yamanote Line, with Ikebukuro in the background

Highly amused by a random statue of Godzilla in Ginza

...and the Halloween Party:

No one knows the guy in the orange jumpsuit.

Or this guy.

Or these guys. I vaguely remember the guy on the right being from some obscure Eastern European country.

What is going on in the left side of this picture?

Nice.

...what?

From our mailbox, instructions for how to conserve energy. Of course there are cute cartoon characters. Of course.

In Ikebukuro Station

2007-10-28T18:18:00.000+09:00

Last night was a H.A.M. (Hot-Ass Mess), as Halloween parties so often are.
I'll post some pictures later.

2007-10-21T15:15:00.001+09:00

Last night was a sweet dance party at a club and somehow 20 of my friends ended up being there.
Despite being hung over, I'm feeling good about my Sunday.
It's 3:00, I'm still in my pj's and my download of Friday Night Lights is at 77% (I love that show way too much).
I called up CoCo Ichiban Curry and twenty minutes later there was food at my door. And I'm about to wreck that shit. for realz.
That's pretty much all I need to be happy I guess.

2007-10-10T02:43:00.000+09:00

Hatred quelled. Post finished. Entire box of cornflakes...eaten.

In honor of the coming of fall and the long-awaited end of Tokyo Sweatbath Summer Inferno 2007, I now present to you...

ChRiStInE's SePtEmBeR pHoTo BoNaNzA!

A warm-up (courtesy of icanhascheezburger.com)

Okay, here we go:

A room full of drunk Japanese businessmen dancing to Bon Jovi. Which layer of hell is that, again?

Redhead rage (at Dave's birthday party in Yoyogi Park)

The small Japanese man ducking out of the way of my boobs is just some stranger we met in the park. There is also a picture of him and his friend mooning the camera that I considered too obscene for this blog.
And as you can see, Dave decided to grow a mustache in honor of his birthday, which is fabulous in that ironic-detachment way.

Sexy and...something else.

"WHATS UP MARGUERITE I COULDN'T HELP BUT NOTICE YOU'RE ON THE PHONE LOOKATMELOOKATMELOOKATME"

My itty-bitty moving truck and lone itty-bitty old dude that came with it. Aren't moving guys supposed to be young, rugged and muscular? Answer: YES. Imagine my disappointment when I rushed to answer the doorbell (after applying makeup and checking myself from every angle) to find THIS.
So I ended up having to ride in the truck, knees and arms all awkwardly tucked up, for a damn HOUR while this crazy dude mumbled to himself and commented on how tall I am and how gigantic my feet are.

These are jars of giant killer bees mixed with cheap sake. Homemade. The bees were found a few train stops from my home in Omiya. Terrifying.
George claimed that it would give me the "power of the bee" on Pillow Fight Night, but I was not convinced.

In a ramen shop in Shibuya's club district.

We had to tell Dave that the mustache+MickeyMouse look was a bit too paedo.
One or the other, but not both.

Megan and John. I guess this was just a case of finger-over-the-flash, but it works.

I call this series "Enlightenment."
or maybe "Not Flattering."

A giant storefront in Ikebukuro designed to look like a hand holding a cell phone. I get to walk by this on my way home now.

My new hair, the night that I got it.

And a few random cell-phone pictures:

A portable air-guitar. It has sensors that play notes when you "strum" it. For a low, low price of 2500 yen.

Anyone wanna rent a dog?

A "gift melon" costing over 200 dollars. For that much money, this melon had better give you an HJ or something.

If I had a nickel for every Japanese salaryman passed out in an awkward position on public transportation, I'd have a shitload of nickels.
It happens to the point where people just step over something like this and pretend not to notice.

And an awesomely bad photobooth picture taken during our "girls night" last week. All the junk floating around is Liza's doing - I prefer a more subtle approach to the art of cutesy flying debris.

i'm awesome.

2007-10-10T00:44:00.001+09:00

youvegottobeKIDDINGME

I worked for hours the other night on a long, photo-filled post, only to go back tonight to finish it and find that it's a big steaming pile of dead links. This sucks.

This is why I don't want to write in this effing thing anymore. It just shits all over me. Constantly.

forgetit.

2007-09-28T16:53:00.000+09:00

Blog is on hiatus until I get everything sorted out with my new life.

Quick update: I'm in my new apartment, it's fantastic (by Japan standards that is...), and my life's been pretty much work-chores-party-sleep since then. Moving took a pretty big toll on me financially, so I won't be going out much in the next couple weeks. I'm still unpacking and I hope to finish today. As soon as I get the chance, I'll put up some of the pictures I've taken recently.

Oh, and I got my hair did on Wednesday. Three hours of chemicals and hot tools and my hair still smells like burnt farts. Looks lovely, though.

Back to work.

2007-09-07T01:57:00.000+09:00

Seven hours after being sent home from work early, I'm still cowering in wait for the predicted typhoon while Liza's out having a "hurricane party" (Floridians scoff at hurricanes but piss themselves at the sight of a snowflake, the morons). I've spent the majority of my night watching men's gymnastics and drinking a fairly disgusting amount of Kahlua. That pretty much brings you up to date.
Siiiiiiigh.
Looking outside, we've got heavy rain and a little wind. But where is the typhoon?
Okay Japanese people, you've gotten Whitey all worked up about mysterious and deadly East Asian shit once again without coming through (see also: earthquakes, blowfish, ninja stars, drift racing).
I tire of your games.

Anyway, I wanted to take a picture of the storm to show y'all, but since there's really nothing to see, I'll instead show you the current (sad) state of our "veranda."

click for larger view

racism at a family restaurant at 4am

2007-09-05T04:46:00.000+09:00

so me and my friends were just minding our own business
and this japanese guy across the room was like "shut up"
and we were like "what? umm ok whatever sure" and quieted down a bit even though we knew he was full of shit and his people were being just as loud as we were
and he all came over to our table
and then he fuckin' kicked a chair over and kicked our table
and i stood up and was like "whats the problem? there's no problem, okay?"
and he was all up in my face
and then a waitress came and he went back to his table
and then i could hear him talking shit about americans (even though the people i was with were british and australian)
and then we were just pretending we didn't see him
so on his way out he came up to our table
and was all putting his foot on the table and getting in george's face
and he was like "you understand japanese right?"
and we were like "yeah"
and he talked a bunch of shit in that tongue-rolly masculine japanese
and called me an ugly bitch
and kicked the table again
i was all ready to fight and my friends said no
because if the police got involved, THEY would go to jail because they're foreigners
so the waitress came over and ushered him and his friends along
and i heard her say to them on the way out "thank you very much!" like they were fuckin' valued customers
she saw me giving her the "what the fuck just happened?" shrug, so she came over to us
and gave us the most brusque "sorry" she could manage
and that was all.

limping home

2007-09-02T07:57:00.000+09:00

click.ow

click.ow

click.ow

click.what

click.the

click.fuck

click.have

click.i

click.done

click.to

click.myself

click.this

click.time

OHHHH, THAT'S RIGHT. I TOPPLED OFF A TABLE LAST NIGHT.

fabulous: dancing way up high in the middle of the club, engaging the crowd and revelling in your own hotness.

not fabulous: taking a major spill in front of everyone.

...

good god, my foot hurts.

2007-08-29T00:18:00.000+09:00

I guess I have to keep writing in this thing, because I've been CHALLENGED by one John Clyde. Bring it.

Okay, so the reason I haven't written much in a while (yes, I'm always full of excuses) is because I am SO. DAMN. TIRED.
Not that I've been working hard. In fact, I feel like I spend the majority of my time sitting in front of Facebook while scratching myself.
No, I'm just tired because the other night, I decided that I was so above sleeping, and consequently stayed up till 5:30 on a work night. Sitting on facebook and scratching myself.

As a 23-year-old with her head up her ass, I regularly do things like this. I also tend to fall into prolonged states in which I'm so above cleaning up my shit, so above conserving electricity, and/or so above eating anything but fast food.
[note: it is scientifically proven that nine out of ten 23-year-olds have their heads up their asses. probably.]

However, there is one thing that I have done properly in the last month...
Liza and I signed the lease for our new apartment in Tokyo! We'll be moving in during the second week of September. And here it is:

yes, I can read this. Worship me.

Pros and Cons:

Pro: awesome location. A five minute walk from Nishi-Sugamo Station (subway), and a ten-minute walk from Itabashi Station (train). From there, it'll be 15 minutes to Shibuya, 9 minutes to Shinjuku, and 4 minutes to Ikebukuro and the Yamanote Line. We'll also have a bus stop one block from our place, and a fabulous ghetto-ass supermarket a short walk down the street.
Pro: decent rent. I'll be paying 60,500 yen before utilities. I'm currently paying 69,000 yen a month to live in Saitama and get made fun of by all my friends who live in Tokyo. I should have realized this sooner.
Pro: roof deck. We're on the 5th floor of a 6th floor building, and since the 6th is set back from the rest, there's a big open space on our floor. Did that make sense? Well, what this means to us is SUNLIGHT and SKY, which are two things that I haven't lived with in over a year. Here's the view from our front door:

"Look, Simba. Everything the light touches is our kingdom."

Pro: elevator. One of the apartments we checked out was a 4th-floor walkup, and all I could think of was the inevitable tumble to my death on some drunken evening. Not to mention I simply don't like exercise.

Pro: balcony access. My current bedroom window looks out onto a first-floor walkway. The only way to get to our "veranda" is to go through Liza's room. At our new place, both bedrooms will have their very own sliding-glass doors leading out to the balcony. Not much of a view (mostly sides of taller buildings), but at least I'll be able to get some fresh air and hang up my clothes more easily.
Pro: more bathroom privacy. Let's be real - nobody wants to do their biznass right off of the main hallway and behind a thin wooden door that has slats in it.

Con: space. A lot less of it. I'm especially concerned about closet space, since my current closet is twice as big and filled to capacity. But there isn't much we can do - 46 square meters is pretty reasonable as far as Tokyo apartments go.
Con: lack of furnishings. I'm talking a complete lack of furnishings. We are moving into three empty rooms, equipped with only a toilet, a bathtub, two sinks, and an electric range. We will have to provide for ourselves the following: washing machine, heater/airconditioner unit, refrigerator, microwave, toaster oven, a TV, stuff to sit on, stuff to sleep on, stuff to eat on, stuff to put other stuff on, stuff to clean other stuff with...you get the idea. Before you panic (MOM), keep in mind that 1. since Tokyo charges people to dispose of large items, people are giving stuff away all over the place, and 2. I feel like "the first apartment" is a rite-of-passage, and part of me is looking forward to roughing it for a while while we gradually pick up odds and ends. Besides, I've long ago adapted to living in a nest of my own filth, so my standard of living probably won't be an issue.
Con: noise leakage. Those slidey-doors separating the rooms are really thin. This I justify by telling myself that Liza sleeps like it's her job, I've got a massive stash of earplugs, we like the same music and TV shows, and our schedules are so different that we won't be in the apartment together all that often anyway.
Con: mystery. Because someone still lives there until the end of the month, we haven't actually seen the inside of the place, save for a few pictures. Hahahaha...errrrrrrcrossyourfingers.

So there you have it. The adventure starts September 9.
Lord help us.

2007-08-19T07:18:00.000+09:00

the last morning of the second summer vacation in japan

you fall asleep on the yamanote line.
sitting by the window, head against the glass. watching the city fall away into the distance.
with headphones on. something instrumental.
while thinking about new friend alison, and that boy with brown eyes.
they're both going home today. back across the ocean.
but your home is here.
and your friends have names like marguerite and hidemitsu.
you live in japan.
and now you're walking that same walk home you've done for a year.
fighting against the morning and squinting against the sun.
dragging your feet and checking the new freckles on your nose.
(how many people here can see their own noses?)
exhausted, falling into bed. hopefully no earthquakes today.
this is your life as a 23-year-old. who would have thought.

2007-08-02T10:19:00.001+09:00

I am hung over and trying to go back to sleep, but I can't because there is a goddamn parade going by my house. My god please go away.

Last night, me and Jen were at McDonalds and a big ol' cockroach scurried by us.
Someone told the staff, and hilarity soon ensued when not one, not two, but three men (two of whom where "Managers") were dispatched to the scene. Their primary tactic seemed to be chasing the cockroach around with a dustpan and a broom. When that didn't work, they stood around scratching their heads for a while and then took apart a seat in one of the booths.
Lots of flustered bowing to the customers.

2007-07-26T01:45:00.000+09:00

A milestone in The Adult Life Of Christine:

July 25, 2007: The first time Christine completely neglects to pay a bill and has to suffer the consequences.
My cell phone company, AU, has pulled the plug, and I have no cell phone until I drag myself to the AU office and do some remorseful bowing. Shame upon me, my family, my ancestors, and my nation. Or something like that.

2007-07-24T00:24:00.000+09:00

On Sunday, I went to a festival in Urawa. When someone invites you to carry a heavy ceremonial shrine ("omikoshi") down a long street with some whiteys and some Chinese people, you take it. Bring on the gawking.

There weren't enough happi coats for everyone, but I managed to rush in and grab one for myself. America!

This isn't so bad! (notice the tall guys in the back taking all the weight)

Weight redistributed. Starting to feel the burn.

And then a child climbed on top and started waving fans around...

"Motherfucker, this is heavy!"

A good time was had by all. We only had one drunk old man yell at us for befouling his culture, and my shoulder made it through with only a little bruising.
All that rhythmic yelling and clapping and bouncing really gets you PUMPED! and THIRSTY! So we proceeded directly to the beer garden afterwards and proceeded to drink our weight in beer. It's all a bit fuzzy after that.
Wasshoi! Wasshoi!

2007-07-19T02:32:00.000+09:00

Here in Japan, we have these things called "natural disasters."
This is kinda a problem.

You see, at home, the most I ever had to worry about was the winter "nor'easter," which would come through like an angry bitch and take a big white dump on my house. The aftereffect of which was the enormous hassle of having to pay my brother to shovel my car out.

But Japan. Japan's full of tricks. There's always the danger of the earth spazzing out all of a sudden without warning, and then bam! a building has fallen on your head.
This happened in Niigata last weekend to a lot of sad old people who thought it would be a good idea to live on a fault-line in a house made of paper.

There are also typhoons (from "taifu," which is the Japanese word for hurricane and also really fun to say), and wouldn't you know it, we had a typhoon warning, right smack in the middle of my first long weekend in three months.
The typhoon was due to arrive mid-day Sunday, so I naturally started thinking about disaster preparation oh, around 7am Sunday morning while I was still in Shibuya and still quite intoxicated.

I then decided that the only safe and responsible thing to do would be to head home and buy food, as it had been quite a long time since I'd had anything in my fridge besides expired tofu and skunky beer.
So off I went in the pouring rain to my neighborhood grocery store, where I bought the following:

Two blueberry yogurt cups
Two bags of frozen "Spicy Chicky Bone" (half price!)
One bag of frozen edamame
One can of condensed clam chowder
A carton of milk

After squelching back into my apartment sopping wet, I immediately went to sleep, and by the time I had woken up, the storm had passed. False alarm. I was pretty disappointed, since I'd had big plans to spend the day watching the mayhem from the safety of my living room.
I hadn't, however, realized the following:

1. I had taken the batteries out of my flashlight long ago, to power my speakers.
2. Said flashlight had then been dropped behind a piece of furniture, and I had since forgotten which one.
3. Dairy products and two bags of frozen buffalo wings do not make good emergency rations in the event of a power outage.

I'm an idiot.

Stay tuned for the next installment of the Christine Clusterfuck Hour. Same time, same channel.

2007-07-13T15:30:00.000+09:00

The squat, redheaded woman named Irina offers to get me a drink, but I decline. She laughs, then straps on her shoes, gets up, and wraps herself around a metal pole.
...
WAIT, WHAT AM I DOING IN A RUSSIAN HOSTESS CLUB?!

Long story short, on Wednesday night I made friends with a crazy Russian girl at the usual bar, and when 2:30 or so rolled around, she dragged me across the street to her place of employment. I got a couple free drinks (vodka), made friends with some ho's (miserable-looking), and had compliments showered on me by some lecherous Japanese men ("customers").

Around closing time, drunk Irina decided that she would try to give me her shoes - some scary pleather-wrapped-around-the-calf, metal spike-heeled numbers. This is how the conversation went (we were speaking Japanese to each other because her English was crap):

Irina: "Here."
Me: "Huh?"
Irina: "You should keep these."
Me: "Me? Why?"
Irina: "I think you like them."
Me: "But they're too small, and I can't walk in them."
Irina: *shrugs* "Well, you can have them. I think you like them."

There may have been some sort of larger, symbolic exchange happening here. I wasn't sure. But I didn't take the shoes.

Never a dull moment.

2007-07-11T02:37:00.001+09:00

Meet Loincloth Guy.

But first, let me backtrack:

A Japanese man in sunglasses spends a good half-hour spastically dancing alone in front of the DJ. No big deal.

A spastic Japanese man in sunglasses makes it readily apparent through his dancing that he had a couple handfuls of various drugs before showing up at the bar. No big deal, he's not bothering anyone.

A spastic, drugged-out Japanese man in sunglasses takes off his sunglasses, lies down on the nearby couch, and begins thrusting his pelvis into the air to a techno beat. No big deal, we all have our forms of self-expression.

A spastic, drugged-out, pelvic-thrusting Japanese man gets up from the couch and raises his arms in victory.
Double take! What's that peeking out from his jeans?! A piece of cloth in front, a piece of cloth in back, and some string. Well, no big deal, just your average, run-of-the-mill sexual deviant.

A spastic, drugged-out, pelvic-thrusting, sexually deviant Japanese man marches up to the dance floor, rips off all his clothes down to his bright red loincloth, and jumps up and down until George the Bartender stuffs his clothes into his arms and ushers him away.

He does this three times.

Meet Loincloth Guy.

2007-07-05T03:56:00.000+09:00

Ingredients for a successful 4th of July:

Booze - check

Corn on the cob, hot dog, fried chicken - check, check, check

Enthusiastic random outbursts of "Amurrica! YEAH!" - check

Fireworks on the street - check

Fireworks fired off balcony, in living room, and into sleeping friend's bedroom at 3am - CHECK.

Dangerously improper use of bottle rockets - check

Barking dogs all over Omiya - check

"Oh shit, the cops are totally gonna show up LETS BOUNCE" - check

Two white girls attempting a "getaway," one covered in soot and the other with no shoes on. - check

The look on Pat's face when he turns on the lights tomorrow and sees the damage done to his room - priceless?

2007-06-25T00:19:00.000+09:00

Received Mail
12:10 am, Monday June 25
From: Kouji
Subject: It is kouji
---------------------------------------
Thank you for yesterday.

It was happy!?

Do not want to meet again
by me one of these days

this time I will drink together

Good night

2007-06-17T08:26:00.000+09:00

to remember:

dancing outside next to a swimming pool. the sky open wide and unblocked by buildings for the first time in months. the beat and the sun coming up over tokyo bay. the crowd moving under the changing colors of the sunrise. the cheering and the clothed people jumping into the water. the clinging and the smiling.

tokyo station, all but empty at 5:30 am. running. yelling. wrong way on escalators and moving sidewalks. sitting on the handrail and kicking my feet.
the singing and the smiling and the not caring.

my japan friends.

[this has been an 8:30 am sunday morning poem by christine. unproofread for your enjoyment.]

2007-06-13T23:58:00.000+09:00

Went out and bought one of these puppies tonight. Tastes like...cucumbers. And fake mint. And a bucket of sugar.

2007-06-05T04:07:00.000+09:00

Since coming to Japan, I have now tried raw whale and raw horse. They were both delicious.
MMMMMMMM unconventional and controversial meats.

2007-05-28T02:00:00.001+09:00

a note to Japanese shoe salesmen:

Did you ever consider that maybe the problem isn't MY feet being too big, but YOUR feet being too small?

Listen, my feet are beautiful and goddesslike, and they don't take kindly to oppression.
So you can wipe that smug look off your face as you take that shoebox away, and replace it with an expression of respect.

Because you know who else had big feet?
Zeus. The Greek god of awesome.
And we all know how he handled disrespect.
Poorly, and with lightning.

Besides, I would totally school you in a contest of stamping. Or not-falling-down-when-pushed.

Bring it.

2007-05-14T02:56:00.000+09:00

There was a serious fight in my train car tonight. Two gangster-looking guys were chasing and wailing on (whaling on?) a guy in a checkered shirt with no regard for their surroundings. This was the first time I've seen someone take a jump-kick to the chest in person. Five feet away, no less.
I would have gotten hit by flying limbs and bodies had I not thrown myself against the wall at the last minute.
Needless to say, it was SWEET.

2007-05-06T18:10:00.000+09:00

Golden Week 2K7

aka

Spring Break WOOOOO!

aka

"Oh god, what have I done?"

________________________________________________

AN EMAIL

To: Liza, Christine, Jill
From: Henry
Subject: The 12 Tasks of Osaka

Your mission, should you mutually and happily choose to accept it:

The 12 Tasks of Osaka

12 random business cards
11 pictures of people asleep
10 different coasters
9 photos of you kissing strangers on the cheek
8 pictures of shots being necked
7 photos of you making catalog poses on the train
6 pictures of you with people in uniform
5 different flexible straws
4 photos of guys with mustaches
3 pictures of you playing drunk leapfrog
2 packets of takoyaki-flavored Pretz
1 picture of you all together at midnight with a visible public clock

If successfully completed, I will clean your apartment from top to bottom (plus something nice for Jill).

-Henry

_______________________________________________________

Well, we didn't finish the scavenger hunt, but we did come close, as well as adding our own stupid stuff. In the end, it was the coasters that did us in.

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

So here I am, it's 12:30 am Tuesday night, and I really don't feel like writing in this. But if I put it off any longer, it's just not gonna happen. Therefore, I have decided to deny myself food until I finish this blog post.
Not particularly hungry, just in that "eat to avoid doing other things" mindset.
Last night, I felt so strongly about not writing in my blog that I cleaned my entire room.
This is becoming a problem.
So, I'm just gonna crank this thing out with no attention to organization or whatever. Those things just slow ya down.

Here we go.

The shinkansen (bullet train) made us sick. Me and Jill both. You know the feeling you get when you step on land after hours spent on the ocean? That's how we felt for a couple hours after whipping through rice fields and ugly cities and countrysides dotted with little Asian houses with little Asian old ladies out front.
It was a nice trip, though. Saw Mt. Fuji:

The first four hours or so in Osaka were spent lying on the tatami floor of our hotel room in complimentary yukata robes, drinking in the cool 8th-floor breeze and the sounds from nearby Dotonbori St.
That night, the three of us ended up at "Penguin Bar," a deserted yet overeager bar with techno music, suggestive themes, and flashing strobelights. There, we watched "Queen of the Damned" on five or six TVs, muted and with Japanese subtitles while drinking questionably-mixed cocktails. I was sporting my new souvenir black tank top with classy gold lame lettering that declared "HORMOANING. IT'S PRETTY SCARY. IT'S SO REVOLTING." And we fended off some dude who kept telling me he was 46 years old. Congratulations, buddy.
Second day, slept late. That night, took Derek and Jesse who were also in Osaka to a place that advertised 2-for-1 cocktails.
The rest of that night is kinda blurry.
...
crap, I am tired. screw this, I am going to bed.
WHY DO I HAVE TO WRITE IN A BLOG THIS IS A CHORE AHHHHHHHH
goodnight.

2007-04-30T00:20:00.000+09:00

It's GOLDEN WEEK (Japan's big springtime national vacation week), and I'm writing this as I overpack for my trip.
Tomorrow morning, I'm hopping on the bullet train to Osaka with Liza and Jill.
Be back on Saturday.
spring break! woooo!

2007-04-24T23:51:00.001+09:00

Cherry blossoms from a few weeks ago:

Random graffiti:

My new hair, courtesy of the miraculous (and expensive) Japanese Straight Perm:

And for your viewing pleasure, one of the more wacked-out Japanese music videos that I've seen recently:

At this point, I've finally gotten good enough at Japanese to be able to say "Yeah, I can speak Japanese." It's taken three and a half years, and I've still got a long way to go, but...well, yeah, I'm pretty decent. On that note, 95% of people who call themselves "bilingual" are 100% full of shit. That's an official statistic.

I had never thought about it before tonight, but the polite Japanese word for "bathroom" actually translates to "honorable place of hand-washing."

And now that Japanese TV makes semi-sense, all sorts of doors are opening. Last night, I watched "Ainori" ("Meeting Ride," better translated as "Hookup Road Trip") followed by a comedy show in which a group of Japanese celebrities try to solve puzzles.
Among the gags:
Hot tea being poured on a guy's crotch. ("It hurts, it hurts!")
A skinny guy going behind a screen to be replaced by a fat guy in the same outfit ("I'm surprised!")
One guy being served nothing but burnt food at a traditional banquet. ("It's burnt!")
A squat Japanese guy jumping around in a loincloth, a necklace made of horns, a curly black wig, and white-painted lips. ("OogaBooga!")
Oh, Japan.

2007-04-08T23:36:00.000+09:00

I haven't written in a while because I've been busy. Here's the rundown:

Because it's new contract time at my company, all the teachers have various trainings at headquarters, which often end with a group trip to The Hub for drinks. On top of that, the King George is a short walk from my apartment. Sometimes my life seems to fall into an exhausting cycle of "work-bar-sleep-repeat."
Also, for the last couple weeks, it's been cherry blossom season in Japan, which means more frolicking and less computer time. The weather is gorgeous, and the trees have exploded into beautiful pink-white flowers, which send petals drifting down like snow as you're walking around. It's amazing. During these two weeks or so, Japanese people travel en masse to parks, where they lay down blue tarps and picnic all day and into the night. This also involves heavy drinking.
[Japanese people and their drinking - proof that yes, it is possible to be simultaneously really good at something and really bad at something.]
I'll put up some cherry-blossom pictures later.
Last night was Graham's birthday celebration, and a bunch of us went barhopping in Ikebukuro. Around midnight (the point of no return), I had the choice between catching my last train and staying out all night, and chose the latter. But all the old-timers decided to go home around 2, and since I hate sleeping in unfamiliar apartments, I dragged Lori to Shinjuku where we would merrymake until our first morning trains. In our effort to find A club, ANY club, we ran across two dudes from Senegal who took us to a Kabuki-cho dive called Key Club.
[Don't worry, I kept my wits about me, as I tend to maintain the assumption that all foreign men are con-artists]
Oh, early-90's hip-hop. Some guy named Ryuuta took a liking to me, but I'm not sure if I'm really meant to be with a dude who wears a vest (we're talking Fresh Prince here).
So we stayed there for a couple hours, then went back out into the harsh morning sun and got some ramen with our new African friend Francis. The end.

There's your update. Now it's time for me to go watch mass amounts of illegally distributed American TV shows (The Office - yay!)
Keep it real, y'all.

2007-03-30T02:20:00.000+09:00

My kids classes are over. Here are some pictures. Yup.

2007-03-20T02:04:00.000+09:00

St. Patricks Day Weekend. The stuff dreams are made of.

Friday night: Ladies' Pillow Fight Competition at the King George Pub here in Omiya.

Ready to kick some ass.

A shot before the match. I was introduced as "The Boston Strangler."

The winner was decided by judges after two thirty-second matches. I won the first match but lost the second after getting points deducted for my headlock maneuver.

Liza vs. some girl from Australia

Look at George's face.

The aftermath of the final bout

The winner: Stacy from Canada. We were robbed.

Me and George and some dudes. The guy on the left said he was from Andover. Small world.

Saturday: I dragged myself to work all day, then went directly to Marguerite's to get ready. From there, I accompanied a whole herd of people to a couple bars in Shibuya, then spent the night at an indie rock club called "Hard To Explain."
No pictures, unfortunately.

Five AM ramen, four hours of sleep, and then...

Sunday: I wake up on Marguerite's couch, and go unshowered and unchanged to the St. Patricks Day parade in Harajuku.

With Marguerite and Jessica
Since I wasn't wearing green, Marguerite lent me one of her shirts. It proclaimed "I Can't Believe It's Yogurt!" I believe she got it in Thailand.

My hairdo from the night before had somehow miraculously survived.

Kana and Mahon. Mahon (who is legitimately full-on Irish) taught me the Official St. Patricks Day Song, which can be performed by swinging one arm, stomping one foot, and bellowing, "Saaaaaint Pat-ricks Day!" We were doing this under a foot bridge when two Japanese passersby whipped out cameras and took pictures of us.

Kirk and his son Ben.

Me and Vanessa

A few street beers later, and we were pretty obnoxious. Vanessa did her part by trying to high-five everyone in the parade as they walked by.

After the parade, we wanted (nay, NEEDED) to go to an Irish pub, so we got on the Yamanote Line train headed for Shinjuku. And what to my wondering eyes should appear:

Then we were at The Dubliner:

Marguerite and I with green beer and a child (Ben).

Me and Kana

I heard bagpipes, and then a dissonant "aaaaaaAAAAAAAAaaaaaaAAAA" into a live microphone. I turned around and there was little Ben. They let him "sing" throughout the whole song. It was very cute.

Me, Vanessa, and Cloudy Bongwater. Yes, that is actually his legal name.
I am not shitting you.

And that, kids, was my St. Patricks Day Weekend.

Oh, Japan.

2007-03-12T01:57:00.000+09:00

I'm in Kawagoe School, just about to start the junior-high-school students' "interviews" that will end their year-or-so of extracurricular English study.

[This is largely a joke, I'm lucky if these guys are half-conscious during that forty minutes a month when I special-guest-visit their class to repeatedly drill them with such gems as "WHAT SPORTS CAN YOU PLAY?" and "WHAT SPORTS CAN YOU NOT PLAY?"]

So I'm waiting in the lobby for Steve The Kids Coordinator (real name Mitsuhiro) who will be scoring the interviews. A large group of adult students are hanging around as they always do, stuffing their faces with chocolate and parroting whatever bizarre thing Peacock decided to teach them that day.

Me: "Hey Steve, are you ready?"
Steve: "Almosto."
"Where are you going?" asks one of the students in the lobby.

And with a totally straight face, I say, "Oh, me and Steve are gonna go to the back room and kiss."
"EEHHHHHHHH?" Everybody whirls around. I'm nodding seriously and beckoning for Steve, and Steve has turned beet red and is laughing the kind of nervous laugh that can only mean he has soiled himself.

God, it's so easy.

addendum: 3000 page visits! I'd like to thank my mom, all my stalkers, and King George of The King George Pub (where I will be ~~participating~~ DESTROYING in a ladies' pillow fight competition this Friday)

2007-03-06T03:04:00.000+09:00

Today, I threw imaginary hot dogs at children.
What did YOU do at work?

2007-03-05T02:06:00.000+09:00

Now that I am a College Graduate, my penchant for procrastination has spilled over to other aspects of my life.

I live and work in Tokyo now, and I'm finding that "a good night's sleep" is something that can be procrastinated much like the homework of old. But why would I continue to put this off after three nights of marathon partying? My Saturday at work was entirely spent miserably pining for my bed, and yet...

Two hours after punching out, I'm with Adam in Whoretown, Ikeburuko, skipping past brothels with names like VIOLENCE, and prominently displayed "Japanese Only" signs in windows and doorways. Still clad in the "teacher costume" of a nice, sensible sweater and heels, Adventure Christine had won yet another battle against Responsible Adult Christine.

First it was "Los Cabos," home of guacamole, beer served in metal cups, gigantic tequila shots, and a customer satisfaction survey that we mostly filled in with chickenscratch Japanese reading "I don't understand this question. Because I'm a foreigner."
Then Adam and I wandered into a filthy little mom-and-pop yakitori shack. The place could have possibly been the only surviving remnant of Old Ikeburuko, which I imagine was the same haven for gangsters and prostitutes only with fewer spastically flashing lights. As far as I could tell, nothing about this chicken-and-beer dive had been bought (or washed) within the last twenty years. I was particularly charmed by the dirty and broken microphone dangling from the ceiling, used by the old lady to yell invitations at passersby.
Lastly, fooled by an enticing street sign, we trekked up an unnaturally steep flight of stairs to a bar called simply "T's," only to find that it was a tiny dark room with an excessively slick bartender and a small TV which played only "The Bodyguard" starring Whitney Houston.
When life gives you lemons, you order drinks with names like "Exorcist." But the glowing blue martini-glass concoction I held teetering in my hand did nothing to purge my demons. Neither did the 45-dollar bill that came sliding across the bar after a total of four drinks.

Tokyo, you are a sneaky bitch.

I keep telling myself I only have a few more weeks before I'm liberated from the Massive Injustice that is the Sunday morning shift.

2007-03-02T22:55:00.000+09:00

MY THURSDAY IN PHOTOS

I started off the day by wandering around Ueno Zoo by myself.

The zoo closes at 5, so they started playing the "get the fuck out" music over the sound system at 4:30. At this point, all the animals VANISHED. Lions and tigers and bears, every pen magically became empty at the stroke of 4:30. WTF.

So I wandered around this nearby shrine until an old Japanese guy approached me looking for a free English lesson. "May I talk?" I told him I was in a hurry and booked it out of there.

Flowers on the trees on March 1st. Crazy.

To the pub!

My roommates, Liza and Jessica

"The Flaming Dr. Pepper"

To finish up the night, we bought some three-dollar bottles of "Black Nikka Whiskey" at the convenience store, then headed to Karaoke-kan for cheap "soft drinks only" karaoke till 4.

What a mess.

2007-03-01T02:31:00.000+09:00

Japanese TV at 2am on a weekday is pretty much the shit.

2007-02-22T17:22:00.000+09:00

In Japan, "My Neck, My Back" is a perfectly good song to play in the lobby of an English school all day long.

Every time I ask my kids to give examples of words that start with certain letter combinations, I can always count on at least four instances where they try to pass off names of Pokemon as legitimate English.

Takashi The English-Speaking Cable Guy came to our apartment again today to help out with communication as we got our modem fixed. He's been here like four times total, he always stays a little longer than is necessary, and he's very eager to come back if we have any problems at all. He even gave me his personal email address.
Anyway, as he was leaving today, he crossed paths with Liza, who was coming out of the shower in her bathrobe. He flipped out: "Hoohoohoo! Today is a lucky day for me!"
Okay, dude.

I am presently watching some very strange Japanese children's television. My listening comprehension level has risen from "Teletubbies" to "singing dancing cartoon birds in pants." I'm hoping I can graduate to Pokemon soon.

Oh, and a commercial just came on for an instructional baseball video called "How to Hit & Run." Is that funny to anyone else?

2007-02-21T01:46:00.000+09:00

What a day.

First, I woke up with a cold. Same one I've had for three days. Took the same medicine I've been taking for three days - a nice hearty dose of 12-Hour Sudafed. Weeeeeee...
[I found out today how to say "runny nose" in Japanese. Turns out it's "hanamizu ga deru" which literally means "nose water is exiting"]

At work, I had my usual Nippori Nightmare Kids. But something must be in the water this week, because the kids were unusually out-of-control across the board:

The "Mini Kids" - Three kids and their moms showed up. Hiromi and Kazuya spent the whole class laughing hysterically while running around/rolling on the floor/throwing things. Their moms spent the whole class attempting to get them in order, which was of course impossible. Meanwhile, Mikoto stood there like a little statue, completely unfazed by the chaos around her, focusing on the flash cards and repeating "train" "ticket" "platform" etc. like a good little Asian Robot Child.

The Eight-Year-Olds - Chiharu spent the whole class YELLING in Japanese and bossing the other kids around, which is to be expected. Hirokazu spent most of the class either riding Akinobu like a horse, or attempting to mount him. When not being mounted by Hirokazu, Akinobu was generally making a mess of the room. When I asked what kind of game we should play, Tatsuya suggested a "kicking game."

The Ten-Year-Olds - You know how the bartenders at Drunky are always teaching me dirty words in Japanese? Well, this class is where I get to hear these words. Besides the non-stop flow of dirty talk and mean comments directed at each other, which is what I deal with every week, the kids seemed especially keen to piss me off today. Tetsuhiro wouldn't stop cracking his knuckles. Takumi mocked everything I said. Toru was just plain rude, disruptive, and demanding. Kazuki was okay...I guess I should be counting my blessings that he stuffs everything down his shirt now and not his pants. And poor Gi, the only girl in the class and the most ostracized, just sat in the corner and scowled. To top it off, someone in the class was farting freely about every ten minutes, it reeked like the devil, and it was too cold to open the window.

After the kids' classes, I had only ten minutes in which to either blow my nose or stab myself with safety scissors (I chose the former). Then I strolled into my first adult class of the day. Four students, and NONE of them had ANYTHING to say. They just stared at me. My best efforts to come up with topics would be answered with a "nothing special" or an abrupt answer then a look back at me. At this point, I did not have the energy to be Super Entertainment Power White Girl, after spending close to three hours threatening kids with "time-outs." Ugh.

So yeah, today was particularly bad.

The few not-so-bad things about today: I ate a sweet BLT sandwich for lunch, had a nice relaxing dinner at the Excelsior Cafe after work, rented a couple movies on the way home, watched horrible TV with Liza (Ripley's Believe It Or Not, so easy to make fun of), and had a phatty Chopin jam session on my keyboard.

Now I'm sitting here in my Relaxation Hat and the Temple sweatshirt I "borrowed" from Tom, and it's 2:20, and I'm not tired.

Yup.

2007-02-15T21:41:00.000+09:00

"MOROZOFF WILL NEVER CEASE CREATING SOMETHING NEW. BATHED IN GENTLE SEA BREEZES, FRESH AIR, AND THE BRIGHT COLORS OF A LIVELY, MODERN CITY. THE ETERNALLY BEAUTIFUL CITY OF KOBE, BIRTHPLACE OF MOROZOFF. THE FINEST CHOCOLATE, THE FINEST CAKES."
-from a box of Valentine's Day chocolates I received.

After an inspirational bar conversation I had last night with a British stranger named Nick, I decided that today would be the day when I would finally go out and buy a keyboard. The piano kind. I've been meaning to take it back up for years, and I need a hobby over here other than Nintendo DS and nosepicking.
So I bought the cheapest keyboard at the local music store ($150, not bad), brought it home, and within fifteen minutes had tripped over the power cord and broken a little piece of plastic off the back. At first, I thought I had rendered the power adapter unusable, and had this conversation with myself as I struggled to salvage the situation:
"AWWWWWW awww AWWWWWW SHIT NO oh motherfucker ugggggh you have got to be kidding me oh. okay."
I bent that motha back into place. It's fine now.
I wonder what my roommates are gonna say when they get home. There's a friggin' piano taking up half the dining table.

Addendum: My roommates have come home. We've been layin' down phat beats for the last hour (read: playing with the demos and the "percussion" setting). All is well.

2007-02-10T02:51:00.000+09:00

The Australian man who is currently sleeping on our living room floor is dashingly handsome, tall, and charming, but he has dirty feet and has flesh-eating bacteria on his legs.
I'm not sure how I feel about this.

2007-02-06T01:09:00.000+09:00

Yesterday, I was teaching a class of four Level 4 students. I looked at their "passports" and saw that the only lesson all four of them hadn't taken was one called "Going to the Doctor." Lame.
So of course I had to teach it, and of course it contained the word "diarrhea" in the vocabulary list, and if you know anything about me you know I'm ten years old. Needless to say, I cracked up every time someone said "diarrhea," and the students continued to ask me what was funny. Jeez.

Tonight at my favorite dive bar "Drunky," the following exchange occurred:
*Japanese people chattering away about something while I chill, too tired to deal with the language barrier at the moment*
*All stop and look at me*
Ken: "Christine!"
Me: "Yeah?"
Ken: "Chikubi wa nani iro?"
Me: "Huh?"
Ken: "Chikubi wa nani iro?"
Me: *shrug* "What color is...chikubi? What's a chikubi?"
Ken: *points to his nipple*
Hide: "What color nipple?"
Me: "...Black."
All four Japanese people: "ahhhhhh Really?"
Me: "psssshNo!"
Ken: "Pink nipple?"
Me: "I'm not telling you!"
Hide: "Ahhhh Is secret!"
*Japanese people launch into a heated discussion about how their nipples are brown and only babies have pink nipples*

A little while after that, they all lined up to touch my face, after the girl sitting next to me insisted that my white skin had some magical quality. At least that's what her tone and facial expression conveyed. I had no idea what she said.

Also, Ken was wearing a white t-shirt with red lettering across the front that said "IF YOU DONT LIKE THIS MOTORCYCLES, YOU ARE 100 PERCENT GAY" [sic]

2007-01-31T00:13:00.000+09:00

Here it is. The big poster.

When I whipped this out at Luke's party (I had received it at work that day), all thirty-or-so people there burst into thunderous applause. Well, the white people burst into thunderous applause. The Japanese people were too busy whipping their cell phones out of their pockets faster than the speed of light so that they could take pictures of the "ECC poster girl."

So I guess this thing's riding the Yamanote Line (and others?) around Tokyo till April, but I haven't been down there enough to see it yet. It's also supposed to be in Osaka and Nagoya. Not much is confirmed except that my fifteen minutes of fame have come, and that the Japanese guy in charge of this ad campaign is terrible at English.

2007-01-28T23:49:00.000+09:00

Christine's Supreme Birthday Weekend of Doom

Wednesday Night: Students from Kawagoe School took me out for birthday drinks after work.
Thursday Night: Official birthday celebration. Went to Roppongi with Joe and met some crazy people. Club Vanilla. Still recovering.
Friday Night: Unofficial birthday celebration. Small party at Tom's apartment.
Saturday Night: Henry's birthday. In a tiny packed bar located in the heart of whoretown. Weather: partly rowdy (what?)
And tonight was Luke's birthday. By this point, Christine is running on very little food and sleep but decides that maintaining her social connections in the fast-paced, dog-eat-dog world we live in is, well, more important.
But I'm glad I went, as it was pretty ridiculous. It was in an izakaya called "Big," out in Kamifukuoka which is essentially in the middle of nowhere. There, I had a 50-year-old stranger say to me "you are beautiful," and "I love you," which also happened to be the only five English words he knows. Kozue passed out, something she can always be counted on to do. Oh, and my jacket and scarf had some brown shit spilled on them. Must kill Graham.

Oh, crap, I just remembered that I promised students I'd go out with them tomorrow night "to celebrate my birthday" after work.

Japan is toxic.

Oh, that 50-year-old guy. I forgot to mention that NO ONE had any idea who he was. And that he snuck into our party by buying us bottles of sake until we felt obligated to invite him. And then he got super red-faced drunk. And at the end of the night, he gave Robert five pairs of brand-new socks that he just happened to have on him. Then it took him like half an hour to leave, because he wouldn't stop dropping to the floor and bowing profusely to everyone in the party, who would then bow back, which would cause him to bow again.
Hah.

2007-01-24T11:03:00.000+09:00

I WAS WOKEN UP FROM MY NAP AND NOW THERE ARE TWO JAPANESE MEN EXCHANGING BUSINESS CARDS IN MY LIVING ROOM.
GET OUUUUUUUUUUUUUT.

2007-01-23T00:00:00.000+09:00

Today, we were playing a nice game of charades in my 7-year-olds class. One kid would mime playing a musical instrument, and the others would try to guess what it was. When Ryoga's turn came up, I called him to the front of the class. He stood up from his cushion and started walking toward the whiteboard, then thought better of it, beelined off to the right, crouched down, and determinedly thrust his hand between Hiroya's legs.
WTF.

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

On my way home tonight, I was waiting at the crosswalk when a short white-looking guy walked up to me and said something to me in Japanese:

Him: "mumblemumblemumble."
Me: "What?"
Him: "Asobi ni itte mo ii desu ka?" ("Can I go hang out with you?")
Me: (pretending I don't speak Japanese) "I'm going home, sorry."
Him: "Eigo wakarimasen." ("I don't understand English.")
Me: "Huh? I don't understand."
Him: "Hoteru ni ikitain desu ka?" ("Would you like to go to a hotel with me?")
Me: "I don't know what you're talking about."
Him: "Hoteru."
Me: "Sorry."

The light changed, so I crossed the street, ducked into a convenience store, and pretended to shop for a while until the coast was clear.
That guy was either really forward, or he thought I was a Russian prostitute. Either way, it was gross.
I should also add that soon after my run-in with Creepy Short Guy, I was checking my reflection in a store window (to see if I looked like a Russian prostitute) when I was almost mowed down by a speeding bicycle.

Oh, Japan.

2007-01-18T19:16:00.000+09:00

Alistair was here for the past week. To make a long story short, we did the following things:

*Saw the Grand Sumo Tournament in Ryogoku
*Hit up Ginza for a kabuki play ("Kinkakuji: The Golden Pavilion")
*Visited Kamakura to see some sweet temples and the Great Buddha statue
*Checked out the view from the top of Tokyo Tower at night
*Had a nice dinner at Fujimama's in Harajuku (yay English-speaking staff!)
*Had a not-so-nice dinner in Roppongi (Mexican food as interpreted by Japanese people - yikes)
*Went to an "English Pub" where we drank pints of Kirin Ichiban until we were entirely unreasonable
*Took a stroll through Shinjuku's Kabuki-cho red light district and gawked at the yakuza and their cars.
*Got terrifically lost late at night trying to find my friends in Shinjuku's gayborhood
*Fought through crowds in Shibuya, twice
*Pumped too many 100-yen coins into arcade games like "Lets Go Jungle!" and "Taiko something-or-other"
*Izakaya, izakaya, izakaya

Now that I'm back in Japan and on my own again, I feel like the new year has really begun. Today I threw my 5-yen coin into the shrine with a vague prayer for happiness, then decided to go for a walk to clear my head. I walked past Hikawa Shrine, through Omiya Park, and continued around the lake, farther than I've ever gone before. Past the lake, I found museums and a library, and a huge state-of-the-art swimming pool surrounded by tall bleachers. Everything was cold and empty.
On the way back, the shrine was closing to the rhythmic echo of a massive drum. I stood on the bright red bridge over the carp pond and listened until the beats became further between and finally stopped altogether.

It's my year. The Year of the Boar.
Let's get this shit started.

2006-12-15T19:14:00.000+09:00

After you've lived in Japan for a while, things like NOT HAVING ANYTHING DECORATIVE DANGLING FROM YOUR CELL PHONE can make you feel really ON EDGE.

2006-12-14T02:04:00.000+09:00

I'm pretty sure I befriended a yakuza (Japanese mafia) tonight at the bar.
How else would you explain a 21-year-old Japanese guy owning a shiny black Cadillac with tinted windows and having a $2500 full back tattoo?
He's a nice guy, though. His name is Masaru.

2006-12-12T01:04:00.000+09:00

Three Tidbits from Christine's BizarroLife

A typical Sunday morning.
Christine wakes up in a world of hurt. One foot onto the floor, then the other.
Stops.

Remembers that there was a strange Australian man in her house the night before, and realizes that he might still be here. Hopes against all odds that he isn't. Being awake right now is hell, babysitting a near-stranger and going through the motions of awkward conversation at 9am in the midst of a hangover is worse.

Damn my drunken kindness. Damn coworkers who miss their trains.
Damn Sunday morning work.

After the daily ritual of mentally damning at least three things within the first five minutes of consciousness, she scampers in and out of the shower the way people do when they're afraid of being seen.
Sure enough, a knock on the bedroom door. A male voice.
"Christayne? Christayne?"
...Shit.
Not a good start to a day.

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

My body is rejecting Japan.

It started with the legs, a few weeks ago. Every day, a searing itch that runs from the insides of the thigs, to the backs of the knees, down the sides of the calves.
This itch has defeated everything I've thrown at it, and frankly, I'm tired of buying expensive lotions.

Now, for the past eight days, the skin under my left eye has been red, swollen and scaly. Looking at me, one could assume one of three things:
1) I somehow offended my abusive trailer-trash boyfriend (but he loves me!)
2) I got in a bar fight (you should see the other guy!)
3) I've been doing meth (ever seen those before-and-after photos?)

Eight days of the tried-and-true Christine method of Ignore-It-Till-It-Goes-Away, and it's now spread to my eyebrow. So I'm starting to think that maybe, just maybe, this shit having shown up the day after I got slathered with professional (and communal) makeup, well that might not be a coincidence.
Oh, hooray.
Now excuse me while I furiously scratch my legs.

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

Today at work, I was giving a private lesson to a middle-aged businessman named Fumihiro, and we were discussing my impending fifteen-hour flight. He assured me that he is experienced in air travel to places like Amsterdam, and being that, is concerned that if I don't get up and walk around during the flight, I will get a blood clot in my brain and die.
The actual explanation was more like this, actually:
Fumihiro: "You need to training in airplane." *gestures stretching and moving his legs* "You sit for long time, your..." *points to the veins in his wrist*
Me: "Blood?"
Fumihiro: "Yes, blood it will..."
*gestures to indicate a small thing, then moves it up his arm into his head*
"...and dead."
Me: "Are you sure?"
Fumihiro: "Yes."

After hearing the prophecy of my own death from a man in a red-and-blue striped tie and bifocals, I went on to my next lesson, in which I discovered that one of the other English teachers had crossed out the vocabulary word "the devil" in the teachers' manual and replaced it with "the prince of darkness."

I couldn't possibly explain to Jiro why I burst out laughing in the middle of "Word Power."

Christine's 15 Minutes of Fame

2006-12-03T23:20:00.000+09:00

When I heard that I would be modeling for some company posters, I expected some rinky-dink operation (*cough*GoGoEigo*cough*). Upon arrival at the studio with fellow "chosen ones" Adam and Dallas, this is what we found:

A crew of about fifteen serious artsy-looking people, snack and drink service, full makeup and wardrobe, and state-of-the-art equipment. I was dazzled.
But THEN...we were led to the table in the foreground and shown last years posters with the proposed changes, and told that our posters would be on the insides of trains. Lots of trains. Yamanote Line trains and Chou Line trains and Toyoko Line trains and Tokyo Metro trains and more trains and at this point I wasn't listening because I was shocked almost to tears.

Me (post-makeup) and Adam. The makeup girl managed to make foundation for me by taking regular foundation and dropping a big ol' blob of white into it. She did an amazing job, though. Among all the weird things done to my face, this was the first time I've ever had my eyelashes combed (the makeup girl had to stop and ask me if I was okay on account of my twitchiness). But hey, I bet Paris Hilton gets her eyelashes combed all the time. I am so famous.

Anyway, moving on...

If the wardrobe girl wasn't obscured by Random Useless Crew Guy #7, you could get the full effect of how tiny she is. I didn't find out her name, but I did find out that her boots cost $700 (a fact she quickly divulged to me after I complimented them).

That "wholesome American English teacher" look.

I'm adorable.

If you look to your left, you will see: forever frozen in time, a crew member taking a spill.

Dallas was a natural. Look at that motherfucker.

This is what happens when you take a flash photograph in a white room. On the left, Dallas with clipped jacket a la Bill Murray. On the right, crew members struggle to make Adam presentable by first hemming his raggedy cuffs for him, then making him take off his raggedy shoes and wear Dallas', then giving him a belt (Dallas') to hold up his saggedy pants.
If "saggedy" isn't a word, it should be.

Hour 4: We take off our jackets and do shoulders-up shots. They wanted "fun" and "happy face" pictures, and they wouldn't be pleased until they had close-up pictures of laughing faces. I drew my inspiration from the fact that there was a Japanese photographer in my face saying things like "ah! zat nice! it beautiful!" while frantically snapping and changing angles. Easy.

As I was being photographed, there were four or five people standing around this monitor, looking serious and making unintelligible comments in Japanese.

They blew through the last set of pictures pretty fast, and sent us on our way with a flurry of bowing. Not wanting to get caught up in the Traditional Japanese Bow-Off (usually awkward and always hilarious to watch), we kinda booked it out of there.

The posters should be up from January to April, which means that I have until January to stalker-proof the internet before my full name is riding around Tokyo for all to see.

Sweet.

2006-12-01T11:45:00.000+09:00

Last night, the train was really crowded on my way home. Why? Oh, just because a middle-aged businessman in a suit was sprawled out on the floor unconscious.
No one tried to wake him up or move him, in fact no one said anything at all. On occasion, someone would give him a quizzical look before stepping over him, but for the most part, the public's attitude suggested that this is a run-of-the-mill occurrence. Well, I had to stick around after getting off at the last stop to watch him get woken up by train staff. Because, you know, plastered salarymen are oh-so-fun to watch (especially on long train-station staircases).

Speaking of salarymen, as I was exiting the same station, I noticed an older gentleman juggling his teeth. His full set of upper dentures seemed to have escaped his mouth, and he was struggling to stick them back in before anyone noticed. He also seemed to be drunk. After an awkward amount of time, he finally won the battle, got his teeth under control, reached into his pocket and lit up a cigarette.

2006-11-29T00:56:00.000+09:00

Latest news:

I got a random-ass call today from headquarters, saying that they want my picture to be on posters for our company's next national ad campaign. Apparently they picked me out of all the female teachers in the region. Of course I agreed. So they're pulling me out of work on Sunday to do a photo shoot in Tokyo.

WTF.

2006-11-26T21:07:00.000+09:00

Great Moments in English Teaching:

Noticing that Toyo had a bandage on his hand:
Me: "Hey, Toyo, what happened to your hand?"
Toyo: "I have an artificial arm from a traffic accident in college."
Me: "...Oh."
Why I never noticed this, and secondly why he had BANDAGES on a FAKE HAND is beyond me.

Takashi: "My granddaughter, she has mumps. Hahahahahaha."
Me: "Takashi, did anyone ever tell you that you have a tendency to laugh inappropriately?"
Takashi: "HAHAHAHAHA."
This came after weeks of Takashi laughing about his visiting his father's grave, his tennis elbow, natural disasters, etc.

Me: "Did you get along with your parents when you were little?"
Kazue: "My father used to hit me with a kendo sword."

2006-11-02T01:45:00.000+09:00

I teach English to Japanese kids.
Hearing this, you might assume I stand in front of a classroom, facing neat rows of desks. At each desk sits an attentive Asian child holding a book, in awe of the American and eager to learn from her.

Nope.
It's a freakin' zoo. I sit on the floor of a small unfurnished room, yelling "sit down" to kids who aren't listening because they're too busy hitting each other.

The conclusion I've arrived at is that Japanese kids have issues. Not that I ever really spent any time with kids before I came here...

Here are some examples of what I deal with on Mondays and Tuesdays:

* Takumi was humping Kazuki from behind today, apparently out of happiness that I had paired them up together.

* Tatsuya makes at least one reference to "hip gas" every class, and more if he can find anything in the lesson that is vaguely reminiscent of things coming out of the asses of animals or people. Lately, it's progressed to Supaa Hippu Gas, and occasionally Ultra Hippu Gas.

* Tatsuya also likes to punch Akinobu in the crotch, which causes Akinobu to rub himself for the next five minutes while moaning "itaiiii" repeatedly.

* Hirokazu didn't have a name for his fish during the Pets lesson, so he named him Hirokazu 2 Fish.

* When I let the eight-year-olds play a lame little game of balloon volleyball, they literally screamed with excitement the whole time. I don't think they get out much.

* Ryoga's three favorite things to do: put his face two inches from mine and make a funny face, put his face two inches from mine and scream as loud as he can, and hit me with found objects.

* I taught the kids the word "hug" the other day. What happened next made me a little uncomfortable.

* Miku tags "okay baby!" onto the end of almost every English sentence. It's just what she does.

* Every time I say "What are these?" to the class, Hiroya echoes me with "Wasabiiiis!"

* I had to beg Aoi to stop wiggling her loose tooth. I'm not at the point yet where I can accept teeth jumping out of mouths when I'm the supervising adult.

* Takumi and Kazuki like to put balls in their shirts and strut around like women (well, their versions of women).

* One of my eight-year-olds has RANK feet, and I highly suspect that it's Akinobu. After class, I was able to communicate this to the staff in Japanese "Heya no naka ni ashi no niyoi ga aru no! Oide. Kusai, ne?" ("The room smells like feet. Come in here. Doesn't it reek?") So I opened the window, and the very next class someone threw a ball out of it (seven stories). That was the end of that.

* Kazuki's "ghost" costume looked strikingly like a Klan outfit.

* I sing the ABC song every week in the four-year-olds' class, dancing and having a great time with it, and every class they sing their hearts out with me...while standing perfectly straight and still and staring at the wall. It's kinda spooky.

* None of the kids in any age group are able to remember or say the word "Christine," so they all call me "Teeechaaa" (okay, it's kinda cute).

* And finally, there's the babies-and-moms class. Five kids, between 1.5 and 3 years old, who follow a set pattern of behavior. Hiromi detaches herself from her mom and dances and sings (well, yells stuff that kinda vaguely sounds like the song) right up in my face. Toshiki smiles at me and jumps up and down continuously. Mikoto looks dazed and uninterested, and wanders around the classroom touching everything. Kazuya either lies on the floor whining and kicking, or stares at me with contempt. And Maika just clings to her mom, barely old enough to do anything but shit herself.

I, of course, keep on dancing.

This is my life.

2006-10-17T23:35:00.000+09:00

I accept a last-minute assignment from headquarters that sounds like the kind of thing that will inch me one step closer to fame. Something about Panasonic and software and recording my lovely female American voice. I didn't really need to hear any more.

[MEET MR. KADO AT SHINAGAWA SEASIDE STATION AT 10:30 AM. WEAR BUSINESS CLOTHES AND DON'T BE LATE]

It's 10:40, and Zach and I are standing in the station watching the babies go by. The strollers are out in force, but there's no Mr. Kado to be seen. Finally at around 10:45, a short young guy shows up who appears to have just rolled out of bed and fallen into a business suit.

So much for Japanese punctuality.

We spend the next fifteen minutes following a flustered and squirrely Mr. Kado (nicknamed "JohnJohn") through the Shinagawa business district as he turns his photocopied map around and around in his hands.

There are signs with area maps on every corner. JohnJohn needs to chill out.

...

We arrive in the cavernous lobby of the Panasonic building and are greeted by three receptionists in matching yellow plaid outfits.

I cannot for the life of me figure out how to attach my visitor tag to my suitjacket. Zach helps me just in time so that my awkwardness will not be spotted by the two salarymen who have just walked into the lobby.

Between Mr. Kado and the two strangers, a flurry of bowing and business cards. They take each others' cards with both hands and continue to hold them like treasured objects. The two men turn to me.

"Hi, I'm Christine. Nice to meet you." I take the business cards in both hands like Mr. Kado had done, then instinctually go for the handshake. But my hands are full, so I switch the cards to one hand and weakly shake with the other. And now they're bowing at me and "yoroshiku onegaishimasu" so am I supposed to bow back? Not wanting to offend, I give it a shot, but only manage to spasm above the shoulders.

I'm not the bowing type.

...

We're in the elevator. Total silence. I'm fighting the snort with every fiber of my being.
"Don'tlaughdon'tlaughdon'tlaughJesusChristdon'tyoudarelaughChristine."
From the looks of him, Zach seems to be going through the same mental process.

We make it to the seventh floor, go through a futuristic security door, and are led into a conference room at the end of the hall. On the table is a laptop and a headset. JohnJohn stands there like an idiot, staring into space, while the two men give us instructions in Japanese. We're going to go into separate rooms, each with a computer, and read sports terms into a microphone. Easy enough.

Occasionally in one's life, there are moments when one takes a step back and says to oneself, "What the hell is going on?"
I'm now sitting at a table next to a nerdy Japanese man in a suit, who is taking notes while I say "Red Card...Yellow Card...Push Pass...Indirect Free Kick..." The computer program is showing a video of Paris for some reason, and the second hand of the clock on the wall is wiggling but not going anywhere.

...

We're almost done. I have recited somewhere around 1,100 terms into the computer, most of which I've never heard in my life. In the meantime, our friend JohnJohn has vanished. Zach comes into the room, already finished, and I start to re-record a few words that hadn't come out right.
But I'm soon interrupted by the sudden onslaught of a bizarre song blasting out of every loudspeaker in the building at the stroke of 1:00.

"Oh, they always play that at 1:00. We sing the company song when we get back from lunch every day."

Zach and I just look at each other.

...

I try to make it out of the building without having to bow again. Doesn't work. The two men go through all the formalities all over again, and see us off by standing there in the lobby side-by-side, straight-backed and serious, bowing intermittently. Zach and I walk through the giant double glass door into the sunlight, and immediately lose it.

After we had walked and laughed for about fifty feet, Zach asks "Do you think they're still standing there?"
I turn around to look.

The salarymen are still standing there, in the same exact position. They see me looking at them, and simultaneously bow in response.

Oh, Japan.

2006-10-16T02:19:00.000+09:00

So here we are.

I'm feeling better now. I gave myself a few pep talks, took some walks, got some sun, etc. I think one of the problems has been that my job is already getting monotonous. I've never had a real job like this, and it's been years since I've taken a class that lasted more than a few months. It's like I keep expecting change to happen, and I'm getting the opposite. The reality of settling into a routine as a college graduate is a little weird. But the truth is, I'm having a good time. Life is sweet. And I'm finally starting to get off my ass and get proactive about learning Japanese, which can be really rewarding. I realized today that I am now able to say things like: "Someone in this apartment is using too much toilet paper, and I'm going to get to the bottom of this." (Kono apaato no naka ni dare ka toire peepaa o tsukaisugite irun dakara, minuku tsumori.)

Anyway, here's a rant:
Tokyo is one of the most famously crowded cities in the world, but for some reason people do not know how to freakin' walk. It's really ridiculous. There are many types of people who interfere with my ability to get from one place to another. Usually it's your average run-of-the-mill situation where the street is a river of people, and a person or group of people will just arbitrarily stop and look around. Or the girls walking through Tokyo in three-inch stiletto heels, wobbling along at less than half my normal speed. What can be really obnoxious is that bicycles share sidewalk space with pedestrians, yet there's no system in place whatsoever. Say I'm walking on the right side of the sidewalk. A bike comes up behind me ringing its bell, so I switch to walking on the left side. *ring ring* Another bike. Oops, better move to the right side again. *ring ring* Sorry, let me get out of your way. *ring ring* WHAT THE FUCK.
Another WTF has to do with the retarded way that couples NEED TO BE TOUCHING EACH OTHER AT ALL TIMES. I'm in the center of the center of Tokyo at a major clothing store, and I cannot get through the doorway because each couple holding hands forms an impenitrable wall of PDA. Large groups of schoolkids are the same way, completely oblivious to the fact that there are other people trying to get by. Omiya has gigantic sidewalks by Japanese standards, and I still can't get around the armies of uniformed teens.
I also get annoyed when people are walking in the opposite direction at a crowded time, and, seemingly oblivious to my presence, will leave absolutely no space for me to get by. The arrows on the floor of the train station are there for a reason, assholes. So it becomes a war of sorts, wherein I tell myself I absolutely will not suffer the indignity of turning sideways and squeezing by people who refuse to do the same for me. So we bump into each other. And I assume that they spend the rest of the day after that thinking about their "encounter with the rude foreigner."

Alright, that's done.

Anyway, yeah. Teaching English is either really fun or really horrible. It all depends on the students. I cannot teach anyone social skills, nor can I come up with a hundred topics of conversation when you've answered ninety-nine questions with a short sentence and an expectant look at me.
I fail to understand why it is so difficult for people to figure out a reasonable flow of conversation in English, when they're perfectly fine conversationalists in Japanese. A typical example (this occurred today):
Me: "So, Hiroko, what are you going to do today?"
Hiroko: "I'm going to iron some clothes."
*awkward pause*
Me: "Satoshi, let's ask Hiroko another question. Remember: 'What else...'"
Satoshi: "How long are you going to iron?"

I also seem to get a lot of people wandering into English school in a state of near-coma, who plop down and proceed to engage me in a thrilling conversation that goes somewhat like this:
Me: "Nobusato, good to see you again. How are you today?"
Nobusato: "I am tired."
Me: "Tired? Why?"
Nobusato: "I work today."
Me: "What do you do?"
Nobusato: "I am office worker."
*awkward pause*
Me: "Well, what do you like to do in your free time?"
Nobusato: "I sleep."
*awkward pause*
Me: "Well, have you seen any movies recently? Done anything interesting?"
Nobusato: "Nothing special."

Having fifteen to twenty minutes of free-talk time built into each lesson plan, you can imagine how awesome this can be.

And sometimes it's just unpredictable. Like this one from a low-level lesson I taught today:
Me: "Okay, today we're going to learn about buying things in America, using dollars and cents. Has anyone been to America?"
Yoko: "No."
Miyuki: "No."
Yoshikazu: "I hate America."
Me: "Uhhhhh OKAY! Let's turn to page 34."

But I do get a good amount of fun people who are actually interested in learning and have something to say, and that can be great. It's pretty funny when people hang onto every word I say like it's gold. It's really made me aware of how much bullshit I spout in everyday conversation (a lot).

So between classes today, I was making small-talk in simple English by the desk of the sole staff member working at my school (nicknamed "Ellen," I have no idea what her Japanese name is). I told her I thought that my previous student Daisuke was cute and nice, and she looked up at me with an innocent smile and said, "You should attack!"
Stuff like this is becoming commonplace.

2006-10-04T23:43:00.000+09:00

So here I am, drinking a Kirin Ichiban of questionable age that I found in the back of the fridge. I don't particularly want to write in my blog, but it's been a while and the guilt is building up. So here we go.

Today was a particularly difficult and homesick day. I started out early in the morning (10ish) by waking up into a state of half-consciousness to hear a male voice speaking formal Japanese IN MY HOUSE. I stayed awake just long enough to think to myself "It is surely the cops, and they are surely coming to get me," and immediately fell back asleep. I would be told later that a random guy came and stood in our doorway, asked Melissa a whole bunch of unintelligible questions, then proceeded to drop to his knees and pray and sing at her in Japanese. Oh, Japan.
After I woke up for real (12:30ish), I proceeded to spend the better part of my pre-work period moping around the apartment feeling sorry for myself that a) omg college is over, and b) I no longer have access to a Putnam Street sandwich on wheat bread.
I then threw on some dress clothes (dirty) and dragged myself to work, where my seven classes in a row were mostly awkward and I wanted nothing more than to leave. Finally, 9:30 came and I had to run to catch my train back home, because the Saikyo line only runs every twenty minutes. Back in Omiya, I looked around for ages for something to eat other than Japanese Crap (difficult to do at 10pm), and had to settle on a pack of passable mini-pizzas from the 24-hour grocery store. And the grocery store was OUT OF BREAD. How does that happen?!
So here I am now, post-mini-pizza-but-still-hungry, drinking this skanky ass old beer because my soda is still warm, with a persistent nagging feeling that I'm not doing such a good job at this whole "growing up" thing.

In short, my shiny new Japan life is not always fun. Most days, I really don't do anything but wake up, go to work, come home, and sit on the computer until I go to bed.

But I've got big plans for this weekend. Tomorrow, I'm visiting TUJ and seeing Joe for the first time in a year and a half. Friday, I'm going to a concert in Shibuya. And Saturday, Adam's coming in from Toyama to spend the night.

Nevermind that I have to work Saturday and Sunday morning. That's gonna be a laugh riot.

I'll keep you posted...maybe.

Oh, and here's a new Christine Scavenger Hunt for you: see if you can find me here and here.

2006-09-25T02:05:00.000+09:00

Tokyo Game Show 2006

Check out some new video games, get some free stuff, and make fun of some nerds. Totally worth a three-hour round trip train ride.

The inside was, predictably, a sweaty, noisy, packed mass of nerds carrying around giant bags of freebies. Not the type to stand in line for half an hour to play a video game for ten minutes, I was content with just walking around and peeking over people's shoulders.

I can't decide whether or not "look cute and hang around some electronics" is a desirable job description:

And my favorite part, the costumes. All geeks bow down before the costumed geek:

I was all ready to screw around in this picture, but these girls threw me a curveball by handing me this little plush thing at the last second. Dammit.

"That's a dude!"

Later, dorks.

2006-09-21T13:49:00.000+09:00

Some news:

Last Thursday, I traveled two hours to middle-of-nowhere Kanagawa to film some more TV stuff. I got there expecting the whole Mojya squad to be there, but to my surprise I ended up being the only foreigner. The people present were me, an eight-person crew, and a clown named Joe (a name I gave him because he had suggested "Catherine" and I didn't think that was appropriate). I started out by doing my makeup all pretty, and then was handed the familiar bright green afro wig and oversized green shirt. Dammit.

So Thursday's work was to film fifteen short segments called Let's Exercise. Here's how it goes:

1. The opening sequence. Joe is doing some clown trick, and I'm watching, mesmerized. The camera zooms up and we turn back to back, do finger-guns, and I exclaim, "LET'S EXERCISE!" These were filmed in front of a live audience of about 200 kindergarteners.
2. Joe is in a small room, doing a clown trick. I walk in, singing to myself. I stop, look at Joe, and give a command ("Sit down!"). He looks at me, confused. I repeat it. He sits down. I give another command ("Stand up!") and he follows. I repeat a few times, and say "Great!" with two thumbs up. Then I run up to the camera, get right up in it, and introduce us: "Hi! I'm Mojya Green, and this is Joe the Clown!"
3. I'm standing with my arm around Joe, in a close shot. I say, "Let's Do It!" look at Joe, and Joe makes a funny face.
4. We're standing in the same room. I give a command to Joe, then look at the camera like I want it to join in. I give the other command, and look back at the camera. I do this a couple times, do it once just looking at the camera, then say "Great!" to the camera with two thumbs up.
5. Starts out the same way, except this time, I give the commands one after another, faster and faster until Joe falls down or crashes into something. Unfazed, I run up to the camera, get right up in it again, and say "ByeBye!!!!!!" while waving vigorously.

That's all there is to it. We filmed a whole bunch of these, and threw in something stupid here and there (like I say "ByeBye!" and blow into my open hand so Joe is blown away in the background). It took all day, but it was a good time. The crew seemed to be happy that I could speak enough Japanese that it wasn't awkward. We did most of the shots in one take. The guys on the crew were loving every minute, laughing and telling me that it was perfect. But I could have sworn that the producer/translator woman was giving me looks once in a while that read as something like "I can't believe you're willingly doing this."

I'm still waiting on the still photos that one of the crew members took, so I can post them. He said he would email them to me. I've gotta track his ass down.

Anyway, "Let's Exercise!" is due to start in October, and it will be on BS Fuji twice a day, every weekday. Crazy.

My feelings on this are hovering somewhere between "holy crap I'm awesome," and "someday these will fall into the wrong hands and boy will I be sorry."

2006-09-17T01:38:00.000+09:00

Tonight, me and my roommate Melissa were coming out of Omiya Station when we heard a guy yelling. Public commotion is very weird in Japan, so we looked to see where it was coming from. The source was a guy who looked to be in his twenties, standing by the police station and yelling at a crowd of six or seven policemen while his friend held him back and tried to get him to shut up. The policemen just stood there and took the abuse, which unfortunately I couldn't understand a word of because it was really brusque slangy masculine Japanese.
So we found a good spot by the taxi stand and watched the scene play out.
Eventually, the guy broke free of his friend, ran up to the policemen, and started yelling in their faces. He was obviously drunk.
In America, this guy would have been cuffed and thrown in the drunk tank. But the Japanese policemen did nothing but gently try to move him along in the direction of the station. They seemed completely unfazed.
I don't know what ended up happening after Drunk Angry Guy and the crowd of police moved out of our view. But the whole thing was just astounding to me.

2006-09-16T02:17:00.000+09:00

Here's a sampling of the adults I teach English to:

Takayuki - Has a lisp, wears pink polo shirts, and talks about musical theater. I have an 80-minute private lesson with him first thing every Saturday morning.

Sachiko - An overly genki girl. Laughs more than anyone should laugh.

Kazuyo - Sachiko's sidekick.

Manabu - Always hangs around after class and teaches me a little Japanese, which I appreciate. Only has one hand, though, which is awkward when the lesson instructions are "cover the English words with your fingers."

Toshi - Always wears loud clothing, and has the look of someone who used to party too hard when he was younger. I always look forward to lessons with him, because I can loosen up and give him a little shit.

Kazuhiko - Something's weird about him. It might be that I have never seen him not fanning himself with a little wooden fan.

Minako - A new student who I initially level-tested. Burst into tears of happiness when she found out that she wasn't the very lowest level.

Harry - A dentist whose real name is Yoshihiko. Speaks English shockingly well. Has managed to eradicate his Japanese accent and replace it with something that sounds vaguely Latino.

Masako - Can see and hear spirits. Stays away from graveyards and the movie Poltergeist.

Takashi - Cool old dude who likes bonsai trees, hates the government, and used to make his living testing pharmaceuticals on animals. During a grammar lesson, one of his example sentences was "My wife is always talking, and I often tell her to stop."

Satomi - A university student. Very fashionable. Deer in headlights expression.

Yoshiyasu - Can barely speak a word of English besides "muscle training." The man likes his exercise.

Toyo - My first impression of this guy was "Dear Lord, he is surely a vampire." Sure enough, his two favorite kinds of movies are "violence movies" and "vampire movies."

Naoko and Tsuneko - Two housewives who are refreshingly quirky and animated. A good contrast to all the tired businessmen.

Yoko - A high-school student. When asked what kind of pet she wants, replied "I want a little pony."

Asao - An old guy with white hair on his head and mesmerizingly long black hair on his fingers.

Daisuke - A hottie.

Satoshi - Will grill you for twenty minutes about your drinking habits, then explain that he has to drink a lot because he "is fat man." Has a tendency to steer the conversation toward the topic of Japanese baths and whether or not I am comfortable with nudity.

Hajime - Seriously messed-up teeth.

Monroe - Real name is Fujio. The only student in an 80-minute advanced class I have taken over for. I suspect the other five or so students dropped out because Monroe tends to dominate conversations to the point that you simply cannot get anything done. Makes things easy for me.

Shinichi - This guy's a piece of work. When asked a simple question, will repeat the question to himself, then alternate between repeating the first word of his answer and sucking his teeth.
Example:
Me: "Shinichi, do YOU think Japanese is more difficult than English?"
Shinichi: "Do you think...Japanese...more difficult...*teeth sucking*...So...*teeth*...So...*teeth*...English...*teeth*...pause...
So...pause...*teeth*...English is..."
(this continues until I answer for him and turn my attention to the better students)
When he does talk, it usually has something to do with "working in the factory."

So in conclusion, my students run the gamut between really cool people I can have a good chat with, and flustered, teeth-sucking businessmen who put me to sleep.

In addition to the ubiquitous teeth-sucking habit displayed by older Japanese men, I've also noticed that a staggering number of the females have a tendency to grunt like guinea pigs when they're confused or make a mistake.

These kinds of things keep me amused.

2006-09-09T00:55:00.000+09:00

Who are the people in your neighborhood?

Well, here are some of the people in MY neighborhood:

First, there's Old Transvestite Homeless Guy, who lives on a couple of benches on the pedestrian walkway near my apartment. I was under the assumption that he never wears a shirt, but my roommate has just informed me that he'll bust out a camisole and a pair of fakies on occasion.
Old Homeless Woman usually just hangs out by the station on a pile of cardboard boxes and talks to herself.
Often when I'm walking home at night, I'll pass by that super-bony woman who's always jogging. It's probably insensitive of me to call her Skeletor.
And then there's that whole crew who works at the conveyor-belt sushi place. The male chefs will yell "Irrashaimase!" at you in a sing-song voice, and the female waitresses never wear any expression other than "sullen." The oldest waitress annoys the hell out of me, because not only does always she thank me more times than is comfortable, but she also says it in a strange way. It's really nasal, and it's always "arigatou gozaimaSUUUUU." Ugh.
Of course there's Takuya from Bee Darts Bar, but I don't go there anymore after I realized how insanely expensive it is.
My new favorite bar is called Drunky, and it's right next to the ECC school here in Omiya. It's a tiny hole-in-the-wall that blasts reggae music out into the street. Kenichi and Hide, the two bartenders who work there, are trying to help me learn how to talk like a normal person and not a textbook. They're my buddies.
Homma is a 40-something guy who's always hanging out at Drunky, and is always, well, drunky. Last time he was there, he declared himself my japanese dad. I also met a girl named Reona who was thrilled to talk to me right up until she passed out on the bar.
One of my favorite local people is Ramen Man. Every night, without fail, you can find him at the local ramen shop, making noodles for all the drunk businessmen (and sometimes me). He's a happy dude, and it's fun to watch him throw all the ingredients together with the flair of someone who has dedicated his life to ramen.
I never really see my neighbors in this building. The one time I saw them, they happened to walk by me as I was outside having a heated conversation on the phone. They looked scared and confused (as is the normal Japanese response to someone like me) and I haven't seen them since.

Oh Omiya.

Anyway, here's a picture of something funny because I KNOW YOU WANT IT:

Yup.

2006-08-31T16:38:00.000+09:00

Green-san* and Dance Man

Oh, low-budget Japanese television. How can I even start to explain this...

Well, I guess it all started during training for my teaching job. My company, ECC, has a contract with a satellite channel called BS Fuji. When BS Fuji is in need of some whiteys for its English-language educational segments, it calls ECC. When we watched some of these in training, as terribly goofy and embarrassing as they were, I was thrilled. Japanese TV! I told the people at headquarters that I would love to do it. This confused the hell out of them (why would anyone willingly humiliate themselves like that?), but they told me they'd let me know if they heard about anything.

About six weeks later, there I was, waking up at 5:30 in the morning for a twelve-hour shoot of a show called Mojya². There were six scenes in all, teaching the words Airplane, Eat, Cap, Monkey, Peel, and Cut. I would be Green-san, one of Dance Man's four perpetually dancing henchmen.

All day, we wore earpieces that looped the same sixteen bars of "Boogie-something-or-other," so that our dancing would be in sync. We danced in terrible heat, first in a playground, then in various rooms of a hot, stuffy house. We were tired. We had woken up early. We sweated. The Japanese director and his crew didn't manage time well, so we found ourselves half-assing our way through the last few scenes, often using only one take. I'm hoping the shot of me trying (and failing) to pull a ski cap over my green wig gets lost on the cutting room floor.

Despite being an awful day overall, I'm glad I did it. Hell, I'd probably do it again. I'm sure I'll look terrible on this show, all tired and sweaty and saying things like "Let's PEEL the POTATO!" with a deranged smile, but you know what?

I'm on TV, bitches.

Highlight of the day: We're inside the house, and Dance Man is wearing plastic shower caps over his giant platform shoes because of Japanese cleanliness standards. So he's dancing on the staircase, right up close to the camera, with us in the background near the bottom of the stairs. We're doing "Cap! Cap! Cap!" turning left and right while miming the brim of a baseball cap. Without warning, CRASH! Dance Man has taken a major spill and is now sprawled out at the bottom of the stairs under a large potted plant. Of course we all stop dancing and start laughing, but within seconds Dance Man is back up and at the top of the stairs, dancing like nothing has happened. The cameramen haven't stopped filming. The four of us look at each other in confusion, shrug, and resume our "Cap! Cap! Cap!" routine, stifling laughter for ten more seconds until the director gives us a "cut." He approves of the take, and we move onto the next scene. I guess he decided he had enough to work with in editing and didn't have to do it again. I really hope I can see that footage sometime.

Here's the website for the show. I'm not on there yet, but you get the idea. I guess the old Green-san didn't want to do it anymore. Can't imagine why...

*I look like hell in this picture because a) I am wearing a green afro wig (obviously), and b) well, why don't YOU try looking good after dancing, making stupid faces, and sweating for twelve hours.

2006-08-31T01:45:00.000+09:00

Hey kids! Guess what time it is!
IT'S PICTURE CATCH-UP TIME!

Yeah...I haven't uploaded pictures in weeks. So here are the highlights from what I unearthed tonight:

My roommate Jen and I in Shinjuku.

This guy is on advertisements all over the city. I'd party with him.

Outside Shinjuku Station at 6am. You know when you've stayed up all night and you're on your way home, and it's sunny and you're tired and hung over and you want to die? Yeah, that.

A sign at a train platform in Shinjuku.

Fumi's birthday. Guess which one is Fumi.

What a nice, scenic place to drink cheap beer next to some homeless guys.

Nate, Adam, and I at the izakaya with Random Japanese Guy #1. Note the dangerous organ meats in the foreground.

In Japan, monkeys host talk shows and drive cars. Sometimes at the same time.

For those of you who were curious, here's the living room of my apartment. Meet Stumpy The Couch, and his friends Stumpy-Ass Table And Chairs.

Another view. It's not really on a slant, I don't know what happened there.

That's all for tonight. I'm a little braindead because I woke up at 5:30 this morning to spend twelve hours dancing in a green afro wig. But I'm saving that story for later.

Goodnight.

2006-08-19T19:36:00.000+09:00

I don't feel all that bad for not posting this past week. It was the second week of my big two-week summer vacation, and having spent the first week going to festivals and the like, I made the educated decision to spend the second week partying like a rockstar.
Needless to say, I soon found myself in a black hole of terrible sleeping habits from which it has been impossible to return.

Of the memory soup left over from last week, these are the tidbits of life that float to the surface:
Chilling on Tom's Tokyo balcony and looking out over all the roofs.
Dancing and chanting with a crowd of Japanese strangers in the techno room of Club Vanilla.
Drinking at an izakaya (look it up) with Adam, his friend Nate, and two random 40-year-old Japanese guys we picked up on the street.
Watching a middle-aged, Scottish coworker of mine stage a drunken revolution against Japanese waitstaff.
Lots and lots of early morning trains home.

That's really about it.

When I was out drinking with aforementioned 40-year-old sketchy dudes, I asked them to order us food, and the waitress came back with some meat on sticks. But this is Japan, and if there's one thing the Japanese love to do, it's to pull the Gross Card on some unsuspecting foreigners. That said, the four meats presented to us were:
Chicken Skin
Heart
Liver
Chicken Hamburg (whatever that is)
But I was hungry, goddamnit, and if you ignored the textures it wasn't all THAT bad. So I ate like 3/4 of all the food on the table, organ meats included. And then I got really sick for about a day. And then I swore never to eat organ meats again.
The End.

Anyway, my first day back at work started out pretty awful. My very first class was a "Mini Kids" lesson, meaning "dance and sing at some babies and their moms." I wouldn't have had a problem doing that, except today only ONE baby/mom duo showed up. I had to spend half an hour desperately dancing and singing at one kid, who made it quite obvious that she wanted nothing to do with me. To top it all off, I didn't know the words to any of the songs, and was sweating profusely the whole time.

Awful.

But it got better. Fast-forward two hours, and I now have two 5-year-old boys fanning me with their books, one giving me a shoulder massage, and the fourth blowing on my face for lack of things to fan me with. That class was pretty cool. We mostly just ran around yelling about cookies, ice cream, sandwiches, etc (for some reason, the vocabulary word "pancakes" was the only one they could never remember). At one point, they discovered the stuffed velcro monkeys in the corner of the room and decided to attach them all to my arms, screaming with delight as I lumbered around like some big monkey-monster.

Question: How can you get a small Japanese child to stop systematically lining up his crayons and organizing his belongings, and have him move onto the next activity?
Answer: You cannot.

As for today's adult classes, they were the most boring people imaginable, across the board, and I was very glad when the forced-conversation portion of my day was over.

Now for the lying-on-the-couch portion of the day.

It's hot in here, where are Hitoki, Tatsuya, Satoshi, and Kousuke when I need them?
GOD, JAPANESE CHILDREN ARE CUTE.

2006-08-12T02:19:00.000+09:00

I'm watching Matthew's Best Hit TV (now called Matthew's Best Hit UV for some reason) and feeling VERY indignant. For the last five years, this guy has had his own TV show, which, like most other Japanese programming, is just him hanging out with guests, making exaggerated Japanese faces, and playing with stuff. So why can't I screw around in front of a camera for half an hour and call it a TV show?

I DESERVE MY OWN TELEVISION SHOW. I AM WAY MORE FUNNY AND INTERESTING TO WATCH THAN THESE JERKS.

If someone reading this could hook that up, I'd appreciate it. Thanks.

ANNNNNNYway.

The highlight of my week wasn't any of the festivals, any time I befriended a random Japanese girl/old man/masked festival monster/crazy dog lady, any time I witnessed a Japanese person passed out in or near vomit (twice), or even that time I ate my weight in shrimp-flavored snack foods and spent the next three hours with an apocalyptic stomachache.

It was this guy:

Just a guy, with a watermelon for a head, hanging out by the side of the road. Seeing as he wasn't selling anything or handing anything out, I figure he was either on break, or he was a pervert. The crotch sombrero would seem to point to the latter. Either way, I ran over to him and had Adam take a picture.

Honorable Mentions for Japan Double-Take Of The Week

Japan's newest and most heavily-advertised brand of canned coffee.

Check out the name of the restaurant on the third floor.

Neckface Strikes Again

This costume kit is called "Hello Gaijin-san!" ('gaijin' being the derogatory term for a foreigner). It comes with a big white nose and blue eyes. I've nothing more to say about this.

I also need to add that I've been to Tokyu Hands' toy department four or five times since I got here, and each time I've been transfixed by this:

But forget Melon Man, the hypnotic Disney army, and racist party accessories.

Because on Wednesday, Adam and I did what we needed to do.

We went back to Jiyugaoka, where we had lived as study-abroad students last year (see: Japan Part I). We checked out our familiar train station, our favorite izakaya, the 100-yen store, and finally walked the old route back to the place we've been pining for since last April:

One personal demon down. 27 to go.

2006-08-10T03:57:00.000+09:00

Festival Number...Something: Asagaya Tanabata Matsuri

Pretty much just a long crowded street decorated like a kid's birthday party, if a kid's birthday party was populated with grown men screaming at you to buy tentacled snacks. C-, Asagaya. C-

Ten points to anyone who can figure out who Transgender Nosehair Soccer Player is supposed to be.

You haven't known fear until you've had an Enormous Paper-Maché Baby staring down at you from above.

I figured eating a whole squid on a stick would give me some Japan Cred. It gave me a squid juice stain on my pants.

2006-08-06T20:12:00.000+09:00

Festival #2 - Hachioji Matsuri

Crazy Dog Lady

Her dog's custom-made festival accessories

I love things that end in "...of the future."

2006-08-04T22:47:00.000+09:00

Quick post before I go out.

It's vacation time. My next day of work is the 19th.
All my students have asked me what I'm going to do over vacation (partly because they're crap at coming up with novel conversation topics), and all seem to be surprised that I'm not going on some fabulous trip. Um, hi, I just got here. Not to mention it's miserably hot and humid out every day.

So what's a girl to do with her extra time and money?
FESTIVALS.
Throughout the month of August, Japanese people are busting out their yukata and partying like its 1899, and I'm gonna be there to witness it.

First festival: Yesterday's bon-odori outside the huge Buddhist temple in Tsukiji. The bon-odori is a traditional dance to celebrate the return of the dead ancestors to their homeland. This particular bon-odori featured traditional taiko drummers, traditional paper lantern decorations, traditional Japanese food, traditional clothing, and of course, the traditional massive amounts of draft beer and people in giant animal costumes.

I wonder what kind of people volunteer to be the giant animals at a festival, as the job description includes not only sweating under layers of synthetic fur, but being punched in the crotch and ass by small Japanese children about every twenty seconds for one's entire work shift.

I thought about participating in the dance. From what I could see, it was really nothing more than just going with the crowd in circles around the central stage, waving the arms, clapping once in a while, turning around, and looking around wildly trying to figure out what was going on. But I didn't want to be "that foreigner." So instead, I headed for the beer tent, downed three beers in a row, and spent the latter two-thirds of the festival pretty spectacularly drunk.

From there on, I made it my personal mission to get pictures with the giant animals. It was a difficult feat, because not only was I drunk and pretty slow to react, but the animals were always either participating in the dance or being openly molested by small herds of Japanese children. After hanging around near the panda quite creepily for a while, I found a small opening and took it. In one quick motion, I shoved my camera at a Japanese bystander, gestured toward the panda, grabbed the panda by the shoulder turning it around, and grinned like it was my job. I soon accomplished the same with the pink bunny. I was on a ROLL.

Unfortunately, I wasn't fast enough to get to the chipmunk or the monkey, as the dancers cleared out at 8 and the bon-odori suddenly turned into a Japanese pop concert, featuring some terrible male singer in a shiny silver suit. It was really awful. The kind of stuff that passes for music in this country...

So I cut out of there and spent the next hour or so wandering the streets of Ginza. Really wandering. I mean like crossing streets at random, turning around in circles trying to figure out where I was, feeling very overwhelmed by it all, furiously fanning myself with the fan that had mysteriously appeared in my back pocket, and eventually plopping down in a way-too-classy-for-me coffee shop and eating a banana muffin because I couldn't find anywhere else to go to the bathroom.

That's my story of the bon-odori. Like I said, there will be many more festivals to come, so look forward to more stories of Christine Drinking Too Much Festival Beer And Disrespecting Other People's Cultures.

The tiny microphone on my camera is no match for loud drums, so the sound sucks, but you get the idea:

2006-08-04T02:46:00.000+09:00

The Story of Bee

The discovery of "Bee" Darts Bar was a very exciting development. Why? Because unlike all the other bars within walking distance of our apartment, this one stays open until 5:00am EVERY NIGHT. You see, Jen and I, like all the other ECC teachers in town, have most of our work shifts from 3:30 to 9:30 pm. But factor in the commute, the post-work meal, and the need to change clothes and freshen up after work, and we usually find ourselves at 11:30 or so looking for somewhere to go. What's the use of a bar that closes at midnight for people like us? We stay up late every night, and sleep in every morning, and we need to be accomodated, goddamnit. "Bee" Darts Bar would be just the place to fulfill our needs.

Where should I start...
Bee's bizarre overblown decor, resembling something like S&M-meets-classy?
Multiple colors of mood lighting?
Wealth of board games? (Uno! Jenga! ...Crocodile Dentist?)
Large plasma screen TVs playing nonstop Japanese music videos?
Of course, its big selling point, like many other "American Darts Bars," is its long row of state-of-the-art electronic darts boards.
And the number-one aspect of all Japanese bars: NO TIPPING. That's right. I've tried tipping in Japan a few times for various things, and it always confuses the hell out of the recipient.

Needless to say, the drinks are expensive and you pretty much have to come pre-loaded, lest you spend your entire paycheck on 800-yen watered-down rum and cokes. But overall, it's a good place to be, especially when you are lucky enough to witness an extremely drunk man fall down three steps, land directly on a small suggestively-dressed Japanese girl ("squeal!"), and remain unconscious at the bottom.

But that's neither here nor there.

The first time we went to Bee, we had in tow an American named Christian who we had just met on the street. We drank, we played Uno, we played darts, and we had an okay time, despite being a bit weirded out by our guest. So last week, Jen and I went back by ourselves, having been unable to find anyone to invite out at 1am. Once again, we sat at a small table in the middle, where we could see and be seen. Well, one thing led to another, and we found ourselves playing darts with two young Japanese bartenders named Takuya and Gottsu.

I worked the charm, and Takuya fell in love.

I know this because he told me. Repeatedly.
"I LOVE YOU! I LOVE YOU!"
or rather...
"I LUB YOU! I LUB YOU!"
As an English teacher, I can say that it would seem he has been practicing his "L" sounds.

"Uhhhhhh...I love you too, Takuya."

So there I was, midway through the game, about to throw my dart. Right foot forward, right arm extended, eyes on the prize. I had been playing my best game ever, and Jen and I had a commanding lead over our Asian opponents. Takuya was to my right, a little too close for comfort, but I wasn't going to be psyched out. I drew my arm back, and...

"You're beautiful! You're beautiful! You're beautiful, it's true!"

Takuya was singing to me. Loudly. Right next to my ear.

Taken aback, I laughed it off with a "James Blunt desho?" and finished my turn.
Gottsu was up next, so I booed playfully. I then heard a second "boo!" echo my own, a male one. Sure enough, I looked over at Takuya, who was grinning and waving two thumbs down at his own teammate.

Oh, Takuya.

Well, Jen and I ended up winning the game, with a total of 267 points, five or six instances of "I LUB YOU!" and one more refrain of "You're Beautiful."

While Takuya and Gottsu were off getting us our check (after they had stalled us for as long as possible), a third bartender scurried over for a piece of the action. He brought with him a plastic replica of a Japanese snack called Calpis, which he instructed us to shake in turn after rolling a die. Jen and I looked at each other, shrugged, and did as the man said. He watched with wide-eyed excitement, tension building, until finally the thing halfheartedly popped a few plastic french fries onto the floor. Well, this was hilarious to him. He clapped and laughed at our expense, picked up the pieces, and ran away just as briskly as he had come.

We paid our insanely expensive bill (free drinks for flirting? not in Japan!) and headed for the door. Our bartender friends were all lined up there to make sure we knew the exact location of the door, gesturing and bowing wildly, and they made us promise we'd come back soon.

Who am I kidding, of course I'll go back. I love the attention.

2006-08-02T01:31:00.000+09:00

Lucky: Walking out the door of your apartment to find that a summer festival has exploded all over town into little bits and pieces of happiness, paper lanterns, golden shrines, and people in cute outfits.

Unlucky: Going to take your first picture, only to find that your camera has run out of batteries in the past week of non-use.

Lucky: Having a cell phone camera as backup.

Unlucky: Looking at your cell phone and realizing you only have about ten free minutes before you have to get your ass to work.

Lucky: Said workday is "stay time," meaning there's nothing to do and you can perch yourself by the window and watch the festival from an awesome vantage point.

Unlucky: The window is made of the most reflective glass ever, and all your pictures will inevitably contain the ghost of the back of a microwave.

Lucky: Wow! Look at all those drunk dudes in cute little shorts bouncing that shrine on their shoulders! And there's a parade when the sun sets! More people dancing in colorful outfits! Young men waving giant flags around! Smiling women pounding on drums! Asian babies!

Unlucky: Someone just signed up for two lessons back-to-back with me? At the height of parade time? Who DOES that?

Lucky: You have been getting paid about seventeen dollars an hour to sit on the windowsill and watch a festival while eating an ice cream cone. Shut up.

If you squint really hard, you can see a bunch of guys hauling a gold "omikoshi" shrine down the street.

Taken from the teachers' room window, with my cell phone. I need more megapixels.

The beginning of the nighttime parade. I was soon ripped out of my childlike wonder by my two private lessons with Hitoshi, a businessman who complained to me about his loneliness, in very broken English, through a mouthful of noisy saliva.

The festival is supposed to be two or three days long, depending on who you ask. Tomorrow I'm going to leave the house with plenty of time before work, armed with my fully-charged legit digital camera, to see if I can find any sights early in the day.

2006-07-28T21:34:00.000+09:00

What's wrong with this picture?

A closer look.

To clarify, this mall is called "La La Garden" and the restaurant is called "Steak Someday."

For fifteen bucks, this sake had BETTER be like jingle bell!

So i had my first day of work on Wednesday, and taught private English lessons to the following people:

*A former head of a pharmaceutical company's Quality Control and Animal Testing division.
*A depressed dentist in a Hawaiian shirt.
*Two bubbly girls with crushes on Hayden Christiansen.
*A housewife who explained to me the color and consistency of camel meat.
*An auto mechanic who told me that Sydney, Australia has "a lot of gay."

It's a pretty good deal, getting paid to talk to all these characters. I'm still afraid of kids' classes, though.

Wednesday night after work, I dragged my roommate to a bar I had passed on the street called The Lockup. It was in the basement of a building, and we had to walk through long blacklit corridors with fake stone walls while "scary" stuff lit up and made noise. At the end of all this was a door with no knob or handle, next to which was a sign in illegible Japanese. While a statue of a man in an electric chair buzzed and flashed behind me, and the alien-in-a-vat-of-toxic-waste to my left did the same, I pushed the door, pulled the door in every direction, and pounded on the door, all to no avail. We spent an awkwardly long time standing there trying to figure out what to do, and finally gave up.

Just as we turned around to leave, the door opened, and a smiling Japanese girl in a red vinyl outfit invited us to come in. I don't know whether she was screwing with us, or if we were failing to follow some instruction on that goddamn sign, but she had a TV monitor right there at her podium, from which she had been watching the whole thing.

Next, we were handcuffed and led down more low-ceilinged "rock" corridors to a jail cell with a low table. We took off our shoes, sat on the floor, ordered drinks and snacks, and were "locked in."

And that was The Lockup. Overall, it was pretty cool. Next time I'll come with more people, and a bottle of liquor with which to spike those weak-ass drinks.

The thing that weirded me out the most that night was not the atmosphere or the drinks or the curry powder they gave me with my french fries. The waitress in the red vinyl getup was taking our drink orders when we hit a communication barrier and she didn't know what Jen was talking about. At that moment, it was like someone flipped a switch, because the waitress's high-pitched cutesy Japanese serving voice suddenly switched to "Do you speak English?" in a low mature voice with an American accent. She wrote down Jen's order and switched back to a high, nasal "Shoushou machi kudasai!" ("one moment, please!") with a big, sarcastic grin.

I didn't like her one bit after that.

2006-07-27T17:55:00.000+09:00

I am now a card-holding registered alien. I have an apartment, a job, and a Japanese bank account with direct deposit. I have a membership card at my local video store. I have a brand-new blue cell phone.
I live here.

2006-07-24T00:48:00.000+09:00

When I got out of work a few days ago, it actually wasn't raining, so I walked the few blocks to Sketchy/Awesome Shinjuku to do some exploring.

After a short while, Shinjuku became more sketchy than awesome, as I got tired of having flyers shoved in my face and hearing "Harro! Baybee!!" So I went to catch the next train home, but not before I got a couple pictures in:

I also have noticed that because of space constraints, stores in Tokyo often have stuff overflowing into the street, which occasionally means that you will see things like shelves of fireworks on the street with no one supervising them.
Oh, Japan.

Fast-forward to today. After recovering from yesterday's "celebration" of the end of training (Kirin Ichiban is wonderful), I decided to do a little more exploring around my neighborhood. Well, my apartment's location is even better than I thought, because a 20-minute walk can get me to the awesome monstrosity that is the Saitama Super Arena. Aside from the Super Arena itself, there's an underground mall in there, with bizarre sloped floors and little carnival rides, an outdoor courtyard with a stage area for concerts and food and souvenir stands, and The John Lennon Museum. I'll be sure to hit that up when I have some more free time.

I hopped on a train to go back to Omiya, hit up some conveyor-belt sushi for lunch, and walked to the Hikawa Shrine, which is a TEN minute walk from my apartment. It's not really a shrine, it's more like a huge park with shrines scattered around. I'm getting tired of writing, so here are some pictures:

The turtles owned the place. I was watching a crowd of them (and probably talking to them like a dork), when a Japanese guy and his friend asked to take pictures with me. I posed with one, then the other.
I'm famous.

It also might have had something to do with the fact that on my three-hour epic walking tour, I saw ZERO other non-Japanese people. This isn't to say that there are no foreigners around, but they all seem to be in the well-known commercial areas of Tokyo. When you're in the outskirts, especially in the residential areas, a foreigner strolling around is a little more weird, and I get the vibe that people don't quite know what to make of me. It's kinda cool to be so special, but what this also means is that I can't do so much as eat a meal without feeling like I'm being watched.

Alright, it's getting late. Tomorrow's my first day of work, in which I'll have some sort of "sub duty" until the official departure of the person I'm supposed to replace. Wish me luck.

Goodnight.

2006-07-20T21:54:00.000+09:00

So to answer your question, yes, shi-tzu's and dragons CAN be friends.

Anyway, as fun and hilarious as Japan can be, it also has its frustrating moments. One occurs when your train line randomly shuts down and the explanatory announcement is in mumbled old-man Japanese. And the thing about asking people for help is, well, they WANT to help, but they're not very good at it. Saying that your Japanese is bad will only elicit a repeat of the same long, convoluted explanation which you will never hope to understand. And no matter how futile the situation is, most people won't give up until a resolution is reached, making the whole process very long and uncomfortable for all parties involved. So as for the train incident earlier this week, it ended with me being a full half-hour late to work, then showing up all flustered only to be asked by my boss why I didn't get a "chienshomeishou" (a paper lateness explanation) from the station workers.

Another thing that's already starting to piss me off is the lecherous stares I get from weird old Japanese men on the train. I can't begin to understand why a man a full head shorter than me thinks he has the right to do this. The secret weapon against Japanese train perverts is, of course, looking them directly in the eyes with the fiercest don't-even-think-about-it look you can muster. This scares the crap out of them, because direct eye contact is so rare and confrontational here. I've already had to do this a few times, and I'm getting sick of it. It's especially weird when you're drifting off to sleep with your headphones on, you open your eyes for a second, and there's a gross dude right there watching you.

But don't worry about me. If you've ever been to Japan, you'd know that I'm definitely in the 98th percentile for Huge Scary Women here.

In other news, Japan apparently decided a long time ago that the ABC song in traditional form is too hard, specifically the fast "LMNOP" lyric. So they revised it to sound something like this. Sing along if you like:
A B C D E F G *rest*
H I J K L M N *rest*
O P Q R S T U *rest*
V W *rest*
X Y Z *awkward end*
Needless to say, I completely botched it in my demo lesson today, first singing it with the original LMNOP lyric, then, recognizing my mistake, singing it again but completely leaving out J and V. My trainer then sat me down in front of everyone and took about ten minutes to explain to me all the myriad reasons why it is important to learn the lyrics to the goddamn alphabet song, while I sat there nodding my head.

That'll do it for stories today. On Monday, I have to teach my very first real classes, which will be...
*drumroll*
1. A 30-minute "class" in which I sing songs and dance around with (read: at) a group of 1.5 to 2 year olds and their moms.
2. A 40-minute "class" in which I read oversized childrens' books to, and play games (for example, "jump up and down" and "put the foam letter in the hole") with, a group of 2 to 4 year olds and their moms.
3. A 60-minute class of 9 to 12 year olds, who will surely disrespect me from the get-go and continue to do so for the entire year.

Should be hilarious. I'll keep you updated.

And here's a picture of the area I've been walking through every day to get to work:
Yeah, Tokyo's pretty cool.

2006-07-20T19:15:00.000+09:00

In her teaching demo, Christine is teaching vocabulary for "Parts of the Body" to three coworkers pretending to be Japanese children. The flash cards are laid out on the floor.
Christine: "Jesse, please give me toes and elbows."
Jesse: "Okay."
Jesse hands the cards to Christine.
Christine: "Catherine, please give me legs and nose."
Catherine hands the cards to Christine.
Christine: "And Greg, please give me..."
Christine looks down at the one remaining card on the floor. It reads "Head."
Christine: "...the last card."

2006-07-18T01:05:00.000+09:00

Living up here in Saitama means you leave home in the morning and don't come back until you're good and ready to wrap up the day. So if you're wondering why I haven't posted anything in a while, that's why. I'm not home very much, and when I am, I'm tired or busy.

That said, here's the lowdown:

Training is half over. I've learned pretty much everything there is to know about teaching adults, and tomorrow I start training for a series of classes called "Kids' English World." I'm not really looking forward to being an English-speaking clown, but what can you do. It's a living.

These last couple nights have constituted my first official weekend, after having a full week to get my bearings and recover from jet lag. This was a special weekend because Monday was Umi no Hi, a Japanese national holiday that loosely translates to Sea Day, Ocean Day, or the less awkward Marine Day. After work on Saturday (yes, I work Saturdays), I rushed home to change my clothes and get ready to "celebrate the ocean."

I met Danika from Skidmore and her new Japan friends in Yokohama Chinatown, and we took in all the noisy, hilarious, and crowded sights before heading toward Yamashita Park at dusk for a fireworks show. Well, in true Japan fashion, the entire city had the same idea, and the park was full to capacity and then some. So we wandered around, trying to find a good viewing spot by jumping barriers and circumnavigating little clumps of agitated policemen. But everywhere we went, we were confronted by a new sea of Japanese people in festive Japan-wear, and I started to get nervous about the prospect of getting out alive.
Luckily, the fireworks show was right near a train station. Unluckily, said station has only one train line, and is at the last stop of said train line. I did the math in my head, panicked, and left about a third of the way through the event, leaving behind my lovely standing-room-only, obstructed-view spot in a corner of a cement park.

Japan, why must you take pictures of everything with your cell phone? WATCH THE DAMN FIREWORKS AND PUT IT AWAY.

The next item on the agenda was to attend an overnight party at my friend Johan's house, in a beach town called Kugenuma Kaigan. When I saw Johan, Tom, Dino, and Aki for the first time in over a year, old memories of debauchery flooded back to me, to be replaced by new ones over the course of the night and into the next day.

Lessons Learned:
*Walking into a 7-11 at 3:30 am with shoes made of sand and no pants will earn you disapproving looks from everyone in the store.
*Before using empty fireworks shells as fuel for a fire, make sure they are all empty.
*Be wary of any snacks with dried fish as their main ingredient.
*And yes, you do have to clean that up.

2006-07-11T21:07:00.000+09:00

Until I recover from jetlag and adapt to these new things called "work" and "exercise," my posts are gonna be kinda lame.

Yesterday was my first day of training to be an "English teacher" (I use the term loosely). Accordingly, last night was my first night of going out with coworkers and bosses for "a pint," which, to my British trainers, apparently means five pints. Running, beer-filled, down the streets of Shinjuku at midnight to try to catch the last trains is something that everyone should experience at some point in their lives.
And the next morning, in true Japan fashion, we went back to work hung-over and fatigued, pretending that none of it happened.

Today I had my first Idiot American moment. It involved me being the only whitey at the conveyor-belt sushi place, incorrect use of the hot-water tap, and a very grumpy Japanese businessman. I'd explain, but it would dishonor my family name. You understand.

Apparently, making Japanese people laugh is like shooting fish in a barrel. An approximation of the Japanese TV show I watched earlier:
Woman: "You look pretty!"
Other woman: "I don't know."
ROAR OF LAUGHTER from the audience.
Woman: "blah blah blah blah blah." (incoherent Japanese)
*pause*
Man: "Yes."
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE.
I got annoyed and turned it off.

On my last work-free day, I decided to go explore Harajuku. It was a Sunday, so the goth kids and the embarrassing tourists were out in force. Here are some of the highlights:

Since I felt like such a turd walking around with my camera among all the middle-aged white tourist guys (tee shirts tucked into jeans...cringe), I only took a few pictures of the Harajuku kids.

The terrible screeching I heard was coming from this guy (girl?). His speakers pumped out awful pounding sounds while he wailed into the microphone. The Fanny Pack Coalition was eating it up.

So were these girls.

This dog was not a fan.

Because "Don't Litter" just doesn't have any pizazz.

I passed by a Kentucky Fried Chicken and noticed that Colonel Sanders was looking suspiciously...Asian.

Thanks for reminding me.

...

Oh, Japan.

2006-07-09T00:28:00.000+09:00

Jetlagged and STRUGGLING to stay awake at 12:30 am. I caught myself thinking "Thank God I get to sleep in tomorrow," but then I remembered that my job will allow me to sleep in EVERY DAY. Yes, Mom, I loopholed my way out of personal responsibility once again.
Anyway, I went for my inaugural walk around the neighborhood today to check things out. I also discovered that I can post pictures to this thing really easily. Click for a larger version. You're excited.

Here's the street that I live on, and the van on the left which was blocking the entrance to my building in the most awkward way possible.

The door to my building. I don't know what Bonn Wohnung means, but it's not even close to Japanese. And you can see me in the reflection, looking indecent (according to my observations today, Japanese women don't expose their thighs even when it's so hot that your eyeballs are sweating).

I'll be walking down this street every day, to and from the train station. This is the "from" view.

My train station, Omiya, largest station in Saitama and a short walk from my apartment. It's a monster, and I love it.

Why the squirrel, Japan? Why?

Tee hee.

And my favorite purchase from the 100-yen store.

I did more walking today than I had over the past two months. I also was gawked at pretty frequently, had an awkward conversation with a guy trying to sell me an apartment, and was helped in the electronics store by a man with the grodiest hands ever. I can't even describe the horror.

My mind is shutting down. I'm off to bed (Western-style, no lame futons for THIS girl).

P.S. My toilet seat is heated.

Japan Part II

2006-07-08T21:55:00.001+09:00

"Yokoso! Welcome to Japan!" said the billboard after I had finally deplaned.
"I'm back, you bastards." I replied, aloud, to the geisha in the photograph.
She smiled demurely.

After twenty hours in transit, I made my way to the Narita Express train bound for Shinjuku in Tokyo. Before I could get on, however, I had to wait for a small crowd of uniformed-and-white-gloved workers to straighten every headrest cloth, wipe down the trim of every window, and double and triple check their work. Oh, Japan.

As I waited, I went to the nearest kiosk to pick up a bottle of Pocari Sweat. The kiosk was called "Let's Kiosk," and the first sip of that awful stuff was so full of nostalgia and happiness that I had to fight back a tear.
I'm a loser.

Only in Japan can you have upholstered seats in train stations, as the Japanese do not share America's enthusiasm for recreational defacing of public property.

And then I was on the train. Everything is a blur when you've been on a plane for 13 hours. I scrawled notes in my obnoxious Japanese puppy-themed notebook, my leg pressed uncomfortably against the leg of a well-dressed Japanese guy who was, predictably, asleep on the train, and predictably, in possession of a cow-print cell-phone.

Daylight turned into night, Shinjuku turned into Omiya, and after handing over my first-born child to my landlord, I slept my first night in my new home on the other side of the world.