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!

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.

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.

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.

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?

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

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.]

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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

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.