Youtube has finally decided to be much less of a jerk, which means I can show you this video from my first day in Murakami.
Accompanied with this movie is a drinking game for those of you who are of age. Any time I am generally obnoxious, take a drink. Anytime I make over use of the word "So" or "Super", take a drink. I'll count for you in the beginning, but you're going to have to count later on.
Have more than one drink available.
I smell an Oscar nomination!
Thursday, September 30, 2010
My days usually begin around six o'clock. That's when I roll over to throw my alarm clock against the wall to get it to shut up. Normally, however, this only activates the snooze function, so around 6:09 I'm dragging myself out of bed, hair a mess and eyes puffy and red, to find my alarm to get it to shut up again. I spend the next 10 minutes or so sitting on my futon mostly being angry that I'm awake while trying to see how long I can get away with doing nothing before I absolutely have to jump in the shower.
I run the hot water for about 20 minutes trying desperately to stop the dreaming and wake up so I can mentally prepare myself for the battle I'm about to undergo. Because when it's just you and 200 screaming children aged anywhere from five to fifteen, you need some morning mental preparation.
Next is ironing my shirt, something that also usually frustrates me because I always tell myself to do it the night before, and I never do. Ever. The next thing is one banana and some peanut butter on toast and I'm out the door by 7:30. I enjoy about 10 minutes of loud music in the car now that I'm officially awake (sometimes practicing for karaoke on the drive to school) and then I'm at my desk and furiously sorting through my list of activities to prepare something for my lessons for that day while I still have some time left before the madness begins.
For the next eight hours I'm either in class trying to get kids to speak English (sometimes I'm more successful with this than others but all the while I'm talking LOUDLY-AND-SLOWLY), or sitting at my desk trying to plan for other lessons, or sitting at my desk while my coworkers teach me slang and I teach them the various different ways to say "cool" or "awesome" or "sweet" or "sick", or I'm still fighting off sleep and desperately trying to figure out where I can get some coffee.
Then lunch time rolls around. By this time I'm positively starving, but for the most part all the lunches, while pretty tasty, always include some sort of weird assortment of vegetables that always give me gas, so I spend the last few hours at school trying to figure out how I can relax my stomach and blame it on one of the students or the dog.
Sometimes I eat with the students and then for afternoon break I'm a human jungle gym for them to climb on. Sometimes I remember to bring my track suit for this. Other times, I don't. For some reason the elementary school kids love climbing up onto my back so I can run them around school, or spin them around to make them go "WOoOOAAhhHH" and laugh. Sometimes they just want to stare at me and giggle, sometimes we play tag (where I'm the "demon") or dodgeball, and for the most part my middle school kids ignore me.
You win some, you lose some.
Finally four o'clock rolls around and the "going home from school" song plays over the loud speakers that are placed throughout town so that no matter where you are, you know school is done. Depending on how busy the day is either I'll stay for an extra half hour or so to help teachers out with work if they have any, or I'm out the door by four-oh-one, speeding home so that I can get ready for either the gym/taiko practice/going out to dinner with friends/running errands/grocery shopping or if I'm particularly lucky I'll have a few quiet hours at home to read, write out some postcards (only god knows I have no idea when exactly I'm going to get to the post office to send them), or work on my cross stitch, hoping desperately that I'll be in bed before 11 o'clock. If I'm in bed by ten, this is a good day.
Sometimes I lay out my futon, sometimes I fall asleep in my chair because it's comfortable, sometimes I wake up at 1am realizing I haven't set my alarm and I drag myself over to the stupid thing to set it, knowing I've only got five glorious hours of peace left before I wake myself up to do it all over again.
Life here is good.
I run the hot water for about 20 minutes trying desperately to stop the dreaming and wake up so I can mentally prepare myself for the battle I'm about to undergo. Because when it's just you and 200 screaming children aged anywhere from five to fifteen, you need some morning mental preparation.
Next is ironing my shirt, something that also usually frustrates me because I always tell myself to do it the night before, and I never do. Ever. The next thing is one banana and some peanut butter on toast and I'm out the door by 7:30. I enjoy about 10 minutes of loud music in the car now that I'm officially awake (sometimes practicing for karaoke on the drive to school) and then I'm at my desk and furiously sorting through my list of activities to prepare something for my lessons for that day while I still have some time left before the madness begins.
For the next eight hours I'm either in class trying to get kids to speak English (sometimes I'm more successful with this than others but all the while I'm talking LOUDLY-AND-SLOWLY), or sitting at my desk trying to plan for other lessons, or sitting at my desk while my coworkers teach me slang and I teach them the various different ways to say "cool" or "awesome" or "sweet" or "sick", or I'm still fighting off sleep and desperately trying to figure out where I can get some coffee.
Then lunch time rolls around. By this time I'm positively starving, but for the most part all the lunches, while pretty tasty, always include some sort of weird assortment of vegetables that always give me gas, so I spend the last few hours at school trying to figure out how I can relax my stomach and blame it on one of the students or the dog.
Sometimes I eat with the students and then for afternoon break I'm a human jungle gym for them to climb on. Sometimes I remember to bring my track suit for this. Other times, I don't. For some reason the elementary school kids love climbing up onto my back so I can run them around school, or spin them around to make them go "WOoOOAAhhHH" and laugh. Sometimes they just want to stare at me and giggle, sometimes we play tag (where I'm the "demon") or dodgeball, and for the most part my middle school kids ignore me.
You win some, you lose some.
Finally four o'clock rolls around and the "going home from school" song plays over the loud speakers that are placed throughout town so that no matter where you are, you know school is done. Depending on how busy the day is either I'll stay for an extra half hour or so to help teachers out with work if they have any, or I'm out the door by four-oh-one, speeding home so that I can get ready for either the gym/taiko practice/going out to dinner with friends/running errands/grocery shopping or if I'm particularly lucky I'll have a few quiet hours at home to read, write out some postcards (only god knows I have no idea when exactly I'm going to get to the post office to send them), or work on my cross stitch, hoping desperately that I'll be in bed before 11 o'clock. If I'm in bed by ten, this is a good day.
Sometimes I lay out my futon, sometimes I fall asleep in my chair because it's comfortable, sometimes I wake up at 1am realizing I haven't set my alarm and I drag myself over to the stupid thing to set it, knowing I've only got five glorious hours of peace left before I wake myself up to do it all over again.
Life here is good.
Part Two: Sumo and Exhaustion
Also Starring: Sumo butt. Lots and lots of Sumo butt.
After spending a pretty restless night in our capsule hotel (sleeping next to 23 other people, many of whom wanted to talk about the morality of eating dog meat in Korea for long enough to make me want to lean out my capsule and hiss wildly at them), it was time for Sumo!
Waking up early, me and Nicole head off to the arena… with lots of other foreigners. The gates opened at 8, but nothing started until 10, so for a couple hours it was just us and lots of other not-Japanese people.
I’d say I was surprised, and at first I was. I mean, eight hours of sumo means eight hours of big fat naked man butt.
Eight. Hours.
Thankfully for the majority of this I was sitting up in our second story seating well away from all the butt, but Nicole brought her telescopic lens, which meant we didn’t have to miss one cottage cheese back side.
It all started without a whole lot of pomp or circumstance. The judges enter the arena and sit far too close to the ring for my own personal liking in an area I lovingly refer to as The Splash Zone. These judges are taking their lives into their own hands, because on more than one occasion, one wrestler full on picked up the other and threw him out of the ring.
Now when there weren’t very many people in the arena, this is perfectly fine. The judge can sort of lean to one side, and the tumbling sumo can get back on his feet pretty easily. But once the stands fill up, there’s pretty much nothing you can do when you’ve got a giant of a man flying towards you. Especially if you’re a wee little old Japanese man like most of the people in the front rows were.
Over the next several hours the stands filled up, and you could feel the tension building as we approached the final match: Hakuho vs. Baruto.
As the match came up, Hakuho was undefeated, 12 wins to 0, while Baruto had only won 9 of the 12 matches, but the last five times these two butted heads, Baruto always came out the victor.
By the time the two enter the arena, everyone’s officially gone nuts. There’s screaming and yelling and fan girls are fainting in the stands, and finally the two lover themselves to the ground and prepare for battle.
Take a look!
And Baruto wins!
The rest of the weekend was spent mostly trying to stay awake. After a 14 hour day at DisneySea and an 8 hour day of sumo, there was pretty much no way I was able to stay conscious for our remaining time in Tokyo. I vaguely remember us visiting a temple and Shibuya (this really incredible area of Tokyo with tons of nightlife and neon), but for the most part I just needed a good night’s sleep.
Our return home took about 9 hours or so, but I passed most of it by watching Changeling and Star Trek on the bus on the way home (it was a good way to pass the time).
But finally I got home to my filthy apartment, spent the next several hours cleaning, and then positively collapsed.
Still, Tokyo is an amazing city. And I can’t wait to go back!
Sunday, September 26, 2010
...also starring: Nicole and Edgard!
Part 1
Disney Sea, or, How I Got Lots of Angry Glaring from Japanese Mothers
Originally I wanted to go to Korea for my September trip. Originally I wanted to walk on the demilitarized zone and be as unhelpful to the political relations between South Korea and Best Korea as possible. The plan was mostly to wear my heart boxers and moon those pinko-commies on the other side, but then I found out that flying to Korea costs a great deal of money that my bank account doesn’t have for some reason that must clearly be beyond my control, so the original Korea-acting-a-fool plan had to be replaced with the subsequent Tokyo-acting-a-fool plan.
So a few weeks ago my friend Nicole and I booked our overnight busses to Tokyo from Niigata where we would sleep (hahahahahahahahaha) our way to Tokyo Disney and awake refreshed and ready to physically assault any characters we would come across via camera flash.
And so, that’s how it happened. Away we went on our bus at 11:30 in the evening. As soon as I could I exited consciousness, but the evil bus driver who stopped once an hour turned on the lights every single time forcing me like a screaming child back into the reality that my back hurt and I was drooling everywhere. When we arrived at Tokyo Disney 7 hours later, the only problem was that I hadn’t taken my contacts out (and its a well known fact that contacts turn themselves into razor blades if you don’t soak them in saline every night. Thus, my eyes were angry).
But we were at DISNEYLAND! And not just any Disneyland, TOKYO DISNEYLAND, which I’ll have you know only costs $58 per ticket.
How about them fuji apples?
Well, Tokyo Disney actually has two parks, Disneyland and Disney Sea. We decided since we’ve both been to a Disneyland before that Disney Sea would be the best bet for this trip. Hopefully it would be new, and exciting. And Sea-like.
And there we are! The entrance to Disney Sea. Brass bands are playing, it's wildly decorated for Halloween, giant chipmunks are hugging children (and doing their best to ignore yours truly. EXCUSE ME. FOREIGNERS WANT PICTURES TOO, YOU KNOW. We eventually just started photo bombing all the children’s pictures just so we could get in, and the parents were none too happy about it.), and there’s the ever present possibility of a typhoon basically destroying us at any given time. More on that later.
Disney Sea is separated into a few different areas, all of which have some sort of Sea theme going on, hence the name! Right when you walk in you’ve got this giant lake across from which sits Aladdin’s castle and a neat little pirate area that you can wander around.
Immediately we saw (and heard the screaming emanating from) the Tower of Terror! Right next to this big boat which has an all you can eat buffet (on which poor Edgard had his heart set, but the 30 dollar price tag dissuaded us from going and we opted for street food instead).
Then there’s Triton’s Kingdom.
It’s so incredibly full of neon colored whacky things that you’ll convince yourself that you’ve traveled to an alternate universe that is hell bent on making you all headachy/vomity thanks to the tea cups ride and ever present black lighting. (Don’t get me wrong, I loved the place and went back for more).
Also, Disney Sea has the Indiana Jones ride from California! It’s actually the exact same ride except it’s Crystal Skull themed rather than Temple of Doom. It was great, and made me think of home!
(Also, why buy those pricey photos when you can just take pictures of the screen? Here we are!)
As you’ve probably noticed, the sky was a pretty ominous color all day and the threats of typhooning destruction lead to the following series of events.
1. Me buying a silly hat and wearing it around Tokyo for the next three days and us buying rain coats to protect ourselves from said typhooning destruction.
2. Hiding mostly in the carousel to avoid the rain at all costs.
3. The destruction of my umbrella by uncontrollable events, i.e. Nicole.
Happy functioning umbrella:
Unhappy angry umbrella after Nicole gets ahold of it:
Then, of course, there was the food. I hunted and hunted for Churros, thinking that Disneyland could not be Disneyland without $10 Disney Churros of which I would buy at least twenty seven. It was in between rides, as we wandered hungry, cold, and wet that Edgard suddenly shouted “THAT GIRL HAS A CHURRO!” to which I responded by yelling at the girl “WHERE DID YOU BUY THAT CHURRO!?” She took a bite of her seemingly delicious churro, pointed to a nearby churro stand, and off we went happy as clams… until we saw they were sesame flavored.
Nevermind. I don’t want a churro that bad.
But remember that piratey area I mentioned earlier? While wandering through there, Edgard’s keen perception led to him finding this sign here:
Now PUMPKIN flavored churros, especially this close to Halloween, is something I can get behind.
I got two. I double fisted those churros.
….and they were DELICIOUS.
As the night went on and the rain continued to pour, the crowds began to disperse towards the exit where the Disney Sea show began to take place (appropriately named BraviSEAmo. I didn't add the capital letters to the name, that's just how it is), so we wandered right on over that way, and in the process took my favorite picture of the evening. Here's Edgard looking surreal!
BraviSEAmo was a very Disney-esque tale about a nice, peaceful water…. ship… thing... and an angry fire dragon who was very angry until the nice peaceful water ship comes along and sings its song of happy peacefulness and sprays its water and then the angry fire dragon isn’t so angry any more.
After the nice little show all the crowds headed right for the souvenir shops (of course) which mostly consisted of this weird bear I’ve never heard of before named Duffy. He’s everywhere. He has tote bags and sweaters and stuffed animals and mugs and everything in the world is all about Duffy the Disney Bear that I’ve never heard of before. Duffy, Duffy, Duffy. Every kid walking around had Duffy the Bear tucked under one arm.
But how easy do you think it was to find ANYTHING at all labeled Tokyo Disney? I think Nicole and I hunted through every single store and we found ONE mug labeled Tokyo Disney. That was it. No sweaters, no purses, no magnets, no necklaces, not even a damn trash bag. Nothing. Consider my mind boggled.
But if you wanted Duffy the Bear, by God you could have him.
Personally I wasn’t interested. I don’t know who Duffy the Bear is, and since he’s not Pluto or Mickey, I don’t care.
After the hunt Nicole and I called it quits. Edgard had taken off after the show because he had school the next day and so Nicole and I were left to wander the underground labyrinth that is the Tokyo Metro until we found our capsule hotel. But more on that later.
So that's my little tour of Tokyo Disney for you via pictures and blog. Honestly it was way too much fun wandering around and going on rides and trying desperately to photo bomb pictures with Disney characters, but then, I imagine Disneyland pretty much anywhere would be a good time.
Yesterday I had a plan, and that plan was to post all sorts of movies, one of which had a drinking game involved for those of you who are of age, but for some reason the Internet Gods have decided that they don't want to show my movies to you. So last night I sat there, staring at the web page while my Mac's little spinny rainbow wait thing was spinning away, and eventually it turned into a giant evil laughing clown face that haunted my dreams until I woke up shivering, cold, and alone.
Okay not really. I mostly just woke up groggy and annoyed that 6am had come far too fast.
In any case, it looks like you'll just have to settle for pictures on this blog. Check again soon. This evening my plan is to update a whole lot about what's been happening lately. I know I promised you this in the last entry, but this time I'm actually going to do it.
Stay tuned! Stories to come!
Okay not really. I mostly just woke up groggy and annoyed that 6am had come far too fast.
In any case, it looks like you'll just have to settle for pictures on this blog. Check again soon. This evening my plan is to update a whole lot about what's been happening lately. I know I promised you this in the last entry, but this time I'm actually going to do it.
Stay tuned! Stories to come!
Sunday, September 19, 2010
I know, I know, it's been a while. I've let all of you down and have shamed myself for my serious lack of updating this blog. But in truth, I went from summer vacation to hard core working teachery stuff so my time has been a little occupied!
But, here's on major announcement. After two months, various calls to the Japanese technical support department for Yahoo BB DSL where my end of the conversation was mostly kept up by saying "I don't understand" over and over...
I HAVE INTERNET. I HAVE GLORIOUS, BEAUTIFUL INTERNET. I can watch the news! I can upload movies and pictures on to my very own Scary Foreigner blog! I don't have to sit in the window sill of my apartment any more!
Yes, I was sitting in the window sill of my apartment in order to steal--borrow--my neighbor's internet. In order to make a Skype date I even had to drive around town for a little while to hunt down some free internet. But now I have my own! And I have lots of stories I now need to write that will include pictures including:
The Mountain of Screaming Birds and the Typhoon
Sports Day and the Typhoon
The 50km Challenge Walk and My Swollen Foot
Welcome to My Apartment!
My New Hobbies Which Mostly Include Currey and Nan
and coming soon: Tokyo Disney and Bryan Acting a Fool!
I've got quite a bit of work ahead of me. So stay tuned! I'll have lots of stories to share pretty soon here.
But, here's on major announcement. After two months, various calls to the Japanese technical support department for Yahoo BB DSL where my end of the conversation was mostly kept up by saying "I don't understand" over and over...
I HAVE INTERNET. I HAVE GLORIOUS, BEAUTIFUL INTERNET. I can watch the news! I can upload movies and pictures on to my very own Scary Foreigner blog! I don't have to sit in the window sill of my apartment any more!
Yes, I was sitting in the window sill of my apartment in order to steal--borrow--my neighbor's internet. In order to make a Skype date I even had to drive around town for a little while to hunt down some free internet. But now I have my own! And I have lots of stories I now need to write that will include pictures including:
The Mountain of Screaming Birds and the Typhoon
Sports Day and the Typhoon
The 50km Challenge Walk and My Swollen Foot
Welcome to My Apartment!
My New Hobbies Which Mostly Include Currey and Nan
and coming soon: Tokyo Disney and Bryan Acting a Fool!
I've got quite a bit of work ahead of me. So stay tuned! I'll have lots of stories to share pretty soon here.
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