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Diary of a nerd.
So good weekend. Went to hippo halloween party, then a bbq filled up on food. After that I went down to Kanda station and worked a halloween party, for kids trying to learn english. Wouldnt have been so bad if I didnt have to lead the class with a brazilian who couldnt speak english himself but thats a whole nother story. Overall not bad though made 6000 yen and afterwords I got free food and beer so it was cool. Sunday I went to a big anime convention but much different then the kinds at home this was a big show like the tokyo gameshow but with anime, no cosplayers or panels or anything. I broke down and baught a bunch of naruto crap, finally got a official headband... it was bound to happen. I put more pictures up on my webshots site.
Golden Saucer!
So just to start off I want everyone to know my host mom is bad ass. Yesterday night I was engrossed very deeply into Harvest Moon (Maybe I will explain later but it is really too embarassing) so much so that I completly forgot about Naruto. I walked downstairs and my host mom asks me if I want to watch it, I think she is just taunting me until she lets me know that she taped it. She rocks hard.
Yesterday I went to Namjatown. Namjatown is the incarnate of the golden saucer. It was amazing instead of a battlefield there is a gyoza stadium. Lines and lines of gyoza shops. Next is ice cream city, ice cream of all kinds and it was so damn good. I saw shrimp ice cream. Cream puff town, haunted land, and all the other goodness. All that was missing was chocobo racing. There was a ride where you can go on a roller coaster track and shoot things with a gun. There were even Kait Siths statues everywhere. Unfourtunatly I could not understand too much of what was going on but I have a feeling even if I could understand japanese perfectly I still would have no clue what was going on. I put some pictures up on my webshots site so you can check that out.
Going to Heroin Party!
That's right saturday I am going to a Heroin party, with my host sister and host mom. They told me there will be bats and witches and pumpkins and it sounds exactly like all the other heroin parties I have gone too. Should be a fun time. Also I have added more pictures to my webshots site so hit the link up at the side of this page if you wanna go see them. Most are from Sunday at Ueno Park, where I hit some random street performer festival, also some old ones from my host sisters sports festival and all the random stuff in between the two events.
Breaking my sites mission statement.
Well, today is my first lazy day in Japan. I am home alone which is nice, and which also means I have finally been able to reimurse myself into the web which I have not been able to do since getting here due to the fact I cant use the internet at home normally since the computer is in my host familys bedroom and because at school I rarely have time to really use the computers. Well since the weathers gloomy, I am alone in the house, feeling very lazy, and have free reign on a computer, of course the day has reverted into one of those sappy days. I have even started reading Mega Tokyo again (may god have mercy on me). My perspective on these have not changed much since I am living in Tokyo but I especially like this one and this one. Also heres another good one I found today.
Some more random links
Yup more shit for those of you who are real bored:
The Joke that is Kanda Daigaku
So my education here is goddamn sweet. I think as a little prologue I will explain about what Kanda is. When japanese students get to the point of graduation they pracitically kill themselves studying for about a period of intensive tests that dictate their whole rest of their lives. These tests decide what kind of college they get into. If they do well they get to go to Tokyo University, not so well maybe one of the lesser ones, and if horrible no university. Some people if they do not get into their first choice school use the next year after graduation to study for these tests, and retake them. These people are called Ronin or masterless samurai, the Ronin who after that year still take the test and fail are usually the ones who end up at Kanda. So... yeah... its a beautiful school but suffice it to say I dont have to do very much. I am taking 16 credits, I am taking a three credit history of tokyo class, an anime and manga three credit class, a japanese pop culture class which is one and a half credits, a kanji (chinese characters) class which is one and a half, and a seven credit japanese class. The only class' I learn anything in are the Japanese and Kanji classes. They are actually awsome and I learn a good amount, they are also the only classes I do work in. My history class has not met for three weeks because the teacher went to america, there are no tests, and one two page opinion paper. The anime class is boring as hell but also no work, only a 15 page paper at the end of the semester. Both of these class' also have cool field trips that are mostly optional but interesting. Pop culture is soo useless all the teacher talks about is McDonalds. He goddamn loves the place. For the japanese students in the class it is very difficult because it is a lot of technical rhetoric, but for the foreigners it is just a lot of bullshit rhetoric. The teacher looks to us to confirm everything he says. On top of all this I only need a C in any class to get credit for it and the grades dont transfer over to my transcript. I am a person who enjoys to take class' that are interesting and I try hard to learn, but if there are class' with no valuable information I am happy to do no work in it. I am getting far more interesting education anyways from the people here.
Kabukitastic.
So yesterday I went to the National Theater of Japan, and saw a Kabuki production. Kabuki is a japanese form of theater theater that was very popular amoung the commoner population is in the edo period especially. It is kind of like us watching shakespeare, except the sword fighting is better. There was romance, revenge, deciet, action, drama, and guys fighting with two swords at once. It was a little long at 4 and a half hours long but we missed the first hour or so because we were late so it wasnt so bad. All the actors were fantastic, the guy who was famous for playing girls was a bit eery though. There was one old guy who was really thrilled by everything this one actor was doing. He would clap and go nuts anytime the actor appeared and the actor was one of the leading roles so we saw a lot of the old guy clapping. Overall a very different expereince then any other play I have ever seen, very interesting, and the visuals and music were quite beautiful.
Tornado and Club
This weekend was crazy. Crashed a salary man party, typhoon number 22 hit and hit tokyo this time, and sunday went to nomihodai and club.
Friday went back to Y's on friday. It was wierd because I went with two opposite groups the regulars were there at the normal table (its very cool were regulars at that swank place) and I came with another table of others. Mikey dubbed me to UN because I acted as a bridge between the two nations. Anyways the event of the night was when Mikey jumped into the middle of a Kaishian party and Yelled, "Mikey Desu!" I am in the bathroom at the time and some one ran in and yelled Mikeys in the party Ari!. So I do the obvious thing I make a head band out of toilet paper and run into the party myself. They call me a ninja I may have drank a beer and the two parties became one. Very strange start.
Saturday = Typhoon day. Me = retard. I assumed that I was better then the typhoon so like a smart guy I trample out of my house and head off to Odaiba again to get a look at the big international design thingy. There were supposed to be big shipping crates each produced by a different designer. Sounded really cool. So fortunatly my friend Danial's host brother drove us down there. His host brothers a cool guy who is a salaryman but graduated not long before from Tokyo U so hes still a young guy. We headed off to Odaiba but it was a bit scary since we could only see about 5 feet in front of the car. All hell had broken loose outside the car. We missed our stop a few times but finally made it to Odaiba. Of course we walk there in the rain and wind to find it closed but we were still there so Dan's host brother took us to a famous Izakaiya in Aqua city a huge mall. It was real good but a bit expensive. When we got out of the Izakaiya though it was like walking into a different country. The typhoon was completly gone and Odaiba was the clearest I had ever seen it. It was beautiful you could see the rainbow bridge, the statue of liberty, and tokyo tower all at once. We then drove down to Shinjuku and went up to the top of the Metropolitan building which has an amazing 45th floor view of the city. So after all Ari=1 Typhoon=0.
Sunday was also jam packed. I started off with my host mom giving me the choice of Ramen or Cereal for breakfast, I quickly though what would Mukai do and took the ramen, it was awsome. No school on Monday due to national sports day (no one could explain why we need that but I am glad for the day off). I started off at the edo tokyo museum in ryogoku which is a funky shaped building. The museum isnt that great but it was still worth going to. Afterwards went to Ueno with Anthony and wandered around some of the busy markets. Also in Ueno visited awsome toy store where I off course wasted a good amount of money on small crap. I am so weak. Sunday night went to Shibuya and met up with Brian, Anthony, Ben, Danial, Caleb, Yuji, Kanako and Courtney (a fellow los angelijin). Yuji left to go to Nagano where he had just come back from but thats a whole nother story. We then went to a cheap nomihodai where I also had some pretty good sushi. Then Anthony, Brian, and Kanako left to go home and try to make the last train (which they didn't). The rest of us went off to a club (Annie also met us there later), club harlem which was definitly a wierd but interesting place. I had too much to drink and got into cycles where I had to sit down for a while, then I would get restless stand up wander off, realize I was off somewhere wierd, just start dancing, and then repeat. I think I'm not really a club type person after my experiences the past couple times here, from now on I will just stick with bars. I like that you meet more wierd people, which is really what I am about here. Courtney, Caleb (maybe I dont really rememeber) and I did meet some wierd have japanese half french kids outside of a combini but that was about it. Courtney, Caleb and I left a bit early then the rest and it was cool to sit around the combini and talk for a while nice change of pace from the hot and busy club. Then we all went our ways to get home and make our first trains. It was overall a veried and fun night, good to hang out with the friends. I dont think I will ever write this much again but it was a nutty weekend so I thought I should take the time to capture it here.
Fuck you Kanji and the horse your rode in on.
Alright so screw all kanji that can in some way or form also mean しょ, しゅ, ちょ, and ちゅ, which I am pretty sure is every single goddamned one of them. Also いや means: Disgusting, offensive, unpleasant, disagreeable, horrible, unwelcome, undesirable, nasty, foul, ill, misearable, obnoxious, ugly, wicked, bad, dislike, hate, mind, care, object, displease, no, yes, boy, and damn. Some random links：
Chicken tornado
Sunday I slept in and bumbled down the stairs as I am prone to do in the morning and said good morning to everyone. My host mom’s dad had paint and paper spread out on the living room table and was teaching her how to make Choshodo or the Japanese calligraphy art. It turns out that he is a teacher of it. I sat down and studied my work behind them in one of the living room chairs like I usually do. Riina was writing simple things like numbers but was doing a decent job (when she wasn’t screaming and crying that is) when she wandered off my host mom came in and asked her dad if he would teach me. It was very cool I sat down (in that painful for gaijin way) and he had me start off with some simple things like Riina was doing. I suck so hard at that stuff. I can’t even write in English well, let alone in Japanese and let alone with a brush. It was still really fun and he had me write various things kanji I had never written before so that was also a little plus. Afterwards he gave me a wall scroll he had done as well as a mounted piece and tow small long pieces. I was pretty touched they are completely awesome. The wall scroll has written on it a message that says basically goes out into the world and return safe. Actually it’s something like bird tornado return back, but I like my interpretation better.
Sporto!
Saturday my host family’s parents came into town for Riina’s (my host sister) sports festival. My host mom’s parents came from Nagano while my host father’s parents are here in Chiba. Like the BBQ I went to a few weeks what I had in mind and what it turned out to be were two very different things. The festival itself started I think around 9 ish, my host obasan and ojisan were up 5am though to go to the festival and lay down mats to claim a section of the viewing area. Then at 630 my host otosan went to go bring everything else. My host okasan went with Riina about 830. All this was told to me after . All I new was people were slamming doors all morning and I couldn’t figure out why in my hazy state. I was passed out until about 930. I walked down to Riina’s kindergarten building (got a little lost on the way) but made it in a pretty good time. The school was streamered and flagged out and the crowd was made up of lots and lots of cameras. At times it felt less like a festival and more like a photo opportunity. The games I saw though were great. I couldn’t understand half of them but there was some where the kids were pushing a giant ball around, one where they had to run on mats parents had to pick up the mats and move it around kind of like that the floor is lava type game. My host sister did a ninja dance with her class. It was another opportunity where I got to see why Japanese education is so much better then American in some respects. I never learned how to do a ninja dance. The greatest event for me of the whole day was when they played the Mario theme song out of the loud speaker, as per advice from Mikey I took my hat off and put it over my heart and I cant say a small tear didn’t fall from my eye. The teachers were all young girls and pretty cute except one guy teacher who was wearing a tight white shirt and short shorts 70’s style. It was so funny because before each event would start he would walk out with a small fake gun and shoot it off into the air and then trot back in his horribly short shorts. Oh and also It was great to see little kids in matching hats running around it looked like one of those psychedelic screen savers where the colors all shoot around when they were doing some races.
They arent salary men for nothing.
Last Friday night went back to Y’s the tabe/nomihodai. Oh god the excess is disgusting. Fun times though, we all went there exactly when it opens at 6pm and quickly start in on the eating and drinking. It’s a pretty large group that goes but not too many that it becomes a hassle. About 9 or 10 IES students (Americajins) and about 7 or so Kanda students (nihonjins) ended up that night, with only one or two kids that were hanger ons so overall a good number. Not much to say about the night except Ahn Tuan passed out (as per usually) and got cocks and penis’ written all over his face with a kanji writing brush pen, Seth yuked magnificently, and the beer robot was off its game. Oh and I also got a fantastic idea from one of the many many Salary men that was around, instead of using the cups if you use the beer mugs you can hold twice the amount of black nikka as usual plus its frosty.
Bijutsukan
Well I wrote a lot of stuff over the weekend on my computer but I dont have internet at home so I am posting them all at once. Busy busy busy. Well a few new cool things, I visited the Hara Museum of Contemporary art. It’s about a fifteen minute walk from the Shinegawa Station. Shinegawa is an amazing station it has the feeling of an airport hanger with very high ceilings and a lot of open space. There does not seem to be much around it though so I probably won’t be going back too often. Anyways after starring at the map outside the station for a while I figured out how to get to the museum and arrived pretty effortlessly. The museum itself is pretty unremarkable; it is fairly small but has a funky design with three levels and the building jets off in a few directions giving it small little wings. The reason I went down to this museum was because Yoshitomo Nara’s newest exhibition was being showed there. This is a special exhibition he made specifically for the museum. The museum cost seven thousand yen for students which isn’t really so bad and was definitely worth it for the exhibit. Nara had displayed varied mediums and pieces. For example a giant plate, small little sketches, a recreation of his drawing space, paintings, photos, a room piece with flowers growing out of the wood floor and little fake kids reading books, wall masks, and my personal favorite piece was a fountain in the shape of a giant tea cup with little kids in cat costumes climbing out of it. Very glay indeed.
I used to keep lots of random sites around. Now I dont have the time to find as many plus I am not online much to share them with anyone so periodically I`ll just post some up here. I go mostly for quantity not so much quality so here are the first few sites:
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