Reflections

I've been back stateside for a good, oh, two weeks-ish now. Figure I should post some reflections.

Japan seemed so alien when I arrived. I landed in an airport that was terribly hot and blindsided by people that spoke broken English who were attempting to help me locate my baggage, then given garbled instructions to take a thirty dollar bus to a location that would have a sign somewhere in the vicinity to help me get to my college. The vending machine was filled with strange drinks (and Coca Cola) and I was the only white person in visible distance. The ride up to campus was exhilarating, and the bustle on the campus grounds and in the dorms was fascinating and fast paced at first. It was a whole bunch of odd sensations all at once and I was overwhelmed and stayed that way for probably the first week or so there.

It was nice being in a place where I could get lost and remain just as content as if I were headed directly toward my destination. The canals and architecture continued fascinating me for some time and even continue to now to a certain extent. I would get lost in the city and wander around until I found a familiar landmark, and the whole time my senses would be bombarded with new sights, smells, sounds, sensations of all sorts. I was excited just to go to a convenience store and look around. I think lots of people feel this way when they're in a completely new surrounding.

Then the months began to drag on a bit. One location can only remain fascinating for so long. When it became repetitious in the schedule of going to classes, doing homework, going grocery shopping, going downtown for the weekend, drinking in a friends room, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, it became almost monotonous. The scenery was still beautiful and I cannot deny that the local area still had some allure to it, but the wow factor of it began to recede. It all became background. After a time, you're doing the same things you would back where you came from, simply in a different language. It's comforting but it the same time things become a bit, well, dull. Joining the onsen club (Senjinkai!) was good for that, as it allowed me to see the local area from a somewhat different perspective (onsen culture tends to cater really toward a Japanese view) but there is only so much that one can do when they're stationary for so long. Eventually you just run out of options.

Traveling was phenomenal. It rekindled what love I had for the country that I was in. The sites I saw reminded me if the history which was my main interest in the culture (surprise surprise, it's not cartoons and video games) and the shrines, temples, and historical areas I visited were beautiful, unique locales that I could never regret having the opportunity to visit. Nara is one of my favorite cities ever and I would go there again if I could. I got to experience a number of places and see plenty of sights, and yes I was in Tokyo. I did plenty of things that I set out to do, and more things I didn't know there were to do.

Unfortunately this made going back to Beppu seem so much more dull in comparison. In between my vacations was just filled with anticipation for the next time I'd be able to travel around.

Thank God I made friends with people to help me through that, though. There were plenty of individuals that made life in the area more bearable, and I hope that at least some of the friendships I've made will have chances to rekindle themselves at later points in life. I know I probably won't see most of the people I met again but I really do send my best wishes out to all of them. It was an international experience and we all benefited from it. We were enriched and enlightened and I wish everyone that I met is successful and happy in the rest of their days. And to those few that I'll meet again, I look forward to it.

And the food. I'll miss the food. I'll have to make it back to the Ramen Stadium someday.

I guess I'd have to say that Japan, as with most places, is probably somewhere better to visit than to live in. I'm of the belief that if you stay in one place too long then that place is just like everywhere else, but anywhere that you simply pass through retains a sort of magic in your mind's eye that doesn't fade with age.

That being said, I don't regret having lived in Japan at all. I regret not bringing more money along so that I would have had the opportunity to do even more things, but I am glad and thankful for the opportunity to have gone. It's something I'll carry with me forever. It was a learning experience in many more ways than the academic sense.

And this blog was enjoyable too, when I bothered to update, and when I bothered to put effort into it.

Thank you to everyone that read it. I sincerely hope that you were at least mildly entertained by the ramblings of a mad man that apparently has enough ego to fill a page about his life almost daily. You whom read this were a part of the journey too, so I hope I didn't make it too unbearable.

This journal is ending now, at least for the time being. The entire purpose of it was to chronicle my adventures in Japan. If I ever travel again (and I hope that I do) then I'll start it back up, ruining any effect that this farewell statement causes.

For the time being, if you care, I'll be arbitrarily updating at this link, so come along and walk the box.

It has an update schedule, but it should probably just be ignored. I mean, it's not like I ever stick to those things anyways.

--Roshi

Delays

I am bad at this now that I'm back stateside. Lo siento, compadres.

Let's talk about the remainder of the trip.

I was pretty nervous about missing the flight the next morning, so I pretty much didn't sleep. I laid in bed with my eyes open all night and didn't move much, but I was at the most semi conscious. Which was good, because I was attempting to leave the country and I should try to be awake for that.

In the morning I took a taxi to the airport, and thank god I printed out my itinerary because there is no United terminal in Japan, apparently. I was flying through ANA and the cab driver took me directly there.


I cannot be the only person that snickers at their logo.

After waiting in no less than three separate lines to find out I was doing it wrong, an English speaking attendant came to help me out and show me which line I needed to go to. Actually, the entirety of everything that needed to be done was done in English. I was apparently overly anxious for no good reason.

Wait, no, I lied.

Every single one of my flights had an issue.

The first flight was delayed an hour. Then, on top of that, they switched the gate without notice and I was anxious about that. Then there was some pretty bad turbulence on the flight.

The second flight (from Narita to Chicago) was also delayed (only by a few minutes) but then I myself was detained in order to get randomly screened. Yes. The white guy in Japan was "randomly" screened. Wink. The other person getting out of the random screening area was also a foreigner. Just saying.

The flight itself was relatively pleasant for how long it was, and I was sitting next to a woman and her son from Taiwan that lived in Canada, so they were fun conversationalists as well, which was good. Although the kid was really excited that I knew about video games and cartoons. I never thought being a nerd would have a downside (other than being picked last in gym class and having bad luck with women). Although they did show Dragonball Evolution, which is an abomination of a movie if I ever saw one. Worth the money back right there.

The plane had continental breakfast in the form of an omelette, sausage, and hash browns. It was my first taste of AMERICA in a while and it was glorious. Gotta love microwaved breakfast meals.

The flight itself had a lot of turbulence and the seatbelt light was on the entire time. We were allowed to get up and use the bathroom, but were encouraged to remain seated with our seatbelts buckled pretty much the entirety of the rest of the time. Sort of... restrictive, in that sense. And unpleasant.

After landing I had a 5 hour layover in Chicago before heading back home. I was pretty much waived through customs for some reason, which was nice. I wandered around looking for some food, but all the food shops were past security for some reason so I just nabbed some junk food from a newsstand. Then I found the info desk because I heard there were DINOSAURS afoot! Well not really afoot, but there apparently is a brachiosaurus skeleton in the terminal, or at least a recreation. That was also past security.

So I went past security, again needing to be individually checked (I AM APPARENTLY VERY SUSPICIOUS) and then immediately found the skeleton. I was probably looking like a gigantic manchild, but I took a bunch of photos of it with a grin on my face. I am allowed to like dinosaurs. I am a grown man, and a grown man should know what he likes. And dinosaurs are one of those things.

Also pretzels, cause I went and got one of those.

I had plenty of time to kill and there wasn't really a general waiting room, so I sort of wandered. My flight wasn't even listed on the terminal yet being so far ahead of when I arrived, so I found out about a wheel of fortune that you could spin to possibly upgrade your ticket in the next terminal over. I headed there and spun it to win a bottle of water, because I have no actual luck. Then I played around on the moving walkways for a bit and went back to the main terminal to get some actual dinner.

Afterwards I checked the departure schedules again to find out that I was departing from the terminal that I had just left. Literally two gates away from the wheel of fortune. Ah ha... oy. Headed back there and basically waited around until my plane would leave.

Except it had problems refueling. So we were delayed half an hour before take off. And as a result had to wait another half hour in the queue before we could actually take off. And then we hit such bad turbulence that in flight service was cancelled. AND THEN because there was a storm going on we had to wait an extra twenty minutes after landing before they unloaded our baggage.

But I managed to land safe and alive, and in prime condition to forget blogging for a while. My friends met me at the airport and I was discombobulated from not sleeping for three days. I was having difficulty speaking fully in English or completely coherently and kept dipping in and out of consciousness.

But I'm glad to be home.

Oh! Woeful Neglect!

Gack, I suck. I had intended to update this as soon as I landed. A combination of not having internet immediately, and visiting with people that I haven't seen in forever has delayed that. But, here it is now.

Leaving APU was full of quagmires and troubles. I had a bit more difficulty packing than I had thought I would, and needed to give away a bit more stuff than I had hoped to. Including my umbrella! I had named it Theodore, and it was a pleasant umbrella. It shall be missed. There were gifts and final goodbyes (I gave my neighbor a buffalo figurine, and he gave me a jade good luck bracelet. some kind of unequivalent exchange there, my bad). Also the security woman that checked me out was amusing. She hit her head and dropped stuff and was too short to reach the top of the dresser, so I helped her there. Also I hit my head on something so it was a whole bunch of "sumimasen. daijyoubu?" back and forth, and we were both covered in dust and mussed up hair and clothing by the end of it. Why madame, you're not supposed to act that way with your charges! Oh ho ho.

The way to the bus station was harsh and unforgiving. It was the hottest day we'd had that month and very humid, and the elevators were closed for repairs. Nobody stopped to help until a good halfway to the station, when a Roger from Papua New Guinea stopped and gave me a hand with my baggage. So if you meet him, help him out. I'm sure there's only a few Rogers from Papua New Guinea roaming around, and even if it's the wrong one I'm sure they're nice enough.

I was exhausted from lack of sleep the night before, and slept for most of the bus. There was some movie with I think Sandra Bullock and Al Pacino doing things, but I only caught a good 15 minutes of it in and out of drifting off and looking over my flight itinerary nervously. I also kept thinking about what movie they'd show on the way back to APU, and to make sure I got off at the right stop then not like last time, and I kept having to remind myself that I'm not going back to Beppu. It was a weird feeling.

Once in Fukuoka I dumped the hell out of my heavy baggage. Then I ran as far as I could from it and laughed maniacally to be rid of it. Or I went to go get lunch. Probably that one. One of my requirements for myself was to not eat McDonald's or any fast food while in Fukuoka, so after looking around and finding only expensive restaurants, udon, and takoyaki, I headed to McDonalds and broke that within 20 minutes. I was too hungry to care at the time. I then wasted some time in an arcade to play some games for the last time that we don't have stateside, namely Lord of Vermillion. Only to find out that my account had been cancelled due to lack of use. Buh. Guh. Zuh. FUH! Bah. That sucked and ended those plans, and I just went for a walk and visited some department stores. Wandered out to the Khaosan hostel in order to book a reservation for the next night. Afterward I took the train to Kido Nanzouin to see the world's largest sleeping Buddha! It was closed, but the surrounding area was still open so I wandered around there a bit and took some photos. It was really quite a beautiful area, and the people there were pleasant, which is weird for a town with a big tourist attraction. Most of the people I run into tend to be embittered by having to put up with noisy, irritating tourists all day. I would be too, but the tourist attraction I live next to doesn't really attract attention. After snapping some photos and getting bitten up by plenty of diseased local fauna, I headed back to Fukuoka. Then got some food and headed to the capsule hotel for that night (the hostel was booked all that night). Wikitravel said that the capsule hotel was cheap, but I was lied to! It was a good 50 dollars for my stay. There is a once per year membership fee on top of the room fee for the place.

All in all it was a pretty nice hotel. The rooms were spacious by capsule standards, and the service was friendly. The interior was fancy as well. They also offered in house sexual services on the cheap. 24 dollars, actually. I didn't oblige to sample them, but they were there all the same. I did however go to the roof onsen, which was nice but also not a real onsen, just an ofuro (the difference being that onsen are awesome and ofuro are crap). Still it was open air so that's always pleasant. Also there was a woman in the locker room. Most of the staff were women so it wasn't surprising that the floor attendant be one, but it was surprising that her desk was placed in clear sight of where I was naked. I made sure to keep my American shame covered at all times, which I'm assuming was much to her disappointment. Not that I have an ego, but I'd like to think that I was a pleasant change from the predominately 60 and above domestic customer base. If you're staring at wrinkly old Japanese butt all day, I presume anything is a welcome change.

It was good to get the bath in as Fukuoka was a good 5 degrees C hotter than Beppu had been, and humid to boot. I was sweating like a pig in summertime, and it was gross. To help with matters, the complementary outfits they provided were polyester and refused to breathe, so after the hot bath you just got sweaty again. Oy. Nice planning there. But it was made up for by the tv showing Casino Royale in English, so I was appreciative of that.

The next day I woke up early, then turned my alarm off and woke up late. Late being 10:30 which is still half an hour before check out, but I had wanted to go to the food court before I left and that didn't leave me the time. Ah well. I bet it was expensive anyways. Besides, I had ramen to go eat. I had been given the name of an Ichiran Ramen shoppe, and decided to go look for that. I found a brothel instead because I got lost. The man outside tried to get me to come in, and the prices WERE cheap, but when he asked if I was interested I told him "Yes. Interested in ramen". and he sent me on my way. Little did I know what I was in store for. At the end of the red light district that I had wandered into was Canal Town. This isn't a street of stores or a department building like most things labelled "town" are in Japan. No. It was a complex. A huge cluster of stores and entertainment venues, all inside one gigantic, interconnected structure. There were fountains, smaller canals running through the area, playpens, five stories, and a musical performance in the main central fountain. It was extravagant. After wandering around lost for a bit (and eating some Baskin Robbins) I found perfection in physical form. The fifth floor above the arcade was a place called the Ramen Stadium.

It was glorious.

In its second year, the Ramen Stadium takes competitors from all over Japan, each claiming to be the best ramen in the land. There were 8 stands in total, and a line outside each one. You purchase your ticket and stand in line until a seat opens up. There were souvenirs and everything, and the food was delicious. Easily the best I'd had there. It's a shame I didn't find out about it until my last day there.

Sigh.

Afterward I brought my luggage to the hostel I was staying at. It took half an hour to get to the 10 minute walk away hostel while carrying everything I had, and that was when I decided that maybe I should take a cab to the airport so that I don't end up late to my flight trying to make it there. I left my junk behind and went back out to do some last minute shopping.

After picking up some items that I had promised to people, I decided that it was entirely too hot out (it had raised two more degrees since the day prior) and just went to an internet cafe for three hours. Free drinks, air conditioning, and high speed internet. If I could live at one I would. After enough of that I headed back to the hostel and had some decent conversation with the other people hanging out there, including a girl that apparently went to APU as well that I managed to never meet. Fancy that.

The rest of the night was filled with charging all my electronics for the flight and attempting to get some sleep, which never happened because I was afraid I'd sleep through my flight.

My flight...

Well, I'll talk about that tomorrow. Long story short, I'm not flying United.

New Post!

So hey.

Sitting here waiting for my laundry to finish so that I can finish packing up, and I figure that I should post another blog.

In a few hours (see: about 10) I'm going to be leaving campus for the last time. The plan is to take the bus to Fukuoka, and stay in Fukuoka for two days. The first day I'm going to TRY to get a hostel reservation, and most likely just inquire into the capsule hotel (which should be a fun bout of claustrophobia). Going to get some delicious ramen at the delicious ramen place, and then head out to some city whose name I forget for the day to look at a giant Buddha statue. Oooo. Then come back to Fukuoka and try not to get robbed, and go to sleep. The next day will be spent all in Fukuoka, and hopefully I'll get to climb the ACROS building this time (the huge building with the maze on it). Then probably just go to an arcade or something, I dunno. I need to buy omiyage still so that'll take up Saturday as well. If I eat McDonald's for any meal that isn't breakfast (cause come on, who ever gets to eat McDonald's breakfasts anyways?) then it'll be a waste of the last two days.

You also might not hear from me for the next few days. Unless I'm in an internet cafe for a night because I can't get a room, then I'll most probably be unable to access the internet until I'm back stateside.

So for that I'm sorry. However, I'll be blogging a few times when I get back. So keep checking until the end of next week.

After that, I'll be updating my other blog over at Walking the Box. I've had enough of the review junk, so it'll be just whatever I feel like. And then also occasional reviews. Hopefully somebody enjoys them, but for what it's worth if I get nothing but negative comments on it I'll cut those out. But for the most part just my idle musings, and if you've stuck around through all of this crap you might as well stop by there every once in a while.

Oh these halcyon days will be over soon. Here's hoping stuff at the airport goes alright.

Just Can't Shake It

Or sing it, rather.

Today I went downtown for the second to last time in my second to last day in Beppu! Hurrah! Was lots of fun. Hung out with Kohei and Euan at a hotel onsen and karaoke.

The onsen was really really cool. We were on top of a hotel. Like, on the roof. I didn't know they made those even. And there was a nice, light rain going on as well, so it was a good mixed medium sitting in the hot onsen. It was a good view sitting there chilling out, maxing, relaxing all cool while watching the beach, the bay, and the mountains. We were there a bit longer than I had a need, but considering it was an expensive onsen that we got into for free, I'm not going to be complaining.

Afterward was karaoke. For three hours. Yeah. But really, you haven't lived until you've heard your foreign friends butcher the execution of classic Western music. It's perfectly alright, though, cause I went up and butchered a few of their songs too (name Setsunarensa, Makafushigi Adventure, and Real Folk Blues). Proud of that. It ended up being a lot more fun than you'd expect three hours of karaoke to be, so hey why not.

Then we parted ways so I could get something to eat (you know, for the first time today. At 7pm.) and I chose ramen,like I usually do. So good. And then afterwards, Starbucks, which is insane to hear coming from me, I know. Wait, probably not that insane. I don't think I'm one of those corporate conspiracy types, I just really don't like coffee. However, they have this "lemon green tea frappuccino" there that I was debating not coming home because of, until it dawned on me that it tasted exactly like green tea SoBe.

When is the last time I had SoBe? When is the last time YOU had SoBe? They still make it, right?

One more thing to do when I come home.

Sunday.

FOUR DAYS, PEOPLE.

Wow.

Knock knock

So I go to bed at 5 am, like I often do when I don't have classes. And I figure hey, I'll sleep in until noon, like I often do every day of the week. And my plans were foiled, as Japan and most schools often do.

It was about 10:30 and I got a knock on my door. Now normally, I can get that and go right back to sleep. In this case, however, it was the security office doing a room inspection before I left. Oh. Joy. So I had to stay up until they finished inspecting my room. Augh.

Today was more cleaning. That's basically all I've got left. I need to clean out my room, and ensure that it's ready for me to leave when I need to. Another two garbage bags full of junk left today, and hopefully tomorrow I'll be done with the rest of it. Then I think I'll pre-emptively pack everything I can (just to be on the safe side) and throw out/give away whatever is left. Should be...well... whatever the opposite of fun is.

To compensate for that un-fun, I'm going out with some friends that are mysteriously still on campus. And by that I mean Senjinkai members. Hurrah! We're going to an onsen tomorrow (Oh boy!) and then going to karaoke. It'll be the most Japanese day I've had in a long while. Should be...fun? We'll see. I haven't been to karaoke in forever, so I should enjoy singing off key to a crowd of people that don't understand what I'm saying anyways.

Hurrah!

U G L Y YOU AIN'T GOT NO ALIBI

So today was cleaning day, because my room was hideous.

HIDEOUS.

I am not using that word lightly. I had three trash bags full of crap that I could throw out, and it took 15 minutes to vacuum the place clean. I can reach any part of the room in three steps. 15 minutes. Yeah. I found some candy (that was within the realm of edibility), some stickers I had forgotten about, some long expired very useful coupons, and bus tickets that I would have liked to know I had lying around before I bought some yesterday. Also an US 20 dollar bill, not sure where that came from, but hey, 20 dollars. Nice.

I had both hash browns and pizza today, and that was grand. Unfortunately I remembered after the pizza had been cooked that I also had bacon lying around, so I didn't get the chance to make bacon pizza. Sigh.

Everything does look a lot... less, now. Which is a good thing, because now it looks like my possessions will actually fit inside my luggage. I still have some more cleaning to do, but I made enough progress today that tomorrow should be a breeze. Go downtown with those free tickets I found and try to sell some of the stuff to Book OFF. Anything they don't want I'll just sell back/give to my friends.

Also hung out with Fanxing in the first time since... well... forever. The last time we hung out was in the lobby after Michael Jackson died (which I only remember because he kept asking me about the guy). So that was nice, I feel bad about not seeing him much this semester.

We watched Philadelphia. I'm one of those incompetents that never hears about apparently classic films that I should know about, so I went into this one blind. Oh... oh God..... I think I'm heartbroken now. Good movie.

And I'm outta soda. Maurice, fetch me another C.C. Lemon! Stat!

Chug a lug.

Apparently

I'm trying to reset my internal clock to be on American time already. Seriously, sleep all day and be up all night? That sounds about right as an excuse.

So today (well, yesterday now I supposed) I woke up early so that my friend and I could go to the Kihokan. The Kihokan is the Beppu Sex Museum. We weere expecting it to be a legit museum, but it was in all honesty pretty raunchy.

So much so in fact, that I'm not posting the pictures here, or at least most of them. I'd have to set the blog to a mature filter. And because my mother checks the photobucket account frequently, I created an entirely alternate photobucket just to upload the pictures to, and I'll link that here.

Okay, so it's sort of a lie. There were some actual exhibits. There were plenty of idols, symbols, and statues that were worshipped in ancient times as sexual deities and for fertility and the like, and these were on display on the first floor. So there were statues of Buddha (Siddharta Gautama, not fat Buddha) making love to women, as well as just idols with oversized genitalia. Or, rocks in phallic shapes. PLENTY of those.

There was also a mini shrine with giant wooden dongs in it from the penis festival in Japan. Yes, that's a real thing. It's basically a celebration of fertility and sexuality, and they ride giant logs carved to look like penises through town, carried on the shoulders of their drunken fellows. Sounds like good fun. The mini shrine also had a tribute box and prayer incense, so I tossed a good 20 yen in there. You know, just to stay on the penis god's good side.

There were also old wood block art prints of depictions of sexual scenes, some of them more tasteful than others. The pride of the museum was a series of samurai and geisha that is apparently pretty old, so good for them.

That's pretty much where the actual museum related stuff ends. The rest of the exhibits were real dolls in sexy poses, a porn theater, a bucking saddle, a display where you can stick your hand into a hole and feel a fake breast, and things along those lines.

There was a real doll that was rigged up to appear like it was urinating for your viewing pleasure (you sick monsters), but that pales in my opinion to the wasx sculpture orgy scene of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. The wicked witch had a penis for a nose, if you can't tell by the pictures. Yeah. . .

So after spending time there, we left. And directly across the way we found a pet shrine, with Buddha holding a cat and dog. For some reason. So I paid tribute to that, and we walked along to Sukiya to get some delicious gyuudon. It was really good. Like, really.

Anyways, that was the end of that. We came back soon after that and I was exhausted so I took a nap. And the nap turned into legit sleep, so I wound up waking up late. And now the blog is late here, hurrah!

Ah well.

The pictures for the sex museum can be found at this link and the pictures from Usuki will be up STILL later. Sorry for the delay.

Tomorrow is cleaning day, so no exciting blog, but I think I'll be going to karaoke and onsen the day after so... so that probably won't be exciting either really.

Ah well.

Usukieah

No, YOU sucky. Oh wait that's not how it's pronounced, my bad.

So I ended up going to Usuki instead of Usa. I was told by google that it was cheaper, but I later found out by reading the prices at the station that it wasn't. Ah well.

The place was really nice. It's a very small town. Or rather, it's deceptively small. Every inch of it feels like a small town, but it's actually a pretty expansive building, just one with no buildings over two stories.

The city houses a plethora of stone Buddha statues, carved into the side of a mountain. Some of them are damaged, most of them are restored, but they're all still pretty cool. There is a main one that is about three times the size of all the other ones. The huge Buddha in Nara is still uncontested, but it's nice to see that other people gave it a shot as well, why not.

The city had a sort of odd atmosphere to it being a foreigner. Everybody stared at me. Everyone. There were white tourists I saw when I was coming into the city, but I'm pretty sure they hit the Buddha's and came back and that was the end of their stay there. I decided I'd walk back to the station. Well, rather less decided and more I missed the bus. Shut up.

It was a deceptively long walk. You couldn't tell by looking at the map. It illustrated two blocks, then a short block and a bridge. In actuality these were residential clumps, not blocks, so that short jog turned into a three hour long walk through the city. It was nice and I got to see some of the sights and run into people (people kept either greeting me or glaring at me like I was a trespasser) so that was interesting. Also go lost twice, in the aspect that I thought to myself "I'VE BEEN WALKING FOREVER. IF I TURN HERE I'LL GET THERE EVENTUALLY" and then needing to turn around 8 blocks into that attempt. Not so fun.

But the trip did end with some ice cream, and the train rides back were pleasant at least. I got some good pictures and some videos too (of rocks yay!) so I'll try to upload those tomorrow.

As for now, I am exhausted. I didn't sleep last night, and I half dozed off twice writing this. So pictures tomorrow, tonight sleep.

7 Things I Like About You (Japan)

Part 2 of a two part series. In this shocking chapter, Mary Lou is discovered to be going steady with Fragnart, that bad orc raider from the other side of the tracks!

1. The food - Okay, well, not all of it. Japanese adaptations of Western food tends to be absolutely horrid. But there are Japanese dishes that are themselves fantastic that I'm going to miss. I'm the self-appointed Ramen King for a reason. I absolutely love the stuff, and I doubt that I'll be able to get anything as good back home. Tonkatsu is similarly delicious, as well as any type of curry or donburi. Takoyaki is alright if I must as well, and sashimi when I feel like it. But ramen reigns supreme.

2. Arcades - Stateside, you're hard pressed to find an arcade that isn't dead, or even one that doesn't exist attached to a movie theater or mini golf. They simply aren't profitable. Either that or people don't think they will be so they're not invested in. The arcade culture is thriving and alive in Japan. Kids will go after school to hang out there, and the hardcore elite will go there to battle each other. The prizes are great in the machines (but that much harder to win) and it's a great way to pass the time waiting for the bus or just for the hell of it. I'm going to miss my Lord of Vermillion when I come back.

3. Culture - By culture I mean more the cultural history, and the fact that it exists. You can find women walking around in kimonos, sumos touring the cities, random traditional festivals, shrines, regional food, and local folklore, pretty much anywhere in Japan that is smaller than Tokyo. It's really nice especially in the smaller towns, where you can get a feeling of a place that's evolved with its traditions over time. You're hard pressed to find that in the US. We don't have traditional garb, all our holidays are historic, not cultural, and all of our cultural history centers around trying to awkwardly honor those people that we've subjugated. Oh, and war.

4. Security - It's an odd sensation, not needing to worry about anything. I've had multiple friends lose multiple wallets, and they've all gotten them back completely intact, and one of them even had a note in it saying "I am sorry you lost your wallet. It must have been stressful looking for it and I hope having it returned puts you in good spirits". Seriously. And things just won't get stolen, either. If you leave a bag somewhere unattended then go to the bathroom and come out and it's missing, that's because somebody brought it to lost and found. Granted there is a large sexual harrassment problem in Japan, but at the very least it tends not to be rape. Oddly enough it tends to be highly, umm... flashing. Not sure what the big thing with that is, but I guess it's popular. There is some awkward touching in crowded areas, but in a lesser of two evils sense it's not being unconscious in an alleyway. Hell, it's happened to me, so, take that as you will. Maybe it really is just saying hello.

5. Television - The television is as awful as it is fantastic. 90 percent of the things on it are awful, awful game shows. Not even funny awful, just bad. But it's that 10 percent left that makes up for it. There are the animes for dorks like me, and I'm okay with admitting to that. But then there is the rare game/variety show that just makes all the other ones worthwhile. Like the woman that lived with a monkey for a month that was trained to slap her. Or "ESCAPE!", a show where a bunch of out of shape people are set loose in an enclosed section of Odaiba city while agents in suits chase them around, as the people try to find people in animal costumes that are similarly wandering around to retrieve objects from them so that they can complete the scavenger hunt. I don't even know how somebody arrives at that concept for a game show, but I'm glad that they did.

6. Did I mention ramen? I did? Oh... Alright, the landscape then. - Japan, for the most part, tends to be gorgeous. It's full of a stark contrast of climates. Beppu alone has palm trees, pine trees, and bamboo all coexisting in relatively the same areas. There tend to be mountains everywhere, streams and waterfalls on the sides of roads, interesting rock structures, and well preserved areas of forest near shrines. Even the cities tend to have interesting looking buildings to compensate for the otherwise lack of scenery. I'll miss riding the bus down the side of the mountain through the forests on the side of the cliff as I watch the city draw closer.

7. Engrish - I will never not love Engrish. The weird half attempts at speaking or writing English, with awkward translations and plenty of misspellings. It never. gets. old. Or maybe I'm just a juvenile for being able to laugh at seeing an "Erectronics" sign no matter how many times it comes up *snicker*. As an aside to that, there is also a weird hybridization of cultures. America tends to blend them all into AMERICAN culture. Japan kind of... accessorizes them. It'll take a kappa and add a sombrero and mustache on it for a Mexican restaurant, and this will be wedged in between a traditional Japanese restaurant and a fancy looking McDonald's that has Captain America emblazoned on it for no particular reason.

But wait, that's not all! A bonus that I forgot from yesterday.

7-2. Smoking - I hate, hate, HATE, the smoking culture here. It is an aspect of the culture itself. Pretty much everyone does it, and places where smoking is banned it's not really enforced. It's the reverse of the transition in the states. When we were transitioning and there were smaller and smaller partitions for smokers, it's the non-smokers that get packed away into the corner. Japan passed a Clean Air Health Act last year that aims to decrease public smoking, but for the most part it's essentially ineffective. It's cool to smoke here and people won't stop doing it, entirely for that reason. It's so ingrained that if you decline a cigarette from somebody they'll ask you when you quit instead of just figuring you don't smoke. And me whining here with my asthma. Cough. Wheeze. Hack.

And that's all, folks. This is Three Dog! live from the Capital Waste- right. Going to Usa tomorrow if things go according to plan. Hopefully I'll have some nice pics.

The 7 Things I Hate About You (Japan)

/Intiate copout routine alpha gamma sigma.
/
/
/Hello world!

I figure I've only got a few days left here, so what isn't spent saying tearful goodbyes is spent packing and preparing to leave. When I do manage to travel I'll blog about that, but mostly it's just filler blog.

So here's a list of seven things that I just never managed to get over in my stay in Japan.

1. The ATMs close - This should be self explanatory, but I'll emphasize. The ATM's for the most part are only open from 8/10 am-6pm, depending on the company running it. On a busy day, or a day where you're just being too lazy, this can ensure that you never reach it in time. It also creates that dead period in the evening where there is no way to get money if you spend more than you intended, and it will leave you running around bored out of your mind unless your friends are generous enough to loan you some cash. This has happened enough times to be a severe irritant, and I think when I come home I'm only going to withdraw money at 1am for a whole month just to feel alive. Or something.

2. Walking - This is not in the sense that you need to walk anywhere. I don't mind that, and bicycles, trains, and buses are also an option so you don't need to walk everywhere if you don't feel like it. It's the fact that people here seem to have no sense of spatial awareness when they're navigating on foot. Cell phones are the most important aspect of the life of a Japanese teen, and they'll stand around blocking passageways as they send e-mails, take photos, or attach a string to it and pretend it's a yoyo. Anything to not move out of the way. There also seems to be no code of conduct for walking around. If you don't move out of the way people will actually just walk right into you and then give you a shocked look, instead of moving themselves. Then on the complete flipside of the coin they'll get upset waiting for you to cross their path and motion angrily as they stand in place. I've seen Japanese students push other students out of their path as they walk (especially guys pushing girls) and it's not a one time occurence. There is also the fact that the flow of traffic is different regionally all over Japan. In Tokyo it's on the left, but in the Kansai region it's on the right, and it switches wherever you go. So Japan being as small as it is, that ensures that there are tons of people from all over Japan all in the same places frequently, which obfuscates the flow of traffic wherever you are. Hurrah!

3. Irashaimase! - The politeness. UGH. This might just be a personal thing, but I cannot stand how "polite" everyone here is. It's a superficial business polite but it's everyone. Classmates are polite, teachers are polite, store and construction workers are polite, it's aggravating. It's almots a hivemind. People will shout "irashaimase!" (welcome) in unison the second you walk into a store, and every time you pass them. Clerks will apologize repeatedly for taking too long with whatever they're doing for you, despite the fact that this makes it take longer, or even if it didn't take long. It's such a cold, rote, etiquette that it gets under my skin. I've been telling people that I can't wait to get back to Buffalo where people will be rude to me.

4. Beauracracy - You know how you hate going to the DMV, because it takes forever, and by the time you get to the end of the line you find out that you filled out the forms wrong, and/or in the wrong order, and instead of just letting you correct it you need to start all over again? Well all of Japan is like that. For example, it took me four hours when I needed to get a cell phone. This involved them copying down my bank number, me paying for it, and them activating it. Which took four hours.

5. Amazing Gaijin Prowess! - Every time you do something that Japanese and/or other East Asian people do in their everyday lives, it absolutely floors them. You can use chopsticks? HOLY SHIT you must be some sort of gifted super child. You know how to say thank you in Japanese? The miracles never cease! Basically anything that you could learn from eating Asian food in America they wouldn't expect you to be capable of for some reason.

6. Oshare or death! - Fashion is the lifeblood of young Japanese people. The majority of them would rather be dead than not look good. This includes the men, or what would be men if there were any of them left in Japan. The day I saw a Japanese guy in a public restroom with a fold-out make-up and hair studio that he pulled from his studded leather man purse is the day I realized Japanese masculinity is an endangered concept. One of my friends was riding his motorbike to school in a sleeveless shirt, a light, open jacket, jean, and shoes with no socks in the middle of winter. I asked him why he didn't dress warmer cause he looked like he was freezing his balls off, and his response was that he wouldn't look cool then. GAH.

7. Japanese School - You've probably heard of cram schools. A school after school for those that want to excel. They have those in Japan, and it's a frequent occurence to attend them, probably to compensate for the lack of education in regular school. The fact that so many kids attend them just to pass their normal classes means either the standards are too high, or the teachers aren't teaching properly, and from my time here I can tell you it's definitely not the standards. Pretty much anything taught in class is done so directly from the textbook with no outside thought. Things are not explained in depth and sometimes they aren't explained at all. There is an emphasis on groupwork because Japan is a society based on the concept of teamwork. Unfortunately, the emphasis toward that prevents any actual learning progress from taking place in the classroom, so what you should have learned in class instead needs to be studied by yourself on your own time. But who would want to study more after you've already been in class for 6 hours and didn't learn anything, or in the case of cram school students that have been in class for 10 hours, now with double the homework load, in addition to studying what should have been covered in class. Pretty well off, isn't it?

And that's all she wrote. Tomorrow we'll see if I can scrounge up 7 things I liked.
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I don't want to set the world on fire

I just want to start a flame in your heart.

So yes, past few days I have been absent from the blog. Apologies, but it was final exams and the first day of vacation, so it's been nice.

Aside from studying, taking exams, playing Fallout 3, and awkward last suppers with departing friends, not much has been going on worth mentioning.

I did, yesterday, hang out with a group of Japanese highschool girls. It's not as creepy as all that, I promise. My friends were leading a tour group and asked me to help them out and talk to them, because apparently they were on campus to practice their English. It was far more amusing than it should have been, because the three of us could say whatever we wanted as long as we said it at native spead and the girls had absolutely no idea what we said, but would nod and laugh at things regardless. Oh ho ho. Also we taught them LOVE AND PEACE , "Sugar Daddy", and my one friend tried to convince them that otakus are the coolest people in the world (otaku meaning super loser geeklings, for you uninitiated). Also they said my facial hair was "kakkoi (cool)" so I guess that's a good thing. And one of them asked me how often I need to shave. Apparently there is a word for razor that is "nori". Nori also means seaweed paper. So when she asked me I got really confused and thought she was asking if I applied seaweed paper to my face.

Oh language barriers. You are ever so amusing.

One of the guys on the floor wants us to go downtown as a last farewell tomorrow. I need to cancel my phone tomorrow so hopefully I somehow can meet up with them after that. Otherwise I'll end up missing out, and that would be upsetting.

After that, I think maybe this weekend I'll go to Yufuin with a friend or two if any are left. Then I plan on hitting the train station a couple of times and going as far as 500 yen will take me, just to see random cities for the hell of it. Then I'm pretty much out of time. I mean really, I have 7 days left in the city before I go to Fukuoka. So things are kind of rushed. Phooey on the semester lasting this long, but I guess if it had ended earlier I would have rushed home for Canal Fest like a fool.

Ah well, there's always next year's souvlaki.

Tabesugimashita...

The barbecue was today!

It was a lot of fun.

We went to the train station at about noon and rode to Oita, from where Shingo picked us up and drove us to his parents' house. And there was a pile of food on the grill there for us. Also, the barbecue was apparently a small party. There were the three of us, Shingo's parents, his sister, and a few of his dad's friends and their wives.

The food was really good (aside from the arbitrary shellfish. Apparently it's expensive and I felt bad for not liking it, but not bad enough to eat more) but they kept insisting we ate more. And more. And more. My jaw hurt from chewing and my stomach was more than full, but they insisted "You can eat more. Your stomach only 1/3 full." I'm not sure what kind of alien logic they were running on, but it was definitely about 4/3 full at that point. And on top of that we had to politely not refuse dessert.

So basically, you go to a Japanese person's house, you're going to get fed. And there is absolutely no way out of it.

The people there were friendly and asked the usual set of questions. I also learned that dragonfly is tanbo and that the weather is unseasonably hot and wet so that's why there are so many of them all of a sudden. Also there is a Canon factory and a Toshiba factory in the city, which was apparently important to point out to me. Go figure.

Afterwards we got back to Beppu and the remnants of last night's festival (which I did not attend because it wasn't advertised on campus for some reason) were still around. Lots of people in traditional garb which is always exciting. The girls always look especially pretty in their kimonos, and I really wish I had a guy's yukata cause they look comfy. There were food vendors around still but that was about it aside from the fireworks later that night, but I've seen fireworks before and that's not big.

Besides, I still had this paper to finish!

So I came back, and finished my paper oh... not too long ago. So that's just barely done, and I submitted it online. Studying Japanese right now for the exam part 1 tomorrow, and the exam part 2 is the day after. Chances are that I'll skip a blog tomorrow to get some extra studying in, so here's your heads up.

Now if you'll excuse me I'm still digesting.

No blog today

I'm busy writing my term paper. And even then, the excuse for no blog is late! As is my custom.

Instead enjoy these Vanessa Carlton lyrics. Or you know, you can close the page at this point.



Some people live in a house on the hill
And wish they were some place else
There's nobody there
When the evening is still
Secrets with no one to tell

Some I have known have a ship where they sleep with sounds of rocks on the coast
They sail over oceans five fathoms deep
But can't find what they want the most

Even now when I'm alone
I've always known with you
I am home

Some live in towns
Cardboard shack on concrete
All bluster and bustling life
They search for the color they can never quite see
Cause it's all white on white

Even now when I'm alone
I've always known with you
I am home
[repeat]

For me it's a glance and the smile on your face the touch of your hands,
And an honest embrace
For where I lay it's you I keep,
This changing world I fall asleep
With you all I know is I'm coming home,
Coming home

Milky Way

It's sixty thousand trillion miles from one end to the other, you know.

Yeah, I'm listening to music from Animaniacs. Wanna make somethin of it?

So today was... weird. The last day of classes, woo. I showed up late because I couldn't find my textbook. I decided that I had left it in class the day before and would need to go to the security office in order to get it if somebody turned it in. Turns out one of the girls in the class saw that I left it behind and handed it to me when I walked in. Thank you Yoyo-san.

Also, the teacher was a callous wench today. She tossed my papers at me when she had stuff to hand back, refused to look at me or comment on my stuff (we were doing a board activity. AGAIN) and she didn't even call on me to answer anything (that part I kinda liked). Honestly, it's one thing for a kid to be rude to their teacher (which I wasn't. I disliked her but she's still my professor, ya know?) but there is something about being a professor that ensures that you act with a certain amount of dignity. Chrissakes woman.

Guess I should ace the final exam to show her up or something.

Also got a call from the guy running the job the other day. He can't pick us up so we need to take the train there. It's a fifteen dollar train ride. We're going to pick up our paychecks. The paycheck is only for 60 dollars. The train ride is 15 dollars each way.

Wow, how generous of them! Argh...

I also got bored of being on campus and went for a walk. And then I kept walking. And then decided to go walk down the mountain, cause I haven't done that since last semester.

So I walked.

And walked.

And walked...

And remembered how long of a walk it is.

And then I got attacked by a GIANT HORNET!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

Then I ran the rest of the way down the mountain. Those things are huge, mate.

Also picked up enough groceries to last me til I leave so... that's covered.

Which is about 15 days from now, actually. So, hurrah!

Also as an aside: Sorry this blog hasn't been as exciting as it was at first. When I got here everything was fresh and new and wacky, but now that I've been here for a year things just... don't stand out as much. The scenery is still beautiful from campus, Japanese people still can't use English properly, and there are things at the store like banana protectors and breast enhancing juice drinks. But at this point I've shared enough strange foods and merchandises and complained about the brutality of 母 Nature. When unusual things crop up I try to put them in here but really . . . You live in one place long enough and it's the same as living in any other place long enough.

That's why I like traveling. Traveling allows you to see everything around you with fresh eyes. To the person that lives there that's just the am pm convenience store, but to you that's the am pm in Tokyo where you ate a pizza bun with your friends on the way back from Akihabara. That's not just some temple you pass every day on the way to work, that's a piece of culture foreign, unique, beautiful and interesting apart from the culture you come from.

I feel a need to make a distinction between "traveling" and "tourism" as well. A traveler sees everything around them. A tourist looks at them.

That's all I got for tonight. Thanks for keeping up with my crappy blog that never updated on time, was rarely interesting to read, but had some decent pictures.

Hold in there for a few more updates. The trip is almost over, and the best part is coming home, which is coming up. Countdown on the right.

Reverse the Polarity!

Then shoot right through their shields!

Today was the second to last day of class, which means tomorrow is the last day. Which means that Monday and Tuesday are the final exams, which means I will be HAPPY FOREVER.

Except today's class was lame, as it was all "group competition" charades crap. Which is never fun in class. And then the teacher made us fill out these sort of "friendship cards" where we have to write (in Japanese) memories and well wishes toward our classmates. Individually. It's irritating because I am friends with a good one person in that class, and the teacher is going around and checking them to make sure we're writing enough. Augh.

I got in and wrote a bad review of the class and the teacher on the evaluation, and included in the additional comments section that APU needs to rethink it's curriculum, so that's about the best I can do.

Other than that! Played Fallout 3 until it crashed then realized the time. As a result, missed kitchen duty, but considering nobody actually, you know, came knocking on my door (Which is lame cause the person I had it with is my neighbor) and the RA's take responsibility to make sure you're there, and it's pretty much the last week of school... I'm really not all that concerned.

Also took down the pop can wall in my room. I passed it off as a decoration, and actually now that it's gone the room does feel a lot emptier, which is strange but I guess I'd grown accustomed to it being there. Ah well.

Not so much looking forward to class tomorrow, but not much you can do about that. Also need to spend Saturday writing the paper for my other class, but after all that I'll be done.

Then it's wasting time here, and heading to Fukuoka. Speaking of which I looked into booking a room and there are only availabilities for the second day I'm there. Debating either just staying in an internet cafe again, or taking the train to some random town and staying there for the night. I already put my moving out forms in, so all I know is I gotta be out by the 7th. Should be fun.

If anyone can think of anything Japanese to do before I leave the country, gimme a shout and I'll see what I can do about it.

Therapeutic Crushing

Sorry about the lack of updates. Some such things put me into a mood foul enough to go destroy Tokyo.


You can't tell from this angle, but I'm actually on a saddle on his back.

Today was a goosfraba day.

Slept in late, which is always nice. Everyone like that.

Then I got me some lunch (Mmm-mm nanbread pizza) and hopped on the bus down to Kannawa. Found myself in the most expensive onsen that I could give (hint: They don't really get higher than 500 yen. So it's totally affordable) and was in there for a good while. I actually only intended to be in there for a good 20 minutes, but I couldn't bring a watch in with me. So I'd try counting it off in my head, but then I'd sort of drift off cause of the heat, start floating in the hot water and... and... then I'd lose track of where I was and start counting all over again. By the time I got out I had been in there for an extremely relaxing hour and a half by myself. Everything about me feels better and I wonder why I don't go to the onsen more often.

After that I walked across town to a tonkatsu restaurant, because I thought to myself "Kyle, you haven't had any real tonkatsu since you got here, just the crap in the cafeteria." and I knew I was right, so I figured I'd try it out. It was expensive, a good 1200 yen for a medium roast katsu with rice and miso soup. I could've gotten an almost unfinishable MEGA bowl of cheese gyuudon for 700 yen at Sukiya where I had almost stopped in (note: I normally get the 500 yen medium sized bowl, so yeah. . .) but it was really, REALLY good so I was glad I got it at least once before I left. Still, I'll stick to getting my katsu in curry form for the fact that it's cheaper that way (no I don't know why).

Because I wasn't done pampering myself I went to Baskin Robbins (although it's called 31 here) and got a fruit smoothie, then bought a new shirt at Uniqlo. Then I came home and got kitchen duty switched to tomorrow, cause I'm cool like that.

So all in all, a damn good day I'd say.

Since I haven't been updating, I might as well mention that this weekend was pretty good as well. Jason came in on Saturday and the first thing we did was bitch about the heat. Then I told him to meet us at the Daiso, figuring that he lived here for a good 6 months before, so he should know where it was. We went there looking for him and he was nowhere to be found, so I bought a candy filled samurai sword and we went looking for him. He was on the next block at McDonald's sitting in the window and told me I'm an idiot because there was no Daiso around there. Yeah... except for the one a block away. Smooth move, jackass (I hope you're reading this so you can relive it. AGAIN). So the ramen was delicious when we got around to eating it, and then at my insistence we went to go look at PUPPIES.

Believe it or not that was the smartest idea I've ever had.

At the place that they keep the puppies, we ran into people that we knew that were glad to see Jason while he was visiting, as well as Marcelo, whom contacted Sjors, whom was hanging out with some of his friends from Holland, whom we met up with, and then followed to Gusto and had dessert and hung out for a bit for the rest of the night.

It was pretty fun.

The following days Jason was here were spent distracting him from the paper that he needed to write by playing video games, and then playing more video games. Because what better thing to do with people that you haven't seen in months than sit in front of the idiot box beating each other up in virtual world, amirite?

Yaaaaaaaaay.

This is your Sunday Night Broadcast

Clear skies and high temperatures for the rest of the week, possibly breaking into a thunderstorm the following weekend. Piles of work on the horizon with little to no breaks between them, followed by some brief exams coming in with the cold front the following week.

In local news, Roshi has been exhausted from work, but his friend visiting has been fun this weekend. However it's cut into study and homework time, so he's a bit agitated about that but at the same time relieved to be doing things.

More details at 11.


(By at 11 I mean tomorrow and probably sometime after noon like normal).

mini celebration

Hey blog number 250! I like the number so I thought I'd point it out. This also goes to show how many I've missed. There are 365 days in a year, and I left on September 20th last year. September 20th is 64 days from now. So 250 plus 64 is 314. So essentially I'm....52 blogs short?

That can't be right. Someone check my math.

Ah well. . .

It seems as though the cafeteria has taken it upon itself to scrounge the backs of the freezer and sell us expired food. Nothing has tasted right from there this entire week, and I didn't buy enough food to last for the week (when tacos are your priority, nothing else matters) so that was more or less an unpleasant change of circumstances. Pacific Cafe still has decent stuff, but as tomorrow is el Sabado, I will have no mas, porque es closéd.

Jason IS coming in tomorrow. He arrives at 4:30 and then we're going to get ramen and wander around Beppu, so should be fun. I also have my part of the presentation due tomorrow night so... so really I should be working on that.

I think I'll go do that....

4 days of classes, 2 days of exams, and I'm done. Gonna be so nice.

SKITTLES TASTE THE RAINBOW

You know, I have not had Skittles since I got here. I love Skittles. I wonder if I can find an import store that sells them...

Today was:
Class
Wander
Group work
Study
Blah.

The group work was mostly assigning roles for the presentation. I'm stuck doing everything Metal Gear Solid related, armed with having played the first game and using Wikipedia. So, this should be interesting. Also need to look into finishing up my own paper, so I should get that going too.

As far as class goes, the teacher moved the Kanji quiz from today to tomorrow, so I can't skip class and work on crap all day like I was planning to. B'awww.... ah well.

Plans might change this weekend as well. Jason apparently was a sick jerk and decided he might stay back in Kyoto and not come down til NEXT week. During exam week. When we'll all ignore him to study for finals.

So, you know, he's got this planned out pretty well.

I realized that I've been here a year and haven't sent postcards home. I think I should do that soon, and arrive at the same time as them. For novelty's sake more than anything. I like mail, but it's just so much effort...

Also selling my worldly possessions before I leave is proving harder than I thought. It'd be nice to have some money...

That's all. Back to playing video games studying.

GTFO

Yaaaay pre departure guidance yaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!

It was boring.

I showed up late cause it was early on my day off, and I didn't miss anything. Then there was a good hour straight of nothing happening but them asking the students to come on stage and share their experiences. I tried to get out of it, but Sjors is a dick and called me up after him. So I announced on stage that Sjors was a dick, which was probably unprofessional but meh. The food was actually pretty good for once. They usually have the same three bland dishes at these events, but they had nanbread pizza and two types of kara age there, so that was really nice. Plus rolls, and I love rolls, and these were pretty good, so hey, nice.

I found out from it tha I need to pay my library fees or I don't get my transcripts sent back home. So I went and paid those off, which was an irritatingly complicated process that had more steps than "Give librarian the money". Come on Japan, really? Anyways that means I'll stop getting overdue notices for the book I took out in November, so that's good at least.

Going to the library also let me run into Bolor which was cool cause I haven't seen her in a while yay. She reiterated our discovery that the erotic performance theatre had closed down and asked to be invited on any other sexy excursions that we were planning, so if that happens then it happens. I still need to get to the sex museum, so maybe we can get that going on.

I also looked into Antarctica.

As in, getting a job there.

I know, that sounds crazy. But they need people down there in pretty much every position, so I figure it's something to look into for after I graduate. They got everything from maintenance staff, to researchers to writers. All of it has free room and board and transport, in exchange for the fact that weather conditions ensure that it's dangerous to go outside roughly 5-7 days a week, so that should be fun. But they also have hiking excursions and such so you don't get cabin fever, so that would be nice. And I love the ice and snow, and I don't mind cold weather (although I guess there is a difference between 'not minding' and -89 degrees F), so this could be a good idea for me. More info here if you're interested.

That really makes it sound like I'm growing up, thinking about my future and all that, doesn't it?

To assure you otherwise, I've also made plans for supervillainy and conquest.



This is a map of the claimed regions of Antarctica. It's actually nine different countries, but I overlapped the maps because I have that kind of time on my hands so why not?

The unclaimed portion is mine, or ours if you join my service. That's right, I'm going to establish a kingdom. We're going to go in on the short at the unclaimed side and trek in a bit. Survey the land, and find a nice area to set up fortifications, and preferably a modern day castle. From there we'll bring in military fortifications, and demand the surrender of the rest of the continent. The continent is inhabited primarily by researchers and tourist agencies, so the odds of them being heavily armed are slim to none. Should be slim pickins.

From that point on we'll use the continent as a base of operations and build technologies in an attempt to create something that would be capable of melting the majority of Antarctica, which would flood great portions of the continents. Unless the world submits to MY REIGN AND MY REIGN ALONE.

BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!



And I probably jumped straight past the FBI watchlist and made it on the UN one.

Choice.

Wrench in the Plans

Damn you everything else! Damn you to hell!

So I had intended to go downtown today after classes.

Then I remembered "OH CRAP WE HAVE THE GROUP PROJECT TO WORK ON TODAY" so I couldn't do that. So I figured I'd do that tomorrow.

BUT THEN I got an e-mail from Funaki-san reminding us about the mandatory pre-departure meeting tomorrow, so I can't skip that.

So I'll just go THURSDAY after classes.

BUT WAIT. At about 6:30 I get a call saying that the group meet up was cancelled and we're moving it to Thursday. But at this point the ATM is closed so I can't get money to go downtown, so I'm stuck on campus anyways. Today, tomorrow, and the day after. Hokay. Friday, maybe? Nah, we'll need that for more group work.

Alright, well at least I got Saturday to look forward to the hiking expedition!

But wait, there's more! Jason comes in this weekend, and he intends on hanging out with us for the weekend and then go apartment hunting during the weekdays while we're in classes. So hiking has been postponed another week or two!

I don't... I don't even know anymore....

But hey, friends coming to visit will be good at least, so that's something to look forward to in lieu of the canceled plans.

Was just kind of odd how hectic all that shifting was is all.

Also I pet a lizard today!

Prolly gonna get some sorta disease now... but it was cute and it was free. Because anybody that charges you to pet a lizard is either a monster or a sexual predator.

Thank you and good night.

You'll be too busy trying to get the image out of your head that you'll realize too late that that didn't make any sense.

Google Maps is useless in Japan

I tried finding Ku-ta Ramen in google maps. I tried finding it in every variant spelling in both English and Japanese that I could think of. Never showed up.

Then I tried just searching for ramen in the same methods, and something came up in the NEXT CITY. So apparently Google maps doesn't like Japan.

HOWEVER, I did use it to find directions to Yufuin, and I can get there for a cheaper way than my friends told me. In fact, it only costs about 12 bucks to get there this way, as opposed to the 20 or so that my friends recommended. So I would like to go soon, possibly as soon as this Wednesday, we shall see.

My room is cleaner now, but there is still much to clean. There was also an infestation of ants that I took care of, and it was disgusting.

Also spent the day mostly doing homework, cause class starts again tomorrow. It feels so wrong. I finally had days off during what my body is telling me is summer vacation, and then I'm being disrupted from it again.

Ugh.

I can't wait til this is all over.

Also I'm in the mood for spaghetti, so I might end up making some of that. Bon apetite.

ERROR! ERROR!

Okay, having troulbes with Blogger. It wasn't letting me create a new post, and just kept redirecting me to some page telling me that I should report some error.... So for once I have a reasonable excuse for being late with an update! Alright, yeah!

One thing I think I forgot to mention yesterday. I looked into the plane tickets with the other, allegedly cheaper flight agency. The ones that were supposed to be half the price as my current one. And basically it's a good thing I looked into it before jumping to conclusions, because it actually costs MORE than my current ticket and only gets me to TORONTO. So... that's out of the question. Apparently the Obon festival is going on at the same time and that's why the ticket prices are outrageous. Guess I should've tried leaving at the end of this month instead of the beginning of next month, but ah well. I get to hopefully do some last minute Japanese stuff before I leave this way.

Speaking of which, today was spent mostly lounging around eating cold pizza and making plans. I have plans for karaoke, and FINALLY to go hiking next weekend. We were going to go hiking today, but a combination of my being sore and sunburnt as well as the high probability for rain cancelled that.

Also, Jason is coming to visit next week, so that will be good too. I found out about a better Ku-ta Ramen shop, so hopefully I can figure out exactly where that is and we can get there.

I need to start buying some small trinkets as souvenirs when I get home. A surplus of them, really. For all the people that I'll run into that go "Hey, what did ya get me?" that I didn't plan on getting anything for so only have a piece of paper with "Good luck" written in Japanese on it or whatnot. Oh ho ho....

That's about it for tonight's broadcast. I'm off to eat more peanut butter and sip more grape juice.

Today is a Good Day to Die!

Actually, can we take dying as an open action item? Move it up to next Tuesday? Maybe we just write it off the plans entirely.

So work was today. I stayed up all night for some reason so that I'd be ready to leave at 6:30 am. Turns out the departure was pushed back to 7:30 but for some reason I wasn't informed, and I totally could've gotten some sleep. Ah well.

The ride there was... kinda long, to say the least. Probably about 45 minutes to an hour in a car, so it's further than Saiki. The place was umm....Segashi Seki? Sagashi Saiki? I can't recall the name because I'm awful like that, but it was a nice little city from what we saw, and their 7-11 had delicious chicken.

We got there and wandered around the beach for a bit confused as to what to do. Met Shingo's dad who was the man in charge of the event (he's some public official and it was part of his reelection campaign) and he gave us wheat stalk(?) hats to wear and nametags. We ran into some kids that asked us in practiced English how we were doing today, and Keith mumbled a response that they seemed incapable of understanding (especially considering they looked at each other and asked what he said in Japanese) and I repeated that we were doing fine thank you, and they giggled and ran back off to the beach. Kids :|

There were huge spiders everywhere. Feel a need to point that out. A large hunting spider on top of the door to the changing room, spiders hanging from all the rafters of the beach structures, everywhere. Was kind of offsetting.

The events began soon enough. The two Americans were given assistants because we're pretty dumb (honestly, we are) and my girl basically took charge of taking attendance and smiling politely at me. I got to take care of all the dirty work, like trying to get some kid with severe ADD to stop yelling during the announcements, accepting various "gifts" from kids (a seashell, a ball of wet sand, a rock, and seaweed), and standing crotch deep in freezing cold water to be the tag point for the relay races. Oh boy.

After the games was a period of free swim, and there were jellyfish in the water. Seriously. A tentacle floated over near the shore, and there were a bunch swimming a bit away from where we were. Not cool. But, none of them actually came to us, and it was a nice time hanging out with the people I came with and all the kids.

Then food! We assisted in making curried rice from scratch using traditional methods (traditional curry. Yeah, okay Japan). Somehow the ADD kid was allowed to volunteer with working the fire, and my lovely assistant motioned that I should also go work the fire. So I pouted and walked over there, and spent a good thirty to forty minutes trying to talk the kid down from fanning the fire so strongly that ash and smoke flew everywhere (like my eyes and throat) and embers flew all over the ground. Eventually Sappho came over and helped trying to calm the kid down, but he just kept commenting how she was a girl and he didn't have to listen to her. So in what I assumed was a commanding Japanese voice I looked at him and went "YAMERO." essentially a direct command saying "You must stop." The kid seemed kinda shocked and did as he was told and quit misbehaving... in spurts... when my back wasn't turned. Really though it was better than he had been before, so it worked out.

I lost a round of janken (rock paper scissors) and as a result had to play a group round of the game with all the kids for prizes. SAISHO WA GUU! JANKENPON! And then the kids win prizes based on the fact that I pretty much chose rock every time. There was also some parent that tried to get in on the janken action, and I have no idea what that was all about.

That was pretty much the end of that. There was a semaphore performance and final closing things, and then we got changed and helped clean up a little. We got to keep the hats as gifts and were invited back for a barbecue later in the month, so that'll be good. The kids kept excitedly hanging around us a bit as well. The kids were awesome. I wish I had o- wait, no, dangerous thought path. Let's not go down that road...

The ride back was alright, but I was trying to keep up conversation with Keith while on the verge of passing out. Sappho did pass out. I had to stay awake for the group meeting in Beppu to work on our presentation though, so I managed to hold out for a bit.

I was in my room on the computer, and figured that lying back for a minute wouldn't be too all of a sudden Keith was knocking on my door and asking me why I wasn't ready yet and man how could you fall asleep? My bad. So I said I'd shower quick and meet them all at the station.

We got one cancellation and the other guy was 45 minutes late, so I was really the least of the problems anyways. We did what we could do with the project, and then went back to Lee's place to play some vidya games. I lost at Street Fighter so hard, but I only lost three rounds in Soul Caliber 4, in all the two hours we were playing it. Go me.

And I just realized I still haven't had much sleep. I got little sleep the day before because I needed to wake up early to get my homework done, and then I got no sleep last night, and a 45 minute nap today.

Gonna go do that now. ZzZzzz.

Late again

Better late than never as has become custom.

I'm very tired. Been up all night reading the Metal Gear Solid wiki. This is for a project, so it's totally excusable, but I have work in two hours (WHAT) and I won't get to sleep before it. Then going to go work on the project afterwards. Augh.

Yesterday I went to Kannawa. I hadn't been there since last semester, so I didn't exactly know my way around.

As such, I got lost.

I got VERY lost.

Kannawa is still in Beppu, mind you, but it is entirely the other side of Beppu. The way I normally go is on one side of the mountain, and Kannawa is on the other side.

That said, somehow I re-emerged in Ishigaki, which is the area of Beppu I normally wander to. I don't know how it happened but it happened, and my legs hurt pretty bad from all that walking.

Kannawa either has less to do than I thought, or I just looked in the wrong direction. I found all the stuff I encountered last time I went, but I didn't have any coins which are needed to get into the onsen, so I was looking for a convenience store which got me lost.

I'm such a ditz sometimes.

After all that trouble I treated myself to a pizza. Apparently a medium is only 5 cm larger than a small but twice the cost. Logic!

Oh well, it was good enough and now I have some leftover in the fridge, which is nice when I don't feel like cooking.

Work should be fun if it's still on. It's POURING now, but the job is about 40 miles away, so should be a bit different weather there.

Class away from Class

I completely forgot that there was classwork due at a specific time, and ended up waking up, going "OH CRAP" and rushing through it to submit it online. But I managed to do it, because I have a phD in horribleness. And I ended up missing the lunch block again because of it. Dang.

Spent the whole day on campus, so nothing exciting there. I was really hoping that people would start ignoring the policies by now, but nobody has. I'd be the first to try it out, but the fact that pretty much every infraction earns you an eviction serves as a pretty good deterrant from acting up.

I'll likely end up out tomorrow and Saturday. Tomorrow I want to go to Kannawa like I didn't today, and Saturday gotta work on the project and also go do the teaching activity in whichever city we're going to to do that. So, should be entertaining.

In the meantime I should really clean my room. It's not like I've got anything better to do, and I leave in 30 days. Should really get prepared.

Then again I didn't really pack to come here til the morning I left, so why break up tradition?

You'll never be a better kind

If you don't leave the world behind.

So day three of quarantine went well. I woke up at 2 in the afternoon cause why not. Went to go pick up my Japanese homework from the spot the teacher dropped it off to, and was surprised to not have negative marks all over it for once (the teacher hates me. I am convinced of this. It could partially be because I refuse to use proper Japanese with her, but hey, whatever).

Then on an impromptu decision I ran full speed off campus and jumped off a bridge. There was a 40 foot plummet that was interrupted by a large conifer, and I broke my left arm, dislocated the shoulder, and sprained an ankle, but am otherwise fine. Was in the ER for a good 3 hours and the service was cold and professional like everything else here, but the seats are comfier than in the states. I've never had crutches before so that's kinda fun, but it's going to be a bitch when I have to get to the airport next month.

Not really, of course. I actually just took the bus downtown and wandered around for a bit. Got some gyuudon because I wanted it, but I should've got some ramen because I NEED it. I think I might go to Kannawa (the hot springs area of Beppu) tomorrow cause I've only done that like...two, three times. It's really for old people so I never bother going there, but I feel up for it, so it should be fun.

Also picked up some "merchandise" to trade for some "goods" back home. Meaning I got a figure as repayment for a friend buying me a game. The circle of nerd goes on.

And I was craving Lotteria for some reason, so I went out of my way to get some of that. Then I neeeded to question why I was craving it, because after all the MacDonard's and Mos Burger I've been having, it seemed like a lackluster greasy sausage. I mean, it doesn't even have ketchup on it. That's whack.

Came back early cause I ran out of money and just hung around eating crackers and playing DS, as I am wont to do. Also I bought more tankoban BECAUSE I AM ADDICTED OT THE LOW LOW PRICES. Seriously, if books were this cheap in the states I'd probably have enough to make furniture out of them by now.

Quarantine is still boring. I would very much like to have random things open on campus again.

Oh well.

Quarantine: Day 2

So, the Quarantine continues.

There are two spots of good news. Number one is that the buses are running again, so we can go downtown, but they're running on the "Holiday Schedule" which means that it's limited, so that sucks. Also, off-campus students aren't allowed on campus, and I have a group presentation what needs working on, so that's inconvenient. But the other good news is that the semester will NOT be extended for longer than it would have been, so I'm still leaving at the same time (provided I'm not detained for exposure to swine flu). So that's good, at least.

This Saturday has the teaching job, so we'll see how well that works out with the quarantine going on. I hope we're not called off because of it.

Also recently I've been wandering the back streets of Beppu. I spent Friday and Saturday eveneings doing it. Friday was after I shipped the boxes home (ended up costing me a good 165 dollars) I wandered across town. Ended up restaurant hopping because of the inclement weather and my not being able to carry an umbrella down as well as the boxes, so that was unfortunate. The rain stopped eventually and I took a long walk behind the Beppu station. I found mostly small drug stores and a couple restaurants, but I also found out where the Beppu Stadium is, as well as the city's theme park, so that was interesting.

Saturday I took a walk more in the heart of Beppu where people live. It was... awkward, to say the least. The people there looked at me like I really did not belong. Their eyes said "We give you people the shopping district and the main road. Leave us here in peace." It was.....rather unpleasant.

I still plan to do more, though. Probably go for another walk tomorrow after doing some self study. We've been assigned doing it on our own from the Japanese teacher (we had an online session today and it didn't work out so well) and I'm confident that I'll learn it better than if I actually went to class. It's a good textbook, but my teacher is awful. Also just going to that class kind of sets me in a foul mood in the first place, so that doesn't help.

So that's what I've been up to, really. Sorry for not updating, I've had blog burnout recently. If it helps I didn't update Walking the Box at all either, but I never really do that in the first place.

Also, had some issue where apparently there is a service offering plane tickets for half the price of my original ticket. Need to contact them yet and see how much it actually would be and if it's worth it to go through the hassle of refunding my old ticket (sans 350 dollars, apparently) and then buying one of these.

We'll see.

For now, back to Legally Blonde the Musical benchpressing grizzly bears.

Freakin Swine Flu

This just in: The swine flu is bullshit. Utter bullshit. It has killed no more people than any other strain of flu, it's just been hyped up by the media to take your attention away from the prisoner tortures or the Iraq war or the reptilians or whatever.

And as a result of the attention it's gotten, I have school off for the rest of this week. This is not reason for rejoicing, however.

They closed down the gym. They closed down the library. The closed down the baths, the dining hall and the lobby. Why they even closed off the stim stum on the trimminy tum tobby!

They've also quarantined us on campus. I mean this in the we aren't allowed to leave sense. The buses have stopped running, and some people are reporting that there are national guard forces guarding the bottom of the mountain to make sure none of the APU students leave (there is a military bunker down the road, so that's not as crazy as it sounds. Wait, it still is).

Christ on a cracker I am so pissed at this school right now.

I e-mailed someone in the office to find out how this affects the semester schedule. If I'm stuck here for a week longer than I need to be to finish classes that shouldn't be canceled anyways, reducing my summer vacation by another week (limiting it to two and a half weeks, effectively) and making me reschedule my ticket, I am going to kill something. I am going to kill a lot of somethings, starting with the island of Kyushu and we'll see where I stop.

So angry.

ALIENS

Happy Independence Day!

Reverse Reverse!

Bah! My sleep schedule is still screwed up but in a reverse way. It's probably good that i'm waking up early enough to get to class, but I hate passing out at like 11pm. That's little kid sleeping time, come on!

Ah well. At least it's kind of nice to use the birds as an alarm clock.

Really, sorry about the blog stuff lately. It's gotten wonky and now I can't remember what exactly to write about as a result of it. So that kinda sucks.

Lemme try to recall stuff.

I've got the box set up, and it fits the briefcase that I'm sending back. So I just gotta pack it and, if it's not raining, I go downtown today to ship it out. This has taken damn forever and I'm glad that it's finally coming to a close, and my room is going to be so clean/empty once I ship out all my books and the crap I bought here. Gonna be kinda weird, but also kinda nice I suppose. The only problem is the tape sealing the bottom of the box isn't very umm... sturdy. Gonna see if any of my friends have some duct tape before I actually send it.

My Gamespace class is great. I'm doing a project comparing the social communities in Final Fantasy XI and Team Fortress 2. What other class lets you do that, huh? It's awesome.

Japanese today we're doing an exchange activity, which involves not doing any actual work and instead just talking with Japanese students for a full period. I'm totally okay with that. Although it's not fair, because these kids have been studying English for like 8 years. They have about triple the study that we do, so we sound dumb in Japanese and they sound fine in English. Lame.

So class, downtown, eat me some delicious curry. Gonna be a good day.

Super Duper Late Update

I fall'd asleep again, sorry. I think my sleep schedule is set up well now because I woke up at an appropriate hour for once, although I thought it was Monday and was freaking out about how I wouldn't get my homework done in time for class until I woke up a bit more, that was fun.

Yesterday was pretty actively good. Woke up early and read a fantastic comic over at Rice Boy so that was fun. Then I headed downtown and got some delicious Sukiya gyuudon which is always nice. Called up a friend and chatted a bit, then started my routine walking through town. Picked up some shorts that will double nicely as swim trunks for the teaching class I need to do, and played with some puppies in the store while I was at it (PUPPIES!). Stopped in an arcade and did my thing there, then went to You Me town to look for shoes.

AGAIN.

I was told there was a Uni Qlo there which is a good store that I like to visit when I'm out and about. You think I'd be more aware that a store I like was in my city but for some reason I never noticed it. This is made worse and worse when I explain that it is pretty much in between the hobby shop that I go to all the time and the food court. I... I really don't know how to excuse this. I don't know if I can. But I do know that I feel like a moron for never having noticed.

Anyways, picked up some sandals because they had no real shoes there, and I suppose these should tide me over well enough. The left shoe's sole is pretty much nonexistent at this point, so really, I just needed SOMETHING. Also picked up a dig dig shirt and an old Tekken shirt for 500 yen a piece both brand new, so that was welcome, as well as 4 generically plain shirts for 280 a piece. I noticed recently that I am sick of having worn the same shirts for roughly a year now, so I really wanted new crap. All the other shirts I bought in Japan so far have been long sleeved, as I got here in the fall, and it's a bit too hot for that now.

I also managed to pck up a new luggage case! This one is fantastic. It can fit my old luggage inside of it with room to spare. It's got a steel pull out handle, and two side grips, one on top and one on the side. It's got a large back pocket and two smaller front pockets, and then the main case. It also has RUBBER WHEELS which is a must have for me. After having two cases with plastic wheels that make a lot of noise that irritates me probably more than it does the people around me (it grates that pet peeve section of the brain) the rubber ones by comparison make almost no noise and roll easier on top of that. I tested it out on the way back home yesterday and it was pretty much everything I wanted. It has the added benefit of only having been 4000 yen, which is 2000 yen cheaper than every other model in the same size by the same brand. The only difference I could find is that it had the two smaller front pockets instead of the one larger one, and I'm fine with that for essentially a twenty dollar bargain.

And to top it all off I finally found a box that can fit the stuff I need to send home in it! That was exciting too.

But of course something bad, or at least awkward, needs to happen to counteract that. This homeless guy tugged on my empty box as I was heading to buy a milkshake. He sort of stared at me for a bit so I asked him what was up. He kind of made a noise and started rubbing his stomach. I'm all "I don't understand". So he just... he does it again. And looks at me HARDER. That's the only way I could describe it. His expression didn't change, he just kind of stared and it felt worse. So I took some change out of my pocket and asked "This?" and after a few seconds he held out his hands and walked over to the convenience store with it. It was horribly awkward and I felt kind of weird after it.

But then I bought a milkshake and all was good.

Also I got sick both ways on the bus. No idea why. I just felt awful. I think I haven't been riding it enough or something.

Nap attack

I need to stop napping. I always go for longer than I intend to and that's never good.

So today was interesting.

Food in the caf was good. It's been Chinese week so there have been steamed dumplings available for cheap in the cafeteria, which is good cause those are always delicious. Class was as good as it normally was too.

I was hanging out in my room reading when I got a call. Turns out we needed to all of a sudden meet with the son of the guy that was hiring us to help with his English learning activity in Sogasa Saiki next month. We had no warning of this, and got called by the girl that hired us saying "He's on campus, go find him".

So that kind of was sucky and rushed.

The meeting was RIDICULOUSLY informal. The guy was slouched and kept referring to himself using "ore" which is basically treating us like we're bros. He kept trying to be friendly and ask us questions about America instead of bothering to talk to us about the job, and it was extremely awkward, especially when he kept asking Keith questions that would've gotten his ass kicked stateside (Keith is black, thise Shinbo Iida guy had zero tact). It was amusing in a horribly awkward sense, but at least it ended and we know what we need to do for next month.

Next month on the 11th, we need to be up and ready at 7am outside of AP House with swim trunks, a change of clothes, and a towel. We're going to the beach in Sagasa Saiki in order to play sports with the kids and teach them English in the process. It's during the Open Swimming Festival in the city, and we will also have to participate in a tradition of making donburi from scratch that involves washing the rice in the seawaters and using traditional methods of cooking and preparing it instead of doing it in a kitchen.

So, should be fun. And definitely a cultural thing to look forward to.

There is also a yukata festival coming up that I need to look into. I don't actually own a yukata, and they're expensive so...we'll see.