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Waiting for Ma Wheels

April 19, 2007 at 4:47 PM 1 comment

Had my kids class again today with the kid I mentioned last week (Pork Bowl). After he got a telling off by the Japanese staff before class started, and after I gave him the “oh hell no” attitude before class, he actually was fairly well behaved today. Thank goodness, because I think I would have had to kick him out of the window otherwise. If he can keep this up, my Wednesdays will be great.

Last weekend was awesome, primarily because I had absolutely nothing to do. After a month where I had every weekend booked with friends in town, party obligations, Sunday Opens at work, etc, it was great to have absolutely nothing to do. On Saturday I just went to Chiba to hang out, after the usual grueling Saturday shift. It didn’t help that I stayed up until around 3AM the night before downloading 90’s songs (long story), then was up for almost 40 minutes in the early morning in a duel with a killer mosquito that broke into my apartment… via an open window. Sunday I slept until the mid-afternoon and couldn’t have been more satisfied. I went to Makuhari in the afternoon and finally bought a bike from Carrefour. It was pretty cheap; the label price was about 8000 yen. However, when I paid it ended up being only 6900 yen which was a nice surprise. With the registration cost, delivery charge, and new lock I bought, it cost me around $100 USD for a new bike that will increase the convenience of Goi a lot.

Now, please note that this is no mountain bike. It’s a pretty typical traveling bike in Japan, called the “mama-chari,” (ママちゃり) which translates to “Mom bike.” Yes, this is the kind of bike that old ladies ride around to go shopping. I don’t care. Of course I could never ride a bike like this in the US, but here in Japan I am one of millions doing so, thus it doesn’t seem so bad and I won’t be ridiculed for riding it in public. My bike has a basket, a light, and a bell. Watch out Hells Angels. I realized that renting a bike every weekend from the shop here in Goi would add up, and since I was able to get a bike this cheap, I figured might as well just buy one. I’ll never get used to laying down a ton of money and walking away empty handed in Japan. Since a lot of people don’t have cars when they go shopping for big stuff, most stores are very good about shipping stuff to you for cheap. It only cost me 1500 yen to ship my bike, but I also had to wait a few days. It should be here tomorrow morning (Thursday).

After taking care of the bike stuff on Sunday, I went to Outback for dinner. Never would I have thought that an Outback burger would be so tasty. I don’t usually think about how much I miss American food like that, but it felt great to eat a real restaurant burger. Monday was raining and stuff, so I spent pretty much the whole day again just loafing in my apartment. I actually went shopping at Ito Yokado for a bit in the evening, but that was about it. I missed being super lazy on the weekends.

A week and a half until Golden Week. I won’t be going anywhere really on vacation, but it looks like Nick is coming up to Chiba to hang out. Brian will have his mom in town, but he’ll be able to hang out in the evenings most likely. Should be nice to have everyone off and near enough to actually hang out. It will also be nice to just have a week off with nothing to do. I’m hoping to do some really touristy stuff around Tokyo as well.

Links:
Japan Cycling: Mama Chari

I want these DVDs!

April 12, 2007 at 3:49 AM 1 comment

How did I not know that Mama’s Family was released on DVD!?!?! I might need to order this set (Amazon link). Even though it’s only season 1, which isn’t as great overall as the later episodes, it is still a quality TV show that was worth staying up until 5 or 6AM last summer to watch on TBS.

Vinton!

Also another note to self: I need to get News Radio season 5 eventually, just to complete the set. Who knew I would actually be so willing to pay for DVDs?

Can I punt this kid?

April 11, 2007 at 11:58 PM 2 comments

Am I petty enough to actually complain on my blog about a 10 year old kid? Yep!

So with the new kids classes that started this month, I started teaching different kids in my Upper Elementary class (5th graders). Three of the kids are really good, but the last is one of the trouble maker kids at the school. Not trouble maker as in “beats up old ladies and smokes behind the dumpsters,” but trouble maker as in “doesn’t pay attention, won’t shut up, and is disrespectful.” Either way I’ve only taught this kid once before when I had to substitute for Matt, but I’ve heard the horror stories and know that overall this little punk is a pain in the butt who thinks he’s a hardass (please note that he is 10). For privacy’s sake, I won’t give his name, although I will describe him as a Japanese version of Augustus Gloop with a buzzcut. For this blog, I will call him Pork Bowl. It’s a funny name.

Today was the second class, and to be honest last week he wasn’t too bad. He started off on a bad foot today though, going into the Staff Only storage room and taking a basketball. Not too bad. He was, however, being a pain when I told him to give it back so we could start class. This kid has some kind of complex where he thinks he’s tough even when faced with adults/teachers/other people who are obviously higher than him on the food chain. He also wants a lot of attention, and I don’t think he gets much from his parents since I heard that while him and his sister are in class, his mom plays pachinko. Sounds like a great parent. Add that to the fact that he is big for his age, his English is the worst in my class, and he smells (haha), and you can see that this kid has issues. So yeah before we even started class I wasn’t too happy with this kid. Anyway, during class he’s doing stuff like screaming nonsense, laying down on his desk, and zipping his jacket over his torso to hide his fat head. All of that wasn’t so bad because I would just ignore him.

Then I have the kids sit on the floor and play Memory with these flashcards. Pork Bowl is again being a pain, screwing up the cards and also throwing the cards up into the air and around the room. All the time I’m telling him in a stern voice “Pork Bowl, stop it.” He knows what I’m saying also. It’s getting worse now because he’s actually interrupting the other kids playing the games, and he’s starting to damage school property. Anyway, he’s a pain the entire class, even with me ignoring him, not including him in games, and almost making him cry. Is it terrible that I was hoping he would cry to teach him a lesson? He didn’t this time, but he’s done it in Matt’s class before. So the whole class I’m having to keep an eye on this kid, and I can’t do things as well as I usually would. I take the kids out of the classroom to ask questions in the hallway and lobby, and Pork Bowl is pouting on his desk. I have to take him with us though, since otherwise he’s the type who would rip up my books or something. He’s dragging along the way, trying to hide in classrooms, etc. He doesn’t participate in asking questions, doesn’t follow instructions, and then after the exercise he goes back in to the storage room and tries to hide. That actually didn’t bother me too much, until I get him out of the storage room and he slams the door really loudly. There were other classes going on, and this kid was already trying my patience, but the door slam really did it for me. Most of the time I’m very good at keeping my cool, but this set me off. I glare at the kid and in a voice I would use towards a dog who just pooped on the new leather sofa, scream “Pork Bowl, NO!” I saw the other kids in the class look at me for a second with a look of fear. Matt told me later that he heard it from his classroom.

So really this rant/story/blog is pretty bad, but I’m writing this mainly for recording purposes. I’ll probably want to read about this later on, since I don’t think I’ve ever actually gotten this angry at some little kid. I’m trying next to either have this kid and him mother talked to, or even better having him leave the school. I shouldn’t have to deal with this little snot, and neither should the other kids in the class, who actually have excellent English for kids their age.

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All right

April 10, 2007 at 12:54 AM No comments

The above title is not some kind of indication that things were going badly, but rather it’s the catch phrase of the now-former head teacher at my school. He and our assistant manager transferred to different schools in March, in turn giving us some co-workers/staff at the school to replace them. This is not including the first replacement assistant manager, actually a friend of mine who some of you know, since she came and went within just a few weeks. There were many reasons, but I think a bit part of it was the fact that Japanese staff at these schools work long hours, get paid terribly, and have pretty much the worst job. But ah well.

So it’s already Monday night, meaning that another weekend has come and gone. This past week was about as uneventful as can be, with the exception of the new co-workers starting. Luckily, they fit in well and things are going good. With the coming and going of teachers, as well as new kids classes starting to coincide with the new semester/year at real schools, my schedule has also been a bit changed. I teach a few extra classes a week, which overall isn’t that much of a pain but of course not too great. Of note are the two new kids classes I have to teach, both of which are middle elementary, meaning I think 3rd and 4th graders. Before this, the youngest kids I taught were 5th graders. Teaching the classes really aren’t that bad; in fact some of them are better/more fun than adult classes, and the kids are definitely better at making jokes. I also now teach Voyage, one of the lowest level classes at the school, which is a bit tough. When teaching people with English that low, you have to slow down to almost a ridiculous speed and also use a lot of gestures and stuff. Imagine Chris Tucker yelling at Jackie Chan in Rush Hour, only I’m the black guy in this situation.

On Saturday night after work we had a Farewell/Welcome party at an izakaya near Goi station, Yushun, which was my first experience of a big school party with a lot of students (over 50) there. It was overall a fun time and better than what I was expecting, even with the official ban on me using Japanese. I’ve gotten really good at hiding the fact that I understand Japanese in front of students. Some students were pretty tricky though and would ask me stuff quickly in Japanese and I would nod or answer in English, but they would know that I at least understood them. Part of this was done on purpose, because it got a pretty funny reaction. Also sometimes I would just tilt my head and be like “huh?” They’d love this because I would give a good few seconds pause before doing it. Sunday was another Sunday Open, which means that I got to spend my entire afternoon at work rather than doing what I would want to be doing on my day off (ie, sleeping). These Sundays Opens are definitely one of the most bogus parts of my job. If my calculations are correct, though, I shouldn’t really have to do these ever again. I wouldn’t be surprised if AEON tries to sneak attack me with one at some point during the summer, though.

Just a few more weeks until Golden Week, the national spring break! A full week to do absolutely nothing.

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Phalluses and Flowers

April 3, 2007 at 4:12 AM No comments

This past weekend was both frighteningly weird and super cool. Scary because of the Kawasaki Penis Festival I went to, and super cool because I finally got to see what all the fuss about sakura/hanami is for.

Ari’s flight out of Japan was actually on Monday and not Sunday as he had previously thought, so I met up with him, Bryan, and co. on Sunday morning. What would cause me to get up early on a Sunday morning? We had plans to go to the Kawasaki Kanamara Festival (川崎かなまら祭), which is a somewhat famous fertility festival south of Tokyo in the city of Kawasaki. This is the kind of weird thing I have seen snippets about for years in travel books, Japanese crazy fact websites, and also on a few travel programs. Thus, I had to go to see this for myself. I was not really prepared for just how weird this event was. The festival has been going on annually for a few hundred years, but it is now complete with live music, performances, cross dressers, and food vendors selling various snacks in the shape of a male organ. I don’t feel like explaining much of the history of the festival itself, although Metropolis has a really good article on it which you can read here.

After our group arrived at Kawasaki Daishi staion (川崎大師駅), which is about 20 minutes south of Shinagawa, we followed the crowd down the street. We were less than a block away from the station when we heard drums and saw an even bigger crowd all cheering and clapping. They were looking at some kind of parade or procession. Then we saw it. I can’t really explain the feeling of seeing this in the middle of the road. I’ll just show you a picture and maybe you can feel some of the shock and hilarity that I felt:

Look closely

Look under the blooming sakura trees and past Ari’s head. Can you see it? Let me zoom in for you:

yep, a dong Yep, that’s a penis. A giant pink statue of a penis. And as we walked down the street it was bobbing up and down towards the temple area. Did I forget to mention that this is a legitimate Japanese festival tied to a Shinto shrine? So this was actually the mikoshi (portable shrine), a giant penis.

As we entered the temple’s courtyard area, you could see people all over the place with food shaped like penises; lollipops, popsicles, even bananas. It was really frightening since both women and men were eating these things. This festival also had a large amount of foreigners, who probably like us, were there just for the tourist aspect. There were all kinds of people at this festival, even tons of children. Seriously, why would you bring your kids to this place? So weird. This penis temple is also right next to a kindergarten, so I suppose this town is used to it. But still, kind of disturbing. One of the other mikoshi at the place was a smaller black penis inside a mikoshi-style roof.

About a half hour after we got there, maybe 1PM-ish, they started the live entertainment. Now, this wasn’t really some kind of dirty perverted festival so don’t worry, there weren’t strippers or anything like that. Quite the opposite. First up were hula dancers, all old women at least in their 60’s. Next was some band who played covers of songs like Johnny B. Goode and a ton of Elvis songs. There was a tarp in the middle of the temple grounds where a group of old men dressed as women were having a picnic. There were children dancing around with a drunk guy who was double-fisting beers. There was an old man in a cowboy hat carrying a little dog standing next to the US Confederate flag. Does none of this make sense!?!?! I hope not, since it didn’t make sense to me and I was actually there. Also the sakura trees overhead were blooming. Overall this was probably the weirdest place I have ever been in. I’ll put up a bunch of pictures later on my Pictures page, but for now here is a quick collage:
Weirdest time of my life
I hope that collage helps show you some of the absolute chaos that was happening at this small Japanese festival in Kawasaki.

After Kawasaki we headed up to Ueno Park for some hanami (花見), or flower-viewing. Japanese people are crazy about the sakura (桜/cherry blossom) flowers, and every spring when these flowers bloom for about a week or so the entire country tries to go see them. Usually “see” them means having a picnic under them and drinking and eating the entire day. It was around 4PM when we arrived in Ueno Park, and the place was absolutely packed. There were thousands of people coming, going, and sitting to see the trees. Most of these people were already wasted by 4PM. It was really interesting to experience, and the flowers really are beautiful. I kind of understand why Japanese people like them so much; especially in a place like Ueno Park where they have so many trees it looks like a white forest above you, it does feel a little surreal. And when the wind blows, the petals fly off and make a cool spring snow-type of image. Not much else to write here since it’s 5AM and I’m pretty tired. I will post some sakura pictures sometime soon as well, although for now I will finish this post with just 1 夜桜 (night sakura) picture, which actually looks pretty good, despite the fact that my camera takes terrible pictures in the dark:

Sakura trees at night in Ueno Park
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Hanging with Gaijin Voltron

April 3, 2007 at 3:08 AM 1 comment

I’m attempting to cover the highlights of the past two weeks or so, which was pretty much just one weekend (March 24~26).

Ari came to visit Japan about a week and a half ago, beginning his long Asia trip. Bryan was able to take like an entire week off from work, so he came down from Ibaraki 2 weekends ago when Ari got in. First night was spent pretty proper; Umaimonya (旨いもん屋) in Chiba followed by all-night karaoke at Utahiro with those two (Gaijin Voltron) and Blanchard. Everything was going fairly normal at karaoke until the door was opened and hallway singing began again. this guy groped my friendsThat was actually fine except for some weird drunk Japanese guy coming in and groping Brian and Bryan (see pic). He later returned a few times to put on terrible songs like Jack Johnson or some other stuff like that. We eventually got rid of him and he never came back.

I don’t know why I try to do all-nighters after waking up at 8AM and working all day on Saturdays, because I always end up getting super tired around 3 or 4AM and fall asleep. Anyway, at 5 we left the karaoke place and Blanchard grabbed a taxi back to his place. Me Ari and Bryan made the painful hike to Chiba station in anticipation of the first train. The post-all-nighter walk to the station wasn’t as bad as in the winter since the weather is warmer now. Unfortunately we were too tired to wait for McDonald’s to open at 6:30 for breakfast, so we grabbed the Uchibo Line back to Goi and crashed on my floor for a few hours.

After only sleeping for about 4 or 5 hours we got up and headed to Makuhari for the “Jumbo Flea Market.” Talk about disappointing. It was only in 1 hall of the Messe, which was actually fairly big, but the things that people were selling were awful. There was an overabundance of womens clothing and socks. None of the bikes, sofas, toys, or video games that I was hoping for. And no samurai swords to send home to my dad. Defeated, still tired, and now hungry, the 3 of us headed back towards Kaihim station. It was also now raining pretty hard, but luckily thanks to the covered walkways we were able to make it all the way from Makuhari Messe to Plena without getting wet until the very last leg, where we had to take a few steps in the rain. Along the way we were trying to decide on what to get to eat, and somehow all got in the mood for omurice (オムライス), which is a weird Japanese dish. It’s pretty much fried rice inside of an omelette, and many times this is then covered by either ketchup, curry sauce, or beef stew. And yes it is delicious.

Spend the day in Makuhari, playing in all 3 arcades and hitting up Carrefour. That night I had company-paid-for dinner with my school staff (thanks to some prize money from the head office or something), and we had decided on going to Taiyourou (太陽樓), that Chinese buffet in Plena. Ari and Bryan headed off to drink with Shin-san and a bunch of other Spring 05 IES kids who were in town for vacation/Kanda grad. Dinner was really good, although I was pretty tired after the previous night and the lack of sleep. After dinner and playing around in some arcades (again) with my co-workers, I headed out to meet up with Shin-san and everyone at a ramen shop in Shin-Narashino. After that we headed back to my place, stopping at Jusco on the way at Inage Kaigan because I thought they would have bath towels for Ari and Bryan to use, since I didn’t have any extras. Since only the grocery store section of Jusco was open at 11PM, they had no bath towels so they guys made due with what they could find: cleaning towels. They each bought a bag of towels to use the next day. Note to self next time I plan on having guests: get some real guest towels.

Good to be back at Y'sMonday we slept late and went to Kappa in Hamano for some binge sushi eating. That night was the main event; finally a return to Y’s in Makuhari. I hadn’t been there since August, and for Ari and Bryan it had been even longer. Had reservations at the usual center counter courtesy of an e-mail to Matsushita-san. It was a great time. Had a pretty decent turnout, with Duy and Minami coming and people Bryan invited from Ibaraki. Food and drink was of normal standards, with the fried food, salads, Pocky, Nikka, yakitori, random mystery meat, and the dessert tray near the end that caused every female in the place to jump and race to the buffet. After closing we just loitered outside the Techno Garden for a while before most everyone headed into Tokyo while I went home to crash since I had to work the next morning. All in all a successful Y’s night. If they’re open during Golden Week, I think I’m going to definitely try and organize another.

Most of the week following (March 27~31) was pretty much spent recovering from a long sleep-deprived weekend and also battling a slight cold. Ari and Bryan spent most of the week in Tokyo. Since I can’t really take days off, I unfortunately had to miss all that. This past weekend, however made up for it, since I met up with them again for sakura and also the weirdest festival ever. This post is already way too long, though, so I’ll put it in it’s own blog entry to follow.

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