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…is the name of the internet cafe I’m in right now. I was walking around Goi station, near where I live, and saw this huge sign with “HOT ONE BREATH” on it. This being Japan, I assumed it was some kind of sketch establishment, but instead its a small or medium sized internet cafe that is actually one of the cleanest I’ve been in here. So far so good. It also seems to be fairly cheap, so I’ll likely be coming here more until I finally get internet in my apartment.

Speaking of, life has been very good for the most part since coming to Japan. Work, except for the long hours of usually 12 or 1PM until 9PM every day Tuesday to Saturday, is actually pretty fun. One thing has kept things from being perfect, though, and that is a little magic item called the Foreign Alien Registration Card (外国人登録証明書), or Gaijin Card for short. Surprisingly, when registering for the thing the second day after moving into my apartment, I was told that it would take 3 or 4 weeks for them to process it. I’m pretty sure it didn’t take that long to get a Gaijin Card in the past. Anyway, since that is pretty much the main ID for a foreigner living here, not having it has been a bit difficult. First off, I wasn’t able to get a cell phone through DoCoMo, which was a pain in the butt because I was really planning on getting one from them, because I think they have the sweetest phone models. I was at least able to get one with au, and to be honest, I’ve been really happy with it, so no harm no foul. By the way, this is the phone I ended up getting: the Sony Ericsson W43S.

I am also unable to get internet at my apartment until I get my Gaijin Card. I suppose it makes sense, since they want to make sure that I’m a legal resident and everything, but what a pain in the butt. Even after I get my card next week and finish the application, it will take around a month for them to get internet service, since apparently no one in my building already has DSL or fiber internet. So I will likely not have a regular internet connection at my apartment until like mid November. My predecessor at AEON, who lived in my apartment before me, was able to steal wireless from someone until a few months ago, but it disappeared and he didn’t bother to apply for net since he was leaving anyway. Ah well. Internet cafes are not bad, I suppose, but going from my addiction of sitting on the internet for at least a few hours a day to having it only maybe once a week, is a big change. Luckily, my cell phone is helping me cope a bit, since I can do e-mail on it, view some webpages, and read Gmail. Gotta love Japanese technology.

Yesterday and today were my days off, and I am happy to say that I accomplished very little. I was at least able to do some shopping, including buying a nice Japanese-style (by that I mean for use on the floor) chair thing, which is exactly what I was looking for. And it only cost 1500 yen (about $13)! Shopping has to be done either before work or on my days off, since getting off at 9 or 9:30 everyday means that everywhere except for convenience stores and restaurants are closed. The other day, though, I went to the Ito-Yokado department store on my lunch break and bought Pokemon Diamond. I do have to say, it was well worth it. Definitely an awesome game. Uh…and no I am not a nerd. OK fine, shut up.

I don’t know what else I should update you all on right now. To be honest, my life has been pretty boring, since I don’t really do anything exciting. Right now, my usual routine consists of waking up around 11, watching some TV and being lazy in my apartment, then going to work from 12:45ish until 9 or 9:30ish. Work consists of planning lessons, which is pretty easy, since most materials are already made and in the Staff Room, meaning I just flip through the text book for that class, grab a folder of materials, write down some notes, and I’m good to go. I teach on average 4 or 5 lessons a day, each 50 minutes long. Saturdays are about 7 or 8 lessons, but half of them are repeats of classes I’ve already taught that week so it’s super easy. Then I teach the classes. The rest of the day I am sitting in my office/classroom, playing on my phone or doing other random goofing off. My staff is real chill, which is good because I have to hang out with them in the school all day. The school itself is half a floor of a building, with a lobby and reception area, 2 or 3 staff rooms, and about 5 classrooms. Small but efficient. After work every day, I usually grab some dinner at one of the nearby restaurants, then go home to either play DS, watch TV, or both. I sleep around 1AM every day, and then repeat this schedule. Every now and then I’ll vary it up by going to Chiba to hang out with Blanchard, but so far not very exciting.

I went to Tokyo Game Show 2 weekends ago, but I am too lazy to write up anything about it. It was sweet, but really crowded and hot. Lots of nerdy otaku guys taking pictures of booth girls. Very different atmosphere from E3. But either way, it was sweet. Played Metal Gear on PSP, saw Devil May Cry 4, Bleach on Wii, and many other random sweet games. The new Dragonball game on PS2 actually looks amazing, with pretty much any character EVER available to play, all the way from the original Dragonball up to GT. Movie characters also. We also saw Morgan Webb from G4 in the lobby/food area of TGS, and talked to her briefly. I don’t know exactly when the Wii comes out, but I really really want to buy one. I am still very confident that it is going to beat the PS3, if not based on price alone. XBox 360 is already pretty much out of the race, which I think it just hilarious.

I am going to get out of Hot One Breath now, and probably get some ramen for dinner, since aside from Family Restaurants, Goi pretty much only has ramen shops and sketch hostess and “snack” bars. It was embarrassing applying for internet, because they did a lookup of my address and there were all these sketch bars on the list, and I was like “yeah, that’s my neighborhood alright.” The live-action Detective Conan drama special is on tonight at 9, so I will probably be lame and sit at home for 3 hours watching TV.

Like I said in that last post, I’ll be heading to Tokyo at the beginning of August for about 2 weeks for Handi-Craft, to do research and stuff. All expenses paid, which is going to be absolutely great. Although I have to come back to the US between that and the AEON gig in Japan, I figure it will still be a helpful trip to getting things ready for my year contract with AEON, aside from being a ton of fun. Here’s the stuff I’m planning on doing while I’m there; let me know if you guys can think of anything else I can/should do…

• meet up with the JET kids at their orientation at the beginning of August.
  (I might actually be staying in the same hotel)
• sign up for my cell phone contract, get my phone
• Namja Town
• see Shin-san and some of the Kanda kids
• visit the AEON school I’m going to work at
• bum around the area, see what’s around
• hopefully convince my AEON predecessor to show me my future apartment
• leave a box or two of my stuff at AEON, so that I don’t have to ship boxes of clothes and belongings from the US
• buy some DS games, like the Kanji Dictionary and the Opera Browser

I can’t think of anything else at the moment. I’ll add them here as an edit if I do. Aside from getting a sneak peak at my AEON life in Ichihara, I think the second most important thing for me might be getting my phone. I’m a nerd, but seriously, it’s pretty much impossible to be in contact with anyone in Japan without a phone. I’ll be there for two weeks, so I might as well get a phone to e-mail people, and that way I’ll have one as soon as I deplane in September as well. I have a feeling the AEON orientation process doesn’t have a scheduled time to get phones, since everyone will likely get them in their placement cities. My only concern is that I won’t have my address yet, so I’ll have to check with AEON if I can just put the office address down for now. I won’t need my gaijin card or visa yet, since if you have a credit card you can start a phone contract no problem. I think I’m going to get a DoCoMo. Black Tornado served me well last summer, after all, and AU doesn’t give me a discount since I’m not a student anymore.

The new cell phone that I got around Thanksgiving takes somewhat decent pictures compared to my old one, so I can use them to illustrate the stuff I see all the time (and complain about). I haven’t posted any here yet, so I figured I might as well start. I don’t know if I’ll make entire sections under Pictures for cell phone pics or just post them as needed here on the blog. For starters, here are a few to tide you over. I’m on blog fire; you other people with blogs (*cough*Ari, Nick, Alicia) need to catch up. I’m bored and want to read something, haha.

First, nothing special, just showing off my phone’s (poor) ability to take panoramic pictures:

Next, from my trip to the Mitsuwa shopping center in Chicago. I hate Pe Yonjun, and he is even sold here for Japanese housewives living in America to go nuts over.

Finally, I mentioned this last week in a post. I saw at CompUSA here in St. Louis an old couple who both had the EXACT same hair doo: it was a poorly dyed brown afro. Maybe they’re big fans of Welcome Back Kotter.

Quick post kids. Here’s my new cell phone e-mail address. Go ahead and get in contact with me through this if it cant wait for me to check computer email. I don’t have internet at my apartment, so its quicker to use the cell phone one.

Well I’m sitting here at the SALC (computer lab type place at Kanda) with Seth. We just ate a bunch of food at the cheap (quality, not price. almost like America) Chinese buffet. Derek just called me a minute ago, and man my phone must be the loudest device on the planet. I didn’t turn it on silent, and the thing was going nuts. Oh, it’s also the same ring tone as Kamen Rider Kaixa uses in the show, because I’m that awesome.

Maybe Mario Kart (Super Famicom/SNES) tonight at Isoroku’s. Koopa will dominate.

Let’s see….yesterday, Saturday, I did absolutely nothing. That is slightly overexaggerated, but not by much. I woke up around 9 or 10 and bummed around. Got my TV that I rented here at the dorm, and got that all plugged up (it’s only a 14 inch screen, but I can watch weird Japanese TV now). Actually, weird Japanese TV probably deserves it’s own blog post.

I decided to not go on the “Tokyo Tour” with the other IES kids and the e-pals (have I explained that these e-pals are Kanda students who are basically supposed to lead us around? We each got “assigned” to one a little bit before we left, and conversed via e-mail. Mine was at the airport the first day, but haven’t seen her since. I guess I’m just that great.) So, instead of going on the tour to places like Harajuku, where I’ve been several times, I decided that I would be better off on my own. And what did that amount to? Why, taking a nap in the afternoon that lasted until around 4 or 5PM! Bryan came back to the dorm, I had dinner here with him (first and only meal of the day), and that was about it. I fell asleep before 10 while watching バイオハザード (Resident Evil).

Sunday: Woke up today around 7, nearly in perfect time to watch Dekaranger and Kamen Rider Blade on TV. After that, slept for another hour. Finally showered and got out of the dorm by noon. I was really bored so I decided to go to Akihabara. And lucky me, by the time I had left it had started raining. Actually, despite the slight drizzle, it was nice. The weather was about 10 degrees F cooler than normal, which was a welcome change. Made my way to Akihabara, AKA dork’s paradise. Didn’t buy anything except for 2 little keychains which costs less than 300 yen. Spent a few hundred yen in arcades, which netted me an old-school Super Mario Bros hand towel. Yippie.

After a bunch of emails and cmails on the ol’ 携帯(cell phone), I coordinated a few people to get together for dinner. Note that I am seriously going to STOP using my phone as much as I have been, particularly in downloading stupid stuff (ie, Kamen Rider ringtones), as my bill is going to be ridiculous. I actually spend a good portion of the evening worrying about this. Here on Japanese cell phones, you get charged by the “packet,” some unknown, mysterious unit of data. I have no idea how many bytes or kilobytes a packet is composed of, but I DO know that I’ve transferred a buttload of them. Yarg…..

That was about all that happened of even remote interest to me this weekend. It’s about 10:30 now, I have to write a 6oo character paper for tomorrow (less than a page), and on top of that, I also have to wear a shirt and tie for tomorrow’s 入学式 (New Student Ceremony). Note that it’s even worse, since it’s not the big, all-school event that these things usually are. Japanese schools start the year in April, not September. So now is the beginning of the second semester at Kanda. So the only kids who are going to be here tomorrow are the foreign exchange kids. What fun is that?