Crescent Fresh

Shashin

2006-05-12T01:35:00.000-07:00

pictures since November 2005(This is a MONSTER of a post so get ready...)

November 26th, 2005 - Tokyo Tower as seen from Roppongi Hills.

December 6th, 2005 - Lancer Evolution IIRS at Azuma JHS

December 11th 2005 - Snow on the way to Kusatsu, Gunma

December 16th 2005 - Saying good bye to Azuma JHS students before leaving for America
December 19th 2005 - The Christmas Tree, Hixson TN
(yes I know it's missing lights in the middle, no I didn't set up the tree -____- )

January 6th, 2006 - The Dog(before ^___^)

January 8th, 2006 - The Dog(after >____<)
January 12th, 2006 - Skiing with the elementary school at Tsumagoi, Gunma

January 14th, 2006 - Tokyo Dome(night)

January 15h, 2006 - Odaiba Tokyo
Fuji TV building
Mini-Statue of Liberty(yeah I know...)
Rock-a-billies jiving to Elvis

March 13th, 2006 - Azuma JHS Graduation
The Stage
The 1st and 2nd Year Students
Ready for the Final Farewell
The Students and Me

April 3rd, 2006 - Tokyo Hanami(see if you can find some famillar faces)
Asakusa, Tokyo(Sakura Style)
Ueno Park, Tokyo(Sakura Style)

May 3rd, 2006(Golden Week) Osaka

May 4th, 2006(Golden Week) Kyoto
Kinkakuji
Some Temple(?)
A Temple in the Mountains near Gion
Overlooking Kyoto from Gion Area Temple
On the way down from said temple
Kyoto Tower

May 5th, 2006(Golden Week) Nara
Gate to Toudaiji
Toudaiji
Budda Inside of Toudaiji
Something worth taking a photo of

May 6th, 2006 Osaka again
Osaka Overview
Nice pop-punk band, 楓(read Kaede or Maple?), playing an improv gig outside of Osaka station.

That's everything there is to see folks. I'm taking the MCAT again in August, gotta improve that 32, so I'll be doing less stuff until then.

smb

Hahaha, I love MechaMecha Ikiteru.

2006-05-01T09:21:00.000-07:00

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/102484/darth_vader_vs_japanese_police/
This is from MechaIke(translation: Living crazy?) What a great show.

p.s. copy and paste that link into your web browser.

You learn something new every day...

2006-04-25T05:47:00.000-07:00

fiber optic

2006-04-08T12:06:00.000-07:00

meh, So I have highspeed now. It's very very fast but I guess after living with ISDN for 8months I just became used to it.

Other than that, my village is no more. We merged with a neighbouring town so now I teach at 2 schools. The new school is great, they have a basketball team which I will help coach 3 days a week.

All my pictures are gone from Japan. Everything up to November. I have stuff from 11-3-05 I'll put them on the net maybe tomorrow and caption them all for you to look at.

Other then that, I wish I could get my car fixed >____< .

Oh the Humanity T___T

2006-03-27T18:12:00.000-08:00

My it's been a while hasn't it.
So since I have arrived in Azuma I've patiently endured using ISDN. At the beginning they told me, "March 1st!", which changed to "March 20th" and is now "March 31st".

Okay, March 31st, that only this Friday right? I can wait until then. That is until my laptop broke. Wow, right before I was to get my broadband connection my laptop breaks. I'm sure its the hard drive so today I'm going to look for a computer store and buy a cheap small one for testing.

I've got a ton of pictures I've been saving for after broadband but right now I'm too depressed to deal with this blog.

OH WHY NOW OF ALL TIMES!! :(

edit: The new hard drive worked but I just realized, i lost all of my pictures T___T .

Snowball Tournament (Yukigassen)

2006-02-12T07:19:00.000-08:00

In a near by town every February they have a Snowball Tournament. I wanted to make a team of Americans for the Sunday Men's tourney but we couldn't get enough people together. I did get to help coach some of my elementary school kids in the kids tournament however. Check out how they make the snowballs!
You pile up a bunch of snow into that contraption, damp the top down with water, and then smash the top down onto the snow and in no time you get a nice snowball like this!
What you see is a really dense and heavy projectile of death (they really hurt when you get hit). The rounds are played like games of capture the flag paintball. They have barricades and pallets set up to help to hide behind and take ground. You can win the match by either having more players left when the time ends, grabbing the opponent’s flag, “killing” all of the opposing team, or (and this was a really tricky rule) by default if more than 4 members of the opposing team enter your half (only a max of 3 people at a time are allowed into the opposing side’s half).

That snowball really hurts so most of the kids were to scared to do any good suicide strategies ( have 3 attackers run in a line to grab the flag, since they are kids they are really bad a throwing so I had them try that strategy, but after the 1^st time, which was successful, the ones that got hit didn’t want to do it again) So we had our two ace throwers take the single middle bunker and had 3 people ferry snowballs to them to keep the other team pinned. Then while occupied our smallest member (just under 4feet) would sneak in to grab the flag. It worked for 2 rounds, but then a lot of times 4 people would run for the flag when the enemy was low on people, and many times our runners would just forget to ferry snowballs. All in all it was good fun even though we lost.

Next year I’m going to make an All American Team and show them how to play!

Lovely compositions from the 9th graders

2006-02-07T06:08:00.000-08:00

Haha, here are some compositions that the 9th graders made. They sat in groups of 4 and wrote one sentence each. enjoy

"His name is Smith. In April 1999 he died. He was killed by David in Okinawa. Smith was shot by David and cut by Luis, because Smith became a monster."

"This is my dog which runs very fast. My dog was very cut, but my dog was killed one hundred years ago. The dog was killed by Shohei and Shunsaku, because they are very bad boys. Yes we are writing about you two, now stop reading our writing."

"There is a cat. Her name is fecese. It's cute! But, it stinks."

"I killed him. He was crazy man. But, he was a general. OH MY GOD!"

In other news IT'S ALMOST MARCH, THAT MEANS IM GETTING HIGH SPEED INTERNET SOON!!

w00t

insane

2006-01-22T05:36:00.000-08:00

I just heard Lightningbolt's 2 morro morro land on a popular Japanese TV station.

never thought the time would come where they would play lightning bolt on tv

We're all living in Amerika, Amerika, Amerika

2005-12-18T19:59:00.000-08:00

Wow I can't believe it. I acutally made it back on time. Just on Thursday I was thinking it would be impossible to make my flight.

You see in order to keep my Visa I would need a re-entry permit. My original plan was to go get it on Thursday afternoon by taking a 1/2 day off from work. After driving 2 hours to Takasaki city I arrive and start to fill out my application only to see that I needed my Alien Registration Card, same as a Green Card here in America. So I reach in my bag for my wallet only to not find it. I run back to my car to realize I didn't bring it with me. But I thought no big deal, I'll just drive home and then go back 1st thing on Friday morning.

I was so angry that I wasted all that time for nothing that I flew back home in less than an hour. I then started to look for my wallet, and I looked, and looked and looked. for around 8 hours at which point I had cleaned my house top to bottom and by now it was 3am. With out that card I wouldn't be able to leave Japan!!!

I woke up after 3hours of sleep and called my supervisor in a last call for help. She came to my house at 8:30 and told me "when was the last time you saw your wallet?"
Well It was tokyo, when I was showing it to some girls. So I called them up and asked if they had seen it. Afte about 40min I got a call and, whaddoyaknow!? My friend had it and never realized it!

By this point it was 10:00am. Now I had to race to tokyo, get my wallet, go back to takasaki, fill out the form and get my permit all before 4pm. And I still didn't know if I would even get my permit the same day I applied for it.

This looks like a job for SHINKANSEN!

NO!! NOT you! GO AWAY YOU, shoo shoo

Yeah there you go.

With the help of my buddy shinkansen I was able to go to tokyo and back in 1hour instead of the usual 4 that it takes.
And yes I was able to get my permit as soon as I turned in the form.

But the problems were not over yet. Once I got back to Azuma I still had to pack, and I also remembered I had left my digi-cam at the JHS. So at around 6pm(it was already -2C by now) I went there got my camera and said good bye. Only to realize that I had left my keys in the car and locked the doors :_(

Thankfully Mr. Arai was a pro at picking locks and was ready to leave in only 20min.

In the end I made it back ok, just really, really, really tired.

Hope to see some of you while I'm here.

sumir

Happenings in Japan

2005-12-04T23:30:00.000-08:00

Ah another long pause between updates!! Sorry for that but this time rather than it being apathy I was in fact really busy!

So if you remember a few posts ago I wrote about not having any internet for a LONG time. What was I to do? I had, 1) A lot of money, and 2) A lot of time. The solution then was....

Yes those gave me good company for a while but I couldn't just stay in my house wasting my precious little time in Japan so off I went to Tokyo(many times in fact)

On November 3rd I met up with Brittney Guy, Mie and her sisters to hang out in Tokyo.
Brittney, for those that don't know, tore a ligament in her foot resigning her to a wheelchair for almost 3 months(although now I think she can walk with a brace)
The first night I went out with Buri-chan(brittney), Mie, and Kousaku to Roppongi hills. Let me tell you that place has more foreigners than Japanese. Really strange, yet it was interesting.

Now Tokyo is a fairly modern city but let me tell you never go on the Tokyo Metro/ JR Yamanote-sen if you are in a wheelchair.

See, things are great in this picture. You can see that they even have designated spots for wheelchairs on the trains.

But it's getting off the trains and leaving the stations where the problems begin.
You see many of the older stops on the Tokyo Metro don't have elevators. But it's ok because with the help of 2 station attendees you can get from the platform to the 1st floor.

But then you need to go to ground level. And that is where you are out of luck. It took these 4 Station workers, plus 2 more coordinating ahead to get Brittney out of the subway station. While it was hard work you could tell they enjoyed helping out because I doubt there had ever been a person in a wheelchair come through this station, let alone a loud and boisterous foreigner!

That's Mie pushing the chair.

So we have arrived to our destination, which was the Imperial Place outer garden!! It's a gorgeous place so I will just let the pictures speak for themselves.

Overlooking the gardens

The Imperial Moat(I guess that's what it's called)

The most famous bridge in Japan(I forgot it's name) that leads into the inner-grounds(no one is allowed in there).

Our best friend posing for the bridge(yeah this guy was the cause of a LOT of attention)

And lastly the outer grounds(that gravel made it impossible to push the wheelchair, but we somehow managed)

Later that Night Brittney, Mie, Kaori, and Yuka, and I went out for some drinks!

After that crazy fun weekend I went to Kusatsu to check out the place and go to the onsens(hot springs) Kusatsu is in Gunma about 1 hour from where I live. It also has a lot of ties to Germany hence the German-like architecture. The water in Kusatsu is rich in sulfur and some other stuff that's supposed to be good for your skin.

Central Kusatsu(those rows of trays are used to collect and filter out the minerals from the water for use in some stuff)

A Kusatsu hot spring, although this one was just for scenery and not for public use.

After that the group and I went out for some karaoke at this Hard Rock bar in Kusatsu.

Top row(L to R) Me, Nick, Will, Karla
Bottom row(L to R) Mikako, ?, Lucia

Ok there is still a lot more but I'll leave you guys for now.
But, here is a taste of things to come! Later,

and so it begins...

2005-11-15T00:54:00.000-08:00

let's continue this documentation from where we last left off.
I'll call this post the Halloween chronicles.

You see I had this ultimate dream of finding a mass of orange pumpkins for the 5th and 6th graders to carve up. I jumped the gun a bit as I had them already sketching out their designs before I knew where to even look. Needless to say, they were not waiting for me at the supermarket. So I turned for help to the Board of Education and man did they come in big time for me. The BoE contacted the Agriculture department of Azuma village which documents which farmers are growing what, and in no time

BAM PUMPKIN SAKUSEN SEIKO(pumpkin plan success)!!!

So now I had the pumpkins in had and all was well. Infact I decided to help out at the local english cramschool(aka juku)'s Halloween party.

me on the right

Ok so let's enjoy a pumpkin carving( the "let's enjoy a..." moniker is very popular here)

The 5th graders have their weapons of choice and are ready to shred pumpkins

and now some ramdom pics

Crazy 6th graders

hAHA EVEN the vice principal wants in

there are more pumpkins (total of 12 for 60 students) but it just takes too long to upload them all

and last but not least is Halloween at the yochien(kindergarten)

too... many... of them.... can't.... breath.... plz send help....

ok so i'm a liar

2005-11-11T19:44:00.000-08:00

ok so i lied about updating this thing "frequently". but then again did i really lie? my idea of frequent may be different than yours. chew on that one for a while.

smb

WOWthe 2nd

2005-11-02T23:58:00.000-08:00

wow so I bet some of you are wondering where I have been these past 3 weeks. Well to cut to the chase I accidentally deleted my username/pw from the login of my internet connection. Now this wouldn't be a problem at all in America as a simple call to you ISP at anytime of the day will get you back on the interweb in no time. However, I keep on forgetting that I live in a 3rd world country masquerading itself as 1st world.

You see in Japan an ordeal like this can only be started by a phone call during the hours of 10-4 Monday-Thursday. After the phone call the mail you a form to request them to send you your username/ip to you. Now this form cannot be printed online and must be mailed(don't ask why I simply just don't know). After the form arrives and is PROPERLY filled out and sent to them they then mail you your new username and password.

I started this process back on the morning of Friday the 22nd of October and it has just now finished here on Wednesday at 11:57am. Wow man wow... that’s all I can say as Japan really is bogged down in inane customs.

Now since my last post a LOT of post-worthy things have occurred. I'll be updating very frequently until I am up to date.

later,

smb

Today, today

2005-10-17T16:40:00.000-07:00

Ah today turned out much better that I thought it would.
1st- I only got 3hrs of sleep thanks to someone in Nashville.
2nd- It is Monday, that means kindergarten, which in turn means 80 super hyper 3-5yo kids.

but thankfully today they were rather calm. They did not want to play "topple the teacher" and were happy to just color in some Halloween stuff. Before I went to kindergarten I was at the BoE and finally turned in my application for sat. television. So in just 2 weeks I will have real TV, none of this public free stuff that I have right now.

At the middle school I was treated to a great surprise. The JHS 2nd and 3rd year girls had cooking today and they had to choose a teacher to give their food to and whaddoyaknow? I had a nice home cooked meal ready and waiting for me when I arrived.

I was a bit suspicious that the food was poisoned or messed with at first because the girls would always peak into the teacher's lounge and see if I had tired it yet and then yell at me to hurry up and eat it.

The food was good, and if it was poisoned it was a good poison because I still feel great, but if you don't see anymore updates then you can be rest assured that the home-ec students succeeded in their plans :(.

To top it all off I got to leave work a nice 1/2 hour early.

ahh a great day indeed. Even with what happened in Nashville and the fact that it's been cloudy/rainy now for over 18 days can't bring me down.

And no none of you will ever know what really brought me down so don’t ask ;)

Funfun

2005-10-10T23:53:00.000-07:00

Oh yeah forgot to mention, I made some cool friends on friday. After basketball we all went to the hotsprings to rest up then went to karaoke and ate good food. Crazy bunch they are, I thought most of them were still in highschool but they're all 19-21.

Fun times in Azuma.

Sunday I was supposed to head to Tokyo to see American Analogue Set and Her Space Holiday but the train never came. I'm not sure why, maybe due to bad weather. That did suck.

more next time.

edit:(2am)

wow, i just saw a fantastic movie on TV. It's a chineese film called "Beautiful(pretty?) Mother".
It's a sad story about a single mother trying to raise her mentally challenged son. The shots of urban china are fantastic as is the acting and the plot.

now you might be asking how was I able to understand a chineese movie? well, thankfully it was subtitled in japanese. Yeah 4 years of japanese plus 2 months of living here so far are what allowed me to understand it. but wow was it sad... yet it was good...

any know what the title is in chineese?

edit the 2nd
so it's called Piao liang ma ma with Gong Li as the leading actress, english title Breaking the Silence.

check it out if you can.

random quotes

2005-10-08T19:42:00.000-07:00

some funny quotes i've heard in japan

can you use chopsticks?

what does "f*** you" mean?(4th grader)

can you use chopsticks?

what's your type of woman?(3rd grader)

can you use chopsticks?

do you come from America every day?

can you use chopsticks?

what's your ideal breast size on a woman?(again by a 3rd grader)

can you use chopsticks?

do you know japanese?(asked in japanese)

can you use chopsticks?

yup so all the kids here are pervs and they think chopsticks don't exist outside of Asia(really i get asked this question almost every day)

and I wouldn't change living here for anything :)

Ahhh Tokyo

2005-09-26T22:40:00.000-07:00

What a great 4 days it’s been. This past Thursday I headed for Tokyo to meet up with Dr. Auer and several past VIPPS(Vanderbilt Institute of Public Policy) people. It was really good to catch up with Dr. Auer, Mie, and the rest of them.

One of the more interesting parts was talking about how Vanderbilt Football was 3-0(4-0 now). Yeah I would never have thought I would have said "3-0" with"Vanderbilt Football" in the same sentence. It’s sad that Vanderbilt has some of their worst seasons ever while I was there only to now make a complete 180 right after I leave.

Tokyo is a great city. There is just so much to do there (especially when you compare it to my little village in the mountains). There are concerts, cool stores, game centers, movie theaters ( in Ikebukuro there are more than 5 in less than a block), clubs, bars it just goes on and on. Really if I still didn’t owe my Aunt $1500 for this computer I’m using right now, I would have spent a lot these past 4 days ;)

I found out that it’s not to expensive to go to Tokyo(only $20-30) but coming back is ridiculously cheap( I’m talking about $1-2). This is because there is no one at my little village train station to take your ticket so you can pay. I guess I got lucky tonight so maybe I can’t do this forever but hey it’s a good deal while it lasts.

Another good thing about Tokyo is there are a ton of music shops. I was able to find “Twin Cinema” by The New Pornographers and “Illinoise” by Sufjan Stevens for a good price.

The 1^st place I went in Tokyo was Asakusa. Asakusa is the historic district of Tokyo. The entrance is the Kaminari-Mon(Thunder/Lightning-Gate)

Asakusa also has a massive market place with a ton of random things.

there is even this store!!

Mwahahaah yeah I’m that famous in Japan.

Here is the famous 5 story pagoda(4th incarnation I believe, as it was a famous target for invaders to burn down)

(ehh turn your heads to the left)

One more picture

We then adventured off to Shinjuku, which we all know well enough. We then headed off to Tokyo Disney Sea which was a nice place if it wasn’t for the fact that there were so many people that you couldn’t go to more than 5 rides.
Disney sea pics

Oh I know a lot of you were wondering what type of events were held during the sports festivals. The middle school students had your typical track and field events

An obstacle course
crazy bats

this happend a lot, rofls those crazy bats

And a dance routine.

The elementary students had more interesting events such as The Giant Ball relay ( where 3 kids try to carry a massive, 7ft diameter, dodge ball around the track) , Tug-of-war( this was cool because they 1^st did all the kindergarten Vs. the 1^st graders, then all both Vs. 4 teachers. You would be surprised how strong 60 3-5yr old kids are) and game of that sort.

Recently I’ve decided that despite all the fun I’m tired of going to trips every weekend. I think I’ll just stay in and around the Gunma area for the next month or so.

That’s all for now, next time I’ll post about the 4 famous mountain road passes in Gunma which have spawned a long running comic, a TV show, and several movies.

smb

PS THIS GOES TO ALL OF YOU, BUT ESPECIALLY ZHE AND OR YIZHONG,

IF YOU CAN A HOLD OF VALID STARCRAFT CDKEY PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE SEND IT TO ME!!!!
(edit 9-27-05 to add the pictures)

Sports festivals and grapes(not sour ones =P)

2005-09-09T23:24:00.000-07:00

Folks it's been a while hasn't it? This past week(last sunday and tommorow) have been the middle school, elementary, and kindergarten sports competitions. We don't really have such things in America. What they do is split the school up in to four "dans"(Japanese for "band/group") Azuma is surrounded by 4 famous mountains so they teams are named Akagi, Shirane, Miyagi, and Haruna.

They then fight against each other to see who will be the school champion. Now this would never work in America for we all know how heated parents get at school games. A few teams had several disabled students in their group and they never complained once. In fact the other teams were very proud for them. That's Japan for you though. In 16 years of American education I never had any interaction with any special education students. In America they keep them separate from others and rightfully so, for they would be teased, picked on, and made fun of to no end. The situation is the exact opposite in Japan. I've never seen any of the other students even so much as patronize the special-ed kids. Almost everyone goes out of their way to help them.

Oh and just so you know these sports festivals are not to be confused with "field days". The middle school students spend most of their 40 day summer break and the 2 weeks after preparing for it, and same for the elementary kids. In the days leading to the main event they didn't even have class. Sports are a serious thing here. In fact when you give a customary self-intro to your co-workers/ students they find it strange if you don't mention your fav. sports.

I’ve decided I like all of my classes in all 3 schools. I mean you can't help but love going to the kindergarten and pre-school. and the elementary kids are a lot of fun, but they can't speak much English(well all but this 3rd grader who I swear is fluent). And the middle schoolers are pretty fun. oddly though the jhs3rd years(9th graders) love slipknot!!( yeah I know ??)

My 1st full week of class won't be until October and it's done on purpose. This way I'll have fully adjusted to living in Japan and teaching.

In other news I'll probably head to Tokyo for sight seeing with Brittney Guy(maybe)(from vandy) and Mie(the old hall coordinator).

Well tomorrow morning is the sports festival for the elementary students so I'll be heading to bed now.

oyasuminasai !!!!! >=O

edit. grapes here rock

Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution II and the First Day of Classes.

2005-08-29T18:34:00.000-07:00

A lot has happened these past few days.

First let's talk about the more important things, ahmm by that of course I mean my car.

I first saw this particular car 3 weeks ago in a place called Naganohara. Mr. Joker(as in the picture down below) found it for me and it was a good price. When we arrived it was already 8pm but Hoshino-san was still up working on, to our surprise, his rally race car. Little did we know that Hoshino was in fact one of the top rally drivers in the Japan Rally Championship, and an Evolution(evo) fanatic. He was really shocked to see a gaijin like me to know so much about cars and was happy to stop his race-prep and talk with us. I only got to drive the car a little bit but by then I was pretty sure I would be buying this car.

Fast-forward to last Friday. Mr. Joker and I were scheduled to drive back up there for a true test drive, as Mr. Hoshino had finished the paperwork to make the car legal to drive. That morning, however, Hoshino called and told us he would over and save us the trip. That afternoon I test drove the car and the only words to describe the drive were, It's a beast.

For those that don't know the evo ii rs was the lightest of all the evolution models and in fact has an insanely high power/weight ratio. To put it into perspective it has more power than my s2000 and it weighs less. This is of course due to the massive turbocharger that the car comes with.

A car with a turbocharger is in reality like 2 different cars. If you want to go slow and take it easy you can, but if you give it some stick the car takes off like no other... needless to say we were all pretty scared the first time I floored the pedal.
ok enough yap about the car, here are more pics!!!

Now to the next big thing, it was the 1st day of class today!!!!

Let me tell you, I was really nervous as I didn't know how the kiddos would react to my lesson.
Thankfully, the kindergarten kids were fantastic as was the middle school 1st years. Those 3,4 and 5yo kids are like freaking ticks though. They grab a hold of you and will not let go. It was hard trying to move with 5 little kids holding on to your ankles giggling the whole time. not to mention how they all jumped me and then grabbed my wallet, cellphone, keys, and business cards then ran away screaming while throwing them ever which way. But they are so cute I couldn't help but forgive them.

ok for less important things, I did finally unpack all of my luggage after a full month of having them just sit in my living room.

That’s all for now
ja-ne

I'M RIIIIIIIIICH !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2005-08-25T21:05:00.000-07:00

payday... is a very... good day

there is nothing like 3g's to help cool you off in this hot Japanese summer.

in other news since sunday i've enjoyed the company of 2 earthquakes and a massive super-typhoon.

also for those visitors who have been wondering why sumir hasn't been updating his blog, well because there really hasn't been anything worth posting...

okok if you really must know the most exciting thing I did this week was...

you see that?? That my friends is the 1st dinner I've ever made, yeah 1st real dinner, all from scratch. Isn't that something?(btw that is curry rice)
IRON CHEF AIN'T GOT NOTHING ON ME

If this typhoon passes quickly then tommrow I'll be giving 2 speeches in front of all the students. Let me tell you this, if you think learning vocabulary is hard in another language then try learning 300 names, man sometimes the kids will say their name and I forget it instantly.

sigh.... i'm bored here. I wish I had some non-educational tv channels, I wish I was in the city, but wait!!!

TOMMOROW= LANCER EVOLUTION II DAY bwahahahha I hope the car will be in good condition so I can buy it.

konnichiwa (o^-^)b

PICTURES

2005-08-17T23:22:00.000-07:00

8-1-05 1ST night in japan

Shinjuku street(aka the Lost in Translation street)

The view from the meeting room(the city goes well beyond the horizon)

Your host extrodinare lost in shinjuku gets the girl helping him find his way back to take a picture.

8-3-05 Off to Gunma!

Group B Gunma JETs nervously awaiting the start of the introduction cerimonies

Drinking party with Board of Education people and my pred.(L-R Old man Yuumoto, Mr Joker, Ann-Carrene)

This one is just for you Karen, this puppy at the tonkatsu shop where the drinking party was ran up and started stealing our food. That little punk.

8-4-05 1st Day of work
but 1st here are some picture of my house

You see that busy road? It's the reason why I wake up at 4am every day >=(

This is where I work, damn Azuma is a beautiful place =)

8-7-05 Azuma Summer Festival

Ahhh, ground golf, didn't I say Azuma is beautiful?

Ahh the prizes , you see that white wrapped gift? BM means biri maker(aka last place) and inside it is a bunch of trash bags.

Azuma festival before

...and Azuma Summer Festival after.

but in the end we were still able to see some sweet fireworks(fireworks in the mountains is a whole different experience guys, read RESONANCE)

8-8-05 - Present
ahhh Nissan Skyline GTR how much I wanted thee...

ehh I did get this sweet cell phone though

8.17.05 GAIKOKUJIN TOUROKUSYO GETTOOOOOOO!!!!
translation(alien registration card GET!!!!) you would be surprised how many more things I can do with this piece of plastic. But, I won't surprise ya.

Ok, I hope you enjoyed the pictures.

ja-ne

smb

EARTHQUAKES!!!

2005-08-16T12:00:00.000-07:00

wow, here I am sitting at my desk feeling very sleepy when all of a sudden my cell phone started to move and my green tea cup tipped over. all the blinds in the building were swaying back and forth. it was pretty cool, it feels like a giant massage chair. it was relaxing. only 3.0 richter. it would have been facking terrifying if it was any larger.

still alive,

smb

The Gunma JETs

2005-08-16T09:46:00.000-07:00

Living in the country side means at then end of the day you don`t have much to do. Also the fact that I still do not have a car(though I will be buying one soon, but I`ll save this talk for a later post) means that I am stuck to my house most days after work. Thank god for the local JETs though, I guess they must be as bored as I am because they will drive 1-1.5hrs to meet up with each other.

All in all, the other JETs are pretty cool. At the Gunma State Orientation I actually met a person who has heard of Wolf Eyes, Slint, American Analogue Set, etc... For the timebeing I don`t have much to do during the weekdays but I finally have interweb at my house.

You know there was a time that I thought that 150kpbs was fast, and that was when we were stuck using 28.8kbps freaking 9 years ago. WTF this is the land of technology JAPAN and I can`t even use SKYPE to call home. ehhh sometimes I do wish I had requested urban placement. The boondocks are boring but I hope that changes when I get my sweet as CAR =P.

If I don`t get dragged into playing baseball tonight I`ll make one more post tonight and upload a slew of pictures that I took since I`ve been in nippon.

enough for now

smb

azuma summer festival

2005-08-08T11:08:00.000-07:00

Saturday was the first free day I have had since 7-28. All I did was read some books, go out side for a bike ride, and then after a nice dinner I bought a cell phone. Japanese cell phones are insane. To really get an idea of what they are like just think if a computer that fits in the palm of your hand. I wanted to get a super-cool cell phone but that one was Japanese only. At the time I thought that I had better get a bilingual one because I would not be able to put new contacts into my phone but later I realized that all my cowokers are Japanese and would have showed me how to do that anyways. Oh well, I still like my new phone a lot.

Sunday I went to the Azuma summer festival. Now in my previous post I mentioned about having to play in a ``Grand`` Golf tournament with the Mayor being in my group. I arrived expecting to see many middle-aged business　men ready to head over to the local golf course. To my surprise I was greeted by a lot of elderly. I was the youngest person there by a good 40years. Also, the ``Grand`` Golf course wasn’t all that grand as the golf balls were the size of tennis balls and the golf clubs where like cricket bats. While wandering around the course with the Mayor I noticed that what everyone was calling Grand Golf was actually GROUND golf. For a little lesson in Japanese they had been pronouncing GROUND as GU RA N DO, which to me sounded like GRAND. I told them that GU RA U N DO would be a better pronunciation but they didn’t seem to care. Anyway back to the Ground Golf tournament. I was in a nice group with the Mayor and by the end of the 18 hole I thought I did pretty well. Not that great but not horrible when compared to the rest of my group. Only after the scores were calculated I was dead Last. It wasn’t so bad as since I was in last place I got a special prize, which included a t-shirt of the azuma-mura ground golf tournament, hat, and mug.

The tournament ended at 2pm and the 1st activities of the festival started there after. It wasn’t that bad, mostly various things for kids ect... with a nice fireworks festival at the end. I walked around introduced myself to scores of people and students. Oh there is one thing about Azuma that is strange. There is a dearth of people who are 20-27 years old. At the festival there were 5 of us and that includes me. In azuma you are either a little kid or 40+, there is no middle ground. Most of the young people are my co-workers so I had a good time talking to them. They asked if I brought any Jack Daniels with me and I told them it would arrive soon. The festival was going great but by 5:30 it became very dark and windy, and by 6:00 it was raining like mad. all the tents, chairs, and even the stage were blown away. It was fun trying to run back to the main buildings while trying to dodge flying furniture. Most of the festival was to occur after 8:00 but that naturally cancelled. Most of the people ran away, but the festival organizers decided to wait until 8:00 to see if the rain would slow down enough for the fire works. Thankfully it did and the fireworks went off without a hitch.

Today I will have the interweb set up for my house so I should be able to upload all the pictures since I landed in Japan. Until then, matta-ne

smb
　

i <3 gunma

2005-08-04T21:33:00.000-07:00

Gunma is fantastic. It really is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been too. I really really wish I could upload the pictures I have taken but I dont have the internet set up at my house.

Speaking of the house... it's HUGE. I have so much space I dont know what to do with it. Right now its usually 90+ outside so I shut myself in the only room with an A/C. The night time is not so bad and since I am so high up it drop into the high 60s.

These past few days have been very hectic with meetings and then traveling all the way from Tokyo to Gunma. Since I arrived to Azuma I have done about 50 self-introductions in Japanese (they call `um jikoshyoukai)

The local JETs here are really cool as is my pred. The only problem with Azuma is that I have to drive every where. In Japan the legal blood alcohol limit is ZERO so not much drinking will happen once I get my car.

BTW Howard, the car leasing guy said he has a 2000 prelude in for only 140 a month. Sounds great!! but he did not have anything newer nor did he have any old skylines etc... Two of my co-workers have nissan Zs(350 and 2xx) and the guy with the 2xxZ races his a lot.

well I am starting to reach my limit for Japanese as i dont understand a lot of what they are trying to explain to me as I fill out various forms etc... I don`t think they understand me when I explain a lot of things either. I guess I have no choice but to crack open the old text-books and start studying.

The Azuma summer festival is this sunday and I am supposed compete in some sort of Golf competition with the Mayor. I suck at golf but the Mayor said even kids can do this(they call it Grand Golf, what the that means I dont know but it may just be Put-Put golf)

Well , tonight is the 1st night i`ll have to myself since I have arrived. I think when it cools down a bit I will get on my bike and ride around the village a bit.

Instead of putting pictures into old post I am going to make a giant picture thread and I will try to caption it as best as possible

That`s all for now,

smb

Shinjuku

2005-08-01T04:23:00.000-07:00

Shinjuku tonight.

It's going to be crazy. More pictures to come.

I went to this place called kabuki-cho, which is the notorious part of Shinjuku. But, it wasn't dangerous at all. The worst part of kabuki-cho was being accosted by transvestites.

Karen, I did find a really cool pet store with a alot of puppies. I tried to take a picture of them but was thrown out of the store by the owner.

While wandering around kabuki-cho I ended up at a natsu matsuri(summer festival). It was really cool to see all the taiko drums and decorations.

Tonight(8-2-05) is my last night in Tokyo. I will head off to middle of nowhere Japan tommorow morning.

oh and POST YOUR COMMENTS!! =P

wow

2005-07-31T08:22:00.000-07:00

quick post...

tokyo is insane. it's crazy!!! At least japanese people can understand me when I spoke. Not bad for taking it for only 4 years.

I am glad I wont be living in the big city. Shinjuku is great and all but it's not for me.

Tommorow the boring meetings start. If I live through them I can make some more updates. I'll redo this post later when I can upload my pictures.

good by for now.

EDIT
Good by America(Detroit)

and 15 hours later.... Hello Japan

oh man

2005-07-27T17:46:00.000-07:00

Ahhh!! So many things to pack and so little space. Hopefully all my stuff will fit...

Last days in the States

2005-07-24T19:03:00.000-07:00

Ok, these last few days are going to be hectic. I have so many things to do before I head for Japan. Untill I am settled down in my little village in Japan my updates will be sparse.

Today I said farewell to my friends Kole, Howard, Melody, and Dan. Here they are looking happy.