May 2006 Archives

So I spent 5 days in Kobe, took 300 pictures, spent 3 days in lectures, and enjoyed 200 grams of Kobe beef. So heres the lowdown of the conference hell and the nightly debauchery complete with pictures.

We got to Kobe around noon after taking a fun filled one hour shinkansen ride from Fukuyama where, as always, I spent the entire ride sleeping. I don't know what it is about me and moving vehicles, but I always snooze. So we had plenty of time before having to check in to the conference so we all decided to have lunch. Luckily for us I remembered that there was a friendly neighborhood Wendy's next to the station and we all enjoyed spicy chicken sandwiches and french fries. Though in all honesty I was tempted to try out the Chicken Curry Sandwich.

We took a shuttle bus to the pier and found our hotel. A fabulous and overly expensive place that I could never afford. It was a bit overwhelming actually. 900 JETs having out and having a good time. I mean I knew next to no one which was a good indication that I have not mingled enough with people in my area. (Fukuyama is a cool enjoy party town on its own!) After some wonderful official opening speeches we were herded off to several seminars. I picked one on 'Learning Japanese' which could be boiled down to: set goals, do things that make you speak Japanese, get a Japanese girlfriend. Great presentation. The second presentation was with the infamous Genki Richard who has the combines genki-ness of 300 shogako ichinensei. The insanity.

That evening a group of us Hiroshimaken JETs hit the town (what good is a business conference without hitting the town?). This involved us buying a dinner of Kobe beef. Which is probably the most expensive beef on the planet and we soon found out why. Beef that melts in your mouth is hard to come by and I have no regrets about spending 10,000¥ on a meal. It was soooooo gooooood! Plus we got bibs. Which is always fun. Afterwards a fair amount of drinking and dancing was involved. As would be expected.

The second day of the conference was filled with lectures. Some good some bad. Bill and I attended a 'using music in the classroom' lecture that was horrible. Not only was the speaker just dull and witless, but she insisted on playing bad pop music in the background through the entire thing. Luckily we attended a great lectures on using 'AV in the Classroom.' Some good ideas on how to use media to get your kids into learning mode. I even contributed by yelling out that the speaker's system volume was off on his computer and that is why there was no sound. That caused a few claps from my rather sarcastic friends in the room. I am such a Mac head. Then there was the completely useless class on 'Issues Facing Male JETs' that would have been better off if it had been taught by a rock. At least a rock can be useful in some situations. Anyways, the other couple of lectures were decent and soon after we all hit the town again. The night was filled with Chinese food (Kobe has a very nice China town) and Karaoke. Oh, and I found a bar of 'Soy Joy.' Its a match made in heaven.

The final day of the conference involved two very horrible speeches which were given to a super sleepy and probably hung over crowd of JETs. The first speech was by an ALT and JTE from some super school which should have been entitled "Why my school is so much better than your school will ever be, so suck it." Which was then followed by a long Q&A session which gave us no new information, and people dropped like flies. But after we all checked out we headed out. Seeing as how it was lunch and how several people had to catch a train... we hit up Wendy's again. Can you see how happy we all are?

Several people had to bugger off back to their home towns, so Bill and I found our hotel and took a nap. We needed it. Sadly our new hotel was a major downgrade from the super cool hotel JET set us up with. This was clearly indicated by the strange smell and the large amount of mold in the bathroom. We found the bottle opener and ash tray that were located in the bathroom almost as interesting as the large mold growths.

The following day, after sleeping in until noon, Bill and I decided to hit Osaka. But not before having Wendy's again. It felt so good. We first hit up the Osaka Aquarium. As always a penguin filled fun time for all. We also happened to get in the middle of a "Drunken Aquarium Enkai." Nothing like 30 older Japanese men drunk off their buts wondering around the aquarium. Afterwards we spotted harbor pirates coming in to pillage the local Gap. Boy how times have changed.

Bill and I then headed to Den Den Town, Osaka's answer to Akihabara. It was total geek heaven. A street lined with video game stores, electronics stores, video stores, action figure stores, sexy action figure store, maid cafes, porn stores... hey wait. Yeah. It was rather odd. If you ever need to find out how weird Japan is just check out this street. Their seemed to be as many porn stores as their were other stores. We found a full size Bobba Fett though, which cost around $16,000. A bit expensive. I was able to find a couple of Dreamcast games I was looking for. Too bad one was 9,000¥ used. On the upside we did find 500¥ deep dish Pizza. Oh yeah. Good stuff.

Afterwards we headed back to Kobe and had some late night Tacos. Mmmm.... Pizza and Mexican food in the same day. We hit the town and tried to find a Jazz club to listen to some smooth tunes. Kobe has a very nice Jazz community but we ended up being way too tried to do anything and headed back to the hotel.

The next day we didn't hit Wendy's. I know. Three times is enough in any one trip. We did take a cable car up to the top of a mountain. We ended up in the middle of this college tour group, and everyone though we were college students because of our college student like t-shirts. We chatted them up for a while and took in the scenery. Fun time on top of a mountain. I even took a panoramic shot so you could get the full view of how fun Kobe is. We were offered an invite to join the group on their fun adventures but we had to leave before their tour ended. Oh well.

Lastly we walked around the old foreign home area. Though we did stop for BLTs first. Mmmm... bacon. At the start of the 20th century Kobe was a major international city and lots of very wealth people and governments set up really expensive homes overlooking the city. A large number of these homes are still around and host museums, restaurants, and wedding chapels. In fact we ran across several wedding in progress during our walks. They were quite cool, but all require way too much cash to enter. We did happen to go into the coolest one though thanks to my t-shirt getting us a student discount. I have no shame. The insides were cool though.

So after that we headed back to Fukuyama. A nice 5 days off work and a whole lot of good food eaten. My kind of work trip. I could use some more Kobe beef... it was soooo worth it.

Well I'm at the re-contracting conference for the rest of this week. Several days of dull seminars, even more dull speeches, and a whole lot of drunken foreigners. Wish me luck.

These kids are cute. I ran after them and snapped a picture while waiting for the bus. All the elementary school kids have matching outfits and honestly, nothing in this world could be as cute as a large group of them. While I don't teach at any elementary schools now the possibility of me doing it in the fall is quite high. Then if not this fall then the following for sure. The whole of Japan is slowly moving towards mandatory english education in elementary schools. The problem with Fukuyama is that there are 70 elementary schools. Now seeing how there are going to be 10 JETs this next year that would give each of us 7. Except we'll already be teaching at 4 or 5 junior high schools. Lets just say it could get interesting.

This past weekend was the famous Fukuyama Bara Matsuri. AKA the Fukuyama Rose Festival. Think Minnesota State fair except with roses, less live stock, and Japanese food. Though oddly enough it did still smell like horse around there... I ended up going on both Saturday and Sunday. The weather was, as always, hot and humid. Which made it all the more fun. There were tons of eateries and game stands set up throughout three different parks in town. Live music, a parade, street preformers, and cafe maids. Yeah. Good times. Lets have a fun rundown of some of the things that were going on and the fun pictures I took.

Power Rangers telling people how to recycle. A group of school kids being perplexed by a guy doing "The Robot." A man in a very weird spandex outfit. Selling ramen I think.

These scouts were working a trash sorting spot. I showed them my Eagle Scout card and they were impressed. Venders were selling these giant Asian beetles at the fair, they're quite popular as pets with the kids. A lady doing the tea ceremony.

Just some fun pictures of roses. That and a gnome next to a sign that says theres a giant bug on the tree to the right. We couldn't find the bug. How sad.

Bill and Atsumi. Michael, Michelle, and Me with strange balloon things on our heads. Michael and Julia (who should be paying me for all the photos I keep taking of them!).

The parade was fun. Though weird and super duper slow. They kept stopping to let traffic on side streets through. There were drums, strange guys in costumes, and Brazian dancers? Yeah. It was a weird time in Fukuyama. (I like that last photo)

I kept seeing a lot of my children at the fest, as well as a lot of children who were highly amused by my height. Must be country kids. As much as I love this sort of thing it was a bit overwhelming and underwhelming. A lot of people and a lot of stuff, but nothing really all that exciting. The nice part for me was socializing with a lot of people who I don't see that often as well as getting a large stick with a big chunk of meat on it. You can't ever have too much of that in Japan.

I can not forget to thank my good friend Theresa Wang for giving me the gift that keep on giving. When I went to China two years ago I regretted not buying a Mao watch, and later become super depressed that my Mao lighter broke. Wang was ever so kind and hooked me up with both. Mao's hand moves with each passing second! Oh yeah! Now thats a Cultural Revolution if I ever say one.

You know you're losing it when you have to spend half an hour trying to find a pillow case you somehow lost while moving it between your bed and your washer. A grand total of 1 meter (3 feet). I'm slowly losing it around here.

Its been raining a lot which makes life difficult for those of us who ride bikes. A new law went into effect that makes it illegal to hold an umbrella while ridding a bike. So far I've ignored this new law, as well as the rest of the country. Its a perfect time to put such a law into effect because rainy season is right around the corner. Though no doubt I'll eventually be fined the 20,000¥ because I'm white. Damn racial profiling.

I love robots. Thus when I saw this cool video showing my favorite Transformer in action, I had to ask myself: "How bad could a live action Transformers film really be?" Only time will tell. As for Japanese robots, well, I think now is the time to be afraid. It seems as the Japanese are getting close to making a Koizumi-Prime-Minister-bot of some sort. Hell bent on privatizing all the national services of Japan. That or they're going to start giving cool awards for people who make robots. Oh wait, they just started to. Well at least they won't make small fighting robots to entertain us. Or will they?

Wow, I have become extremely sarcastic this week. Lets list off the things I've said to students thus far this week (being only Wednesday). I am a horrible person. Luckily no one studies their English and deserves to be mocked.

1) To some 3rd year boys who were being annoyed by 3rd year girls: "You know guys, you could totally hit that as much as you wanted. You're cool, and they'd be all over you if you made a move. Do it. Now."
2) To a girl who wasn't paying attention in class: "You know I love the move Pee Wee's Big Adventure. I mean, its funny, silly, and completely entertaining. Don't you think? Clearly it could be the best film of the past 30 years"
3) To a shy boy: "If you don't start talking to girls you'll never get a date to prom. And if you don't get a date to prom your life will be over. Haven't you ever seen a teenage romantic comedy before?"
4) To my class of evil students: "If I have to tell you to be quite one more time, I will throw someone out the window. Or beat them with a stick. Or both. God I hate you."
5) Me to two boys in class who were goofing off: "If you don't learn this point you'll never be able to tell hot foreign women what bar you're going to met up with them at later. Not like you'd ever be able to pick up a girl, but I do like wishful thinking."

I put up a video I made this evening of our fun trip to Kochi over Golden Week. Its mostly a surfing video, and funny. Even more funny if you know Matt or Bill. Even if you don't know them but just enjoy watching people fall down you should watch this film.

Speaking of cool videos.... I would like to point out that if you find this funny (Dad, I'm talking to you), you are a hard core nerd. I found it funny, so I mean, yeah, suck it.

Ok, so maybe my title is a bit misleading. I guess my next batch of insect pictures are not super scary. They're rather so so. As insects go. My main motivation for running out of the teachers lounge on Friday was this enormous black butterfly that was flying around. Though being quite big it was very quick as it flew from flower to flower making it very difficult to get a good picture of it. Luckily I took about 40 shots so one or two was bound to turn out ok. When the butterfly finally flew away I went off and started taking pictures of other random insects. A swarm of beetles were bussing around one bush. They looked liked liked june bugs, only they were swarming. Rather fuzzy little guys in all reality. I figured that if I was to take the time to snap shots of beetles I should at least snap a few shots of the bees that were on this other bush. I was real productive on Friday.

Michael, Julia, Michelle and I spent some time Saturday afternoon watching Cube Zero, which is yet another thrill sequel to the movie The Cube. Ok, it was rather silly and B movieish. But by god did we not have a Cube party complete with cube based foods! I also snagged some more giant robots thanks to Michael's crane game addiction. The more he plays the more toys he gets, and the more that Julia wants to pawn off on me.

Occasionally there are these trucks that drive around my neighborhood blasting some strange music and selling strange. Sometimes its the sweet potato guy, or the hot buns lady. So as I was talking to Matt on Friday evening we hear the sound of a nearby truck and run out to see if we can buy some hot foods. Sadly it wasn't food at all, but the aluminum siding guy whose marketing strategy seems to be driving slowly around blasting music about aluminum siding. I'm sure it pays off.

Somethingawful.com had some great photoshop jobs this week... some that hit very close to home. Though very un-PC I can't stop laughing at this WWII rap-off between an American GI and a Japanese Solider. Billed as "The Rap Battle For Iwa Jima" it probably would have been the most silly comic ever made if it had been real. Though I find this other one sad and tragic funny, because in college, these were my friends.

Word on the street is that Apple is teaming up with Japanese company Softbank Corp to built the illusive iPhone that everyone's been wanting. This phone will be able to connect to the iTunes music store and download songs directly to the phone, thus removing the need for you to carry around a phone and an iPod. The phones should be available through Softbank Corp's newly acquired Vodafone stores here in Japan. All I know is that this phone will either be extremely super awesome cool, or completely suck ass. There will be no in-between.

I ended up having a lot of free time at one of my schools today. This happens when you show up at 8:30 and don't have any classes scheduled until afternoon. This did provide me with a lot of time to watch the kids practice 'traditional' Japanese dances. Seems that the different grades are going to show off these dances on Saturday when they have a sports day. Thats right, the kids spent a couple of hours not in class but outside doing dance practice. They'll be doing this all week long. At all my schools. This is why the Japanese students beat US students in academics. Dance practice. The best part about this dance practice was that the 'traditional' dance included quite a bit of two stepping and the 'traditional music' included quite a bit of tuba. Who knew that the tuba was a traditional Japanese instrument? I learn new things every day.

Well, seeing as how I'm out in the inaka (countryside) I felt the urge to take some pictures of frogs and big insects. The frogs proved to be, as usual, very fun to photograph. But sadly the butterflies were too quick to photograph so I took a couple shots of giant green insects. I look forward to the summer when the insect population around here will grow much larger and more diverse.

I have a rant on the tip of my tongue. Small Things I Would Do To Fix The Japanese Education System. Or to shorten that title down it would become No F%$# Hot Water. I'll have to do that tomorrow afternoon. That or I'll just end up watching Mad Max on my laptop.

Ahhh... a nice weekend relaxing on the beach. I feel so rested and calm.... a calm which will soon be shattered by several classes with annoying teens. It was good while it lasted.

Our ride to our camp site took around 4 hours. The 6 of us piled into a rented van which was stuffed with all our camping gear. Our ride was uneventful and Michelle only got lost once or twice, that we know of. We got to our camp site at around midnight and got everything out of the van and put into place. Our camp site was located between a hotel and the beach, and also located about 2 minutes from town. Camping in Japan is quite different then camping in North America. Our little beach was rather nice and the next day it was filled with large numbers of Japanese families that had set up camping gear during the middle of the night. The weather was rather nice and we all suffered sun burns within hours of waking up. Soon after we put on sun screen.

Our first day was spent reading on the beach, going into town for supplies, and overall just being lazy. This would be a theme for the weekend. Michael and Julia made some wonderful breakfast burritos, and I read through the book K-Pax.

For some reason a small little festival showed up on the beach Thursday morning. Venders, drum groups, dancing groups, a sand castle contest, and BINGO were available to all. The weather was overcast and windy, but still very darn nice. We watched several of the different groups, ate some yakiniku, and were generally just lazy. So lazy in fact that many people took the opportunity to just take a nap during the mid-afternoon.

Friday was surfing day. We all went to the next beach up road, which was far larger and had better waves. The water was still quite cold, and only Bill and Matt felt the urge to try their hand at surfing. And by surfing I mean 'falling down a lot.' They had some fun, as did the rest of us watching. I have some fun video I really must edit. Several of us went to a Hawaiian Hamburger place for some really good burgers. I also saw a giant spider in the men's bathroom. Freaky. The wind was rather nasty which caused Julia and Michelle's sunbathing much stress. Nothing like a face full of sand for a complete weekend.

After the beach we all went to an onsen for a nice wash, though hot water and sun burns don't mix too well. Someone lugged our little grill down to the beach where we made a fire, had some drinks, and shot off some fireworks. A nice ending to our weekend in the sun.

Thanks to the sun coming up at 6 every morning, we were all up and taking down the tents sooner then expect on Friday. The weather had turned a bit cold and windy (even more windy), so we decided to head home. The ride would take some 5 hours plus stops thanks to heavy weekend traffic. We did stop at a KFC for lunch and load up on fried chicken. Plus some rather silly pictures of a certain well dressed 'Sanders'. Our next stop was the middle of one big ass bridge connecting the main island of Japan with Shikoku Island. The pictures below show half the bridge which has 2 train tracks and 4 lanes of traffic. There is a nice tourist trap in the middle where you can buy gifts as well as take trendy shots.

Before I end this wonderful trip talk I though I would show you the wonders of Japanese technology which I saw on this trip. Behold what wonderful hot meals you can get out of vending machines! Oh, they are eatable. Bill had some chicken nuggets out of one of these things last year and he's still alive.

Did I mention that a certain little brown guy came along on this trip? Ohhh he had quite the adventure on the beach, though I don't know if I'm allowed to show all the pictures I have of him and his scandalous behavior.

There was one downside to this trip, a certain Englishman from Mihara. He was in a second group of English teachers who we were to meet up with at the camp site. First off he wore the most obnoxious spandex shorts the entire trip, then he proceeded to get extremely drunk and yell obscenities to passing Japanese women and children, and try and start random fights with people in our group. Though probably the best part was when he passed out in his tent and wet himself, which was really bad for the rest of us because he came over to the fire and tried to dry himself off. Yet somehow during his drunken stupor he tried to pick up Japanese girls left and right. This is why I hate England.

I leave on my silly camping adventure in about two hours. I won't be back until Saturday and will try and post some pictures on Sunday. Maybe I'll do some video as well. Depends on how tired I feel, or if I manage to get up before 3 pm. We're heading to the island of Shikoku to the prefecture of Kochi, where I will spend four days reading, drinking, and video taping my friend falling off surf boards. Maybe I'll upload some pictures to my Flickr account while I'm there. Have a fun Golden Week everyone!

What happens when 40 people in blue shirts and kaki pants enter a Best Buy? Total fun is what happens. I find its funny because when I'm just looking around for stuff in Best Buy people come up and ask me for help, even though I'm just sporting regular clothing. These people have way too much fun.

Its official. Japan is not in the hot and humid summer months. We were all sweating to death today, and the fun is just starting. Oddly enough my Japanese co-workers will not switch to proper summer clothing until the official start of summer. The Japanese have this weird thing about dressing and seasons. See it seems that Japanese people are unable to just pick clothing to wear according to the weather, because that would be too easy. They just dress depending on what season it is. Thus they'll be people suffering in extreme heat or extreme cold if it happens outside of the designated seasons. This is also why the entire office will suddenly stop wearing ties or will start wearing sweaters on a certain date, leaving us foreigners clueless.

Another 'only in Japan' situation happened to me when buying a flashlight. Being the ex-boy scout that I am I picked up a hand cranked flashlight. But the best part about this flashlight is the fact that it comes with hookups for your cell phone, allowing you to recharge your phone through the hang crank. This is Japanese camping at its finest. Something I will get to know a lot better this weekend. Lets just say I wouldn't be surprised if the camp site had vending machines and places to recharge your electronics gear next to every tent.

Last Friday I took some fun pictures during my off periods at Chuo Junior HIgh School. Yeah, I know, more flowers. Blah blah blah. I managed to weird out a bunch of the first year students who were in the middle of a PE class. I've yet to meet with any first years that that school, and thus the kids just stared at me with random amusement.

Matt and I were both out sick today with the weird illness hitting all the ALTs at our office. So far I think only Jess has been immune to it, though her man wasn't. Don't know if I'll be going to work or not tomorrow, depends on if these 5 different drugs they have me on work or not. Gotta love the doctors office. An IV, 5 types of drugs, and a doctors visit all for 1,500¥ ($12). Tis be a good country.

Oh, and isn't this just typical of the Japanese way of thinking. Staff at Tokyo's Heath Minestry are being asked to take the stairs instead of the elevator to help 'Stop Global Warming'. Wow, so I really can't wait for this to catch on all over Japan. A country where there is no AC in government buildings, the heat is deadly, a strict dress code is in effect, and now everyone is being asked to take the stairs. Go Japan. I seriously need to find a way to wear a t-shirt and shorts to the office in the summer....