Christmas

Captain's log:

Christmas in Japan is weird. It's like in movies, where a guy gets killed by an alien or something, and takes his place. All of his friends know something's off, but can't quite put their finger on it.

You have the decorations and all that. But no spirit/cheer. It's very strange. This is the most not-Christmas Christmas ever.

Secret Santa was wednesday and went off for the most part without a hitch. I was really pleased and happy everything went well. My present was a bottle of Makers Mark. The ryuugakusei know me too well.

The next day (yesterday), was Christmas Eve. X-mas Eve is pretty much valentines day for the Japanese. Couples go do couple-y things, exchange gifts, and whatnot. So Aaron and his friend, Mayano, set up this singles party at a small restaurant. The only ryuugakusei there were Drew, Aaron, the Norwegians, and Me. The party was awesome. Lots of beer and sochu, the food was excellent, and the company was even better.

I also brought a bottle of Southern Comfort, cause I hadn't had it in so long. A few people helped, but I ended up drinking nearly the entire bottle.

5 of the Japanese girls there pretty much rotated between Drew, Aaron, and me. They were really awesome, got a few numbers and whatnot, and dates will be set up. Eventually we got out, and my memory's a little hazy, but somehow I let my friends talk me into going to a club. I really didn't want to go, but we go anyway and it ends up being terrible.

Came home this morning, went to sleep at about 6, woke up at 10:30, talked to family, talked to friends, mailed postcards (finally), made some bacon. I really haven't done that much today, and I haven't seen my host family. I really don't like being alone in general, much less on Christmas. Today has been very lonely.

I can't decide if I want to still go out on New Years, we'd go to a club. However, New Years is the big family holiday here, so I dunno if it will be all that fun.

I should probably update more.

Captain's log,

Well, a lot has happened over the past week. Last friday, some of us ventured out to Nishinomiya, and found this kickass, American-sized, but most importantly cheap liquor store. And by cheap I mean a liter of beer for $6.00, and a bottle of 7 year old cuban rum for "$22," but it was rang up at $15, but I wasn't going to say anything. It is a shame Cuban stuff isn't sold in the US, cause that stuff was the best rum I've ever had. We took all of our alcohol and hung out in a park, continuing to make a bad name for gaijin (foreigners).

The next day, I went to Nara, which was cool, the daibutsu was impressively large, and is housed in the largest wooden building in the world. The daibutsu is about 52 feet tall, and is by far not the largest in Japan. Insanity came from the shika deer that roam all over Nara. They are regarded as spiritual messengers in Shinto, so they're allowed to do whatever they want. You can buy senbei to feed them, but if you do, god help you. As soon as my friends bought some, the deer swarmed them. It was hilarious and terrifying.

Later that evening, Cooper, Rika, some friends from my tennis circle, and I went to a bar that my friend John knew the owner of. The place was a little pricey. We started doing shots because they were cheaper than beer. Also they served tacos, which were awesome, cause I was fiending for some.

Tuesday was a Nabe (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nabemono) party with my friends from my circle, which was fun, but could have been better, here's why.

An example of how Japanese girls can be bitches: I was seeing this one girl, went on a few fairly successful dates, and things were going well. But on friday I helped her make a facebook, she asks what the relationship slot was, I go "do you have a boyfriend?" she says no, and continues filling it out. Now, Christmas Eve is Valentine's Day for the Japanese, so I thought "hey, this might be a good idea," and I ask "Hey, what are you doing on the 24th?" Only to get "I see my boyfriend that day." Words cannot describe my confusion. Upside is I pretty much decided I wasn't that into her.

Anywho, bitching aside, the rest of the week went smoothly. This past friday was this big party for the exchange kids, which was fun, met a whole lot of people, and then we went to Shinsaibashi to go to a club. Sadly, I was put in charge of directing the 30-odd people who were coming, and I think I got sober from the yelling. Eventually I gave up on them and decided I wasn't going to let them ruin my evening.

The club was fun, we went to a place called Onzi-eme, had plenty of people, ok music, and overall wasn't bad. I couldn't get drunk though, meaning I couldn't dance. So I went through a lot of dancing partners. Thankfully Austin is awesome and in his drunken ridiculousness got us some girls to dance with, I ended up dancing with one who didn't even come up to my collar bones. She was so tiny.

Shortly after this, we find out some of our friends were kicked out for stealing liquor bottles from the bar, so we left. I got home around 6:30 in the morning.

Yesterday, we went BACK to Shinsaibashi for this all-you-can-eat pizza place, which wasn't bad. It was a nice change of things. Their chicken nuggets tasted EXACTLY like Chik-fil-a's. It was awesome and terrifying.

It's 10 days till Secret Santa, I'm excited. I've got 4 more parties this month. 3 Christmas, and 1 Costume. I need to borrow another schoolgirl outfit...

Fairly Tame

Captain's log,

During dinner today, we were watching the news, and the weather came on. I noticed that there were two people giving the weather report. Then I realized it was just the man speaking the entire time, and all the woman did was either agree with him/affirm what he's saying, or provide pointless commentary like "That sure sounds cold!" I found this oddly hilarious.

This weekend involved a birthday and going to Kyoto again.

Drake kinda put planning his birthday on my shoulders, by having me make a facebook event for it... a day and a half ahead of time. So he wanted to go to a club, which sadly would have had a small turnout because there was very little notice and clubs are expensive. So instead, I decide we should go get Mexican food (we were all jonesing for some, and Drake's half Mexican), then go drink. Well only about half of the group wants to drink, so we break into two groups. We were SUPPOSED to go to this one bar in Nishomiya, but the guy I knew who had the info got sick. The only Mexican restaurant we knew of had a staff of two people... using one stove. So food took FOREVER. We ate, got out, and went to go drink, which added further complications. Finally we got alcohol and I could relax, cause I felt bad with how the night was going.

Only to forget to set an alarm to go to Kyoto. We were supposed to meet at Juso at 7:45. So I was gonna get up at 5:45. Instead I wake up at 8:10. Shower, run out the door. Get to Kyoto after a lengthy trainride, take a bus to where I need to go, and walk a good mile or so to Fushimi Inari shrine. Now, I am PRO at being in a hurry. You can ask anyone close to me, I HATE being in a hurry, it causes me to freak out. After all this, despite being over an hour behind them, from my walking fast, I only ended up being half an hour behind my friends and didn't really missing much. Not long after I get there, they want me to do silly things for pictures, but I had just practically run up a mountain, so I'm in no mood. Or condition. I got better after drinking something and lunch.

Other sights we went to were Heian Jingu and this thing called "Light Up" at Kiyomisu Temple. Japan is famous for the fall, when the leaves turn really pretty, vibrant colors. And at night they put spotlights on them. It looked like a huge couples thing.

Nothing all that special for the rest of this week, other than I finally saw Inglourious Basterds. I found out the subtitles were in both English and Japanese, so I jumped on that. It was awesome, and definitely Tarantino's best. One of the things I loved while watching it was watching the Japanese people's reactions to the scenes where people were scalped, or the one where a guy is beaten to death with a baseball bat.

This weekend is (improvised) party, trip to Nara, and another party. Yay.

Not as Much Whining as I Thought This Was.

Captain's Log:

Nothing real eventful in the past week or so, this update's mostly obligatory. Last weekend I tried Singaporean food for the first time, met some cool kids, then went and hung out in a bar in Umeda with some friends.

Over the week, we went over our midterms, I barely passed the grammar, did considerably better on the listening, and raped the kanji. We're going over things, and there is a grammar rule that you use when someone does something for you, there's verb+てくれる and　verb+てもらう, which literally means "I was given verb" or "I received verb." In examples, a lot of it seemed rather arbitrary. But as we're going over it the midterm, we get it explained to us that whether "に" or "が" determines if it's one or the other. It would have been nice if they explained that to us when we were given the grammar rule, which was nearly a month ago. /whine

This weekend involved going to a bar for a quiet evening with Doori and Taiki, then on saturday trying Korean food for the first time and going to a club in Shinsaibashi.

The club was kind of a blur, this time Rachel got kicked out, so we left early, apparently went to a bar, wandered around a bit, then according to them I wandered off "we looked up and you were gone." I remember coming to on a bench and being confused as to why I was alone.

So I wander my way through Shinsaibashi, taking a random subway back to Umeda. The only thing I'm actually mad about with this experience is that McDonalds fucked up my order and gave me a mcmuffin instead of a mcgriddle. Blood will be spilled. Got home, passed out, spent the rest of the day hating life in hungover wonderfulness.

Today, we have school off. I don't really know of much going on this week, other than that I will be celebrating thanksgiving with my friend Rie in Sannomiya.

I wanted to try and put together a special dinner with the exchange kids, but there just isn't enough time. I would have to order a turkey from amazon, which would easily be around $60+, and then we have the task of finding an oven that it will fit in. Amongst other complications.

Oh well, I demand everyone eat twice as much turkey, stuffing, and gravy for me.

Hopefully this will be the last of these for a while

Captains log,

This weekend was a little different, namely in that I did nothing on friday. Everyone was studying for midterms, so I just kinda hung out at home, studied a little and did some hw. Nothing big.

Saturday, however, was quite eventful. Woke up at 6:00am because I was going to Kyoto! Met up with Drew in Juso and within minutes the jokes started rolling. These would continue all day. Finally get to Kyoto around 8:15 and Drew and I start wandering because Rika and Jukka would not be joining us for an hour.

We all finally meet up and set off on sightseeing. We journey to Yakasa Shrine, where we saw a wedding in progress, and move to some temple/shrine thingy that we didn't know what it was to see a funeral in progress. We walk through a massive graveyard, and wander around the gardens and what not before heading towards Yakasa pagoda. On the way we see a bunch of Geishas and stop by a Daibutsu (big-ass statue of Buddha). After finding the pagoda, we grab lunch in a non-touristy area (tourist areas were ridiculously expensive). It was cool because we ate at a Chinese restaurant, where the waiter could barely speak Japanese.

After lunch, Rika and Jukka part ways with Drew and I. They wanted to see this Geisha dance show and see an old brothel, but this would have cost around $40, whereas sightseeing would be less than $10, so Drew and I set off. We end up walking the wrong ways a few times, but finally get to our destination: Nanzen-ji. The gate (sanmon) was more worthwhile to look at than the temple, because it was one of the largest free standing wooden structures in the world. Drew and I leave from there to find this mile long walk translated roughly as the Philosopher's walk. So we walked about 5 miles to walk a mile.

A good ways into the walk, we realize the error of our ways and decide to come back during sakura season, when the walk would actually be pretty and worthwhile.

All of the souvenirs were expensive, I'll find cheaper versions elsewhere, though I think I'll get my kimono made there. It wasn't that expensive, I just need someone who's fluent in Japanese to be with me when I get one.

So finally we meet up again, and we head towards downtown Kyoto to get dinner. We got conveyor-belt sushi, which wasn't bad, aside from when my beer got spilled. Afterwards we went down to a Konvini to grab some booze and hangout by the river.

At the river, some fire dancers entertained us, then we wander around, consider messing with couples, Rika and I have a heart-to-heart, and all of us pretty much make asses of ourselves. Mostly to the other tourists.

Apparently, Rika and I fell asleep by the river. This is where my memory stops working. Drew wakes us up and we head to the station to go home. On the way, Drew's half-dragging me, half-trying to get me to shut the hell up, cause I was apparently yelling at people. He evetually gets us to the station where I fall asleep on the train. When we get to Juso, Drew and I, in our respective states, forget that I have to take a different way, but instead I get on his train and go to Nishinomiya. Which I can still get home from, provided I catch the last train. We eventually arrive and here's where my memory starts working again. I say bye to Drew and head down to my platform... just in time to see the last train leave. So I go upstairs and don't see a soul. Particularly Drew. My phone also died around noon that day. Despite the drunkenness, I remember thinking very clearly "welp, I'm boned." And set off to wander the streets.

My shoes had been killing me all day, so I took them off. I start trying to follow the tracks, and only later do I realize I was going the wrong direction. For some reason I did not think to go to a konvini until I couldn't find one. The reason for this is because konvinis sell these handy battery packs that you can cordlessly charge your phone with for emergencies such as this.

...Instead I try waving down cars so I can ask for directions to either a konvini or to the next station I need to head towards. I'm fairly certain at one point I walked out into the road trying to get a car to stop, and that may or may not have been why the police showed up shortly afterwards.

The police get out, give me what was probably the Japanese equivalent of "boy, where 'cho goddamn shoes?"

When you're in a foreign country, and faced with the police, you learn to speak the language real quickly.

I explain that they were hurting my feet, and what my situation was. I ask for the location of a konvini or the way to Takarazuka, and they drive me to their koban (police outpost thingy). They talk to me, get some information, who I am, what I'm doing in Japan, why I'm wandering the streets of Nishinomiya in the dead of night with no shoes on, you know, the typical things. So they ask if I have the money for a cab, I say yes, but I don't want to pay it, and I attempt to explain that if I can get to a konvini (I could see one from their window), I can call one of my friends and everything will be ok. But they didn't listen, it also may have had something to do with my lack of Japanese skills, but they drive me two (train) stations down and drop me off at a taxi, who takes me home, where I pay the $30 fare, and proceed to die on the inside.

Monday I felt terrible. Still coming off the hangover, tired, got my ass kicked by my Japanese grammar midterm, and emotionally conflicted (girl nonsense I won't discuss here - this ain't livejournal). Thank god for TENNIS. Yea, I suck, but my circle is awesome, and I felt waaaaaaay better afterwards. One of the leaders, Kazu, shows me how to get home, and after doing so, I pass right out.

Tomorrow's my kanji midterm. I will slay it. I also start teaching/help teaching English tomorrow! Friday's my listening midterm, which could go either way. After my midterms are over, and I promise I'll finally write my damn postcards. I'm sorry about the delay on those.

What'll be even harder is finding souvenirs for some of you.

Awesome Halloween Accompanied with a Surplus of Bitching

Captain's Log:

A lot has happened since last weekend, where shall I start?

Friday was another BBQ party at Matt's place, which was fun, and we were overloaded with tons of food and liquor, including copious amounts of steak and a $100 cake. Saturday is where the real awesomeness was. We all gather at Sannomiya station, put on/reveal our costumes, then walk to this bar called D-Fence. Tons of people were already in there, and I got an enormous "wtf" look from all the Japanese people for my schoolgirl costume. It was $25 all-you-can-drink for 2 hours. So we got to work. And ultimately we decimated the bar. They had homemade whiskey, which was delicious, and they used quality liquor, which also surprised me.

Once it all ended, everyone either left or went to an izakaya. Hiromi and I wandered off to go home. After a kiss goodbye (w00t!), I get on the train she told me to get on. I'm not entirely sure if I remember switching trains, but I definitely fell asleep at one point and woke up at the stop before mine ....from the opposite direction I normally come from. Yea, I was confused too, but thanks, luck. My guess is that I didn't switch trains when I was supposed to, and ended up getting turned around at a station at the opposite end.

Classes are canceled on monday and tuesday cause we have our school's festival. Which was cool. It was mostly food stands and performers, but it was cool, nonetheless. Some food was awesome (yakitori), and some wasn't (failed excuse for tacos). All in all, it was fun. I worked at my tennis circle's stand for all of sunday, which would have been better if it didn't rain ridiculously hard all day. Nonetheless, the Japanese were a combination of amused and confused as to why this gaijin was advertising a food stand, and I couldn't tell if I attracted more people, or scared them away. I'll never know. It was a fun day, I forgot an umbrella, so I huddled with Hiromi under her's on the way back to the station. Keeping her warm as an exchange for the shelter.

The only reason I went yesterday was because a friend from the other campus came, and some other friends invited me. Later that evening we went bowling for Austin's birthday. Which was fun. Especially when I'd yell something ridiculous and somehow do well.

Today was a study day. Midterms are around the corner and I'm not looking forward to them at all. I studied today because I've got a date with Hiromi in Sannomiya tomorrow, and a party with my tennis circle tomorrow evening. Should be an awesome day though.

I'm getting better at the language, I'm not improving as quickly as I'd like to, but I need to remind myself that I'm a beginner and I'll be here for another 9 and a half months. It's funny, cause whenever you tell the Japanese something cool about yourself (sometimes even something mundane) their eyes will go wide and they will say "heeeeey?" Which got really annoying at first, but I hate to say that I've found myself saying it.

Anywho, I'm getting more and more irritated with my teachers. Actually only one of my teachers. My Japanese classes are taught by 4 different teachers, this one in particular has us for 2 days, the rest have us for only one. All of them can understand English fairly well except for this one. None of us are doing all that well in the classes, but I get pulled aside one day. She wants to talk to me about a section on the hw that I only got two questions right on. I try my best to explain that the example was vague and that I didn't really know what to do, so that made it difficult. Her response is "it's not difficult, everyone else did fine, why didn't you?"

It took every ounce of my willpower to not tear her head off. Good teachers do not say things like this. How is belittling me and comparing me to the rest of the class going to help me, you retard.

To add insult to injury, she said I had an appointment with one of the other teachers so I can learn to "study Japanese properly."

This teacher should not be teaching us. Even the Japanese students hate her. Every now and then one of us will be trying to explain why we don't understand something or we'll be asking a question only to get cut off with "nihongo de!"
We can't, you dumb bitch. Why do you think we're in level 1? You should not be teaching us. At all.

/end bitching

Good Week and Vows

Captain's log,

At the beginning of this week, I finally met with my tennis circle, and they're all a bunch of cool kids. Sadly we can't seem to have frequent meet ups. I was also supposed to go to dinner with them tonight, but it got canceled along with practice. Thanks, rain.

Friday was low key. I got out of class around 12:40, had lunch, dropped off my things and went to Umeda. I had trouble finding a store, so I asked a pretty girl who looked about my age where it was, and she freaking walked me there. I was astounded, because it was the opposite direction in which she was heading too. I love how nice people are here.

After about an hour, Hiromi met up with me. I was expecting more to come around 6, but instead they called and told us to come to Ashiya to meet up with them for dinner. So we did. Afterwards we walked along the river to the ocean, and Hiromi and I made plans for goofing off in Sannomiya later.

Then saturday night was the first of the 3 halloween parties I have. I met up with Rachel beforehand and she did my make up, got food and a small bottle of whiskey and a bottle of coke at a convenience store, and made our way back to the station to meet up with everyone.

We get to shinsaibashi, get into the club, hang out, dance, and the last thing I distinctly remember is getting a drink with Cooper and Drake. My memory picks up at we are about to leave, I'm full of confusion. I get my bag, we go to a restaurant, I realize my expensive, custom made earplugs are missing, I go back into the club to find them to no avail. I go back to the restaurant, Daphne orders something for me, I devour it, put my head down, and wake up when we leave.

The night was then relayed back to me - Apparently I did these things:
- Talked to literally everyone in the club
- Danced at/with/on at least half of the people in the club, discriminating against no one
- Won a costume contest, I have no idea what my prize was cause I apparently lost it
- Danced on stage a whole lot
- Went up on stage to accept a prize that I didn't actually win, but I had the crowd's support, so they gave it to me anyway. (they called the winning number several times before my friends told me to just go up)
- Threw up in a urinal

I also apparently missed a guy dressed as a Chinese communist propose to his girlfriend. So once again I missing a relatively awesome evening. Because of this, I have vowed never to drink Suntory whiskey ever again. Because that's the same whiskey I drank last weekend, and my friends have also had bad experiences.

So, lesson learned. I look forward to next weekend, I've got two halloween parties, a date, and a festival. Updates abound. Provided I don't get lazy.

Oh yea, I bought postcards! I will try to get them written and out to you all soon!