Last weekend I bought a pair of shoes to force myself to go to the gym. I thought was that I would feel guilty for wasting money on shoes that I wouldn't wear anyplace but a gym. Unfortunately I go to the cheap gym ($18 a month) and don't get good instructors like those at the more expensive gyms ($120 a month).

Sippin' on Juice

(Second, not so good, attempt after erasing my entire post while trying to add the videos)

After making a Costco run to stock up on meat and cheese, I met Steph for our monthly Mexican night. Before we headed out though we stopped by a beer vending machine to give it a try.

After making our way to Motoyawata we headed for the restaurant. Getting there proved to be a little challenging since I had us take the wrong exit, but we saw that there were people setting up for some kind of street party (more on that later).

We finally got to the Crazy Cactus and had some delicious Negro Modelo and Sol cerveza for 399¥ and "free" popcorn. Nothing is really free though since they hit you up with a 300¥ (about $3) "seating charge". The food there is crap though, so after getting our drink on we headed down the road to another, completely unrelated Mex restaurant called Crazy Cactus (I don't think they are too original when it comes to naming things here). This CC has much better food but not much atmosphere nor air conditioning apparently.

Following that we decided to check out the street festivities that we had stumbled across earlier. We were met with ladder acrobats and kids running everywhere. When trying to find a better and less hecktic vantage point a light-baton wielding, armband wearing old man pounced on us. I thought we had wandered into some restricted area because he began pushing us away and saying something in jibber-jabber. He then started shouting "Japanese juice" and he rather forcibly guided us to a stall giving out juice. He instructed the juice pouring women to give us a taste by shouting "Japanese juice!!!" at them again and again. J-juice is what the rest of the world (including 99.999% of Japanese) apple juice.

Before we even had a chance to taste our juice the old man lept from out of nowhere with a bottle of "Japanese beer!!" He had us down our juice, thoroughly shake out any remaining apple taste and poured us both a drink. Within seconds he was back demanding that we "one-shot" the beer so he could top us off again. He came back a couple more times much to my delight and Steph's dismay. It also appeared that he was having a few drinks himself.

Here is the man of the hour on the right. Not sure who the other guy is but our man really wanted him in the picture.


Over dinner we were talking about the Japanese (as one tends to do when living in Japan) and if they are a friendly people or just very courteous. After last night, I'd say they are friendly when not in train mode.

After the dancing an old kimono'd woman who had been dancing approached us and asked if we enjoyed everything. Lucky for me my "J-juice" partner has been studying the local language a bit harder than I and was able to communicate quite well. Yay for a fun night!

Below are some pics of the evening and a video of dancing that went on for too long. Didn't bring my camera so you have to gawk at crappy phone cam shots.

This video is supposed to make you better at talking to woman. I may need to order the entire DVD.

One of the best Japanese movies I have seen since I have been here is "My Neighbor Tortoro". It is a cartoon and just made me happy watching it. It turns out that the forest that inspired the movie in under a threat of some kind. I don't really care about that, but one way they are trying to save it is by selling Tortoro inspired art. I really liked some of them, so maybe you will too. Check them out here.


This is one example.

Do Western women work at nail shops in Asia?

I am going to attempt to make this a bit more than a boring "daily life of me" site. It won't be that much more, but if I find something interesting going on or see something that is a bit different I will try and showcase it while doing as little research as possible.

This is all about nails.

There is a "cutie" culture here that is a bit much at times. Everywhere you look you see 5-10 cell phone charms on everyone's phones, including the salarymen. They have everything you can think of, from Sambo-


To a pile of shit.


But I am getting off topic already. There is a subculture of the cuteness which goes to extremes. Many of these people call themselves "Lolitas" or "Princesses" and try and dress the part. One of the ways they dress is by putting incredibly strange things on their fingernails. I have seen some girls on the subway with miniature 3d flowers stuck to their nails and I just wonder how they can last more than a few hours. I talked to one student who is a make-up tattoo artist (does eyebrows mostly) who tried them out and she had nothing but complaints. I guess she doesn't feel the need to go all out for fashion (unless you consider tattooing your face "all out").

I found some good pictures here. The link is to Shokotan's blog. It is one of the most popular websites in Japan, alledgedly getting 100 million visits a month. I think mine gets about 8 visits.

Yay! An actual post about Japan!

I decided last Sunday to try and limit the size of my meals. I was eating much more than I should and it shows. On Monday I went into town (3 stops away) for something or another when a glorious vision appeared out of nowhere. Burger King. It was singing its siren song, there was nothing I could do. As of last night, I have been there 4 times consuming a total of 7 chicken sandwiches.

This weekend was a bit more eventful than usual. Saturday night I went with my friend Steph to watch what we thought was going to be an open mic thing at a very far away bar on the other side of Tokyo. It turned out to be more of a jam session thing in a tiny tiny room in the tiny tiny bar. It was an international affair with Welsh, English, American and of course Japanese participants. Unfortunately everyone (I think there were 12 people total) was playing guitar except for two recorder types and a pianica (half little keyboard, half harmonica). It was still a fun time and I was able to meet some new people. Everyone was really friendly.


On Sunday Steph and I met up with collegues for the Dainichi-nyorai Festival of Shinsho-ji Temple. I am not sure what the festival is for, but according to the Narita city homepage, "It is the biggest festival in Narita, which is held along with the Dainichi-nyorai Festival of Shinsho-ji Temple. Starting with the passage of mikoshi (portable shrine), ten floats from each area of the city are drawn around through it for three days. The highlight of the festival is 'sobiki' on the last day, when the floats are drawn along the main pathway to the temple."



It was great to see so many people dressed in kimonos and other traditional attire. The kids looked so cute and the women so beautiful. Lots of things were for sale from cucumber-on-a-stick to baby turtles that cost less than a beer!


Lots of pictures have been posted, so go to the link on the right if you want to see some more! I will post a video I took later this week.

One more reason to hate Boston!

It seems that Boston Red Sox (spit) pitcher Curt Shilling is involved in some shady dealings. He has secretly planned on moving to Nigeria with his family and needs help. He has requested that I join him and his family so that I may teach them English. I suppose that the annoying Boston accent is just too much for him to bare. Whatever he has done, it must be pretty bad since he is changing his and the rest of the family's names and nationality.

Unfortunately for me, he has sent out this offer to quite a few former and current English teachers in Korea. One took the initiative to ask for a family photo and this is what was sent.


The same photo can be found on Shilling's website.

Below is the text of the email "Fred" sent out.

Dear Teacher,

I am Frederek Sigvard from stockholm, Sweden and work as an Engineer at Chevron Oil Lagos, Nigeria. My wife and Kids recently joined me in Nigeria; she is Swedish and can't speak English. I am seriously seeking for the services of an English Teacher.

I have reviewed you resume online and would like to know if you would be able to come and teach my wife and four kids Ludvig, Helmer, Synnove and Arvid English most importantly is my wife; She would be attending an interview at a bank here in Nigeria soon. I want to know if you can come by July 2008 to teach my family English.

I am willing to offer you US$6,500 per month with health insurance and return ticket. I have a twin duplex which I and my family occupy one of them at the moment, and if you accept this offer, you would be staying in the second Duplex. I will pay for your airfare cost if you accept the offer.

Regards
Fred ( +234 807 287 3226 )


Sadly I am tied into my contract here for another few months.

Not from Japan, but interesting none the least.



MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.