Dirty Costume Weekend o' Ridiculousness

Preface: Friday night and nothing to do. Man I'm lame. Oh. Here's a text from Jen. Party tonight? Wear costume? Meet in Omiya? Sounds good. Gotta get a costume first though.

I head out over to my town's local recycle shop (kinda like a thrift store) to see if I can get myself a costume. As I'm riding, I decide to do a bunnyhop up an incline (the incline makes it easier to pull off high bunny hops). Yeah, I did it. Ok. Next incline. Whahoooooooooocrap! I end up eating it on account of the fact I didn't straighten out my front wheel, so when I hit the ground, my bike made a sharp left, causing me to crumple into the pavement. I ripped a hole in the elbow of one of my favorite shirts and scratched up my watch too. Now they've got some extra personality and a story behind their damage. I've gotten really good at crashing my bike and tearing up my belongings. Oh well.
After my crash, I had to put my bike chain back on (the impact was great enough to get it to pop off. ha ha ha) and finish my ride to the recycle, bloody elbow and all. I got there just before they were closing and picked out an outfit in about 5minutes. In the 5 minutes I was able to find a green baseball hat, green baseball socks and a pair of green baseball pants. Talk about lucky. I bought it all for 500yen too. Not a bad deal. After that, I headed back to my apartment to change (and to add "TEAM FAILURE" to my new hat )and head over to the train station. I got to the station and was recognized by a few students. I really don't know how they saw through my disguise. It was perfect. Oh well. Cest la Halloween.
While I'm riding the train I get another text, this one saying, "Come to Higashi Kawaguchi". Great. Omiya is 280yen fare and is only 15-20 minutes away. Higashi Kawaguchi, on the other hand, is a good 50 minutes away if you can time the trains perfectly. If not, it'll take a good hour and a half. Crapppy. Well, since I'm already out and in costume, I figure I might as well make the trip.
When I get to Higashi Kawaguchi, no one is in costume. All Jen has on is a pair of crappy fake wings. What a jerk. When she sees me in costume, she says, "Oh yeah. I forgot to tell you no one is going to dress up". Yeah, you sure did. Thanks. Oh well. I honestly don't care. It just makes it all the better. I was hoping that it was some sort of elaborate hoax she was playing on me, but then I realized it's Jen, so that's just not possible. Ha ha!
Anyway, we end up going to a restaurant where you can get a karaoke room. We ate, drank, and sang for a couple of hours. Some of Jen's friends (Daisuke, Rose and her BF) made it about 30 minutes after we got there and they joined in the fun. Woot! We took off after a while and headed over to Neil's (mortician, cousin of Steve-O) apartment. I ended up riding in Daisuke's car. When we got to the Mortician Apartments, I plopped out of the car wearing a...what? Oh yeah. A floatie inertube. I'm still not sure why. Oh well.
We went up the elevator and I got to see my boy Kujo (st bernard statue) again. He looked at me with his sad puppy dog eyes so I had to give him the inertube. At Neil's place I was able to aquire a green katana that matched perfectly with my green baseball outfit. It seems my costumed was just meant to be. Devine seems like too lowly a word for it actually.
After a while at Neil's place, everyone headed off to Omiya. Daisuke decided to drive like a crazy mofo, and would swerve the car side to side just to smash the hell out of the people in the back seat. I was lucky enough to be one of the back seaters...wait...no. I was the luckiest of the back seaters because I was sitting bitch so I was the one smashing the others. I'm a bastard. In Omiya we headed over to the King George to see one of Don's (another mortician. no famous cousin I know of) friends who was dj-ing there. Just outside of the bar there were a bunch of hostesses sending off a group of "dasai matching clothes people" (dorky dudes wearing matching clothes). I was harassed by them for a while (I didn't mind. Their job is to flatter people, so I just made them give me lots of compliments on my baseball ninja outfit) before I went down to the bar.
The King George was bare ass empty when we got there, but whatever, all the better for...that's right. All the better for meeting a creepy old train conductor who sat at a table by himself with a bunch of photos spread on the table in front of him. The photos were all of him with other people, making it slightly more creepy. I walked over and asked if I could check out his pictures and he said go for it. I called Jen over after a while and she started talking to him too and we eventually got him to let us wear his creepy hats. I got him to go dance with Jen and Rose, and I took pictures of them on his camera (unfortunately he didn't email the pictures like he said he would. bastard).
After the creepy old train conductor dance session, we went back to kawaguchi. Daisuke dropped Jen and me off at her apartment, and we promptly took off to go find some food. I mean, the night was still young. Jeeze. It was only 4:00am. Anyway, while we were walking back from a convenience store we ran into a couple of 14year old Yakuza in training (delinquints) and their girlfriends. They asked Jen if she likes to "do sex" and asked me if I was in a green gang. These kids always know the good English words. After a bit of talking, one of them started flexing and then challenged me to an arm wrestling match. What a little fucker. I promptly put him down, and he challenged me again. This time it took a little while longer because he kept moving around in circles (we had to arm wrestle on the pavement). Eventually I said fuck it and started moving too and then put him down. Then Jen promptly called me a pussy for letting a 14 year old keep me at bay for so long, but because I actually am a pussy, I took no offense to it.
We finally made it back to Jen's place and slept until 4:00pm. Instead of getting up, the day was spent watching tv and being lazy. Eventually, we went to the grocery store and got some food. We started feeling a bit more productive after that and decided to go to a video rental place to get some movies. Jen's friend Tomu picked us up and we all headed over to Don Quixote (a shop that has pretty much everything you could ever need) for a remokon (remote control) for Jen's shitty DVD player. She eventually bought one but it didn't end up working. Ha ha ha.
Anyway, we eventually found out that Bad Santa would work without a remote, so we started watching it. Something strange was going on though. I couldn't quite put my finger on it because it was so subtle. Wait. No it wasn't. The fucking DVD player turned everyone's voice into a chipmunk voice. There was gruff Billy Bob cursing up a storm while sounding like Theodore from the Chipmunks. We couldn't put up with that so we decided to go to Tomu's place to watch some movies. We ended up watching Jackass: The Movie. They totally edited out party boy in the stereo shop in Japan, Wee Man walking around in the giant cone, and Preston wearing a diaper while banging a gong behind unsuspecting victims. BS if you ask me.
Ok. So if you haven't been keeping track, it's Sunday now. Morticians, Omiya, karaoke, Daisuke's driving = Friday. Lazy sleep till 4 and watch movies at Tomu's place = Saturday. Next day = Sunday. Now. Ok. I haven't mentioned going back home or showering. This is because I am still wearing the baseball ninja costume. That's right. This is the 3rd day wearing the same clothes in a super disgusting ubathed for 3 days state. You don't need to tell me. I know I'm gross. Anyway, the day was spent in a pattern like this:
sleep
watch crappy tv
sleep
more crappy tv
sleep
go back home
The awesome thing is that when I finally get off the train at my station, I run into a group of my junior high students. They gave me a good ole' "WTF" look so I told them that I was coming back from a Halloween party. In no way could that have explained my discheveled state, but fortunately they didn't even give it a second thought. They know I'm fuckin' wierd. Anyway, I got back to my apartment and got my stuff together for my lessons the next day (someone was coming to evaluate my performance).


p.s. The kids who saw me coming back from Kawaguchi were totally in one of the classes I was being evaluated in, so I had to explain the whole costume thing to the class...while the evaluation was going on. I don't think anyone will ever take me seriously from now on. Goal #5....Status: Complete.

Hammers, Getting Hammered and St. Bernards

Higashi JHS International Understanding Day. I had to give a presentation on the holidays in the US. I told the kids that it was going to be boring before I gave it. After all the speakers went we hung out with the kids. Got them to make funny faces and stuff. Learned new Japanese phrases including one saying "Kurara ga tatta". Kurara is apparently a character from the anime version of Heidi who can't walk, so it is basically a phrase making fun of handycapped people. Awesome. Just plain awesome.

I am Thor. Look at my hammer. I like my hammer. Wait. No. I got hammered. Fuck...Drinking. How did I get home? Wait. Where am I. Why the fuck is there a St. Bernard in the walkway? What happened? Oh yeah. Jen...Her friends. Drinking. Morticians? FUCK.

Ok. So I went out with Jen and we met up with her enbalmer friends in Omiya. That's a fucking wierd job if you ask me, but I guess it's gotta get done. Anyway, we get to a pub/bar and start drinking. Things go fuzzy from there. I met a few new people including Tomoe (Tom). I found out out Chico is in northern Cali. I skimped on buying drinks when I lost at darts (Tom covered me). Jen crashed a B-Day party. People got worried. I went to find her (and skimp on buying drinks). Found her and stole the Birthday Hammer (Jen broke it on the b-day guy's ass while she was spanking him). Started yelling FUCK YEAH with the birthday guy's friends and wishing the birthday guy happy birthday. They were cool as fuck. Had to leave. Jen was passed out between signs. We missed the last train so we had to take cab back to the Kawa (like 60 fucking dollars instead of the 290 yen train fare). Yarfed in the cab. Jen was passed out. Got to Kawa. Had to walk back to her place. She kept falling over and laying in the street. I kept spitting out my puke residue. Somewhere along the way I picked up a St. Bernard statue. It's sitting in her entryway. What a fucked up night. Fun as hell though.

Now I'm hung over and tired. We are active enough to go to the store to buy some nori, but that's about it. Jen tried to make rice but made gruel. What a sucker. After that she had the balls to say, "Hey. Wanna make some rice? It's really easy." Yeah, like you didn't just make gruel. Hahahahahaha. Oh yeah. There's puke all over my shoes. Guess I'll have to clean them one of these days. I have become so much less responsible since coming to Japan. I fail hard. Score! Nori, rice and umiboshi are sooooo good. I need to find a place out here that has the Korean nori though. That is....soooooooooooooooo good. Ahhhhh.

Kujo the St. Bernard

Team Failure at its Finest

Plans. Go play golf with the Yonedas (the principal at one of my schools and his wife) and an English teacher friend of theirs. How badly do I fail? Very. Let's see how I managed it this time.
On the day before golf, Jen invited me to Kawaguchi to kick the proverbrial it with her and then meet up with some Japanese people and some English teachers to go bowling. Great. I go to Kawaguchi, we hit up the super and buy some beer, vodka and some ginger ale. Score. After that we go back to her place, watch some TV, talk for a while, and drink. After a while, Jen texts her friends to ask them to let her know when they are at the bowling alley. We were supposed to meet up with people at the station at 7:30 to go bowling, but she said that there's no point in going back to the station because she lives right next to the bowling alley. Whoops. Although she does live near a bowling alley, they weren't going to that particular one. Ha ha ha ha. Anyway, we finish our drinks, make a particularly strong one for the road and head out.
We make it to the station and meet up with one of her friends...who has probably been waiting there since 7:30, but he's from Cali, so it shouldn't be that big of a deal to him (he even passed the handshake test). I am already getting to the point of drunkeness where time doesn't exist (but does time really exist or is it just an arbatrary creation to make life in a capitalist society possible by giving the population a controlled standard on which routines can be built? Wait, that's just drunkspeak. Back to the story.), but I think it was around 8:10ish kinda, sorta, maybe, when we got there. Oops. So much for Japanese punctuality.
Anyway, we make it to the bowling alley and meet the other people. They are definitely cool and I'm gonna probably to kick it in Kawaguchi more now. Anyway, the drinking continued and the bowling commenced. I don't even want to think about my score. Let's just say I got one spare the whole time. But I was really drunk so it's ok. It started getting late, so Jen took me back to the train station. Uh oh. I totally missed the chance to catch the last train to Kitamoto. They stop running at 12:00 where I live, and I would have to transfer at Omiya, so unless I could find some sort of crazy 4minute train to Omiya, I would be stranded somewhere. Not being stoked on the whole "stranded" idea I said, "Fuck it. I'll catch the first train in the morning.".
We went back towards her place and looked for something to eat. Somewhere along the way, she called an airline to try to change her return ticket to another date. While she was doing that, I randomly met two girls, Noriko and Akiko. After Jen finished her call, Noriko and Akiko took us to a restaurant where we talked and ate. They're both really nice and they both speak very good English as well. Noriko even knows Thee Michell Gun Elephant and how cool of a voice Yaskue Chiba has. First person I've met in Japan that likes TMGE! Sweet. More connections.
We finished eating, said our goodbyes and Jen and I headed back to her place. Somewhere along the line I picked up a skateboard and an umbrella, but that whole deal is kinda fuzzy. I remember going to mulitiple stores for Jen to buy a pack of fags and walking around a bit and grabbing an umbrella out of a crate of broken umbrellas, but I don't remember where I found the skateboard. Oh well.
We got back to her place and I earned 100 yen for giving her a backrub. I fuckin' rock. I'm gonna have to offer 100yen backrubs to more people. Then, maybe after eight backrub sessions I can finally afford a decent bottle of beer in this country. Anyway, after begining my career as a professionl masseuse, I went to sleep. Probably sometime after 4:00 ish. The first train starts running at 4:50am. Ok. Time to sleep. Sleep is nice. Very nice. Zzzzzzzz.
Oh shit! I slept too much. I woke up to my pricipal's wife calling me at 7:00am. They are actually at my apartment. I am in Kawaguchi. I slept through 3 alarms on my phone. I'm such an ass! I blow out of Jen's place filled with disbelief and alcohol. Not a good combo. Running to a train station while trying to explain where and how much of an idiot you are in an unfamiliar town in a disoriented drunken haze isn't as fun as it sounds. Turns out that golf had to be cancelled anyway because the course was flooded. I don't know how, but I remain in good favor with the Yonedas. They have already invited me to golf with them again. I must have been a saint in a past life to get this type of treatment, because I fail at everything, but I'm not dead yet. Score one for the failures out there.

So what have we learned?
1. Failing super hard sucks ass, but I'm good at it, so I should get used to it.
2. I suck at life.
3. I am an asshole.
4. If someone kicks me in the balls with a steel toed boot, that will be karma being nice to me.
5. I am lucky as a MoFo.

That's it for a night in Kawaguchi. Take it easy suckers.

Shopping at the Kitamoto Mall

Ok. Today's forecast, strong winds with a slight chance of crashing into poles. So I went to a local mall-esque structure (It has an electronics store, a clothing store, a drug store, a supermarket, a sports store, and a golf store. Not much of a mall, but it's the best I've got here). I went into Yamada Denki, the electronics store, to check out their stuff. As I was browsing, I noticed the most rediculous thing I've seen in a while. There was a rice cooker. Apparently it is not just any rice cooker though. It must be the greatest rice cooker of all time. I don't know what special features it has, but one must be building the owner's self esteem. I say this because I know it wasn't made of gold or platinum and yet it cost around $700. That's right. About a month and a half of rent from me could buy that rice cooker. I want to sit in that store and wait to see who buys the $700 rice cooker, mostly because I would give them the rectal punch (aka buttuppercut) of their lifetime. Then I would try to sell them a $50 bottle of water.
Anywho, after that, I went to the Uni Qlo. Uni Qlo is pretty much like a Gap but I can't call it the Gap of Japan, because Japan has Gap stores too. But Uni Qlo is totally the Gap of Japan. I went through the bargan bins and ended up getting 3 shirts for under $6. I also bought a 3 pack of white undershirts for work and some warm gloves for when it gets chilly and I have to ride my bike. Grand total for 6 shirts and some gloves: 2,560 Yen (about $23). Not too bad in my opinion.
After that I went to the sports store to check out what they had. I found out they have tons of camping stuff, so I'm gonna ask some teachers where I can go camping and go camping sometime. There are aparently many good camping spots in Japan and you don't need permits or anything to camp which is convenient. Anyway, I ended up buying some tennis shoes to be my indoor shoes at my school. Now, if any students invite me to participate in their sports club, I have the proper equipment to oblige them. I also bought a new rain jacket because my other one only likes to work for 20 minutes max. Then it decides to let water seep through and get me soaked. Not so fun I tell you. Anyway, this new one is tephlon coated, so water just slides right off. I ran the kitchen sink over it and water cannot stick to it at all. It went from having water run over it to dry immediately. Crazy.
Ok. After that I rode my bike back home. The fun thing was that my shopping bags acted like miniature sails, causing me to inadvertantly turn my bike at inopprotune times. One of those times almost sent me into a pole, but luckly I only ended up hitting my hand on it rather than running my bike into it. I really fail at not hurting myself, but what's new? After I got back to my apartment I ended up seeing my Principal's wife and she invited me over for some tea. My principal was out buying some roofing for their parking spot, came back, and then realized the stuff he bought was too short. Oh well, I guess I'm not the only one who fails. I offered to help him put up the roofing, so tomorrow I am going to be putting a roof together. Should be fun.

First Day at Miyauchi Junior High

Today I started at Miauchi JHS. I had an interesting experience there. I got there and was fine, but as soon as I went into the teacher's room, I began to sweat profusely. Why? Oh yeah. Because they had the heat turned up because they didn't just ride a bike into work. I had to go out into the halls so that I could regulate my temperature. Eventually, I cooled off enough so that the room felt alright.
A quick point about living in Japan. I think I should get used to giving speeches. In Japan they don't like to give you prep time for speeches, so I think that one should always approach a situation expecting to give a speech. I got to give a speech to the whole school in Japanese with a good 20 minutes notice. It's too bad that the 20 minute notice was actually 3 minutes because I had to go to the gym (about 2 minutes) and listen to someone else speak for 15. So with the 3 minutes of prep time, I had no speech. I got to make it up while waiting for the other speech to end. That's some pressure. And let me tell you, when I get put into a pressure situation, I ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS fail as hard as I can. My speech probably made the student body ask themselves, "Why is there a retarded person addressing all of us?". At least I got to start off with the impression I wanted to give. "Yep. I'm the grinning idiot who's here to teach you English. Let's have fun."
Besides my horrible speech, I had some other wierd experinces. In one class I had two first year boys harass me for a kiss. I was like, "Huh? What's the matter with you?". Oh well. Wierd kids will be wierd kids. I'm also improving the strength of the eyes in the back of my head. If I don't, one of those two will try to grab my butt. It's freakin' wierd. Also, I was randomly stopped in the halls by two first year girls and they told me, "You have a beautiful face". I thought that was strange too.
Oh yeah. Did I mention beforehand that the teachers at Higashi JHS (my previous school) said that this school's student body was more classy and refined then the students at their school? Yeah....I don't think so. They may be smarter, but they are just as energetic and wierd if not more so.
Finally, to end my day, the coach of the soccer club asked me to coach the team. I guess that after school I will be coaching a bunch of soccer players. That should be fun. Maybe I can get into running shape as well as cycling shape. I think that cycling mostly strenghtens your quads, so if you don't strengthen your hammies, you're likely to pull or tear them. I think soccer should help balance that out. Hopefully. I guess that remains to be seen. Eventful day. Good diary entry. It's raining again. Suprise suprise.