Nutcracker....Sweet?

Yesterday, I went to a newly found Kappa Sushi in Kitamoto. On the way back, there was a little bit of excitement. I was riding my bike down the street, and a car suddenly pulled out in front of me. I slammed on my front and back brakes and slid across the pavement, narrowly avoiding a collision. The old guy driving the car gave a slight bow before taking of. The jerk didn't even check to see if I was ok or anything. I wish I would have crashed my bike into his car and put a big dent in it. That might have gotten his attention a little better than me going head over handlebars and smashing my testicular area on my seat. Ouch. I had to stand on the side of the road for about five minutes before I could even start walking. Anyway, the rest of the trip back was...painful to say the least. I rode my bike with my knees pointed outward to avoid any incidental contact. Not fun. I didn't do much activity after I got back to my apartment. Not much at all. In fact, I pretty much laid on the couch until I went to my bed.

Flameboots!

The saying goes, "A picture is worth a thousand words". Enjoy.

As usual, the train makes for some good people watching.

Always Bitter

It appears that I'm a bitter sleeper. Caroline came back from run, and laid down next to me. I was asleep, so I have to take her word for what I did. Apparently, a little while after she laid down, I said, "It's fuckin' hot", then rolled out of the blankets onto the corner of the futon with a scowl on my face. She said she had to coax the scowl off my face with a massage. Another time, I apparently pushed her across the futon because I was too hot. Ha ha ha. I have absolutely no recollection of either incidents, so you better not mess with me while I'm sleeping, because I can't be held responsible for my actions.

Shut Up Hooker

This Friday I met up with Jen to do some pre-Tokyo drinking at her place. I got there and her apartment was so filthy I refused to take off my shoes. We ended up buying a bottle of vodka and I ended up drinking a bit too much. I was somehow able to fit an entire night's worth of drunken stages into about an hour. I guess that's what you get when you start drinking a bunch of alcohol on an empty stomach (I was able to eat a bit of food, but it was right before I started getting really sick...maybe it was the food...ha ha ha). Whoops. At least Jen and I were able to have an awesome conversation.

It went something like this.

Jeremy: Oh fuck, I'm gonna puke.

Jen: Hurry up so we can go.

Jeremy: Whatever. BLEEEEGH!! HUUUURRRLL!! BLARRRGH!!...

Jen: Want some natto?

Jeremy: Fuck you I hate you.

Jen: You really look sick.

Jeremy: zzzzzzzzzz....zzzzzzzzz...

I think it's obvious enough that we didn't end up making it to Tokyo. Anyways, you live and you learn. From this I learned that, although gummy bears alone will make your puke taste like fruit punch, gummy bears mixed with normal food just tastes like puke.

It's Onomatopoeia Time, Onomatopoea!

Me: This is the gold medal that I won.

Student: This is the gold medal that I...

Teacher: Won*.

Student: ...that I...

Teacher: Won...Won. Won**.

Everyone (except teacher): Ha ha ha ha ha.


*Won sounds like "wan", which is the Japanese equalivalant to "woof", so the students were laughing because she sounded like she was barking.

**At this point she was irritated, so the tone of her voice made it even more like a dog's bark.

The Battle of the Carrots

So Caroline decided to buy some carrots just because they were extremely long. We ended up playing with them like they were swords until we began to use them as whips. That's right. Really long carrots used as whips. And let me tell you. They freakin' hurt. These battles continued for a few days until we broke them in The Great Carrot Battle.


Basically this is what happened. Caroline grabbed a carrot and whipped me (I think I tickled her a lot to spark that reaction). I hopped up and readily accepted her challenge by grabbing another of the freakisly lengthy carrots. We began the whipping battle, and things seemed grim for me. I was wearing a regular t-shirt and some warm up pants. Caroline, on the other hand, was wearing jeans and a thick winter hapi coat. Luckly, Caroline's armor didn't go to her hands which were my prime target. I wacked them repeatedly until I could feint an attack to the hand and then get a good whip on the leg. Ha ha ha.

She ended up breaking a couple of carrots on various parts of my body and I kept wacking her in the hand or leg with the super elastic carrot until we eventually called a truce (*cough* she gave up *cough*), and thus the battle ended. It resulted in various welts all over our arms and legs.

This is nothing compared to the Great Belt Fights of '01.

Frozen Golf

I went golfing with the Yonedas again and it was "COLD". By COLD I don't mean "kinda cold, whatever", I mean "HOLY CRAP I'M FREEZING AND THIS IS THE FIRST TIME I'VE SEEN SNOW FALL, AND IT'S FALLING HORIZONTALLY BECAUSE THERE'S A WIND IS SO STRONG" cold. The greens were also difficult to land because they were FROZEN. That's about all I can remember from the golf outing. Blegh!

Disneyland in Japan

Didneydand!

So this winter break I was afforded the opportunity to visit the happiest place in Japan...TOKYO DISNEYLAND! Actually, it wasn't all that happy...unless crowds of people, long lines, and overpriced merchandise makes you happy. Then it's probably one of the happiest places in the universe. I got to enjoy it with Caroline, Noriko (one the Japanese teachers from her company) and her two daughters.

They wouldn't let me in the picture because they thought I was a total boar.

Tokyo Disney was a serious blast from the past. It was a lot like Disneyland in Aneheim was before all of the recent updates. One major surprise was the existance of the Swiss Family Robinson's Tree House! Not the crappy Tarzan's Tree House that Aneheim now has, but the old Swiss Family Robinson's one from my childhood! Woot!

Let's use our heads to guage how big these monsters' anuses are...

Another fun thing was getting to see the anamatronic characters speak and sing in Japanese. Splash Mountain had the whole Zip A Dee Do Da song in Japanese. Cool. Strangely, there was actually a lot of English too. A train on which visitors could ride would announce that it would be leaving in English before it was announced in Japanese. Also, the pirates on the Pirates of the Carribbean ride spoke English too. The voice that narrated the story was in Japanese though.

Gettin' some beaver after splash mountain.

Anyways, our group had a fun time wandering around Disneyland looking at the various sights. It was Caroline's first time going to Disneyland. I think it may have been the first time for all of us to visit Tokyo Disney. It was a wonderful role reversal being the total foreigner in Disneyland. We took lots of pictures of us doing random stuff. All in all, it was quite a fun time.

The maturity really shines through.