Burento in Japan

First and foremost…..i shaved my head.

Next, I am sad to announce that there will be no china blog.  I am just too lazy to write it.  Just the first day took me 3 pages and I just can’t do that.  So, the videos/pictures will be the only things that will ever exist from my China on the intrawebs….I guess i’ll have the memories in my head, but they don’t really count unless they’re shared with others right?  Anyway, it’s been about 2 months I guess since I last wrote anything.  So, I figured today I’d come home early and sit in my boxers and just write up a little something.  Um, 2 weeks after China (around May 15th) I headed down to Tokyo for my good friend Matt Harris’ birthday, we hit the biggest club in Asia, Ageha and then went to a festival in Asakusa.  I just have pictures from the festival.  It’s called the Sanja Matsuri (3 something festival).  Basically it’s based on 2 fisherman who found a kannon buddha in their fishing nets and a rich business man.  After finding the kannon buddha all 3 of these guys became monks and dedicated their lives to buddhism.  I think that rich businessman was so amazed by the fishermans’ story that he joined them and donated all his money to a temple.  Today, it’s basically a bunch of dudes walk around with Omikoshi (the portable shrines) and pants are optional…apparently. 

Now, the big draw of this festival was that it was supposed to be the one day where the Yakuza (japanese mafia) are allowed to display their full body tatoos in public.  Normally there is a ban on this, by the Yakuza itself and the cops….not that the latter really matters.  But we went and were totally stoked…except I didn’t see one THE ENTIRE TIME!!!  A few friends had one guy take of his shirt and show them, but obviously I was getting shaved ice so I missed it.  Anyway, the pics are here.

Sanja Matsuri

Uh, after that, I really didn’t do much until one weekend where Mo and I decided to use MY free night at the hyatt regency hotel.  If you’re wondering, what free night?  Go down to the dancing video or the post titled beers, birthdays, and boarding or something like that.  Anyway, we used our night at the hyatt, but had to use it on a friday night because apparently my coupon didn’t allow for us to book on a saturday night.  LAME!!!  So on June 5th, we left work as early as we could and headed down to Tokyo.  The Hyatt was amazing (please note that I said, the Hyatt Regency, not the Park Hyatt which is the building made famous by the Lost in Translation movie). 

We were gonna try to have a swanky dinner there, but obviously I didn’t bring a suit JACKET, which was a requirement of their swanky french restaurant so we were turned away.  We hit up another place in Shinjuku instead and then went back to the Hyatt for drinks in a bar that was “reminiscent of a private club.”  It was sweet!! Or I guess I should say, really posh.  I had a few crown royals and mo had a glass of champagne and the bill was about 100 bucks, so much for a “free night.”  The next day we headed to Yokohama.  There we went up the highest building in Japan, on the fastest elevator in the world.  All the stats are in the captions to the pictures.  After that we went on the tallest Ferris Wheel in the world, according to Lonely Planet.  I’m a bit skeptical about this because Drew and Nathan while in Osaka apparently saw the “tallest Ferris Wheel in Japan” and then in Fukuoka saw the “tallest Ferris Wheel in Asia.”  I dunno, you try to figure it out.  Anyway, we hit a rollercoaster and kinda hung out in Yokohama.  After that we went to Chinatown (still in Yokohama).  It was pretty awesome, just like China, except cleaner…with more japanese people…more japanese…and with japanese prices.  We tried to get Peking duck, cuz Mo’s never had it before.  Just a sidebar: for 3 of us in China for a whole duck and drinks it cost a total of about 21 dollars, that’s 7 dollars each.  For a whole duck in Chinatown in Japan, oh ya, 150 dollars!!  Needless to say, we did not have duck.  We had dinner and then headed back to our hostel. 
Night at the Hyatt/Yokohama

On the sunday we went to Akihabara, and I don’t know if you heard about this, but we left Akihabara 10 minutes before some psycho in a van, came in, hit some people with his van then got out and started stabbing people at random.  He killed 7 people.  Here’s a link to the article.  Freaky.
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20080608×1.html

Um, what else has gone down?  Oh, the biggest earthquake that I have ever felt happened.  It has apparently killed 12 people.  The epicenter was in Miyagi, the prefecture north of Fukushima, about a 20 min drive to the border from Fukushima city, so that we pretty freaky.  Everything in the apartment shook pretty hardcore, I thought that the book shelf was going to topple over.  Here’s the article for that.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article4141402.ece

I just realized that I’ve written about two freaky things that have happened in a row as if to say I live in a danger zone or something.  LOL.

Last but not least.  This past Tuesday, a bunch of us went to a Japan Baseball League Game.  The Yomiura Giants, based out of Tokyo (Japan’s equivalent of the Yankees, except everyone loves them) vs. The Orix Buffaloes (no clue where they’re from).  We attended this in Fukushima of all places.  We were going to try to get tickets to a game in Tokyo but they’re sold out for the season.  We then found out that they play one game a year in Fukushima because one of the players is from Fukushima or something like that.  So we scored tickets and strangely enough, it didn’t even sell out?  It’s like the Toronto Maple Leafs coming to Hamilton and the game not selling out?  WHAT?  Weird eh?  Anyway, it was a total blast especially cheering for the Buffaloes when EVERYONE in the crowd was wearing Giants gear.  The Giants ended up winning in the bottom of the 9th which was upsetting but awesome night anyway. 
Giants Vs. Buffaloes

Uh, since then, nothing really big has happened.  Had some good nights out this last weekend.  Had a bit of a boys night Friday night and then Saturday we all went out, ended up in Karaoke for 2 hours at the end of the night.  Home by 4:30am…that clearly means it was a good night. 

School’s been busy lately.  After having a bit of a go at the kids for not writing creatively on their exams (that I got to mark).  The JTE’s for the entire second (read: eleventh) grade have brought in journals for kids to write creatively and try out difficult sentences so that they aren’t continually writing.  I like baseball.  Baseball is fun.  I play baseball everyday.

I have some stellar examples for you to check out.  Some are good, some are funny and some have clearly been put into an online translator and make no sense at all.  The only problem with all of this is that I have to mark 300 journals a week.  That’s making corrections, writing comments and grades.  I’m only at Higashi 3 days a week!!!  Good thing my supervisor doesn’t know i’m alive or I might actually have classes and have to mark these things.  I’m liking it, but it is definitely messing with my English speaking and writing ability to be reading this stuff day in and day out.

Check it out.  Keep in mind they’re supposed to be creative and interesting.  I don’t grade them on grammar but I obviouly make all the corrections that need to be made.  Oh and they’re supposed to be AT LEAST 100 WORDS.  This is after 5 years of studying English.

#1)