Happy Halloween from Japan!

Yes, today is Halloween. Luckily its only in America because then we would be amongst the dead and Japanese O-bon isn't until August. So what your backs minna! Anyway what did I do for Halloween, my most favorite holiday???

I stayed home. That's right I stayed home because I am totally addicted to 24. I don't know what to say. I feel like the story line is so intense that the whole show has no boring parts. And its a good thing that we got the whole season because I don't think I could wait each week to wacth the new episodes. But its awesome. Krystala nd I started at midnight yesterday and watched a few episodes only to finish up to noon today. We still have 12 more episodes to go and I don't think I can wait for it.

It was pretty much a stay in daysince Krystal is still fighting a cold and the weather sucks ass. So we just watched TV all day and am perfectly intent. Last night though, I went to the HUB (a local bar) with some friends to find out that the HUB is the place to be for Halloween. It seems like all the forgeiners in Kyoto find their way there to party it up Americana style. Many people were in costumes and some were very cool. There were also a lot of Japanese girls trying to pick up Foriegn guys. It seems like the Japanese girls really like foreigners. But anyway a bunhc of us just went to drink up a bit and celebarte in our own way. One of my friend's teacher from school was also there. He was a really nice guy that was speaking really good English. I don't know why but the the younger teachers are usually the ones that are the English teachers. The teachers are all around our ages and its just cool to make Japanese friends and chill. The symbiotic relationship of them teaching us Japanese and us teaching them English. It was a total monster mash!!

No real big plans for this week. Just thinking maybe I should get around to visiting my aunt in Osaka pretty soon. The only thing is that I forgot the number. The number was in my palm pilot and the battery died erasing all the memory. And like an idiot I didn't hotsync it. But supposedly I have an aunt in Osaka... an aunt that I have never seen or talked too, and an aunt that has never seen or heard me... so I should find her easily right?

Anyway, Happy Halloween to you all! Have fun and save all the fun size snickers for me.

Boooreak it Down!!

All Hallows Eve Eve Eve...

Halloween weekend is coming up and we're looking forward to going to Osaka. Osaka supposedly the party capitol south of Tokyo is gonna be awesome! Rumor has it that there is a party on the train that goes around Osaka. Not a leagl train party where the train company sponsors it but one of foreigners just taking over three or four cars and getting drunk before heading to the real party. As for a costume, I don't have one this year. Crazy huh? I guess I could go and get one but it seems harder to get costumes in Japan. Unless you're Japanese and into Cos-Play. They know where to find all those underground places.

Other than that no big plans for Halloween. I really do miss all the Halloween ambiance of Hawaii. All the stores are decked out ino decorations of skeletons, bats, witches, and who can forget the haunted houses. They have only one hanuted house in Japan. And it's located in Tokyo, Tokyo Disneyland to be exact, the Haunted Mansion. Whenever I bring up haunted houses they all know the haunted Mansion in Disneyland.

On a more serious note, I had a minor accident with my bike this morning. Going to school I was trying to avoid this gang of epopel who were walking in the bike land so I rode onto the rode and was coasting it. But I got to close to the curb and my pedal hit the curb and totally rocked me. I didn't fall or anything but I felt like I crushed my foot. And noe when I pedal the left pedal feels funny because its a little bent. Still good but bent... the whole time I heard Krystal's voice saying "I told you so". I guess THAT WASN'T WOOD I KNOCKED ON.

YESTERDAY was Krystal and my two year anniversary!! YEA! Wow I can't believe we've been going out for so long. I feel like we've been going out a long time but at the same time the two years went by really fast. We had a nice quiet evening last night, sushi at our favorite place in Japan, and a nice bike ride through 50 degree weather.

So at my Friday school I have third graders basically all day and one sixth grade class. It's the same demon possessed class I had last week. The teacher wants me to try again since the kids didn7t really get the the lesson last time. I even had a big meeting with him to try and figure out a way to keep his kids in check. Hopefully it goes ok. I don't want to have a headache on the last class of the class and go home with one. I might need a young preist and and old priest.

the Power of Christ compels you, the power of Christ compels you.... Break It down!

Very First Movie Line QUIZ!

Take the Quiz to see if your Movie IQ matches mine!!
(I'm that bored at work...)

Please submit answers in comments with corresponding numbers:
Hint: Disney movies

From what movie is this line from? Bonus if you can get the character who said it.

1) Look harder....you see, he lives in you.

2) I'm not asking much, just a token mere a trifle, you'll never miss it.

3) They just popped up like daisies!

4) he has deep dark penetrating eyes.

5) Group hug, group hug, mind if I kiss the monkey?

6) Crazy old Maurice...

7) Let's hurry up and eat before this crab runs off my plate.

8) I think my bunny slippers just ran for cover.

9) If you not eat with me then YOU WILL STARVE!!

10) An elephant what?!?!

Minna san, GAMBATTE!

Holy Visible Breath Batman!

That's right, you can totally see your breath outside. I waqs biking it to school when I noticed it. Damn its getting fricken freezing here. I believe the current temperature is 54 degrees. I looked it up on the internet and they said today's high is only 60. What the hell is that? I guess its kind of what I wanted seeming that the coldest I ever been was about 50 degrees in Cali. The next coming months should be interesting . . . brrrrrr. . .

So anyway I'm at my usual bloggin school, but today is a lot more fun then usual sine they prepared a specific Halloween day. So no real English lessons just what I do in Hawaii during Halloween and what the kids do. So today I was giving very general explanations of Halloween and even got to tell a ghost story. For third and fourth grade we have the ever popular, "The Girl with the Yellow Ribbon" and for fifth and sixth grade we have the "The Red Eye". That story always gives me the creeps so hopefully the upper class students get the story and also become very creeped out. If you want to know the story give me a comment and I'll send one to you.

So anyway I've been talking about Halloween all morning and I feel like this is one of my more enjoyable lessons that I got to give. The only thing is that for once the Japanese teacher is working his ass off trying to translate for me. Its ok though I usually do all the work so this one time should be ok.

Bbbrrreeeaaakkk iiiittt Dddddoooowwnnnnnn

Tsu-Su-day...

That's how theJapanese kids pronounce "Tuesday". Yup its a Tuesday and I get to go on the computer. Usually the ofice is stacked with people everywhere but today they have all seem to go ne and teach first period like they should. So I got the courage to ask my V.P. for the computer access. Anyway big news in Japan...

WE BOUGHT A T.V. !!! Krystal and I made yet another big purchase this weekend and bought a T.V. Its a nice flat screen trinitron VEGA 21 inches. I don't know why but I seem to be really really excited to buy the T.V. Maybe its the fact that I might be able to watch Anime in its originally form or that I maybe able to watch Japanese shows with all the Japanese commericals. I dunno the T.V. thing is making me really anxious.

So due to our recent addition to our tiny apartments, we went out last night to buy a T.V. stand. We can't be watching T.V. on the ground can we? So with teh advice from my teacher we went to this citymill-esque store to buy the stand. When we gto there they had many different stands but all kind of pricey. We were actually gonna make our own stand by using the do-it-yourself pieces. We had it all planned out and calculated and was just about to get it but we saw a different stand only 4 dollars more wich was a lot nicer. It was one with the glass magnetic doors to put your DVD or VCR player in. It also came with wheels!

The weirdest part was carrying this huge ass home. At first Krystal was " I can carry it" and we all know how big Krystal's hands are right? Anyway I tell her to slide it between my back and backpack and it was a very close and tight fit. So now it looked like I was carrying an oversized backpack like camping gear. But we were able to make itome safe and I was able toput it together in about 30 minutes. I dunno but I think its the guy in me that liked to put the stuff together. I'm not exaclty the best do-it-yourself guy but it made me feel proud of myself for putting it together.

Afterwards we went in search for some dinner. We must have biked around Kyoto City for a good 45 minutes when we finaly came to the area we orignially started at. We decided on going to this Korean place, knowing that we didn't really have Korean since Hawaii. When we got there the restaraunt was dark and pretty exotic looking. They had many rooms where you can have parties and sit on the floor and stuff (Japanese style). but the most amazing part was the food. It was the first time I had Korean in Japan! It tasted very korean, like my grandma's home cooked food. Only thing was the potency was not to great. The items on the menu were rated with chilli peppers for their hot potncy. Most of the things we got were in the 3 pepper range (the highest). But I personally felt it was a one at most. AWESOME korean feast. *Lisa if you're reading this then when you come to Kyoto we definitely need to go to this restaurant.

Break it down... Hot, Hot, Hot!

Hi-Matsuri

Translation: Fire Festival!! Last night Krystal and I went to Kyoto's fire festival. They said that this particualr festival is a good one to watch because ot is one of the more older ones that are still being practiced today. We had to catch two trains but it was worth it seeing all those huge torches being carried. The men and young adults were carrying some 200 pound torches while going up to the shrine. They even had little kids with torches (mini versions) walking up.

Its supposed to be some sort of offering to the god at that particular temple/shrine. The wait was crazy long. When we got ot the station for the train that goes into the mountains the line was uber long! It was like waiting to go on a ride at Dinseyland or something. We only got on the train after about 45 minutes of waiting. Then on the train they were packing us in. The train people were like "mo sukoshi" over and over. We were no where near our personal space. I had about four people leaning on me as well as me leaning on four other people. But because the train was a local one we needed to stop at every stop. The festival just happened to be at the last stop too. So every so often a person waiting at one of the stops would puch his/her/their way into an already packed beyond capacity train. One more tally into the memory banks.

But it was well worth it to be apart of a festival that only happenes once a year since the year 995 I think...


Break It down..hot!

Fricken sixth graders...

Ok so I get to my Friday school thinking maybe this time the sixth graders will be a lot better...but they weren't. This one class I had is completely unbelievebale. What the hell is their problem. I wish I cold speak Japanese because I would of totally yelled at them. I mean I don't expect the best most perfect behavior but decent would be nice. None of the boys are paying attention, they literally walk around and talk to their neighbors who are on the otehr side of the class. Then they play games, throw stuff around and totally disregard eveything I say. What's even worse is that some kids are paying attention but they're totally distracting everyone. For example we were trying to go over new vocabulary words but whenver I asked them to repeat them they would mis pronounce the word on purpose or say a Japanese word that is similar to it. At one point I was gonna do the "I'll just wait here" routine but then they noticed and started to say "oh he's mad now..." FUCKIN' LITTLE BASTARDS!!! So then not trying to get mad I just do whenever the kids give me a hard time in front of the class... belittle them. That's right. I only resorted to this once before. One of the irritating kids were right in front mispronouncing the words on purpose. So he kids repeating it like a dumbass moran, "Enu Enu enu enu enu enu enu enu enu enu enu enu..." He was trying to say "N". So I flat out told him NO and asked him to repeat it. Then he thougth he was being funny and started again. So I kepp saying "No WHAT IS THIS" then finally he realized that maybe he was saying it wrong so he was like ehh, ehh, ehh, ehh looking around for someone to help him and I got to his level and started him down constantly asking him "what is this". Oh he didn't feel to amused after that. He tried to do it a couple of more times but I just got it his face and pretty soon no one wanted to answer. This is where I usually debate, what is better a quiet class or a noisy one. I hate that class...

The other 6th grade class was completely opposite. They got the lesson and had lots of fun. Only if the first class can see that I'm there to make the class fun not boring. After the lesson I went to the first class' teacher and asked him whathis class is interested in. He said they like physcial actvities. So I think that from now on they should ONLY do physcial activities regarding english because I refuse to teach like that again.

Tiny Bubbles...

Ok so I'm at my base school today thinking that Ihad one lesson to teach. So I was thinking I can probably teach that lesson and then go to teh Ed center to do some Halloween stuff but they got me doing weird thigns in bubbles throughout the day. Like I have nothing to do first period but tehy have me teaching a class I never taught before in 2nd period. Then I got my sixth graders for one period. After that t hey got me teachign anotehr class I have never taught before. Then I was thinking that the whole day wasn't wasted because I can still leave before lunch. But before I could ask I my supervisor asks me to observe the second graders as they practice trick- o- treating. Which I believe should take no more than 10 minutes at the most. So Then I have nothing to do for another hour. Then I thought of I can maybe leave afterschool but then some other teacher schedules a meetig at 3.　　So basically I have work all day but I have pockets of time with nothing to do.

Oh and buy the way I finished Harry Potter and the order of the Phoneix yesterday. So now I can say that I have read all the book s just like I promised. So what to do now?

Break i - - - stupefy!!

Blue Bird....

Blue Bird, the reason why I didn't have any English lessons today. There happens to be a musical playing today in the auditorium. So at about 10:00 the whole school went to the gym/auditorium and watched a play about a boy and girl who were being "naughty". The boy would only play video games and the girl would only talk on her cell phone. So the mother (single, dad died a couple of years ago) has two jobs and leaves to go to work. She tells the two kids to do their homework but they ignore her and continue what they were doing. She reccomends that they read a book called Blue Bird. A book where if you find the BLue Bird you can make a wish.

So the magical wise angel/godmother person comes and takes them to a land where the Blue Bird lives. The have to catch the blue bird to make one wish come true. They orginally wish for material things (new video game and new cell phone) when she tells them to wish from the heart. They decided that they want to see their father again. So they are search of this magical blue bird. But at the same time a bad guy is also looking for the bird to become the highest yakuza leader, So the race begins. The moral of the story is to listen to your parents, look out for each other, and if you wish from the heart you cannot go wrong.

This play took a good two hours and was pretty entertaining. You know how I am with shows....
But while we were in the gym the school got a notice that the hurricane will come directly to Kyoto so the students are to be sent home early. That means no teaching today. So just like the last time everyone is runing around somewhat aimlessly to get the students to lunch and then immediately home.

Where do the teachers go? We stay and fight the hurricane of course!

Break It Down!!

Short skirt and a long Jacket...

Answer me this: How can these Japanese people (women and girls) walk around the city wearing a skirt in this kind of weather?

Walking to school today (no bikes due to the approaching hurricane) I noticed many people on the train and the road to school that 95% all the women were wearing skirts. Not the skirts that are cut off at the calf or the ankle but showing considerable amount of thigh. ITS FRICKEN FREEZING OUTSIDE!! Here I am in jeans, long sleeve shirt, and a fleece sewater, and they're walking around like its mid June. I mean they do have some weather protection clothing like a cardigan or something but honestly what are they thinking. Not that I'm complaining the number of girls wearing skirts (which I am all for) but I think I know why Japanese peoples' skin are so pale... they freeze their skin in the fall and winter.

Anyway so the first couple days of the week has been very busy. When Krystal and I put in a movie after dinner we both seem to be falling asleep before the movie finsihes. From Krystal that is almost certain but for me to fall asleep.

Interesting thing happened on Monday. I was at my base school doing my usual thing when the teacher told me that there was gonan be a drill of some kind in the morning. I tried to figure out what the drill was for but they couldn't translate for me. I guessed fire, earthquake, hurricane, but I got no's. So anyway 11:00 comes around when I hear a bunch of shouting. The shouting wasn't to have students to be quiet and stuff but I man yelling at the top of his lungs. So I look around and everyone is in a panic. The V.P. is barking out orders and tells me to follow the music teacher that sits infront of me. And she has a "stick" a weapon of some sort. So naturally I start to get a little worried. Then the in the hall the shouting gets louder. The V.P. tells everyone to go out and everyone literally books it out the door. So I follow the teachers to the hallway where a steady dtream of students are filing out of the building onto the playground. One of teh SPED teachers tell me to grab a stilt for protevtion. (note: Japanese Elementary school are a breeding ground for clowns. At every school there are many unicycles and stilts that the students can entartain themselves... and they do.) So anyway I grab a stilt and stand "guard" of the doorway. As the students start to trickle out, all the teachers have some sort of weapon, yard sticks, mops, brooms, chairs, etc. So now I'm going into scared mode. Then all of a sudden a man appears at the end of the hallway staring at the doorway where I am stationed. He starts to run straight towards us. The teachers slam the door shut and wedge the stilts behind the handles to lock the door. Me, I standing there stilt in hand wondering what the hell is going on. The man appears to be semi-scruffy. Unshaven, mirrored sunglasses, and apparently very disgruntled. He then disappears back in the perpendicular hallway. Then I see the staff coordinator raising his hands in victory as if he just defeated a gladiator and runs to follow the disgruntled man.

I turn around and see that all the kids were sitting there on the playground looking as if nothign is happening. Then it finally dawns on me, this is the drill. Students are turning towards me and waving and smiling. Then from the other door, the man comes out screaming a yelling at something or someone. The V.P, Principal, staff coordinator, the science teacher, and teh P.E. teacher are now circling the dude with poles, brooms and other weapons. The man starts comign towards the students when police officers arrive on the seen. Full dressed officers in riot gear are stepping towards him with shields and batons. They start to fight a little and then man is brought down and cuffed. Then an important looking man in a suit walks towards us. He has a bullhorn and starts talking. The jist: this was a drill if an intruder has entered your school. Teachers are to protect the students unitl the police arrive. What an experience. Not to mention that T.V. crews were vidoe taping the whoile ordeal and I believe we were on T.V. I dunno I don't have one yet. Anyway this school had a special intruder drill since the school is completely enclosed and the rooms are all open with no real doors so all the students are to easy access to anyone that just wanders in the school. An intruder drill....

And on Tuesday nothing happened...

Oh by the way, there is yet another hurricane coming to Kyoto. Supposedly a really bad one, hitting us sometime this late afternoon, early evening. and just when I was getting over a cold...

Break it down!

It's Fricken Freezing Here Mr. Biggelsworth...

That's right, its fricken freezing. How freezing? Well lets just say that the average low for Hawaii was 75 degrees and in Kyoto the high during mid day was only 70 degrees. It gets as cold as 40 during the night. So being from Hawaii I'm narturally freezing by 50 degrees.

Those of you who have read Harry Potter or seen Harry Potter 3 (the prisoner of Azkaban) know what a Dementor is right? Well a Dementor is a guard from Azkaban. They are hooded and cloaked figures that bring icy-trails where ever they go. They also perform a Dementor's Kiss which basically means they suck your soul out through your mouth. So I would like to say that Krystal has Dementors as feet. her feet get so cold that when she touches me with her feet I feel happiness being drained from me from the shock of her cold feet.

So its Sunday. After a day of dong nothing on Saturday, I ended up dong pretty much the same thing on Sunday. Today the Yahoo BB phone seemed to be working pretty good (yesterday it was very staticy) so I decided to call home today. I talked to my dad for a while about Hawaii and how the warriors are doing this year. Same ole same ole, well as long as they still have Tammy Chang I guess we can never get better.

Krystal woke up this morning saying that she couldn't really state anything. Then throughout the morning she had a stuffy nose and was talkign funny. It sounds like Krystal is catching a cold. I'm kind of scared because she needs to take a certian medicine and when she gets sick hse needs to take like triple doses and stuff. Very different from when I get sick. I usually eat the cold away and its gone in about 2 days but when she gets sick sometimes she can get hospitalized. Buut anyway I told her to take medicine and she bascially fell asleep all afternoon. Which gave me some alone time: did the laundry, the dishes, watched some Friends, and Bruce Almighty. Was a very productive Sunday...just the way I like it.

Elisa, calls to remind me that we were supposed to hang out today. Which was fun since we haven't seen her in a while. We deicded to try the Mexican place that we were denied to the last time and it was ok. Nothing spectacular, just simple good tasting mexican food. the only thing was that their tortilla (which I think was homemade) was only the size of a coffe saucer. Pretty small if you ask me, coming from my prespectives of burrittos from Taco Bell being the Grilled Stuffed Burrito. But nevertheless it was good. Then Elisa had a reccomendation for dessert. She took us a mall like area that had a coffee shop with really good desserts. Reminded me a lot of cafe Laufer back home. But it was also good and tonights dinner was a success.

But ITS STILL FRICKEN COLD!! How are we gonna handle when it starts getting really cold? Anyone know where I can buy some long johns?

BREAK IT DOWN!!

Do Sho Ka Na...

What shall I do? Hmm well it is a Saturday and for some reason I feel alseep really early last night. I think it was arond 9:30 or so. Anyway I got up at 8:30 and been up ever since. Suks waking up ealry on a weekend. I feel that I have to wake up early every other day so why the hell did I wake up so early?

This week seemed to go by really fast. I guess becasue Monday was a hoilday but there were still 4 more days of work. Anyway Krystal and I decided that we should make today a Clean up day. One of the things I took for granted when I lived at home. Now I have to make sure the laundry is done, garbage is out, toilet is clean and all that other stuff. So I have just cleaned the bathroom and washed teh sheets. Everything else is pretty clean. What shall I do now...

Nothing really planned today. I guess this would be a great time to catch up on Japanese T.V but the thing is that I don't have a T.V. So many good shows to watch but no T.V. Krystal and I should really think about getting one. Sorry this blog isn't really fun to read. But honestly nothing really happened.

I did get a chance to talk to Joel. Seems like there's turbulent waters again on the shores of CKi but I'm sure that isn't nothing Joel can't handle. It was the first time he picked up his phone. I'm guessing it was ebcause he was at work and when it rang he quickly picked it up so that it wouldn't make noise. But thats ok Joel, we forgive you for not picking up our phone calls.

Well hopefully somethig happens today so I can write a decent blog but for now, this is all I have.

Break it down

So Anyway....

Right... So yeah we waited forever to ride any of he rides. And bvecause we were in the lines so often that the at we never really got a chance to really see all the diferent lands. But we did get the oppurtunity to stop by San Francisco Candies and get really awesome tasting pumpkin anf maple cookies. I would also like to comment on the fact that the Halloween decorations that I missed so much were all over Universal's. I was so surprised that it was such a big thing. They even had a center park thing all decked out as a giant tomb or something. I really really miss Halloween...

So anyway we ended up leaving the park at closing in fear that we might miss the last train home to Kyoto. We made it on time but the trains in Kyoto had stopped and we had to catch a cab. We ended up eating at about 1:00 in the morning and catching another cab home even though the walk was maybe 10 minutes from our house. We were that tired, my legs were like jelly that night.

So the weekend was pretty packed, not to mention that our friend Zena was also coming from Gunma. She had brought 5 friends to explore Kyoto but because we were with Lisa we didn't even get to see them. Lisa and I only saw Zena and Krystal may have seen the other part as they were leaving in the stairway. I guess I feel kind of gulity but we did get to spend some time with Zena and that's all that matters. Next time she can come and she would have undivded attention.

So on Monday we woke up as late as we could but not too late that Lisa could enjoy Krystal and my favorite sushi place... Kura Kura Sushi. Just like Genkis remember.... We took Lisa there and lets just say that all that came from Lisa were moans of pleasure and squeals of delight. She was totally loving the place. She took pictures and bascially tried everything that looked appetizing to her (which was basically everything). After sushi we took her around to buy some omiyage for her friend back in Fukuoka. It was a nice weekend and both Krystal and I were sad that it had ended so quickly. We finally said goodbye to LIsa at the train station but not before we snuck some snacks into her bag. (which was 1 of like 4) Then we teased her with a text message that made absolutely no sense if she didn't find her snacks. We had a good laugh.

So Tuesday come around, I think I caught a cold because my throat is like really itchy and my nose keeps acting funky. It was probably from all the fun this weekend and my body not being able to keep up with the very cool weather. BUT TUESDAY was Krystal's birthday!! I needed to find a present fast. I figure we spent the whol weekend together and I didn't really have time to sneak off to buy something. So Tuesday after work was my only day. I biked it over to a Jusco (department store) and bought her a backpack. She had bought one recently and it was really cheap. The bag had already started to fall apart and bascially you get what you paid for.
So bought her a cool Nike bag and did the boyfriend thing and got her flowers. It was pretty bouquet, if I do say so myself. At night we planned on going to a mexican restaurant but they happen to be closed on Tuesdays ( I find that pretty weird). We ended up going to an Italian restaurant that had really good appetizers and cheese fondu. Actually that was only the second time I had fondu and it was very good. It sounded like Krystal had a very eventful birthday weekend.... (she was snoring like crazy, not to mention she woke up in the middle of the night to tell me "I don't have anymore to spend") What that meant... I have no idea...

Ok so back to the weekend...

Sorry about that, Lisa was leaving for Fukuoka. So where was I.... oh yeah

So anyway I was ltotally rolling on the florr laughing at what my supervisor just said and we basically sat there for another two hours drinking and talking story. So 12 am comes around and we have to leave the restaurant. But then the guy in charge of the party planning suggestes that we go to another place. So we ended going to a karaoke place (where you could also do nomihoudai) and sang drunken songs for another 2 hours. Man these Japanese teachers know how to party. By the time Karaoke came around I was starting to come down so I wasn't as drunken as the other people. But I would have to say that the teachers rock here and have the same kind of pressures like the teachers back home.

So 3 in the morning I come home stumblong over everything and talking kind of loudly. Lisa and Krystal had fell asleep already. And next to them I totally collapsed. The next day we had a slow start getting up because we were so tired. Krystal went to her apartment and made spam and eggs while Lisa and I finished catching up with Naruto episodes. We decided that we should take Krystal out since her Birthday is on Tuesday (hint hint hint) to a nice place for dinner. We heard that there was a really good place for ribs in Osaka... so we went. RIBS!! They have ribs in Japan!!

The restaurant is in Osaka at Universal Studos Japan City Walk. It felt like we were in california again. The city walk had all these recognisible restaurants like Bubba Gump Shrimp, Cinnabon, and Kua Aina's. That's right I said Kua Aina's. We couldn't believe it. But we were there for ribs so we need to come back later. So we're at Universal Studios City Walk and we were wandering around killing time then we came thought maybe it would be a good idea to actually go into the theme park. So the ate at the ribs place which was really really good. I can't remember the last time I had cornbread.... But yeah we went home to only come back the next day.

So at the park we had an awesome time!! They came out with a new ride called Spiderman. The spiderman was a rdie that you go on with 3-D glasses so you're litterally part of teh action. Teh shitty part.. we waited about 3 1/2 hours to go on it. The line was so long. I think the last time I waited that long was when splash mountian first opened up in Disneyland. crap gotta go to be continued....

Nobody gonna break my stride...

Nobody gonna hold me down, oh no, I got to keep on moving. Ok so the weekend finally came and I have got to say that this weekend really was a weekend. So heres what happened snce Friday.

Friday comes and its like my time to totally book it home and get ready for the Enkai not to mention that Lisa was on her way by the time I left for the Party. I get to the party and at first all the teachers are pretty mellow an asking me questions about Hawaii and my life. But then as the alcohol flowed like a never ending waterfall... people started to pen up. BY long everyone was pissed off their asses. I don't believe that my glass was ever empty. But you see the fun didn't stop there. because after our time was up we went to another place to booze it up. By this time everyone was drunk and having a blast. At the second place was more like a restaurant and we basically ordered more drinks and food. For the first time I got to try uma niku sashimi -- translation raw horse meat. It was pretty good. It wasn't like a steak of horse meat but it was tinly sliced and it very much tasted like regualr sashimi. I don't think I will be willingly ordering it but if its there at least I know now. FUNNIEST MOMENT OF THE NIGHT--- So everyone's drunk and loads of stuff is coming out of everyone's mouth. So they started accusing some of the male teachers as perverts and called each other "ero-guy". Which means "pervert". Then one guy gets a little offended and stands up and yell I'm not ero-guy I'm ero-king! So funny and everyone in the resturant turns and looks our way. Then the old lady teacher which they all call God mother because shes the oldest and always comes to the parties... So one of the guys by the Godmother says that he's full -- Ipai. Bu then the godmother says "opai??" Then my supervisor who sitting infront of me asks "do you know opai?" Then in is most heaviest Japanese accent he says "do you know tits?" I couldn't believe he said and you don't know how I laughed. But I need to finish this later so talk to you guys soon.

Not a good start for the weeknd...

So the weekend is comign up and I should be totally psyched, but today is not a good day to be... I guess awake? First of all lst night I had the meanest stomach cramp/ache and I don't really know the specific statistics but I would say that I was sitting on the "throne" for at least half an hour. Not to mention the half sleep I got afterwards trying to go to sleep with a stomach ache.

Then what do my eyes show early in the mroning? Rain. I think the worst thing about Kyoto so far would be the sparatic and unpredictable rain. usually I'm a bug fan of rain but when you have to bike to school rain makes it a little hard and dangerous. And as I look outside the wondow now the rain is still falling. Wonder how I'm gonna get home in the constant downpour.

Ok so this is all happening before I get to school. So when I get to school I notice that I have fifth grade but none of the teachers had sent me a lesson plan. So when I get to school I'm tryingt o ask them what to do and they give me this really crude description of a lesson. Something about me asking the students to draw something and they come up with a certain original piece. (Actually when I did teh lesson it came out pretty gopod and teh students were having fun so I guess its not too bad) But before the lesson I was semi-stressing.

So I thought the day might be turning around and I'm told that there is no lunch today. Some kind of field trip or something. So I try to explain that its ok and was about to say that I can go grab something to eat when the "irritating" teacher is also wondering about lunch. To stop myself from having an "irritating" lunch break, I explain that I had a big breakfast and I can grab something later. So they say ok and the other lady is about to leave when they say "my mistake we do have lunch for everyone", Too much pride, can't swallow.... They end up eating what looks like a pretty tasty lunch and I have to wait until 4:30. Can the day get any worse... better not dwell on that I still have one more lesson to teach not to mention that I don't have the luxury of the big play room. Hope all goes well.

Well teh only thing keeping me from runnign down thge hallways screaming is the fact that Lisa is coming today!! Not to mention the enkai that I'm having later tonight. Supposed to be a very big party deal to this school since tehy never go out. I just hope that I don't come home too pissed to go and do stuff tomorrow and the rest of teh weekend. Zena and her friends should be coming this weekend too so I can't wait 4:30...

Anyone, some help?.....

BREAK OIT DOWN!

TOTALLY FORGOT!

OK so yesterday I was at Krystal's place having dinner as usual when we decided to go out for dessert. (local conbini) So anyway on my way out I quoted a line from the movie "Ever After"

Why Do You Irritate Me So? and her response was the direct quote form the movie as well...

Why Do You Always Rise To The Occasion?

Isn't that the funniest thing you have evr heard. Well fro me it was funny because I had an epiphany, These two lines coming from us were exactly what our relationship is based on. Irritating each other with the smallest of idiosyncrasies and eac other rising to the occasion of being irritated. WHAT A MOMENT THAT WAS!! SO FRICKEN FUNNY!!

End of the second quarter?

So I went to my base school and everybody was dressed pretty formally. Alomost everyone were in suits even the female teachers.So I just assumed that there somebody coming or there was an assembly. Then at about 9:00 evrybody was gone from the office. Just me and the music teacher. So after about 15 minutes I asked her "where is everyone?" She replied I'm not sure but today is the end of the quarter. And then she left the office, and she never came back. Then around 10:30 they start to trikle back into the office. I thought maybe there was ameeting ro something. So after I just sat at my desk and continued to read "Interview with a Vanpire" since Krystal isn't finshed with Order of the Phoniex. I started to get pretty hungry just sitting there reading and thougth about the mystery food that they might serve today. But 12:15 comes around and everyone is acting as if the day is still going on. Then comes 12:30, I told myslef that if no one goes to lunch by 12:45 I'm getting the hell out of there for lunch. 12:40 comes around and one of the teachers says that they were gonna go to grab some chinese food, and invited me. I asked what was going on and she bascially said that because its the end of the quarter it was a half day for the students and the teachers have a quarter ending meetin at 2:00. So I was like what the hell am I doing here?!? Anyway I went to lunch which as pretty good and when we got back I told the Principal that I was gonna o finish my day at the Education Center. So when were they gonna tell me....

Anyway pretty excited about tomorrow's enkai as well as Lisa coming to Kyoto. But the one thing I'm worried about is the forecast for this weekend. On both CNN weather and Yahoo weather it says that Kyoto is supposed to be raining. And thunderstorming on Sunday and Monday. My new friend from Gunma Zena, is supposed to come ith a bunch of her friends too and I know they were planning on doing a lot of sightseeing. I wonder if the weather is gonna hold out to be semi decent. Also on the weatehr pages I noticed that it said that Kyoto is gonna be around 17 degrees celcius. Thats fricken cold!! When I out on the AC its usually at 22-24 degrees C. What the hell is up with teh 17?!!? I hope that I stored enough fat to keep me warm throughout the chilly autumn and freezing winter seasons.

But anyway I hope that this weekend is just as fun as it was when we went to Fukuoka. That would suck that it was the second time Lisa came to Kyoto and still didn't get to do some of the toursisty stuff.

Priori Incantatem!!

Holy Crap!! I f I ever read a more cooler book than Harry Potter Goblet of Fire then.... then.... then .... I would be the person I am today because I think I have read cooler books... But don't get me wrong this book was the best out of the four I've read so far. It was pretty action packed with a lot of wizardy and wicthcraft. I hope the fifth one is juts as good... but I got a hint saying that it was a little depressing. Drepressing can be good...

Well its Bloggin Wednesday, seeming that I'm at the school with my own laptop. But all in all the day was pretty quick. Usually I have these long periods of "teachless" time but today was pretty full. I had a nice and amusing talk with my supervisor about the Enkai this Friday. Supposedly we're to be partying to about 3 in the morning!!! I never knew the Japanese teachers knew how to Party!! So I am gladly looking forward to being pissed this weekend. Then I had my usual 4 classes but it so cool when the students come to the office and beg you to eat lunch with them. Especially infornt of the other teachers (which the students didn't even bother to acknowledge). So I had lunch today with the thrid graders today. The more and more I work with them the more I enjoying teaching the younger grades. Don't get me wrong my heart is still in fifth but I've really considered teachng as low as third.

Also the third grade teacher is really into Hawaii stuff. She was the teacher that the students invited me to have lunch. She plays the ukulele, she tried to learn some Hawaiian, and she loves hula. AHHHHHH!! Hula!!! Of all things to want to talk to me about. I don't have the slightest idea of how to do Hula, except for the images of the 2002-2003 CKI convention that I try to put out of my head. Anyway she had this Hula DVD that she wanted to me to give her an opinion on. Suposedly there is a school wide event where each class particiaptes in a song and dance and her class is gonna do hula. So I tried to remember the dance at convention to show her a couple of moves. It must have been the most crappiest hula anyone ever saw!! But the teacher was grateful and aked me to reccomend her some Hawaiian songs. What did I do? Whipped out the iPod of course!! I had her listen to some stuff and she really liked it so I promised to bring some CDs to the Enkai.

Like the beginning of the blog began, I finally finished Goblet of Fire. It was really good and I reccomend all Harry Potter fans to read it. Even if you decided long ago... never to walk in anyone's shadow, If I fail or if I succeed... oops, sorry 'bout that. Even if you decided long ago to wait for the movies, you should read the books. "I was a Death Eater and I assumed that the book was gonna be boring (which honestly the first one is) but I have come to the side of Dumbledore's trust and the stories actually tell you a lot more of the scenes in the movies. So now I have become a true Harry Potter fan and have decided that I view the movie more as a treat to see the spells being cast and Mad Eye Moody. Plus Hermione is getting older and soon she'd be old enough to... JUST JOKE!

Anyway, goona go home soon so be 'alk ter yeh later.

Break it Down!

Whoo Hoo!!

I can finally be the silouettes on that iPod mini commercial!! That's right I got an iPod. I actually orignally intended to buy a CD player but I ended up with the iPod. The Cd players at this one place where pretty expensive so Krystal suggested I get an Mp3 palyer. So we were kind of looking around and I saw that the MP3 players are knd of expensive, especially if you want one that can hold more music. So we were looking at those when next to the MP4 players they have the MD players. So I thought "how about a MD player?" You don't get more Japanese with the MD player. But you need to buy a separate adapter thing to record music on them. And if you want the ones where you can just drag and drop from your comp its about 250. So what do they have next to the MD players? iPods!! So thats how I ended up with an iPod. The bike rides are not gonna be one tune anymore.

Sunday was pretty cool, we went to one of those field day things for my school. They pretty much had the same types of dances and relays as Krystal's but it was fun to see my students in action. After that we basically went all over the southern part of city--just to explore. We ended up going to this shopping place called Diamond City which we went when we first got here in Kyoto, but this time we had our bikes. We ate dinner at this place called Kura Sushi -- kind fo like Gnekis. I love that place.

Oh a shitty thing happened. One of our friends that came with us to the shopping mall went to take money out of the ATM and totally forgot to take the money!! It was a good 30 minutes laters when she realized she didn't take it so we ran down to the ATM to find out that there was no way that we could get it. If you went to an ATM and took out 20 dollars but when you looked at your cash withdraw and saw 320 dollars would you give it back? Especially if you had your reciet that said you only took out 20? Man I felt so shitty after that, I felt like I shouldn't shop anymore. But I ended up getting the iPod.

So anyway I'm starting to read Harry Potter again. I took a break on the weekend but now its all about the Goblet of Fire. It's fricken addciting!! I just got passed the first task in the triwizard championships... Damn that Harry Potter.

Other than that same ole same ole. LALALALALALALLALALALALALALA

NWOD TI KAERB

S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y night

Yup Yup Yup its Saturday. For you people back home its Friday but here it's Saturday. And what am I doing? At home blogging...

Actually it was a very relaxed Saturday that I had. No urgency in waking up, no pre-planned appointments taht I needed to attend, and no work. So all in all it was a good Saturday. Waking up when your body wakes up is a great feeling, completely different from the blaring alarm every other morning. Even though relaxed I got to cross out one of my points on my "to do list." When I went to Fukuoka I bought a Naruto puzzle, (yes a puzzle) and decided not to lug a huge frame around. I was assured by many people that there would be places in Kyoto that sold the puzzle frame. The week that we got here I pretty much looked in all teh picture/frame stores to find nothing. And I think puzzle frames are different because they have a sheet of plastic instead of glass so the pieces don't stick to it. So anyway I pretty much gave up on the frame thing when a little bird told me that they had a lot fo frames at this one store. So we made an efffort to go and check it out, and sure enough they had it and my Naruto puzzle is now framed for everyone in my room to see.

I also got a chance to talk to my friend Jolene, ex-coworker at Godiva. She seemed really happy to talk to me. The last few times I tried calling her she didn't pick up so I was glad I got to talk to her. Kind of got me depressed because the year I left, Godiva is trying to "hype" their image up a little and appeal to a more younger crowd, and not just the snotty old, retired, white people. So they got a CD player, cooler music and even participated in a cool video production of "my favorite truffle." To you guys out there it might sound stupid but for me that's basically heaven. Even considered going back to Godiva... mustn't get ahead of myself, I must make room for a new wave of chocolatiers.

Other than that nothing especially important happening... hmmmm, TIME FOR... THINGS I HAVE ACCOMPLISHED THIS WEEK!!

1) Finally put my puzzle (yes, a puzzle) into a nifty frame.
2) Learned how to get to my furthest school and shave a good 3 minutes.
3) Finished Harry Potter and the Prizoner of Azkaban.
4) Gotten back to some people I have been neglecting, email style.
5) Decorated my barren, mental institute blank wall with a puzzle and a map of Japan.
6) Finally flushed away the skid marks in my toilet.
7) Made new skid marks...
8) Had spam and eggs for breakfast with a grapefruit.