Spring Thaws, Flowers Bloom, Sushi is Eaten
Saturday April 2, 2005 - Wednesday June 8, 2005
Today I went snowboarding for the second time. Friday night, I drove up to my friends’ Amy and Justin’s apartment and early Saturday morning, we took a train to Inawashiro again to Alts Bandai, the same mountain I went to before. We had a great time, I didn’t fall down nearly as much, and I’m looking forward to next winter when I can practice some more. As much fun as we had, we could tell that the snow was really starting to melt and this would be the last time we’d go this season. I’m glad I got a chance to go snowboarding twice before the season ended.
Thursday April 7, 2005
Well, Spring vacation is over and the new school year is starting. Today I went to the Yochien (kindergarten) Opening Ceremony. It wasn’t quite as long or boring as these things normally are because the officials knew that the kids couldn’t stay quiet for a long time. It was really cute seeing all the new kindergartners.
Saturday April 9, 2005
Saturday was Adam’s birthday party and a couple of us got together for dinner and karaoke afterwards. It was a lot of fun.
Sunday April 10, 2005
I woke up this morning, went to brush my teeth, looked at my face in the mirror and decided to shave my beard off and all the hair on my head. Initially, I wasn’t too sure if I liked my new look or not, but it’s since grown on me.
Tuesday April 12, 2005
Today was the first day of classes and I was at Nishigo 1st. It was a little weird being back there with some teachers not there any more and new ones taking their places. Also, the desks had been rearranged, although mine was still in the same place. It was funny for me walking around the hallways and the new first years were all so terrified and shy around me, while the new second and third years wave and say hi and joke around with me. I know that once the first years get to know me, they won’t be so terrified any more, but it’s still funny.
For dinner that night, I went to Mos Burger which is sort of like McDonalds except that they use much fresher ingredients and they have all kinds of weird burgers. So far, I’ve had the vegipati, the bean curd burger, the salmon burger, and the normal fish fillet type burger. By far, Mos Burger’s fish fillet is the best fish burger I’ve ever had. I’ve been there a couple of times, but this was the first time that another customer decided to talk to me. I was done eating and just sitting at my table reading a book when this girl sitting at the table next to me starts talking to me. This NEVER happens to me in Japan. We started talking for a bit and she seemed nice and then we parted ways and I went home. Here’s hoping that more people in Japan will talk to me.
Friday April 15, 2005
Today is my sister’s birthday. She turns 23. Happy birthday Addie.
Saturday April 28, 2005
Ever since January or so, my mother has been threatening me that if I don’t go to at least one of the Passover Seders, she’ll do something to me, what she never said. So, in order to appease my mom, and because I genuinely wanted to go to a Seder, I took the shinkansen down to Tokyo to the only JCC in Japan and went to dinner. For those of you who aren’t familiar, on the first two nights of Passover, we have these big symbolic dinners called Seders where we kind of re-enact or retell the story of how the ancient Israelites threw off their Egyptian bonds and escaped slavery. There’s the 10 plagues, the parting of the Red Sea, lots of Matza, and Charlton Heston saying “LET MY PEOPLE GO!”
Overall, the Seder was good, but a little bit disappointing. There are so few Jews in Japan, native or otherwise, that everyone pretty much makes the trek to Tokyo for these things. There had to be about 300-500 people in this massive hall. I was sitting next to some really nice people and we talked about all kinds of things. The Rabbi was from Belgium, but spoke fluent English and Japanese and did an excellent job of explaining everything in both languages. It was a bit boring for me because I know the story backwards and forwards.
Now, I should point out, that every year, my mother goes totally overboard when we do our two Seders and does all kinds of crazy things like throwing foam balls around for the plague of hail, and drops plastic frogs on everyone’s plates for the frog plague. We usually have young kids at our Seders and she makes it very interactive and fun for them. I can tell that she’s practicing for her eventual grandchildren (No Pressure!) Anyway, to be at such a normal Seder was a little boring for me, and as much as I sometimes think my mom goes a little too far (one year, she got my friend’s younger brother to dress up in a bathrobe and fake beard to go knocking on peoples’ doors saying he was the Prophet Elijah) I missed her crazy antics and plastic frogs.
I should point out that the cost of this Seder, for me, was 7,000 Yen or a little over $73. For this much money, I was expecting a feast, but the food was just eh. The dinner was probably so expensive because they had to import genuine Kosher food, but still… For $73 I was expecting something a little more than rubber chicken. I decided that one Seder was enough for me, so I didn’t go to the second one the next evening. I’m glad I went, it was nice being around Jews again, which I’ve never really felt before, but not so great that I wanted to have another night of so-so Kosher food. I’ll stick to Sushi.
Some people have asked me if it was hard keeping Kosher for Passover, where we don’t eat any bread or grain products, and to answer truthfully, it was a piece of cake (joke intended). There are two main branches of Judaism: Ashkenazi and Sephardic Judaism. Ashkenazi Jews come from Eastern Europe. Sephardic Jews come from Western Europe, mainly Spain and Portugal, North Africa and parts of Iraq where they hadn’t been killed a long time ago. According to Ashkenazi tradition, we don’t eat rice during Passover, considering it the same as grain. Sephardic Jews don’t follow this tradition and freely eat rice. Living in Japan, I have decided to adopt the Sephardic custom so I ate rice. As a result, being able to eat rice, and living in Japan, this Passover was the easiest I’ve ever had.
Tuesday May 3, 2005
Today, Chieko and I drove to Ouichijuku, which is a recreation of what old Japanese style villages look like. We had a lot of fun walking around, I took some pictures, we had lunch and then drove back. The reason I didn’t have to go to work today is because May 3 is Constitution Day, where I guess the Japanese celebrate their constitution.
This week was also Golden Week which is a very special week in the Japanese calendar. To once again steal from another website:
“The Golden Week is a collection of four national holidays within seven days. In combination with well placed weekends, the Golden Week becomes one of Japan's three busiest holiday seasons besides New Years and the Obon week.
The national holidays making up the Golden Week are:
April 29 - Greenery Day (Midori no hi):
April 29 used to be the birthday of Emperor Showa, who died in the year 1989. After his death, the day was changed into a national holiday for environment and nature, since the emperor loved plants and nature. From 2007, this national holiday will be renamed Showa Day, while Greenery Day will be moved to May 4.
May 3 - Constitution Day (Kenpo kinenbi):
On this day in 1947, the new post war constitution was put into effect.
May 4 - Between Day (Kokumin no kyujitsu):
According to Japanese law, a day which falls between two national holidays is also declared a national holiday, unless the "between day" is a Sunday, in which case it will be just a regular Sunday. From 2007, Greenery Day, currently celebrated on April 29, will be moved to May 4.
May 5 - Children's Day (Kodomo no hi):
The Boy's Festival (Tango no Sekku) is celebrated on this day. Families pray for the health and future success of their sons by hanging up carp streamers and displaying samurai dolls, both symbolizing strength, power and success in life. The Girl’s Festival is celebrated on March 3.”
Pictures of Ouichijuku can be seen here:
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/jabrams0007/album?.dir=f7f8&.src=ph&store=&prodid=&.done=http%3a//pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/jabrams0007/my_photos
Sunday May 15, 2005
Today I had my rank test at my Karate class. I was really really nervous, which I haven’t been in Karate for a long time. Back in the US, whenever I had a test to advance in rank, I knew that I would pass it because where I took Karate; you weren’t allowed to take the test unless they knew you would pass it. Even my Black Belt test, I wasn’t nervous about even though it was the most physically demanding thing I have ever done in my life. I was nervous if I would survive my Black Belt test, whether my physical conditioning and stamina would last throughout the test, but I never doubted that I had all the knowledge and skills necessary to pass it.
The test today, I was nervous because I wasn’t sure I knew everything. Because of the language barrier, I never know if I’m doing things the way they want me to, exactly. There’s always a small sliver of doubt that I’m not understanding the few words I understand or the gestures they use to try and explain things to me.
Like most things, even though I was nervous, everything ended up going fine and the head instructor ended up advancing me two ranks, instead of just one. I guess I have karate skillZ with a capital Z.
Monday May 16, 2005
Monday was really the first day that the sun was still shinning after I got out of work. I decided to celebrate this fact and drive around exploring, instead of going back to my apartment and reading or doing something else. I drove all around on back roads, drove up to the Nishigo Dam/water reservoir, and rediscovered the Bear Falls that Liz, Takafumi and I had had lunch at when I first arrived in Japan. I had a lot of fun and it was nice going back to the falls which I want to revisit again, when the weather continues to improve. Pictures from that day can be found here:
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/jabrams0007/album?.dir=4eb7&.src=ph&store=&prodid=&.done=http%3a//pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/jabrams0007/my_photos
Friday June 3, 2005
Friday I took the Shinkansen down to Tokyo to stay with my friend Mike who lives in Saitama. I decided to visit him for two reasons. The first is that I always like seeing him and the fact that he lives 20 minutes away from central Tokyo doesn’t hurt, and the second is that on Monday, I would be going to the JET Program’s Re-Contracting Conference so I decided to spend the weekend in Tokyo, rather than take an early train Monday morning. I arrived at Fujimino at around 8:30pm, having taken a train after work. We went out for dinner at this great Curry restaurant and then spent the evening try to watch this horrible Japanese sci-fi Matrix rip-off movie called Cashern, and giving up on that, played videogames and watched soccer matches on TV.
Saturday June 4, 2005
Saturday it was raining pretty hard, but Mike and I went into Tokyo. We walked around Akihabara for about an hour or two (we both picked up some really cool miniature figures - yes, we’re dorks) before meeting his friend Andy and some other people for dinner and karaoke in Shinjuku. Shinjuku is a very trendy/hip section of Tokyo where most of the young people go to hang out and party.
After dinner, we hung out on a street corner just talking, like most of the other young people. I’m not sure exactly what or how it happened, but apparently, one of the cars that was making the turn we were at accidentally ran over the toes of this Japanese guy in a white jump suit. Well, it turns out that this Japanese guy, surrounded by lots of young Japanese guys in dark suits and sunglasses, is a pretty big Yakuza (Japanese Mafia) guy. He starts screaming and going off in Japanese about how the guys in the car ran over his toes and made his white sneakers dirty.
For some reason, the two guys in the car stop to apologize, and the Yakuza Boss (that’s what I’m going to call him from now on) opens the passenger side door and starts dragging them out of the car. He’s screaming at them in Japanese and pointing to his dirty shoes. Then he starts slapping them, all the while the two guys are surrounded by the other Yakuza underlings, who in turn, are surrounded by all the people on the street either trying their best to ignore everything that’s going on, or like us, gawking at this impromptu beatdown like tourists.
The two guys go down on their knees and start bowing to the Yakuza Boss, apologizing for running over his toes, and kissing his sneakers. The Yakuza Boss takes off the dirty show and starts hitting the guys in the face with it and punching them. This goes on for a couple of minutes before the Yakuza Boss lets them go, and they get back in the car and drive off, still apologizing the whole time. It’s at this point that our little group realizes that we’ve just been witness to an assault and a Yakuza related one at that and become a little nervous.
The Yakuza Boss walks over to us and holds out his bloody hands and gestures to one of Andy’s friends. We’re terrified and don’t know what he wants but he keeps gesturing and pointing and we realize that he’s pointing at the bottle of water that Andy’s friend is drinking from. The Boss gestures again and Andy’s friend (I forget his name) pours some water on the Boss’s hands who tries to wipe the blood off them. For the most part he does and then uses the back of one of his underling’s suit to dry them off. It’s around this time that Tokyo’s Finest (the police) arrive and start questioning the Boss. They go off aways a bit, the Boss surrounded by the police, who in turn are surrounded by the Yakuza Underlings.
They "Talk" for a bit and the Boss gestures a couple times at his shoes, but none of us can understand or hear what the police are saying, and quite honestly we didn’t want to get any closer to find out. Eventually, the police say something to the Yakuza Boss and then leave. He then motions his Posse of dark suits and shades and they swagger off into the night. It was totally crazy to watch all this happen and I was pretty much scared out of my mind, afterwards, imagining everything that could have gone wrong for us, but didn’t. Of course, all the other pedestrians on the street pretended like nothing had happened and everyone went back to what they were doing.
At this point the general consensus was that it was time to leave Shinjuku. By this point, it was much too late to take a train back to Mike’s apartment so Andy invited everyone to crash at his place. We walked to Andy’s neighborhood and stopped on the way to have some 3am Ramen at this great ramen place near Andy’s apartment. We got to Andy’s apartment, hung out there for a bit, but the night was so nice out that we decided to go back outside and walk around a bit more.
So it’s about 4am, we’re walking around Andy’s neighborhood (I forget the name) all the drunk business men are passing out or finding capsule hotels to spend the night in. Andy, having changed back at his apartment, is walking around in his boxer shorts. It was fun, but after the Yakuza incident we’d seen earlier in the evening, it was a bit surreal. We got back to Andy’s apartment about 30 minutes later and ended up going to sleep at about 5am. I never have nights like these in Nishigo...
Sunday June 5, 2005
We slept pretty late Sunday, till about one or two. Andy’s other friends left and me, Mike and Andy walked to this great Nepalese Curry place that Andy knew. This was genuine Indian Indian curry, not what the Japanese call curry, so it was a nice change of pace and absolutely delicious. After brunch, Andy had to go, so Mike and I walked around Tokyo. We watched some street performers play instruments in a park, some dancers and drummers performing near a playground, and basically just walked around people-watching. Of course, we ended up going back to Akihabara for a bit before finally taking the train back out to Mike’s apartment in Saitama Prefecture.
Monday June 6 - Wednesday June 8
Monday through Wednesday I spent at the JET conference for Re-contracting JETs. I’m going to skip over most of it because it was boring and they didn’t really tell us anything new that we didn’t already know for having spent the previous almost-year in Japan.
Monday night, I went out to Dinner with Adam, Amy, and Jimmy, three other JETs who live relatively near me. We were going to meet up with some other JETs at this karaoke place, but stopped for a bit because Jimmy was having explosive diarrhea or something like that because he was literally in the bathroom for like 20 minutes. While we were waiting for him outside, we ran into this Australian Amazon girl (she was really really tall) named Jillian who was visiting Japan by herself. That night was her last night in Japan before she left for someplace else. She had been a lawyer and had quit her job to travel around the world. Anyway, talking to her while waiting for Jimmy, she told us that she had never been to a Japanese karaoke place or done Purikura. Purikura, for those of you who aren’t familiar with the term, is basically going to a photo booth, having your picture taken, and then digitally altering it and drawing all kinds of hearts and designs on it and then print it out. It’s INSANELY popular with the junior and senior high school girls and you can see them looking through each others Purikura albums in between classes and during lunch.
Being the good Cultural Ambassadors that we are, we couldn’t allow Jillian to leave Japan without partaking in these long-honored traditional activities. So we basically kidnapped her and dragged her around Tokyo with us for the rest of the evening. We went to a Purikura Parlor and got our pictures taken and Amy and Jillian had much fun drawing and altering them. Then we went to the karaoke place and met up with about 15 other JETs. There were about 20 of us in this room, everyone singing, having fun, and being crazy. Jillian had an absolute blast and thanked us over and over again for taking her against her (initial) will.
Tuesday night, having been so wiped out during the day because we went to bed so late and woke up so early for the conference (they were taking attendance for the first time this year because in the past so many JETs had skipped out, the bastards!) we decided to take it easy. Adam, Amy and I went out to dinner and then went to an arcade where we played Dance Dance Revolution, some Guitar game where you have to play the guitar to the pattern on the screen, and a Taiko Drum game almost exactly the same as the guitar game except you used drums instead of a guitar. After the wild and crazy night previously, taking it easy was great and we had a lot of fun. After the arcade, we ended up walking through all the seedy districts and Red Light areas of Tokyo (on Amy’s suggestion) just for the heck of it, before going back to the hotel for the final day of the conference.
Overall, the Tokyo Conference as a waste of time in terms of information that JET gave us, but was a great excuse to hang out in Tokyo for a couple of days, all paid for by my Board of Education.
More coming soon (hopefully)!
Today I went snowboarding for the second time. Friday night, I drove up to my friends’ Amy and Justin’s apartment and early Saturday morning, we took a train to Inawashiro again to Alts Bandai, the same mountain I went to before. We had a great time, I didn’t fall down nearly as much, and I’m looking forward to next winter when I can practice some more. As much fun as we had, we could tell that the snow was really starting to melt and this would be the last time we’d go this season. I’m glad I got a chance to go snowboarding twice before the season ended.
Thursday April 7, 2005
Well, Spring vacation is over and the new school year is starting. Today I went to the Yochien (kindergarten) Opening Ceremony. It wasn’t quite as long or boring as these things normally are because the officials knew that the kids couldn’t stay quiet for a long time. It was really cute seeing all the new kindergartners.
Saturday April 9, 2005
Saturday was Adam’s birthday party and a couple of us got together for dinner and karaoke afterwards. It was a lot of fun.
Sunday April 10, 2005
I woke up this morning, went to brush my teeth, looked at my face in the mirror and decided to shave my beard off and all the hair on my head. Initially, I wasn’t too sure if I liked my new look or not, but it’s since grown on me.
Tuesday April 12, 2005
Today was the first day of classes and I was at Nishigo 1st. It was a little weird being back there with some teachers not there any more and new ones taking their places. Also, the desks had been rearranged, although mine was still in the same place. It was funny for me walking around the hallways and the new first years were all so terrified and shy around me, while the new second and third years wave and say hi and joke around with me. I know that once the first years get to know me, they won’t be so terrified any more, but it’s still funny.
For dinner that night, I went to Mos Burger which is sort of like McDonalds except that they use much fresher ingredients and they have all kinds of weird burgers. So far, I’ve had the vegipati, the bean curd burger, the salmon burger, and the normal fish fillet type burger. By far, Mos Burger’s fish fillet is the best fish burger I’ve ever had. I’ve been there a couple of times, but this was the first time that another customer decided to talk to me. I was done eating and just sitting at my table reading a book when this girl sitting at the table next to me starts talking to me. This NEVER happens to me in Japan. We started talking for a bit and she seemed nice and then we parted ways and I went home. Here’s hoping that more people in Japan will talk to me.
Friday April 15, 2005
Today is my sister’s birthday. She turns 23. Happy birthday Addie.
Saturday April 28, 2005
Ever since January or so, my mother has been threatening me that if I don’t go to at least one of the Passover Seders, she’ll do something to me, what she never said. So, in order to appease my mom, and because I genuinely wanted to go to a Seder, I took the shinkansen down to Tokyo to the only JCC in Japan and went to dinner. For those of you who aren’t familiar, on the first two nights of Passover, we have these big symbolic dinners called Seders where we kind of re-enact or retell the story of how the ancient Israelites threw off their Egyptian bonds and escaped slavery. There’s the 10 plagues, the parting of the Red Sea, lots of Matza, and Charlton Heston saying “LET MY PEOPLE GO!”
Overall, the Seder was good, but a little bit disappointing. There are so few Jews in Japan, native or otherwise, that everyone pretty much makes the trek to Tokyo for these things. There had to be about 300-500 people in this massive hall. I was sitting next to some really nice people and we talked about all kinds of things. The Rabbi was from Belgium, but spoke fluent English and Japanese and did an excellent job of explaining everything in both languages. It was a bit boring for me because I know the story backwards and forwards.
Now, I should point out, that every year, my mother goes totally overboard when we do our two Seders and does all kinds of crazy things like throwing foam balls around for the plague of hail, and drops plastic frogs on everyone’s plates for the frog plague. We usually have young kids at our Seders and she makes it very interactive and fun for them. I can tell that she’s practicing for her eventual grandchildren (No Pressure!) Anyway, to be at such a normal Seder was a little boring for me, and as much as I sometimes think my mom goes a little too far (one year, she got my friend’s younger brother to dress up in a bathrobe and fake beard to go knocking on peoples’ doors saying he was the Prophet Elijah) I missed her crazy antics and plastic frogs.
I should point out that the cost of this Seder, for me, was 7,000 Yen or a little over $73. For this much money, I was expecting a feast, but the food was just eh. The dinner was probably so expensive because they had to import genuine Kosher food, but still… For $73 I was expecting something a little more than rubber chicken. I decided that one Seder was enough for me, so I didn’t go to the second one the next evening. I’m glad I went, it was nice being around Jews again, which I’ve never really felt before, but not so great that I wanted to have another night of so-so Kosher food. I’ll stick to Sushi.
Some people have asked me if it was hard keeping Kosher for Passover, where we don’t eat any bread or grain products, and to answer truthfully, it was a piece of cake (joke intended). There are two main branches of Judaism: Ashkenazi and Sephardic Judaism. Ashkenazi Jews come from Eastern Europe. Sephardic Jews come from Western Europe, mainly Spain and Portugal, North Africa and parts of Iraq where they hadn’t been killed a long time ago. According to Ashkenazi tradition, we don’t eat rice during Passover, considering it the same as grain. Sephardic Jews don’t follow this tradition and freely eat rice. Living in Japan, I have decided to adopt the Sephardic custom so I ate rice. As a result, being able to eat rice, and living in Japan, this Passover was the easiest I’ve ever had.
Tuesday May 3, 2005
Today, Chieko and I drove to Ouichijuku, which is a recreation of what old Japanese style villages look like. We had a lot of fun walking around, I took some pictures, we had lunch and then drove back. The reason I didn’t have to go to work today is because May 3 is Constitution Day, where I guess the Japanese celebrate their constitution.
This week was also Golden Week which is a very special week in the Japanese calendar. To once again steal from another website:
“The Golden Week is a collection of four national holidays within seven days. In combination with well placed weekends, the Golden Week becomes one of Japan's three busiest holiday seasons besides New Years and the Obon week.
The national holidays making up the Golden Week are:
April 29 - Greenery Day (Midori no hi):
April 29 used to be the birthday of Emperor Showa, who died in the year 1989. After his death, the day was changed into a national holiday for environment and nature, since the emperor loved plants and nature. From 2007, this national holiday will be renamed Showa Day, while Greenery Day will be moved to May 4.
May 3 - Constitution Day (Kenpo kinenbi):
On this day in 1947, the new post war constitution was put into effect.
May 4 - Between Day (Kokumin no kyujitsu):
According to Japanese law, a day which falls between two national holidays is also declared a national holiday, unless the "between day" is a Sunday, in which case it will be just a regular Sunday. From 2007, Greenery Day, currently celebrated on April 29, will be moved to May 4.
May 5 - Children's Day (Kodomo no hi):
The Boy's Festival (Tango no Sekku) is celebrated on this day. Families pray for the health and future success of their sons by hanging up carp streamers and displaying samurai dolls, both symbolizing strength, power and success in life. The Girl’s Festival is celebrated on March 3.”
Pictures of Ouichijuku can be seen here:
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/jabrams0007/album?.dir=f7f8&.src=ph&store=&prodid=&.done=http%3a//pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/jabrams0007/my_photos
Sunday May 15, 2005
Today I had my rank test at my Karate class. I was really really nervous, which I haven’t been in Karate for a long time. Back in the US, whenever I had a test to advance in rank, I knew that I would pass it because where I took Karate; you weren’t allowed to take the test unless they knew you would pass it. Even my Black Belt test, I wasn’t nervous about even though it was the most physically demanding thing I have ever done in my life. I was nervous if I would survive my Black Belt test, whether my physical conditioning and stamina would last throughout the test, but I never doubted that I had all the knowledge and skills necessary to pass it.
The test today, I was nervous because I wasn’t sure I knew everything. Because of the language barrier, I never know if I’m doing things the way they want me to, exactly. There’s always a small sliver of doubt that I’m not understanding the few words I understand or the gestures they use to try and explain things to me.
Like most things, even though I was nervous, everything ended up going fine and the head instructor ended up advancing me two ranks, instead of just one. I guess I have karate skillZ with a capital Z.
Monday May 16, 2005
Monday was really the first day that the sun was still shinning after I got out of work. I decided to celebrate this fact and drive around exploring, instead of going back to my apartment and reading or doing something else. I drove all around on back roads, drove up to the Nishigo Dam/water reservoir, and rediscovered the Bear Falls that Liz, Takafumi and I had had lunch at when I first arrived in Japan. I had a lot of fun and it was nice going back to the falls which I want to revisit again, when the weather continues to improve. Pictures from that day can be found here:
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/jabrams0007/album?.dir=4eb7&.src=ph&store=&prodid=&.done=http%3a//pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/jabrams0007/my_photos
Friday June 3, 2005
Friday I took the Shinkansen down to Tokyo to stay with my friend Mike who lives in Saitama. I decided to visit him for two reasons. The first is that I always like seeing him and the fact that he lives 20 minutes away from central Tokyo doesn’t hurt, and the second is that on Monday, I would be going to the JET Program’s Re-Contracting Conference so I decided to spend the weekend in Tokyo, rather than take an early train Monday morning. I arrived at Fujimino at around 8:30pm, having taken a train after work. We went out for dinner at this great Curry restaurant and then spent the evening try to watch this horrible Japanese sci-fi Matrix rip-off movie called Cashern, and giving up on that, played videogames and watched soccer matches on TV.
Saturday June 4, 2005
Saturday it was raining pretty hard, but Mike and I went into Tokyo. We walked around Akihabara for about an hour or two (we both picked up some really cool miniature figures - yes, we’re dorks) before meeting his friend Andy and some other people for dinner and karaoke in Shinjuku. Shinjuku is a very trendy/hip section of Tokyo where most of the young people go to hang out and party.
After dinner, we hung out on a street corner just talking, like most of the other young people. I’m not sure exactly what or how it happened, but apparently, one of the cars that was making the turn we were at accidentally ran over the toes of this Japanese guy in a white jump suit. Well, it turns out that this Japanese guy, surrounded by lots of young Japanese guys in dark suits and sunglasses, is a pretty big Yakuza (Japanese Mafia) guy. He starts screaming and going off in Japanese about how the guys in the car ran over his toes and made his white sneakers dirty.
For some reason, the two guys in the car stop to apologize, and the Yakuza Boss (that’s what I’m going to call him from now on) opens the passenger side door and starts dragging them out of the car. He’s screaming at them in Japanese and pointing to his dirty shoes. Then he starts slapping them, all the while the two guys are surrounded by the other Yakuza underlings, who in turn, are surrounded by all the people on the street either trying their best to ignore everything that’s going on, or like us, gawking at this impromptu beatdown like tourists.
The two guys go down on their knees and start bowing to the Yakuza Boss, apologizing for running over his toes, and kissing his sneakers. The Yakuza Boss takes off the dirty show and starts hitting the guys in the face with it and punching them. This goes on for a couple of minutes before the Yakuza Boss lets them go, and they get back in the car and drive off, still apologizing the whole time. It’s at this point that our little group realizes that we’ve just been witness to an assault and a Yakuza related one at that and become a little nervous.
The Yakuza Boss walks over to us and holds out his bloody hands and gestures to one of Andy’s friends. We’re terrified and don’t know what he wants but he keeps gesturing and pointing and we realize that he’s pointing at the bottle of water that Andy’s friend is drinking from. The Boss gestures again and Andy’s friend (I forget his name) pours some water on the Boss’s hands who tries to wipe the blood off them. For the most part he does and then uses the back of one of his underling’s suit to dry them off. It’s around this time that Tokyo’s Finest (the police) arrive and start questioning the Boss. They go off aways a bit, the Boss surrounded by the police, who in turn are surrounded by the Yakuza Underlings.
They "Talk" for a bit and the Boss gestures a couple times at his shoes, but none of us can understand or hear what the police are saying, and quite honestly we didn’t want to get any closer to find out. Eventually, the police say something to the Yakuza Boss and then leave. He then motions his Posse of dark suits and shades and they swagger off into the night. It was totally crazy to watch all this happen and I was pretty much scared out of my mind, afterwards, imagining everything that could have gone wrong for us, but didn’t. Of course, all the other pedestrians on the street pretended like nothing had happened and everyone went back to what they were doing.
At this point the general consensus was that it was time to leave Shinjuku. By this point, it was much too late to take a train back to Mike’s apartment so Andy invited everyone to crash at his place. We walked to Andy’s neighborhood and stopped on the way to have some 3am Ramen at this great ramen place near Andy’s apartment. We got to Andy’s apartment, hung out there for a bit, but the night was so nice out that we decided to go back outside and walk around a bit more.
So it’s about 4am, we’re walking around Andy’s neighborhood (I forget the name) all the drunk business men are passing out or finding capsule hotels to spend the night in. Andy, having changed back at his apartment, is walking around in his boxer shorts. It was fun, but after the Yakuza incident we’d seen earlier in the evening, it was a bit surreal. We got back to Andy’s apartment about 30 minutes later and ended up going to sleep at about 5am. I never have nights like these in Nishigo...
Sunday June 5, 2005
We slept pretty late Sunday, till about one or two. Andy’s other friends left and me, Mike and Andy walked to this great Nepalese Curry place that Andy knew. This was genuine Indian Indian curry, not what the Japanese call curry, so it was a nice change of pace and absolutely delicious. After brunch, Andy had to go, so Mike and I walked around Tokyo. We watched some street performers play instruments in a park, some dancers and drummers performing near a playground, and basically just walked around people-watching. Of course, we ended up going back to Akihabara for a bit before finally taking the train back out to Mike’s apartment in Saitama Prefecture.
Monday June 6 - Wednesday June 8
Monday through Wednesday I spent at the JET conference for Re-contracting JETs. I’m going to skip over most of it because it was boring and they didn’t really tell us anything new that we didn’t already know for having spent the previous almost-year in Japan.
Monday night, I went out to Dinner with Adam, Amy, and Jimmy, three other JETs who live relatively near me. We were going to meet up with some other JETs at this karaoke place, but stopped for a bit because Jimmy was having explosive diarrhea or something like that because he was literally in the bathroom for like 20 minutes. While we were waiting for him outside, we ran into this Australian Amazon girl (she was really really tall) named Jillian who was visiting Japan by herself. That night was her last night in Japan before she left for someplace else. She had been a lawyer and had quit her job to travel around the world. Anyway, talking to her while waiting for Jimmy, she told us that she had never been to a Japanese karaoke place or done Purikura. Purikura, for those of you who aren’t familiar with the term, is basically going to a photo booth, having your picture taken, and then digitally altering it and drawing all kinds of hearts and designs on it and then print it out. It’s INSANELY popular with the junior and senior high school girls and you can see them looking through each others Purikura albums in between classes and during lunch.
Being the good Cultural Ambassadors that we are, we couldn’t allow Jillian to leave Japan without partaking in these long-honored traditional activities. So we basically kidnapped her and dragged her around Tokyo with us for the rest of the evening. We went to a Purikura Parlor and got our pictures taken and Amy and Jillian had much fun drawing and altering them. Then we went to the karaoke place and met up with about 15 other JETs. There were about 20 of us in this room, everyone singing, having fun, and being crazy. Jillian had an absolute blast and thanked us over and over again for taking her against her (initial) will.
Tuesday night, having been so wiped out during the day because we went to bed so late and woke up so early for the conference (they were taking attendance for the first time this year because in the past so many JETs had skipped out, the bastards!) we decided to take it easy. Adam, Amy and I went out to dinner and then went to an arcade where we played Dance Dance Revolution, some Guitar game where you have to play the guitar to the pattern on the screen, and a Taiko Drum game almost exactly the same as the guitar game except you used drums instead of a guitar. After the wild and crazy night previously, taking it easy was great and we had a lot of fun. After the arcade, we ended up walking through all the seedy districts and Red Light areas of Tokyo (on Amy’s suggestion) just for the heck of it, before going back to the hotel for the final day of the conference.
Overall, the Tokyo Conference as a waste of time in terms of information that JET gave us, but was a great excuse to hang out in Tokyo for a couple of days, all paid for by my Board of Education.
More coming soon (hopefully)!