The second to the last of the beginning of the end

Aaron + Michael Go to Japan: The Kite Factory from Joe Smith on Vimeo.

Good goodness! Where to begin? It’s been so long since I last wrote. As of now, K-SEP 2008 is done, finished, and put in its grave. It was a wonderful beautiful trip, which I will never forget. But don’t let me get ahead of myself. First we have to cover everything else.

To begin, I have to give a big shout out to shabushabu, which took place some time before we went to Shibuya. It’s basically a Japanese restaurant where you order five plates of raw meet and boil them in a big pot at your table. It was a lot of fun and a lot of food. Thankfully, Jaimie was there to walk us through, otherwise I think we all might have just started eating the raw meat, thinking it’s cultural or something. Peter ate at least forty-five pounds of meat and then slept for two days.

After Shinjuku, Aaron and I were beat down, but I’m afraid that was just too bad. We had an Olympic Center to go to, so we packed our things and headed for the buses on Monday morning. We got on the bus, but I don’t really remember anything past that because I fell asleep. I awoke in Yoyogi and we all filed off into the Olympic center.

For those of you that don’t know, Tokyo hosted the Olympics at some point in the sixties and built a huge center for all the athletes to live in while they participated in the world games. Of course after the Olympics ended, Tokyo had buyer’s remorse and started renting out the space to businesses and organizations that needed space to do things and exist in. Really. You can rent that place for anything. It’s mostly business conferences and seminars, but I honestly don’t see why you can’t have your birthday party there. Their cafeteria is pretty good too.

The three days in the Olympic center were pretty much the same as in Kasukabe, except that now we worked thrice as hard. My class continued drawing and I continued to film them to get the footage I needed for the presentation video. The boys all finished their projects the first day here, as I expected. The boys all took the project and did the exact amount of work expected of them and nothing more. Both girl groups, however, had asked me if they could do two full color pages each. I said yes, of course, so the extra time was for them.

I spent the extra days actually teaching cartooning techniques to the boys. They were pretty enthralled by it, and I could see their drawing styles improving right away. I also had the supreme enjoyment of getting Japanese kids to act weird in public. For the video, I put together a class intro and made each person do something bizarre, like pretending to ride an elevator or jumping out of a broom closet or punching a brick wall. Some were reluctant, but most of them were surprisingly willing to embarrass themselves in front of the businessmen walking around.

As night of the first day rolled around, it was time for a shower. We had been told before that this was no ordinary showering experience, but I didn’t really believe it until I tried it for myself. There was an actual bathhouse on the campus where we did our washing. You have to shower, soap, and rinse all before you get in the tub. The tub water is not changed and is only for soaking in. Thus, you must be perfectly clean. Oh, and also, you have to be naked in front of everybody. At first, I was kind of unsettled by this and didn’t want to wash. “I can go for three days without washing. It’ll be fine.” But of course, my dislike for uncleanliness outweighed my dislike for my own public nudity. So I got in, showered, and soaked. You have a tiny baby towel to wrap around you when you walk around, and you put it on your head when you soak. As I sat a-soakin’ in the heat, I realized how it all works. I didn’t want to see anyone’s weiner and they didn’t want to see mine. So you just stop worrying and relax. I did, and it was nice.

The second day we taught and taught, and during our break time we took the kids to nearby Yoyogi park. It had fountains and flowers and grass! And that’s about it. But still it was fun. Five of my kids went. We joined some other groups in a game of tag, in which I got tagged during the first two seconds of play. The grass in the park was laced with large stones that will gladly roll under your feet and slip you up if you run too fast. My fear of looking stupid combined with my fear of breaking my ankle again kept me from running too fast. Also, I’m out of shape. So after about ten minutes of running, I gave up and pretended to be a zombie. That way I could chase the kids on my own my time while saying “brains” and “Muir es vivir” a la RE4. They got a kick out of that. I just got tired.

The Olympic center was a lot of fun, but I’m not sure what else there is to say. So I won’t say anything. Next!

Back in Kasukabe, we were preparing ourselves for our final presentations. Everyone was hard at work editing and collecting materials. Except for Bippo. He spent the whole time renaming my computer files to “Michael’s pictures of dudes” and “Michael’s basket of dumb ideas.”

On Thursday, Aaron and I began our class time with ESL exercises as always. We had a lot of presentation preparation to do with the kids, so we just threw out what we had left. And it turns out all we had left was a worksheet I had made about American holidays. This was most certainly a poor combination of MS Word and Google images, but the kids didn’t know the difference, so we handed it out. Now, most people would use normal holidays like Easter and Valentine’s Day, but I figure we should really American it up a little. So I threw in some Labor Day and Columbus Day and other confusing favorites. Not to mention, I picked the most ridiculous pictures for each holiday.

We gave the worksheet, the kids finished, and we began grading papers. Aaron hadn’t seen the worksheet before, so as he struggled to explain Columbus Day and looked at the stupid picture of Leprechauns I put on the page, he started laughing. “These kids are so confused!” he said. I started laughing too. “I know!” I said. “Where did you get this stupid picture…(laughing)…of a baby…(laughing harder)…dressed as a pumpkin?!” We really started laughing now. “Google images! It was the first one that came up!” The kids started laughing too, but they weren’t sure why. Aaron and I stood in front of thirty students and did nothing but laugh for a solid four minutes. We tried to stop, Lord knows we did, but it was downhill guffaw train with no brakes. The kids all laughed too, but probably more because we looked like a couple of idiots yukking it up for no reason at all. And maybe that was the case.

That day was bittersweet. It was our last time in the classroom, and all our kids finished their projects that day. We still had two more days, but we would never teach them again. One of my girls gave me a manga we had been talking about. She said she had two, so I didn’t feel as bad.

That night was a night of laborious labor. We had presentations that next day and a ton of raw footage. Both Aaron and Peter had video projects, and I was simply cutting a video of the kids’ comics dubbed over with their voice acting. Even so, I had to edit the intros and I did a good amount of title card trickery to spice it up a bit. Anything to make sure their comics were received well.

I won’t get into the boring details, but I started editing at 4:00pm and finished at 3:00am. Yeah. I can’t really complain though because we all stayed up pretty late. Aaron stayed up until 5:00am.

Needless to say, the next day all the K-SEP teachers were exhausted, but energized with the excitement of showing their presentations. There were great photo presentations, plays, and several videos. Even though I taught cartooning, I opted to do a video because standing on stage and reading comics to an audience doesn’t go over very well. I should know. I did it last year. But my video this year was great, I think. I’m not sure the students got it, because it may have been too weird. I used a lot of the multi-colored title cards with weird music that I’ve been using in the vlogs. But I’m incredibly happy with it, and how often does that happen?

The next day was the closing ceremony, but I think that and the rest of our adventures should be saved for a following blog. A vlog is coming, as we still have at least fifty minutes of footage.

-Michael

Working Ourselves to Desu

Aaron + Michael Go to Japan: Days 3-5 from Joe Smith on Vimeo.

Dear all,

Okay,okay, okay, okay, okay, okay…okay. I suck. We start a blog. I write every day for two days and then disappear. Where did he go? What happened? I’m sure at this point you’ve gone on with your lives and stopped asking these questions. But despite this, I am marching onward and blogging away whether anyone reads or not. It’s healthy for me. A writing exercise, if you will. Just because I’ve run off to teach in Japan for a year or seven doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten my true calling. I am a writer, and write I shall! Not for you, or the people, or even for myself. But merely because I’m bored.

So what has happened since I stopped blogging? Well, the other two Americans arrived, Peter and Michelle. Peter is the brother of Lauren, who did K-SEP last year. Lauren was supposed to come this year, but she decided she hates Japan. It’s fine, because Peter is super cool and we all get along really well. Michelle is Lauren’s childhood friend from childhood, and she really likes to laugh. Well, I don’t know if she likes it or not because it seems spontaneous, but she certainly does it a lot. All in all, the American troupe of four is pretty dang cool.

The first night they were here, we all went back to Ueno just because we had nowhere else to go. The next day the seven or eight Canadians arrived. There’s a lot of them and they don’t talk to us that much, but I’m pretty sure their names are Zach, Michael, Seobahn, Alissa, Krista, Masha, Stephanie, and Bippo. I like all of them except Bippo. He’s always pulling down my pants and honking my nose and making me smell flowers that actually shoot cologne in my eyes. What a jerk.

The next day, the four Americans met up with Will, Jesse, Naoko for a day of Tokyo driftin’ unlike they have anything they’ve seen before (Except for me. I saw it last year. Snotty-snot-snot.) The Canadians went on a guided tour and ended up as slave labor for a few hours. The rest of us went through Harajuku and Yoyogi Park, where we saw middle-aged men dressed as fifties greasers doing the twist. It was pretty awesome. We got all of it on video, so it will be on our next vlog once we get five consecutive hours to edit. After that, we returned to Akiba, where I found the coolest Mario encyclopedia, and bought it of course.

But that was the end of the carefree fun, because the next day we began teaching. Seriously though, the teaching has been great this year. My class is full of great kids, all who are wonderful artists. I gave them their assignment and they’re all almost finished. Last year, we were down to the wire, so I got them all started early. Now it seems I may have gotten them started too early, so I’ve been doing a few subtle things to slow them down. Setting their assignments on fire seems to be working pretty well. Also, I’ve hired a professional burglar to steal their supplies while they’re not looking. They never know what hit ‘em!

I was walking to the Kasukabe station one night to meet Jesse, Naoko, and Wendy for dinner, and I was late (as usual), so I was booking it quick. The weird thing about the Kasukabe Station area is that the evening time brings a million jillion birds who fly and screech overhead as you walk toward the station. They fight in swarms and make a loud, loud ruckus the whole time. And of course, just as I’m late and power walking like a geriatric at the mall, a big old birdie plop lands straight on my hand. “No way. This is not happening. No way!” I ran toward a lady handing out cards for a restaurant, hoping for a bathroom I could use. “Toire, sumimasen.” I said. She just looked at me. I didn’t want shove my poop-covered hand in her face, so I politely tried to pull her attention down to my hand. “Etto…tori…” (tori means bird by the way). Silence followed. “Hai! Tori!” She said pointing to the sky. “Iie, iie. Sumimasen. Tori…tori…uuuuhh…” I looked down at my hand. Her eyes followed. “Ah!” She said finally noticing my trouble. She ushered me downstairs where I was sure I would get to use a sink. “Chotto matte,” she said and went into her place of employ. She returned with a tissue. And a small one at that. I wiped off the splatter as best I could, and asked for more with primitive grunts and asking, “more, more?” as if she knew what I meant. She gave me another tissue, which did the trick, but left my hand unwashed. She smiled all the while. “Bad luck,” I said as she nodded in firm agreement.

For days and days we taught with no break, but finally last Friday we got to go to an Izakaya with the teaching staff. It was wonderful fun. We had food and drinks and really got to know our superiors. Naoki (another teacher) and I pretended like we were gorillas and Aaron ate some octopus. It was great. Afterwards we went to Karaoke, where we sang such favorites as Ghostbusters, Don’t Stop Me Now, and Pop Star. I must say I had a ton of fun.

After that it was a day of teaching, which involved watching High School Musical with the kids. As most of you know, I love gut-wrenchingly horrible movies. But this one was really really painful to watch, which made it all the more enjoyable for me. If you haven’t seen it, you are missing out on some top-notch unintentional hilarity on par with Robocop 3.

The day after that, the four Americans met Jesse, Will, and Swinky (Jesse and Will’s roommate from Kenya [she’s super cool]) at the Kasukabe Matsuri. A matsuri is a festival, by the by. We saw some cool Taiko drumming, Mikoshi-shaking, and game swindling. Yes, the Japanese swindle children out of money with carnival games just as well as we do. It was an amazing sight.

Aaron and I bid farewell to the group from there and headed out on our capsule hotel adventure in Shibuya. We didn’t have a plan, or really any idea where to find a capsule hotel but it couldn’t be that hard, right?

On the train to Shibuya, a middle school girl fell asleep on my shoulder, which was really awkward. I didn’t want to wake her up and make her feel weird, but I also didn’t want her sleeping on my shoulder. Aaron took a picture of it with his film camera, so I hope it comes out okay. When the train came to a stop, I used the momentum to nudge her over to her friend’s shoulder and crisis averted.

In Shibuya, Aaron and I walked the streets like a couple of bummy gaijin, and it was pretty fun.

After walking around for a while, we decided it was time to find a capsule hotel. It was about 1:55am when we began asking people. When we asked where we could find a “capuseru hoteru,” Japanese people just gave us funny looks. Of course, foreigners knew what we meant and gave us directions that always led back to prostitute alley, and there was no way we were staying anywhere near that place. So Aaron and I began the long process of finding an internet café, looking up a capsule hotel address, finding a police box, asking the policeman for directions, walking, getting lost, and finally finding the capsule hotel.

We have footage of the capsule hotel, so I want go into detail. Mostly I’ll just say I was really underwhelmed. I guess I just read so much about capsule hotels and knew what to expect so I got into the capsule and just sort of thought, “Well, here I am. It’s like being in a tent made of hard plastic. Goodnight.” Plus we got in the capsules at around 4:00am. I was way too tired to care.

The next day brought an unshowered Shinjuku trip. I didn’t mind, because I didn’t come to Japan to waste time in a shower. I’ve got places to be and kids to teach. So we walked all up and down Shinjuku shopping our little hearts out. By the time we got home it was 5:00pm. Needless to say, Aaron and I spent the rest of the night just chillin’ with Peter and watching movies.

We are now in the dorms at the Olympic center with the kids. I’ll cover everything that led up to that in the next blog. The video for Days 3-5 covers stuff I didn’t talk about, and future videos will also cover stuff I didn’t mention. So look forward to that, because I definitely like editing when I have the time.

I love you all and hope to see you in my dreams (unless you’re some sort of monster. In that case, stay out of my dreams.)

-Michael

Akihabara Video Blogs part one and two

*EDIT* The videos are now fixed. So long YouTube!


Aaron + Michael: Akihabara pt. 1 from Joe Smith on Vimeo.


Aaron + Michael: Akihabara pt. 2 from Joe Smith on Vimeo.

As for writing, I've got nothing. I'm tired and nobody reads them anyway. The other K-SEP kids arrived. The end.
-Michael

*EDIT* Okay, okay. I'll write. It turns out people were watching. Sorry for being a poor sport. I'll hopefully get some time soon.

Ueno and Declaring Our Independence

*EDIT* The video is now fixed. No more stuttery slideshows!

But first, a tour of our apartment...


Aaron + Michael: Apartment Tour from Joe Smith on Vimeo.

Today was a late, late start due to the editing we did. I mean, we saw the morning news come on when we went to bed. So yeah, we woke up around 1:00pm. It took us long enough to get ready, so by the time we got out the door, it was maybe 1:45. We decided to go to the store and get some stuff we needed for the apartment and general living. That was, in as much as we bought more delicious Japanese drinks.

About that time, we decided it was time to get out and about. Ueno was an obvious choice due to the free park it offered and that it was free. We got on the train, rode for forty-five minutes.

While at the train station, Aaron and I split up because he was hungry and I had to use the bathroom. (I used the squatty toilet, just so know. Fun experience.) After Aaron bought his food, he sat down next to a homeless guy and started eating. From across the station, he saw two policemen eyeing him hard and fast, which is odd because Japanese people don’t seem to eye us ever (especially in the eyes). They came over and bowed slightly, then just kept staring. Aaron stared back, then ate some more of his rice ball. They spewed a long string of Japanese. Aaron just looked at them. “I…don’t know Japanese,” he said. “Rice…okay?” They asked. Aaron nodded. “Okay,” he said. There was a nice long silence. “What country?” they asked. “United States,” Aaron said. “Okay,” they said and walked away. A few seconds later, the homeless guy burst into talk. He talked and blabbed and yammered in Japanese while Aaron just sat there in silence. He offered Aaron a flask of whiskey. “No, no. Arigato,” said Aaron. The homeless guy left and about that time I came back.

We arrived Ueno park around dusk. It was nice and very peaceful. Aaron and I barely said anything to each other just because it was so serene. We saw a temple, a fountain, and some unsanitary bathrooms. The coolest thing I saw though, was a little halfpipe on the side of the street. It was cool because in every Tony Hawk game there’s little halfpipes on the side of walls and streets, and every time I see that, I think, “No city in the world has random halfpipes in its architecture.” Well, Japan, you amaze me yet again.

It was getting dark and the park was about closed, so Aaron and I headed to what I call the “Flashy Alley District.” I don’t really know what it’s called, but it was a series of alleyways with a lot of flashing signs and pachinko parlors. We walked and walked and walked. Aaron has video of it, which should be up eventually. We ended up eating in a cool little eatery, where I had Japanese fried chicken of some kind. Never had it before, but it was good.

When we got bored of Ueno, we gave Will a call and met him and Jesse in Sengendai. It being July 4th and all, we decided to celebrate our hatred for Great Britain by shooting off convenience store fireworks. It was pretty fun. We had spinners, rope spinners, flying bugs, sparklers, and bottle rockets. The bottle rockets were my favorite mostly because they’re illegal in North Carolina and I haven’t been able to play with them since I was ten. I was about to set off three bottle rockets at once when a homeless guy told us he was trying to sleep. Too bad. My firework fantasy must be saved for another day.

The rest of the night was watching Will play Metal Gear Solid 4 on his PS3. To you non-gamers, that may sound boring, but the MGS series is incredibly fun to watch someone play. Also, we played GTA IV, which I had wanted to get my hands on for quite some time.

On the way home, we saw some skater kids, the first I have seen in Japan, skating in a parking lot. We watched them skate and taped them a little before running to catch the last train home. While buying our tickers, we passed many drunk people, one who invited us to go drinking with him. We declined and said we needed to sleep. “Don’t think so,” he said. “You need drink, drunk, get ----ed up.” We declined again and left. The train home was packed at 1:00am, mostly with drunk people. The whole car smelled of alcohol. Getting off at Kasukabe, it was funny to see everyone stumbling out of the station. It was like being surrounded by zombies, except they wanted to sleep more than eat your brains.

So tiredy descends on my eyes, as it is quite late. I have to get up early because the two other K-SEP kids join us tomorrow. See you then.

-Michael

Akiba and not sleeping

So here we are. I had a post about our day in Akihabara and was all ready to upload it here to the blog, but Aaron needed help editing the two days worth of footage we had accrued. So he edited day one and I edited day two. We edited and edited and edited and edited until suddenly Aaron said, "Hey Mike, look out the window." Sure enough the sun was rising. Aaron finished his video and I got halfway through mine. Aaron's is finished, so without further ado, here is the day one video followed by yesterday's post. So it looks like the way it will be is, a video of yesterday and a blog about what happened that day. But don't be surprised if the blogs get incredibly short when we start teaching. If you've ever been a teacher, you know why. The rest of you...bah! Bah, I say!

Day One



Day 2: Akihabara

SLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!

That’s what my brain was saying as I sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeh-pt for nearly 11 hours last night. It was a nice restful sleep, as the futons were wicked comfortable. It was like sleeping on clouds that were just taken out of the package.

I got up around 9:00am and ready for the day. Aaron wasn’t however, so I decided I wasn’t either and went back to sleep until 9:30. About that time we got up, ate breakfast, and prepared for our first travelventure!

Because we needed a firewire cable to upload the video, we decided Akihabara would be the best place to go first. We’d see all the fun nerd places and pick up our many, many electronics. Before we left, however, I compiled a full page of useful Japanese words and phrases and gave them to Aaron to learn and try throughout the day. He remembered “Hai” and since there was no precedent I suppose that’s a step forward. But tomorrow, he’ll have to learn two words.

Before we left, Aaron asked how to say computer in Japanese. “Konpyuta,” I said. He needed to know so he could ask a local camera shop about the computer connector cable he needed for his camera. We went into the camera store and Aaron asked one of the guys working there about cables. He sort of looked confused, so Aaron pulled out his camera. He opened the side and pointed to the firewire port. “I need a cable,” he said. “Connects to computadore.” This was my first indication that he wasn’t going to try and learn too much Japanese.

We got lost on our way to the post office (we had to go there to exchange currency) and stopped at a gas station to ask for directions. I knew enough to ask the girl working there where the post office was. She gave us directions in quick and complicated Japanese. “Sumimasen. Wakarimasen,” I said with a troubled look. This basically conveys that I’m very sorry for being foreign. She proceeded to take out a piece of paper and draw a complicated map of the whole city, complete with points of interest and color-coded districts. She was almost done (I could see her writing the symbol for post office), when she said “Iie” (no) and crumpled up the paper. She made two or three more perfectly good maps before she pulled out a real map and just pointed to the post office. By this point, I had seen the directions drawn out for me four times, so I had it down. It amazed me how exact she needed to be before it was acceptable. When I’m asked directions, I quickly mutter “yeah it’s right then left and two rights you can’t miss it bye,” before shuffling away. Guess I’m a jerk. I need to make maps from now on.

We got hungry on our misguided trip to the post office and decided to stop off at convenience store for some hardy food. Unlike American convenience stores, which stock, out of date candies and moldy hot dogs, Japanese convenience stores sell food. I advised Aaron on what to buy and got the same for myself. As we were leaving, a kid from K-SEP last year passed right by me and we met eyes. I knew who he was, but because of my no-beard and short hair he wasn’t really sure who I was. As he was staring at me thinking, “Do I know this guy?” I blurted out my hasty American “Hi!” not realizing that to him I really just yelled “YES!” Think about it. By freak accident, I answered the question he was thinking in his mind. For the rest of his life, he may very well wonder if all foreigners have mind-reading powers (we do).

In Akihabara we did all the fun things. We found the computer cable right away, so tonight there shall be video for all! I took Aaron to all my favorite fun places. We saw lots of robots and video games I couldn’t win at. Pretty much all the fun is covered in the video portion, so I’ll let the pictures do the talking, once it's uploaded tomorrow. Either way, we did a lot of stuff, like went to a maid café. I keep hearing all these things like, “Maid cafes are a cultural anomaly specific to Japan! Wow! Oh boy! So cool! Yay!” But my two experiences have been mostly that maid cafes are a cultural anomaly that should stay specific to Japan. I mean, it’s really boring. One thing I don’t understand is that in the two times I’ve been to maid cafes, they’re always playing Disney movies on their big screen televisions. I guess it’s supposed to be cutsie, but I’ve never really thought of Disney movies that way. Anyway, my verdict is, maid cafes are probably good if you want to pay for girls who are paid to flirt with you. Of course, we didn’t get that with our meal because we can’t speak Japanese. The ice cream was good though.

On the way back home, we were really tired. We were crammed into the front car of the train and I just tried to sleep my head on my arm as I stood up. It didn’t work so well. The walk from the station was about twenty minutes and was really nice. Kasukabe was dark and closed up for the night. The weather was mild and slightly windy and it was peacefully quiet. That’s what I love about Japan most. The night.

That’s all for now, I suppose. As for the video of me with my shirt off, shaBAM! Check that out! Seriously though, don’t. It’s embarrassing. And as for an update on TV, Children’s programming was awesome, just as I expected. I saw a fat guy dressed as a lollipop doing jump rope and a family of transforming superheroes. So, I expect I’ll be watching morning TV more than anything during my year here. I did also find one late night anime that’s on TV right now. It’s really cutsie and pink, but the art style is actually interesting and the humor is really random. I wish I knew what it was called.

Hello to all back home! I’m off to bed. Good night!

-Michael

P.S. Pictures will be on facebook soon. Really, we are in over heads so bear with us.

Tadaima!

Greetings all!

As some of you may know, I had the wonderful life-changing opportunity to visit Japan last year for the 2007 K-SEP program in Saitama. It was a fantastically fun (though many times trying) experience that I loved though and through. So much so, that I decided I wanted to live here in Japan. Of course, I’m not living here yet. I am in fact back in Japan for K-SEP 2008, only this time with my good friend Aaron Dunson. I also got accepted in the 2008 JET Program, but that starts August 1. For now, I am getting more Japanese classroom experience in Kasukabe teaching cartooning. Aaron is teaching film, and the rest of the people I have not met will be teaching other things.

But of course, it is late and I am tired. So without further ado, a quick recap of the past day(s).

June 30

This was a frantic one. I had a lot of packing to do before Aaron arrived at my house. We would be traveling together to CLT for our flight to Japan. I began packing and did my best to finish before he arrived, but I was only halfway through when he showed up at 2:00pm. We went out to get a few extra things for the trip, the most important being Aaron’s new Mini DV Camera. (We planned on doing Video Blogs and shot a lot of footage, but the man at Best Buy forgot to pack the firewire cable, so we have to buy one tomorrow. Bear with the regular blog. Video Blogs are a-comin’!)

We got home and continued packing. I finished just shy of midnight which leads us into…

July 1

Having to be on a new timezone is tough, especially one thirteen hours ahead of you. So I had the idea of just staying up all night and sleeping on the plane to adjust myself to the new time. So far, it’s worked out all right. I’m still fatigued, but I’m not decked to the floor. Aaron is though. He is out like a light someone threw a rock at.

But I digress. We stayed up until 4:15am, when my dad got up to take us to the airport. We hugged, said goodbyes, and promptly took off our shoes for the security checkpoint. Basically after that, nothing interesting happened. I mean, what is there to say? I sat down for eighteen hours. The end.

Though I must say, American Airlines was infinitely better than the Northwest flight I took last year. Every seat had a screen in the head rest in front of you, so there was no forcible viewings of Wild Hogs this year, thank the Lord! Also, my not sleeping paid off in some nice pass-outs on the plane. It was like being in cryo-sleep. You close you eyes and BOOM! Five hours just gone.

Oh, and our captain was named Captain Champagne. I’m not kidding. And he talked way too much and was way too happy. I guess that’s better than Captain Whiskey or Captain Appletini. You can think of those personalities yourselves. Class project.

At some point in time we crossed the international dateline and landed some time on…

July 2

We shuffled off the plane and toward customs. It was pretty easy to get through and thankfully my bag wasn’t lost this year. Though something interesting of note was the T-Shirt I wore. It was a sort of neon green and black checkerboard with punk rock symbols and words spattered everywhere. This got a lot of attention from the Japanese people in the airport, but not necessarily the good kind. The guy with the drug-sniffing dog brought his dog by my bag on five separate occasions. And someone else at the currency exchange stared at my shirt in total shock for a good five seconds before answering my question. Happily, after scaring one too many old ladies with my angry subversive clothing, a girl walked by me in the train station and said, “Pankku Rokku!” Though she said it kind of quietly as if she didn’t really believe what she was saying. But the important thing is, she said it.

Sakai-Sensei, our boss, met us outside Kasukabe station. It was good to see her again, and a sure sign that I had actually made it to Japan. My sleepy brain and fatigued body had pretty much kept me from processing this fact. She took us to our apartment, which is really nice, by the way. Once we get the firewire cable, we’ll upload a video tour of the place. She took us to the grocery store and we bought some food for dinner and breakfast. We ate, went out to the surrounding areas, and finally settled in for the night.

As I close, I must say Japanese TV is boring. I knew this from last year, but I just thought I would reiterate. Before I came here, I was worried I would spend all my time watching TV. However, this is not the case. It’s all talk shows, game shows, game shows where people talk, and dramas. Of course, the dramas are funny, but not intentionally so they get no points. And don’t get me wrong, the commercials are all awesome. I think their commercials and sense of advertising is on a level far above ours. It’s really just epic. But the shows…I don’t know. I just don’t get them. Maybe I need a million channels so I can see everything there is. Or maybe I’ll wake up early and watch Japanese children’s television. I bet that’s good.

That’s all for now. Tomorrow there should be video of today and tomorrow. That means no typings from me. Or maybe just less typings. I have to type a little. But really, just video. That’s what the people want and that’s what they’ll get. See you later!

-Michael



















This is my evil, evil shirt. Sadly, I am not punk. I'm just a wannabe poser. If they new that, then the shirt would hold no threat.