11/08/04: What a month in Japan looks like...
Well, first off id like to post some pics about things you see in everyday life here in tokyo. There are some dazziling fine examples of engrish, japanese seem to use the english language in ways we could only dream. Walking back from school this is just one of many signs that caught my eye. a coffee shop, but maybe even more. whenever you feel like you need a good cocking, this home is for you.
A lot of times when im in the arcades the ratio of girls to guys is pretty horrible, and thats understandable cause the guys that play games here are all chain smoking salarymen or serious otaku. even when you see girls playing they are either at purikura (picture booths with all kind of magic) or at the UFO catcher (crane game, the arm that never picks up anything). rarely you might see a girl schooling in a fighting game, usually guilty gear, but last week i was at the carnival game center in shinjuku, where, i might add, Tekken 5 comes out on the 16TH!, and i happen to see a couple of attractive girls playing house of the dead 3. not just playing, destroying! they were really good, like i can beat the game on a dollar good. and there is nothing quite like seeing two girls kicking ass and cocking shotguns, so here you go.
Next, you may have heard that fruit is expensive in japan, well, its very very true. and since the last month was typhoon crazy the price of fruit is just insane. heres a pic of a fruit vender on the side of the road in kabuki chou, shinjuku. what you see here is a cantelope, the one below is 30 bucks, the one above is 50. no shit, 50 bucks for one melon. and there was a special 2 mellons for 100 bucks. do people actually buy these? im not sure, but the guy seems to be doing pretty good business. it could be a front for prostitution on second thought.
Sometimes the grind of tokyo can be a little too much to take for your average salaryman, and sometimes you are just really really tired. gotta crash..
Me and trent hit up the sunshine city mall last week in ikebukuro. I just had to get a pic of this, the new nissan with 20 inch rims lego style. this is seriously old school and deserves some applause, i mean who takes the time to make these things anymore. i remember once with my brother i saw a huge statue made out of legos, but i forget who it was. the greatest lego builder was chris, i just played with the sharks and ninjas. he buildt pirate ships in an day.
So here is my class, level 3 at KCP fuji international. yeah i know its hard, they make up like 85% of the class, the korean girls, but they are really cool and down to earth, i always kinda felt that way about the koreans compared to the japanese kids, they just seem a little more friendly and outgoing. These pics are of the Undoukai that we had last week. (its like a sports days) all the school competed in different games like tug of war and 4x 4 relay and stuff. i competed in the tug of war, 4 x 4, and some rope relay. we didnt place but it was awesome, a great vacation for class. plus i got to meet a lot of people from the different levels that study at KCP, there are some more americans there and a hell of a lot more koreans. lol, after that there are the chinese and i think i met one brittish guy.
On the track just before the 4 x 4 relay with my running parter.
My classmate buddy SongJin
From class: Myunhyun, shes really nice and attractive ne. shes pretty popular among the 3 guys in class.
After the undoukai we all went out to drink, with the instructors too! all the teachers were out there, and the one from our class got especially emotional when one of the korean students yelled, "we love you sensei". :tear:
After the after party, at the karaoke bar, i was singing some korean songs that i had no idea how to even lip sinc, but its ok cause i made up for it with californication and shadowboxer. i had to sing some eminem for the fans, and some disney sing along songs with the prof., aladdin and beauty and the beast themes.
hope you enjoyed the pics, the next month should be even crazier, but if you cant find me, its cause tekken 5 has dropped and my life is over. Dec. will be insane, completely insane, welcome tekster, welcome tanya, welcome justin, japan is about to get a lot cooler. till then, bush daitouryuu ni gaman shite ne. peace
10/24/04
Theres nothing that can quite describe the dejected feeling that makes you dash for Freshness Burger and order a big teriyaki burger and a cafe late. So, as the story goes, there we were in Freshness studying japanese and laughing about how no one will sit near us, and about how we cant meet anybody, but mostly about how hard japanese is- the theme of this place all month has been crazy decorated with Halloween stuff, its kinda cool, they have bats and pumpkins and ghosts all tied up and the food is themed as well. They seem to be getting quite into it this year, re-releasing a special version of nightmere before xmas in the theaters, which makes sense right, what holiday would the japanese like more than a cosplay carnival. so there is the ceiling fall spinning with a ghost tied to it which looks kinda cool, i noticed as we took the seat towards the back that it was a nice touch. About a half hour into studying the thing breaks off and flies right into Trents head and we bust out laughing, whats the luck seriously, so were enjoying it the waitor comes over and looks at us like "why would you do that?" and takes it and tapes it back up on the fan.
Well, here is the digs. My room in Yoyogi. So what exactly are you looking at? That is my bed, which seems also to be my closet and sometimes the storage room for my roomates shit. not much room to stretch out here, truthfully, its not that comfortable the damn matress is hard as fuck, but i can sleep on it. the covers are nice. ya know, i think the most comfortable bed i ever had was the one in sterling university. that was awesome, for two years that was my bed. very comfortable. the one at moms doesnt fit me, i usually crash on the couch, and dads, its really high off the ground. as much a i like beds i cant believe the best one i ever had was pre-furnished. i think some day ill really invest in an awesome one.
So that was looking from the doorway into the room. this is what i see when i wake up in the morning, sitting on my bed, looking into my living room, haha. minus the two other guys i live with that sleep there, who occasionally are trying to have covert sex late night with their gfs like 5 feet away. They are cool as hell though, im lucky to be roomed with two cool guys, even if that means pretending to sleep through their escapades.
I met some breakers! here in yoyogi, like 10 mins from where i live, they practice late night in front of some huge ass corporate building, I saw them late one night going to the station, i had already had a couple beers out of the drink machines, and i went up and started talking to them. eventually ended up taking my jacket and shit off and throwing down with them. it was great. i havent danced in so long, so now im excited to be getting some excercise. whats good is that everyone is better than me, so i can learn a lot from them. Hiro is cool and really nice, hes got mills, tracks, 90s, headspins, airchairs and some pretty good poses. Then the other guy jyuji just has fucking insane headspins, all day, and then ends and drills them, hes also got some power. So last night again I went to meet them for a real session and i met some other guys, some of the newer guys, they were cool, but i think me and hiro get along the best. hes mad funny- i practiced out there for like 3 hours, im sore as anything, but it was cool cause all these ppl from different places started showing up and there were poppers and lockers doing their thing on the other side of the wall and then some girls doing some traditional japanese dance behind them.
Hiro hitting an airchair for the keitai photo op. i kept telling him crazy shit like track airchair, swipe airchair etc, and he was trying them but just for fun, knowing he couldnt ever do hitem- he had tons of music too, i was pretty surprised, but i still have a couple things i could turn him on too. he didnt have the r2dj, or save me, or mass appeal, some of my favorites.
its cool meeting up with trent every now and then cause it keeps us sane ya know, other wise this japanese study everyday is really frustrating, its cool to just let loose in your native language. Other than that, Im ready for another week of craziness. id like to meet some females by the way. that of course is the best way to practice japanese, even of you do learn to speak like a girl. both my roomates have pretty serious girlfriends and i come and go cause its kinda wierd being in here while they are trying to get all close and romantic. but, i miss all my friends a lot, my family. love you guys. take care. later
10/17/04
Pretty great weekend. I have a test tomorrow that i need to study a little bit more for. The Luna show was amazing, they are really great and Im still awed by the fact that I saw them at Astro hall like five feet from the stage. Also, a couple japanese groups opened for them, one of the two, the first guy was just solo piano vocal in the vein of ben folds, the second, Primrose, was a rock melody group that built on loops of catchy riffs growing in complexity, kinda like pinback in some aspects, they were fun. then the main show of course.If you ever had any questions they were answered friday night. britta phillips is goddess, sultry, heavy with mood. shes almost in there running with jennifer charles and fiona but shes not all there yet. she shows up on stage in a japanese school girl play your fantasy type dress, hair in pig tails with a bass guitar twice her size hanging from her neck. Unfortunately, they needed to turn her up all night, there were some technical difficulties and all, so i never got to hear as much of her voice as I would have liked.
10/13/04
so i dont want to make this some long winded post but i do feel like i owe this journal a little more attention. things at home in yoyogi are good. the room i am in is very very small. it looks like a square with 20 ft sides. a bookcase, that was left with one shelf or two for me. my bed, not the bunkbeds, they belong to my roomates, francois and seif, i have the bed on the left wall. half of the bed is my desk. i can sleep pretty comfortably with my feet up ovr my backpack and clothes. when i got here thefuton and sheets werent washed, they were kinda covered in hair and shit. but now they are nice and clean- it took a while cause it has been raining everyday- besides that the room is quite comfortable, to sleep in, i dont really do much else up here. my roomates are cool as hell. francois is on the top bunk, he has a japanese girl and shes over here a lot. saif is on the bottom, he has a japanese girl and he is gone a lot. they are both into the same things that i am. sometimes we have cool coversations about cool things. instance, saif and i got talking about jidai geki films the other day, he matched my knowledge and then some, i was quite impressed, even though he used to work for a company and come here to buy these films to take back and stock them, so that was cool, he hooked me up with some cool film names and some actors i need to check out.
so on the game side, let me think.. berserk is out here, played it. sick. dragon quest 8 is coming out soon, stella duex is coming soon, there is no damn tekken tag machines anywhere, i keep getting owned by some retarted shit in cvs2, for a DOLLAR A SHOT, DAMMIT. in other news me and trent are starting a campain in a the quest of D, some cool rpg platform deungeon crawler that is co op and saves your progress and character on a IC card. that will be eating yen no doubt. school started, it is the same level that i was in last summer. 3. that sucked. i think they really cheated me man. i dunno how i got stuck with the retards in my class. i asked to see my placement test but they wont show it to me or go over it with me. they are full of shit a lot of times.
i saw a girl in wendy's yesterday, she had the greatest japanese ever. i soo wanted to ask her to be my speech coach or tutor or something. seriously it was like nothing i have ever heard, i was looking around and seeing if anyone else noticed how well spoken and interesting this girl sounded and they did, she was like the center of attention in wendys that day. she didnt use maji or toka or nanka once. so anyways, i was thinking ill never be able to speak like that , never ever, not even after like 20 yrs here. just so fast, only the way native speakers do. people were actually captivated by her story while they were pretending to stare out the window. i was alternating between her and the window. it was raining and she never looked at me. i left after she left.
trent is here too and its awesome. we will be hanging out a lot. i met his friend kat the other week when we went to a french electronic/chic/overpriced/industrial/gay club called l'fabrique. she was funny and nice, studying fashion in japan, trent is begging her to take him to some of the parties shes been going to with all the japanese and sweedish models. tanomu ne., school will get hard fast, but this level is dragging, partly cause ive already doen this beginning part and partly because the teachers i have now arent the best at the school, shes too nice, the korean kids just fuck around all the time. she woke the same kid up 6 times today. wtf. just skip his ass, that shit took up like a half hour.
the place i live is in a really great location. its perfect for anyone visiting, i mean you can walk to shinuku in 20 min, shibuya in 30, and harajuku in 15. so its nice, and its on one of the biggest streets, meiji dori, so there are tons and tons of shops and stuff.
Im already getting sloow..what do i mean. im not sure but its getting to me again. this place is kinda rough. i think the key is that i have have to concentrate and keep improving myself, no just japanese, cause that can get quite depressing, but in other areas, trying to stay healthy, stay active, read, write, etc.
it would be nice to find a gym to join or a martial art or breakdance, but its hard to find and often really expensive.
why do i think im getting sick. i really hope not. left nostrel is clogged. boo
so , have i mentioned its hard to make friends here? it kinda is. that is the best way to learn japanese though. by far desu. so i just need to do this thing. i could pay for a conversation teacher or just make some damn friends. which brings me to some revelation about the outcome of this whole thing. what exactly do i expect to do with this language once i have "mastered" it, plenty of agijin have been living here forever and are flent in it, what do i want to do with this? serious, once i pass ikkyu, and thats is my goal right now, what can i do? do i wanna live and work in japan. I really dont think so. work in the us and deal with japanese ppl? hmm, i dunno anymore. work in the us and come here on paid vacations? that is getting warmer. but i wouldnt mind using japanese at work- the thing is this- if you dont use it every FUCKING day you forget it. thats just that. being an american and having japanese as a second language is hell. if you want to be able to write freehand letters in kanji and read newspapers and everything, you better be studying everyday for the rest of your life, cause you just forget thyem so damn fast. its not like I was young and bonded to these things early on, its always been an uphill battle. theres not going to any end to it. can i handle that? i dont really know yet. is it worth it? i coul;d keep japanese as a language just like any other, but its like knowing englush and not being able to read or write it.
i should be getting a phone tomorrow. i went through a lot of shit to get it. they make you jump through tons of hoops here. and i have, this monkey has danced his ass off.
friday Luna is playing in harajuku!!!
britta phillips and dean wareham. i might meet them yo! crazy. this show should be amazing, i was soo happy when i found the flyer today. makes me feel a little better. so , im going and then maybe this weekend ill look into the friend thing on the bboy tip in yoyogi and maybe in some hiphop clubs aroung shinjuku. izm, harlem. i just wish i had people to practice with. i wanna come up so i have something new for rich, if you make it out here. well, this was quite long.
one more thing, i wanted to post some quotes from the history of sexuality, there are some good ones, ill try and get around to it next time. hopefully too, when i get my phone for 1 yen, it will have a camera in it, ill pay for email so i can email myself the pics and then post them. MY GOOD CAMERA BROKE IN CESKY. i have to send it back to the manufacterer. this sucks. im tired, and actually i should have done a little homework for tomorrow.
maybe i do now..
latros
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