This is just a test...

Part of our ongoing efforts here to make things as enjoyable as possible for you, the reader.

An ode to Japan

I wish your smile is
shining.
So, you can feel the
private dining we make
the comfortable space.
It's good for the heart.
Relaxible Harmony
ITALIAN TOMATO Cafe' Jr.
will can be grand

relaxible cafe.

I need to write this stuff down

I had planned a lot more posts, but knowing that I can sometimes be a little unreliable with posting in general, I thought maybe I should try to space things out a little. The only problem with this idea is that I can't remember for the life of me all the brilliant stuff I was going to foist upon you. So instead I'll just post this Fumiko skating. I was standing taking the picture, Fumiko was standing skating and we were surrounded my 354 other Japanese people simultaneously falling on their buttocks.

Strangest advice you've ever given?

I had an interesting class tonight. My student is sort of a legend around our school. He's been coming for at least the past two years that I've been working here and he's a bit of an oddball. Not quite as socially adept as most people. He's got quite a good vocabulary but unfortunately he can't create an english sentence to save his life.

Anyways we were practicing dealing with advice tactfully and one of the topics of advice dealt with parenting. He suggested that "don't be violence to your baby" which I then converted to english "you shouldn't hit your child." I then realized that he was saying that you shouldn't use physical means to punish your children so I changed the word to "spank". Anyways he thought this was funny and told me that sometimes he 'spanked' his cats when they got into the dry food bags. This would probably be another example of using improper words in his sentences.

Anyways, it allowed me to say to him as an example, "Akihiro, do you mind if I make a suggestion? Maybe you shouldn't spank your cat!" I'm happy to say that I said this loudly enough to cause the teacher in the adjoining room to lose her train of thought in the middle of her lesson.

Books Read 2007

Read (out of 5 stars)
Hitching Rides With Buddha by Will Ferguson (****)
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by J.K. Rowling (*****)
An American Dream by Norman Mailer (***)
The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara (*****)
Great American Speeches by Gregory Suriano (***)
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway (****)
The Spy Who Came In from the Cold by John le Carre (****)
The Amulet of Samarkand by Jonathan Stroud (*****)
The Golem's Eye by Jonathan Stroud (*****)

Reading
The Cambridge History of Warfare by Geoffery Parker
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan by Herbert P. Bix

Queued
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

What's your New Years resolution?

I've actually got two this year. I'm not a big believer in self-improvement (how do you improve on perfection?) but this year I decided that I wanted to change a couple of things. First I decided that, as an english teacher, it's sort of an abomination that I don't really read any more. So I resolved to read more than I did last year. So far, I've already read two books which is one more than I read last year so I can quit which is great because I like accomplishing easily achievable goals.
My second resolution was to study (and therefore learn,) more Japanese. The only problem I have with studying Japanese is that it's written in a foreign language and that tends to dissuade me a little. However I just bought two new textbooks yesterday, to go along with the two that I bought previously and the two that I inherited from other people after they've moved or gone home. This should lead you to one of two conclusions-either:
Wow, Brendan sure is serious about learning Japanese!
or
Brendan must think that if he keeps buying textbooks at the current rate, eventually the information held within will be too much for the bookshelf to bear and will diffuse across the bedroom and into his ear while he sleeps.

Either of those could be true-we'll just have to wait and see which one it is.

Travel update

I'm going to Saipan. That's all I know right now. I know the date (end of January) but that's about it. I'm great at going places, just not so good at planning to go to places. Saipan is a small, paradise island in the Pacific ocean surrounded by white sand and light blue water. At least that's what I'm hoping. I admit that it's not an educated guess but it's certainly a lot better than the last time I heard about Saipan, when my ex-roommate told me she was going and I replied, "You're going to China!??"

I actually know a bit more about Saipan than that. It's better known among the war-geeks as being the site of a fairly major WWII battle, after which the losing Japanese side did their best lemming impressions and we "Allied" children would forevermore shout "Banzai" whenever we jumped into the swimming pool.

Oops I did it again...

Looks like I pulled one of my disappearing acts again. I knew it was a bad idea to make all of those posts on one night and shoot my bolt. Actually I have a perfectly good (sort of) excuse this time. Right after Christmas, things got pretty busy with New Years and I spent several years (oops I mean days) with Fumiko, going to Yokahama (a first), and going shopping and going ice skating (also a first).

Then after that, just as my holiday was ending (around January 3rd) I managed to get sick with one of those colds I seem to get once every three months. The problem is that they tend to be monster colds and I get a feeling that it's actually the same cold and it merely goes into hibernation for a quarter of a year and then it rears its ugly head again.

So after at least a good week of being sick (which I spent either working or being in hibernation myself) followed by a few days of 'nothingness', all of a sudden it's January 18th and I've missed my sister's birthday by nine days (Happy Birthday, Laura!). Anyways I'm back and I'm better (other than this cough that won't go away.)
Stay tuned for future updates.

One more!

Ok this is the last update today. I was browsing Youtube and came a cross of video of a game that had this song playing in the background. I immediately fell in love it!
I think this is an indie Canadian band. The group name is Final Fantasy (no not the game) and the song name is, wait for it, This lamb sells condos

Give it a try

A few more Christmas pictures

Browsing through my phone and I found a few more pictures:


Our loot.


Dinner. Fumiko made some great tasting gratin (pasta hot bake?) and I'm ashamed to say that I went to KFC and bought chicken. It's a Japan Christmas tradition for me to smugly ask my students if they're going to go to (horror upon horrors) Kentucky to buy some Christmas chicken. And there I was on Christmas Eve buying chicken myself.


And finally the Christmas cake. Christmas cake you say? Yes if there is one thing that can actually be called a Christmas tradition in Japan it's Christmas cake. It's completely ridiculous of course but it's Japan. I suppose the candles are for Jesus. We couldn't find room for the other 2001 candles on the cake.

I'm a socialite!

Well I suppose that declaration is slightly premature-especially when you consider that I've spent the entire day surfing the net, playing videogames and watching Battlestar Galactica. Still I've made a start. On Christmas Eve Eve, Jared and his friend Ikue and Fumiko and myself all went to Shibuya to a restaurant called Outback. Some of you may know it-sort of an Australian themed restaurant. It was pretty good-I had a big steak for the first time in about two years! Fumiko was feeling a little bit sick unfortunately-we're not sure why. She had been out to an office party the night before and had drunk approximately a glass and a half of wine. She has absolutely no tolerance for alcohol! That makes us compatible since I usually have no taste for it. Unless of course it's a White Russian

Christmas Eve was spent with Fumiko again. I went to her place after work and we had a little Christmas dinner, opened presents and watched A Muppets Christmas Carol. She had actually managed to find it somewhere and bought it for me for Christmas. Here's a pic of our Christmas tree-a lot different from back home that's for sure.

Oops wait, that one's of my friend Pete. Looking very teacher-like in front of a NOVA arcade game we found at one of the huge arcades in Ikebukuro. Yes that's how we look in all our classes- "Mamiko, you said 'Yesterday I went to shopping.' Went to shopping??"

Lets see if I can get the right pic this time...
Yep there it is! Sort of cute and pathetic at the same time! Still there's an impressive number of presents under that tree! Here's a rundown of the Christmas l00t that we scored this year:

For me:

1. A sweater from Seibu.
2. A pair of pants from Seibu.
3. A Muppets Christmas Carol DVD.
4. WWII t-shirt from back home (and some cash that I haven't spent yet!)
5. A book from Emily. Hitching Rids With Buddha by Will Ferguson. I'm seven chapters in and so far it's a darn good read! Check it out if you can-his writing about Japan is much more interesting and funny than I can possibly produce.
   

From me:

1. A ring from Seibu. (pics to come).
2. A framed photo of us in Kyoto.
3. Some english books starting with some Peanuts for beginning readers, then a slightly harder Beauty and the Beast and then finally the Charlotte's Web novel.

Oh I got off on a bit of a tangent there. I was talking about my emergence as a socialite. Anyways, for the third night in a row (Christmas) I went out after work with Pete and his roomie Ross to an tabehodae (all you can eat) nomihodae (all you can drink) yakiniku restaurant. So we stuffed ourselves on meat that we cooked ourselves for two hours, and then after that we dropped into the arcade (see above) and then finally met up with a few of the school staff ladies who had just finished their own Christmas dinner and went out to The King George pub.

Stay tuned for more info regarding my upcoming travel horrors.

Blog update

Some of you may have noticed that the layout of the blog has changed ever so slightly. If you did, congratulations on your cranial fortitude-you must be related to me. I've started adding labels to my posts so that you can simply click on a topic word on the right hand side of the page and immediately be taken to any posts that discusses that topic. It takes a while to go back and add labels to everything so it's something that I'll be slowly updating.

Tokyo-now with 100% more rain

For those of you who had no idea; Tokyo has four seasons. Well now that you've recovered from your state of shock-wait you're not shocked? There's Spring, Summer, Fall and of course we can't forget Winter. And Japan is the only country in the world to actually have all four of these seasons. Or so we're constantly told. Well actually that's not true. But we are told the obvious so often that we can't help but wonder whether or not the Japanese might actually believe that they are the only country in the world with four seasons.

I am not amazed by Japan's possession of the Four Seasons. However I am constantly amazed by the capacity for rain here. Some times it rains extremely hard-not very often but sometimes. But what is really amazing is how it can just start raining one day and not let up until four days hence. My memories of home consist of 3 or 4 hour rains. It was raining when I woke up this morning and it still hasn't let up at 10pm. I expect it will still be raining tomorrow morning as well.

While the rain doesn't make for very Christmasy weather, it's impossible to feel letdown because you never had any expectations of a white Christmas anyways. It was actually very convenient because it allowed me to do exactly what I would have done anyways (sat on my butt all day and accomplished absolutely nothing) with no feelings of guilt whatsoever!

Brendan-now with100% more PSP

This post is being typed via PSP-yes I am a geek. It's also a pain in the butt so it will be short. I just want to leave you with a teaser-I will be a social butterfly this week.

Direct from Associated Press

Brendan: We must succeed
in Laundry
TOKYO (AP)-- As Brendan sat down for dinner last night, he warned that failure in household duties would be a calamity that would haunt the house for years. As if to underscore the eroding situation there, a report was issued that said that spotting's of unclean clothes had risen to the highest level in years.

In a news conference last evening, Brendan sketched out an agenda of reversing the upward spiral in Laundry, attending to the lack of clean shirts and pushing for the cleaner Bedroom that was a priority of his predecessor, 2006 Brendan.

Brendan said he intends to travel soon to the Bedroom to hear commanders assessments of the situation on the floor and to gain their advice-"unvarnished and straight from the shoulder"-about how to adjust the household cleaning strategy.

"All of us want to find a way to bring clean shirts and slacks back to the household agian," Brendan told a few hundred dust balls in the Maisonet Yuki living room.

At the Maisonet Yuki ceremony, Jared said he is confident Brendan, 27, will bring a fresh perspective to the laundry problem. "He knows the stakes in the War on Laundry," Jared said. "He recognizes this is a long struggle against an enemy unlike any we've faced before."

Brendan made no mention of his plan for changing the course in the laundry strategy, which he has said will be disclosed next month.

It's a wonderful winter wonderland-in my house!

I've heard recently that people back home are amazed/appalled that it is the middle of December and it is ten degrees Celsius. Want to here something even more appalling? It is the middle of December and it is ten degrees in my house! That's right we're ten times more likely to see our own breath inside the house than we are outside. I would type more but my fingers are frozen and it hurts to hit the buttons on the keyboard.

Your transition to the Dark side is now complete

I am officially a geek. I play videogames, read Archies, don't really like parties, don't drink much and sometimes play more videogames! Only one final thing was needed to fall into place and that was boardgames. Yes I am officially a boardgamer now. Oh sure, I played a few games of Monopoly or LIFE (the Japanese happen to love that game incidentally) when I was a kid but that's all it was. But in the past week I have played two games of RISK 2210. It takes a good 3 hours to play and lots of little men are moved around on a board and geekspeak is uttered, including the the odd quotation from the movie The Princess Bride (never get involved in a land war in Asia). It's quite fun! I've had a slight interest in boargames for a long time but never got into them because I didn't have any friends who were interested in gaming. I'm already looking to pick up my own game.

To South America! (or somewhere in the general hemisphere)

After my 3 day odyssey to Kyoto I thought I would retire from my traveling ways and settle down with a small patch of land and a plow and live out my days in peace and tranquility. If Fumiko has anything to do with it though it might not work out that way. Fumiko has what appears to be a decent job as a radiologist. Who knows what it pays but I think gets about 40 vacation days a year. The funny thing about being a Japanese working in Japan is that when you "get" 40 days vacation, you don't actually "get" 40 days vacation. You get approximately four and a half-rounded down. The idea is that you "get" the vacation days, you just can't "take" the vacation days. And the "taking" is really the most important part of the whole thing. I'm sure there's a Seinfeld comedy routine in there somewhere.

Anyways apparently there have been a boatload of new hirings at the hospital meaning that the more senior staff actually get to "take" some vacation days before they all disappear at the end of the hospital year in March some time. This little tidbit led to the following conversation (not verbatim for the sake of grammar and due to my poor memory):

"Ne ne, do you have any more vacation days?"
"Uhh...yes-why?"
"Because I can use my vacation days now-but didn't you use your vacation days for Canada?"
"No I mostly used swaps"
"Swaps??"
"When you work for someone else and then they work for you"
"??"
"Nevermind-where do you want to go?"
"Ano ne, I was thinking...South... South Ah..."
"South America!???"
"YES! I want to go to Cancun"
"Cancun's in Mexico"

At this point I am thinking, I did not come all the way to Japan just to go to Mexico. In fact, I didn't come to Japan to go anywhere! Where's my plow? I must have left it around here somewhere. Anyways, as unlikely as it is unfortunate, this situation is probably not going to go away. Stay tuned for future updates.

Christmas Grinch

Well my Christmas shopping is finished. It was actually amazingly fast considering I only bought one gift. My wallet is certainly a lot lighter now. Actually, to be perfectly honest I think it was vaporized on impact. Actually I still have one more to get. Some kind of english books for beginners. My department store has a bunch of low level books (Snoopy books with sort of a story) that I'm thinking of picking up.

I'm hoping Christmas will be fun! We shall see. Too many traditions being broken. First and foremost, working on Christmas Day! I realize we're in a country that doesn't consider it to be an important occasion other than being an opportunity to be even more materialistic than normal but when 99% of your workforce is Christian then you think they'd give you the day off! Such is the power of unions or lack thereof I guess.

Secondly, Christmas is a time to stay home! If you aren't in church or in a skating rink on Christmas Eve then you should be at home getting cozy and decorating the tree-not at some restaurant somewhere.

Finally you shouldn't know exactly what your Christmas presents are going to be. I've received packages from the family and Emily and I have no idea what is in them so not all is lost!

I thrive on constancy so we'll have to see how I fare with all these blasphemies going on around me. If the going gets tough I still have my secret weapon-A Muppet's Christmas Carol.

Christmas shopping in Japan-I wish I were elsewhere

I went Christmas shopping with Fumiko the other night. Obviously our ideas on how one should conduct Christmas shopping are diametrically opposed. I'm of the belief that gifts should be bought in secret. Sure the receiver is free to suggest ideas for gifts but that's as far as it goes. Fumiko on the other hand had the idea that I would pick out gifts for her to buy and then she would pick out a gift for me to buy.

Fumiko had already told me what she wanted-accessories (which is japanese for "jewelry.") I met her on Saturday night after work in Ikebukuro and we went shopping at Seibu (which is japanese for "most expensive department store in Japan.") I took one look at the prices for pants, shirts and jackets and thought 'thank God she wants jewelry and not clothes!" That of course was until we got to the 'accessories' floor, whereupon after glancing at the prices I thought "if only she wanted clothes!"

First we went shopping for me which was difficult because I didn't want to say 'I want this' but instead wanted to merely give hints or ideas. I also hate trying stuff on. I was liking one pair of pants until I saw that they cost $160. Fumiko said that was fine and I tried to explain to her that for $160 I would rather have two pairs of $80 pants than one pair of $160 pants. Heck truth be told, I would rather have four pairs of $40 pants! This of course was impossible for the other party to understand. She thought it was perfectly reasonable. After seeing the price of the ring she wants I'm starting to think it's perfectly reasonable too!