two sides to one coin

I was walking to the local 99YEN discount shop, and I walked past a bar I had seen when Tom came to visit me from Hong Kong. Its a chicken-on-a-stick (yakitori) bar, and sometime around 11 at night me and Tom had walked past it. We were hungry, and the Japanese sign out front read "open for business" so I slid open the door and started to step in (with Tom behind me, not yet through the door) and the owner looked over at me and said (in Japanese of course) "We're not open for biz-nuss, son" (I'm trying to capture in English the feeling of informal friendliness that could also be seen as rude depending on which way you want to read it.) Although that sounded oddly like something from a cowboy movie when the greenhorn walks through the doors, even more so because of the open sign, I decided I must have just caught the bar right as it was closing up. Which brings me to my 1:30 in the early morning walk past it a few minutes ago. It was still open, with customers inside. Heres where we get to the two sides on one coin idea. This situation could be understood as zenophobia or racism or a mix of the two. But it could also be understood in a million other ways too. Maybe the owner's friends came in from out of town. Maybe the customers were yakuza gangsters and the owner was afraid to push them out and close up. Maybe he has special super-late hours on Sunday nights. The list could go on forever. The same two sided coin situation can play in the opposite way. When I got to the 99 YEN shop, I was in a hurry so I just grab my super late dinner stuff and just as I'm thinking about walking to the counter, the register-guy runs over and brings me a basket for my stuff, I tell him I dont need one because I'm buying my stuff at that moment. He responds by bowing and using respect words in a hurried nervous manner that makes me feel important, like he needs to sell me my stuff as fast as he can so I can go home to my warm house. Of course, up pops the two-sided coin. Maybe he was thinking I was a drunk foreigner and when I communicated with him he realized I wasnt one of those two things. (I'm sure you can figure out which!) Or maybe he was feeling guilty for not liking me which translated into rushed service so he could get me out of his hair. Or maybe his rush was fear I would hurt him or speak to him in some freaky language, or both. Theres always more than one way to see the same thing, I suppose.

visits of souls i know

Thats right. Friends from out of town! Thats always good news. My friend from Hong Kong, Tom, came to visit Japan for about a week. He stayed at my small place, and took the bullet train to Kyoto or Osaka almost every day. (He had a JR pass, so it wasnt so expensive.) It was fun to have someone in the neighborhood, I hadnt ever made that much time to check out local bars and restaurants so much. At the same time, two students who I had taught in Korea came to Japan with my previous boss. I hung out with them for a few days while my hong kong friend was in Kyoto. We went around Tokyo and did most of the tourist things I never do. It was fun to pretend like a Tokyo Tourist for a few days. And yeah, the end result is 34 new pictures that you should check out... just click next in the upper right corner to go through them all! (Well, they arent all about the things I mention above, kind of random actually, I have been lazy to upload recently.)

The Untold Story: part 1

I have too much stress to sleep right now, and I really need to get to bed. In an attempt to relax the mind, I will tell the story of the first time I came to Japan about 7 years ago. (Time flies when you are living life strapped to a rocket.) Some of you might be familiar with this story, and some might not know much about it. And I honestly have to admit that a lot of it is lost in the haze of my incredibly selective memory. So some of this story will remain lost forever, either by personal choice, by bad memory or simply because I wish to build suspense for a further episode of my look up at the memories blowing away. (Warning this might be a little long.)

Somehow I ended up eating lunch with some international students at my small community college. The "how" of the situation is too much of a bother to explain at the moment. I remember the dull peptobismol-pink tables, the noisy people trying to be cool. It was usually the same table. I cant remember what class I was coming out of or going to. European Art History? Northwest American History? Seemed to have a lot of history classes for no reason that year. I had learned a few words in Japanese from my friends or students. I had been helping out in the tutorial center for about a year or so at that point. Well, I had been helping out with the benefit of $6.50 an hour that helped to put me through my early years in college. I was playing with the Japanese words I had learned and somehow it came to me. Why not go to Japan? The idea of a foreign country was more an abstract glow, I knew it wouldnt be like Canada or California, but I think I was niave enough to not even make a solid picture of it in my head. I dont think I even ran an internet search on it. I just thought, hey, I should go and check it out for the summer. Part of my reason probabbly had to do with the fact that because I wasn't going to go to school in summer, my dorm wouldn't let me live there. If I was "homeless" I thought I might as well enjoy a wild ride of it. I had been saving money for the last few years. I doodled out some ideas. Lets see, after buying a cheap airplane ticket, my budget would give me about 600yen (about US$6 at the time) a day for everything. Food, transportation, lodging, everything. Thats not bad. I showed my Japanese friends at lunch. I suppose saying they freaked out would be an understatement. They told me there was no way I could survive on such a small amount of money. That I couldnt even get a hotel for that cheap. I said that I was just expecting to sleep under bridges or in parks. I really said that, thinking back I either was incredibly stupid or just super happy-go-lucky or some odd mix of the two. Several of my Japanese friends spent the next few days trying to find me options, one of them found several people who wanted to let a "foreign person" stay at their house. Cultural exchange so to speak. So I was off. Not so fast young man! I found out my wisdom teeth needed to be taken out, they were impacted and it was dangerous to go anywhere with out doing anything about them. I got them ripped out and literally went to Japan the next day, with a pocket full of pain pills. My ride over was a haze. The only clear thing I remember through the daze of pills was looking down at my hand after eating some shrimp and seeing the perfect triangle of bumps that sometimes appears after eating shrimp. I must have some sort of odd allergy. I got to Japan, and the guy who I had been put in contact with to stay with first surprised me by meeting me at the airport. Tatsuya. Tall, thin, t-shirt and jeans. Glasses and a friendly but a slightly odd smile. As I got on the local train I realized that the air was thick, and it smelled different. The smell of air is something that always lets me know when I'm in a new country, every country seems to have a unique fragrence twirled into its translucent local atmosphere. I didn't know at the time that the airport was in the countryside, so the endless green streaming past the windows put me into a happy sleepy daze. A glimpse of the light that had begun to fade as we got closer to Tatsuya's and then I lost all my memories until I woke up later that night, a victim of jet lag, a smile on my face in the dark silence. A dog barked in the distance and I was in Japan!

bad jokes & warm rooms

Lets listen in as I fail to make a funny joke. When I work at Matsudo, they have the school front desk on the 3rd floor, and the teaching rooms on the 5th. Yeah, a bit odd. So when the front desk Japanese staff want to talk to us, they have to call up stairs on an intercom phone. The phone rings, I answer.
"Hello, is Dansen there please?" says a staff member, asking for me.
"Oh sorry" I say "He isnt here. He died."
Silence. The staff member is shocked. Or maybe just a little confused.
I try to laugh, "haha... just joking. This is Dansen."
She says in chilly Japanese "You're pissing me off."
I need to work on my humor skills. I'm a total idiot huh. ha ha!

So I was woken up this morning by my landlord and the electric store handyman. I put on my pants, and let them in. When I came home, the air conditioner (and thus my heater) was working again! Oh joy! No more chilly nights, with a runny nose in the morning. Yay!

its cold in here

The air conditioner (and thus the heater) seems to be broken, so I am sitting in a room the temperature of a cold fridge. The hum of the microwave. The smell of my frozen cheese and vegetable spring rolls sizzling in the microwave. The computer on one futon, me on another, wrapped in several layers of coats. My (intentionally, tastes better that way) cold fried chicken, and crispy fresh don tacos chips ready to be consumed. Its a night to remember. The microwave bell goes off, I get up to check on my springrolls. The bottoms are hot, the tops not perfect but I take them out of the microwave because I'm hungry. It's dinner time. I eat a few cheese sticks of goodness, complimented with divine chips, and then get up and boil some water. The boiling water will heat my room (a trick I learned from my mum) and hot water is also perfect for my red plastic yutanpo. This room is getting a little wet (from the steam) but its a little less chilly. Thats good, just like my cheese sticks.

tired tired

Yup, 33 new pictures in my album, tons of photos, too many photos (a even a video I took in Yokohama), if any one checks them all out they deserve a few points.

I saw Letters From Iwo Jima with a friend tonight. It was a sad movie, and a sad night. After the movie I was upset with my friend (for various reasons) and we each went home angry at each other I guess. A cold angry night in Tokyo. This blog is starting to sound quite negetive? Just an echo of what the current state of my existance is. Winter can feel this way I guess. I can smell spring coming though, its coming, and after that, I cant wait for summer to brake through these cold days.

3am rant

Three in the morning. Is there a better time to splatter a blog with an empty rant? In the buttcrack of morning, I can riploose from the normal constraints and social rules, I can be free, I can express my innerself! Frolic! For example, admit that I'm eating my second dinner for tonight. The first one, when I came home from work ages ago was a yummy pasta dish from the convience store. But midnight (postmidnight if you know what I mean, nudge nudge) munchies hit me harder than a tree living in a freshman dorm at Rastafarian College and Recreation Center. So my second dinner is nacho chips, and a sandwhich. With brown bread. A rarity in this spot of the spiny globe thing. And a second carton of orange juice. I already drank one 1000ml carton of orange juice with my first dinner, and now I'm on my second. If pirates drank orange juice instead of rum I would be well on my way to becoming an honary pirate, my friends. It might take a few more cartons before I would get my first eye-patch. And with that, I leave you with the smile that I have a special day off work tomorrow in which I can take a bath in my shallow self-pity and putrid sense of achievement. Or something silly hip-jokester like that! Me sleepy.

happy new years!

Its offical. Its a brand new world, time to start making things, this is my year of creation. Watch out world, here I come?
Anyway, new years itself was really fun but not that exciting. Sheena's roomates (Matya and Shannon) invited me over to watch movies and drink with them. We saw Sisterhood of the traveling pants (a member of what some people call "chick flicks" although it was entertaining), some mystery movie with the guy Frodo from lord of the rings, and at that point it was about 1 in the morning and offically 2007 so I suggested we go to the local buddhist temple/shrine to enjoy the actions of the community. Matya said it was too cold, so (being drunk) me and Shannon tried to litterally drag her out the door by her feet. Poor Sheena who was trying to sleep, we were not so considerate. Matya didnt go. The temple was fun, even though I've seen those kind of celebrations other times of course, it was still fun to have some sort of send off for New Years. Hearing people ring the temple bell, and eating balls of battered octopus chuncks, and downing free hot temple sweet sake, with that fresh bits of rice still in it flavor. Ahh, the new year. After that I went back to their house and watched a really old godzilla movie. After that I took an early morning train home and crashed.
Well, enough of that. Now for some words about a "new years party" that my friend Yuka invited me to. Her family and reletives always get together on the 2nd of January to have Chinese food in Yokohama. Its like a family tradition. It was fun to meet everyone, and interact a little with her reletives. Before heading off to the dinner appointment their grandma talked some of us into going to the cemetary and visiting Yuka's grandfather's grave. Yuka's grandma is very forgetful, she forgot her grandson (yukas brother) several times on the way there, and forgot who I was a few times also. Shes a cute old lady though, so it didnt seem negetive. They let me put some incense in his reception box too, and clense his headstone with temple water. It was fun to be welcomed like that. And then it was off to dinner with reletives of my friend. A few reletives kind of gasped and kind of freaked out when they saw me. But I'm used to that, no biggie. The food was really good, and the conversations were fun, the beer cold. Good times. Well, I dont usually embed content into my blog (links can be changed, but embeded content can be messed up if the original server moves or whatever) but I really like this spin video I made of hanging out at the restraunt. Enjoy! (Just press play and let it stream to you.)

and here comes another one

These years. I tell ya. Its a blur, one year and then another piled on top of another. I tell ya. The weather has been freaky recently, really rainy and warmer than usual. I'm on new years brake and Evan and his friend Beth are up here visiting. Its fun and a stretch of my small room. We have futons angled around like a puzzle, but I'm happy that we figured it out and got us all settled down in my tiny messy studio appartment. Hint hint. I think I will open a hotel in my room, or atleast a hotel for my friends. Come on over! And oh yeah, I have new pictures up. Woo. 11 shots of random glory.

photo madness

Yeah, thats right, a dip into photo madness! I havent had anything better to do, so I took a billion photos in the last week or so. I went through the endless shots, and uploaded 16 juicy pictures (and a few videos!) and I welcome you to check them out (after you click the link just click next, in the upper right corner, to see them all.) And if you havent noticed, look around, I'm tweaking things on this main diary page and making it more "modern" so Enjoy!
Today it was brisk and cold. When I came home I turned on my heater and left it on. My electric bills going to be expensive this month. Flashback time! since thats what blogs do a lot and I dont do that enough and I need to connect with my audience (of two) ... so yeah, que backflash music... I remember when I was little, we had a wood stove with a pipe that ran up to the chimney. We didnt have centeral heating, and I remember watching my mom put little peices of a log into a little compartment, and watching the flames lick and eat the wood until it became engulfed. She would then poke the little metal door shut with another peice of wood, and I would stand near the stove soaking up the heat. Those were the days. The days of shaggy carpet toilet bowl covers, and candy cane christmases, and snow powdery winter mornings. Ahh, returning from backflash. Reality, or whatever this is, returns.

I'm a big dork

So I feel like the grinch or something. I have been such a grumpy antisocial person these days, I need to work on my attitude. I feel like maybe the city is slowly taking away my Soul. For example, Kayo invited me to a christmas party yesterday but I just said grumpy things to people who talked to me most of the time. Whats wrong with me? These days, I have felt so bad about my bad attitude that I've been doing things like giving my chair in the train to tired people, and letting others go before me in lines in an attempt to regain my karma. I'm wondering if its part of the whole getting used to living in Japan again thing. I was away for awhile, and Japan is a strange place I guess. I wrote a paragraph complaining about different things, and then i realized i am still being mr.grumpy if i think that way. mr.grump needs to go on vacation or something, so I deleted that, yeaaah! I need to look on the positive side of life.

red leaves

Sometimes its hard to express culture things in words, but I want to somehow express a short trip I went on a few days ago. I went to a state near Fuji-san, and checked out the red leaves. Watching the red leaves (momiji) is a Japanese culture event in Fall. In correct manner, its a bit orchestrated and even scheduled on TV and what not, but the beautiful leaves capture something beyond all the setup of this natural event. There is something poetic in the moment of transmission from vibrant life, to a red crimson last-shine before they fall and become part of the soil which encourages more life to grow. I cant really capture it in words beyond these that I tried to share here, so I guess I will let pictures do the talking. Heres the link for the photo set of the best pictures I took. There are about 20 of them, just click the next link (in the upper right) from this picture to see all of them, enjoy vibrant colors of nature. I also took three good videos including the view of Fuji-san in the morning. Moments in time.