late night drifting

I'm laying here on my futon, propped up on one elbow, typing on my laptop's dirty keyboard. The up key stopped working, and that is annoying me. Wondering about work is keeping me awake. Payday came and went and no one at work has received pay yet. We are effectively working for free. Well, some of us are working for free. Many of my coworkers are just not coming to work, under the philosophy of no pay equals no work. Not sure why I keep going. I think we will get paid eventually I guess. And we have some cool students. The future is a bit murky, but it will begin to unroll when I wake up tomorrow. Time to try to sleep.

armageddon and my mama

As I'm sure any reader has noticed, I don't usually talk about work on my blogs. Work is work, it isn't my blog and I think it's best to keep it that way. However, recently work has been boiling to the point where it might spill over into my personal life. My company is self-destructing. There is massive meltdown going on. The students are running away because of scandals, the government has shut down signing up new long term contracts, and many teachers are running away because it's all so demoralizing. The company is on the brink of a massive belly-flop if something good doesn't happen. It's got so bad I even have Japanese friends from out of town calling and telling me to find a new job. It's an awkward odd moment in my work life, not sure what's going to go down.
But in happy news my friend Christina D. came to visit last week, and from today my mama comes to visit me! I can't wait to show my mama around town. It will be fun to go to famous places, and look at beautiful things for awhile. And then maybe after that I can deal with the job melt down with a peaceful mind.

night of living silence

It's 1:40 at night. I'm waiting for my clothes to dry at the coin laundry. I sit on the hard sidewalk, back pushed against a vacant building, reading a really good book about Australian place names. My shoes are off, my barefeet pushed against the asphalt. A thin misty rain starts, cutting through the still humid night. I ignore it and keep reading, part of me aware of the feeling against my skin and the occasional taxi drifting past in the darkness beyond my peripheral vision. It's moments like these that my mind kind of twirls, reflecting on a kind of 3D depth to my life's current state connected to what it is and what it will be. These deep thoughts distract me briefly from the book, and I see the mist has left a thin glistening sheen on the pages. I check my chipped orange cellphone, another 10 minutes. I keep reading.

time enough for time itself

A few more moments that were unblogged about hanging out with my college friends Evan and later Priscilla.

Going to the post office on bikes in the rain with Evan, the rain getting harder, not cold in the summer heat, but drenching me like a shower. My glasses get misty, rain drenching my hair, running down my face, the rain gets thicker, introducing the typhoon that was on the way. Evan rides infront of me, calling out directions so that I wont get lost.

In a shopping center with Priscilla. She's buying some Hello Kitty stationary. We are standing behind a guy who buys over US$150 on small sparkly girly stickers, the store worker has to almost grunt when she puts the huge stack of sticker sheets in a big bag. I cant help but be impressed and wonder if he will use them on letters or what. How often does he spend such a chunk of money on such things?

Stuffing things in a laundry bag to go to the laundry with Priscilla. She rejects my red shirt, thinks the colors will bleed on to her whites. Walking to the coin laundry mat in the melting hot heat. Priscilla using her sun umbrella with one hand, clutching the big laundry bag with the other. On the way back we stop at a bento (lunchbox) store. I dont have a table, I never have, so we sit on my floor talking, eating Japanese food and drinking lemon tea.

I have many more memories, but I dont have the time for them now. For those interesred there are some pictures of these times and more. 25 new pictures to browse as of now, in any case.

hello kitty reloaded

A friend from Hong Kong, Priscilla, came to visit for a week. It was good to see another hong kong friend (so far HK is winning in most visits! buy your tickets now and represent your country at the Neonvirus Hotel-House[stinky one room studio appartment]!) but I still havent uploaded pictures (for that matter, still missing most of the ones from my Yamaguchi trip too, I need to upload)...
Basically when I had free time off of work, me and Priscilla did a lotta shopping. She loves shopping, so it was kind of a shopping vacation for her. Oh. And Hello Kitty Land (Sanrio Puroland) was also on the agenda. Week of Stereotypical Girly Events. I had fun talking and being noisy, after all... we all know its fun to gossip and be silly. Photos up when I stop being lazy.

yamaguchi memories

I had a few days off work so I thought I would take the bullet train down to the last prefecture on the main island of honshu. Yamaguchi. I woke up early, and made my reservations on a vending machine in Shinjuku station. I picked up a station lunchbox (ekiben) and hopped on the nozomi bullet train (shinkansen). It takes about 5 hours on the bullet train to get to Yamaguchi, and only about 2 hours on the airplane. But somehow I like the feeling of being a rocket cutting through the countryside of Japan, nothing beats it. The plush green fields, small hamlets clustered around the train tracks, and the tree clumped mountains. Increasing in frequencey near the bottom of honshu, it was most surprizing to count the endless amount of tunnels the train would speed through. It felt like a land-based submarine, sometimes coming up for less than a minute to offer a breathtaking view of a deep country valley or something before submerging in a long tunnel again.
Hanging otu with Evan in Yamaguchi was a lot of fun. He is a very open-minded friendly guy, so he had a lot of local friends to introdue me to. Including a couple running a sushi shop, a rich widow, and an elementry school teacher from America. My second day there we rode around on a bike tour of his countryside town, warm air floating past us with a taste of rain-coming in the fragrance. And when the rain came, I poured. The welcoming dance of a typhoon on it's way towards the coast. I had to run up to Tokyo, with the typhoon chasing me. Eventually it got lost in Nagoya, and I was back in Tokyo with fairly little rain left to be thrown at me by the smashed typhoon. (Photos uploaded soon maybe?)
And speaking of natural earth things, a quick word on the earthquake that rocked this area. I was teaching when suddenly the table began to shake. I looked around at the students, everyone paused. I remembered how the current left-to-right shakes are a good sign and the not-present up-and-down shakes are a bad thing. I said something about that, and then got back to teaching. Although the tremors shook down some houses in the prefecture next to Tokyo, over here in Tokyo area we all bairly noticed enough to change what we we were doing.

summer light falling

I've been feeling like I should do something more creative than waking up and going to work and going home and repeating this cycle over and over. The creative urge. I just never seem to actually get my ideas out from inside my head and into the real world. I got to try more often.

These days, this blog always seems to be about pictures, so I might as well point out I have more than 13 new pictures and a few videos for viewing. That is all for now.

collection of moments

I was walking to the 100yen shop at 2 in the morning (why is another story) and I walked past a group of construction workers huddled around a chalk sign posing after the completion of the installation of a drainage network. Is that something I missed when I was in the states? Is that something that isn't common here, I just happened to see it? Why are construction workers taking school-style group photos? The moment lingered in my mind.

Today I had to wake up really early to go to immigration in Shinagawa, but the weather was great. So on the way home I decided to make a video about the Yamanote loop line. Just the idea was fun for me to think up, I was going to translate all the station names into literal English. I got a tuna sandwich and chunky mango juice, and emptied out my 1 GIG digital camera memory card. I ended up giving up on the translate all the station names thing (all that text was too cluttered looking and a lot of work) but I still made the video. Making it was fun, and brought back memories of my total geeky moment of riding the Yamanote loop about 7 times last year. Its a big loop. Anyway, I cant vote for its coolness (7 minutes of a train, that might not be your thing?) but this (Live Video stream, it wont show Japanese right now, but the English text works) is the video I made, if you want to check it out.

here i am again

So my friend is getting married, so I jumped over to Korea with very little planning and here I am. Sitting in Kim's Guest House in Hapjeong. Sunny day, echos of a street vendor in the distance. I love this place. Right now Sunny (not sure if she spells it this way or the korean way Soon hee or something, the owner) is checking in a customer who forgot to take his shoes off. Shes a friendly person who tries to help her customers. I highly recommend this place. It always feels like my memories mix and mingle when I stop by, maybe because the owners seem to remember me. And this time it was even stronger because someone from last time was here too. What a small world it is.

My friend Mr.Frog is getting married tonight. I shaved my cheeks, ironed my shirt, and bought a new Korean style Zipper Tie. I'm ready to go check out his wedding!

a day at sumo

In my whole life, I had never gone to see a sumo match. Last week, I decided to change that.I talked Kayo into going with me, and we went fairly early in the morning and got there at about 11:00. Although this was many hours before the main matches would start, the cheap upper row tickets were already sold out. We got the next cheapest ones (about 3000YEN) and went inside. The minor wrestlers were already going through their rounds. Not that many people were watching, and it was fairly easy to get real close. It was fun to be so close to these semi-religious (shinto) pro wrestling power pushers. We decided to go try the sumo style soup, which can be had for 200 YEN next to the sumo rink. It was good, and filling. If you ate a big bowl of that everyday you would definitely beef up. We went out of the stadium (and got a hand stamp so they would let us back in) and walked around for an hour or so. When we got back, the action was starting to pick up. So we went to our seats way above the rink, and watched. I took a million photos and videos. There was something surreal about being in a rink that you have seen so many times on TV. Near the final matches we sneaked down and found a seat near the ring that wasn't taken and made bets between each other about who would win which match. We opened a few cans of sake and I began to yell support for some wrestlers, just like a lot of the other drunk salarymen around me. The final match was with the grand champion Morning Blue Dragon, and he regretfully lost. As could be expected, the crowd through their cushions into the air and towards the ring. I took a million photos, but somehow I misplaced my memory card (stupid!) so right now there are only a few online, plus a video which I will paste as a embedded player below.

revolutionary critical mass

As I sit eating my microwavable cheese and ham and egg naan I can't help but think about the impending revolution that is reaching critical mass in Japan. Some Japan-watchers might think I'm talking about the coming militarization of Japan that the prime minister and his companions are pushing for at the moment. That is frankly a little scary, and it will ultimately lead to a change in the way Japan sees the world. But, no, I mean a far deeper change I can see all around me. Tokyo, and thus by some extension the rest of Japan, is on the cusp of becoming a truly international city. I can hear that in the myriad languages I can come across down town, I see it in the faces of the millions of foreign people streaming past me in the train stations with a look of wonderment on their faces, I can sense it in my kids classes that seem to be quite full of multiethnic children these days. In most countries in the world, seeing a huge mix of the world mingling on the streets, and children of different ethnic heritage in a classroom shouldn't be and isn't surprising. Japan has been stereotyped as a homogeneous society, but the foreign population is reaching critical mass. When you can see a white guy working at McDonalds in front of your house, you know its about to happen. A Japan that truly begins to become a new country with a new culture that will lead to a new way of seeing the world. Change is coming.

trip to immigration

My friend in Korea is getting married but as a quasi-member of this society I currently reside in, I had to go to the immigration office today to get permission to travel. Although I find it kind of weird that I can't travel internationally unless I get permission, thats the way things roll, so thats what I went to go do. I woke up a little late, because I had a special day off and wouldnt be going to work today. The sky was getting darker, even though it was day, so I decided I should rush to the station before it began to rain. And thats when the sky decided to down pour. Litteral buckets of rain smashing down. Heres a direct link to a 7MB (I didnt have space on my card, so its lo-res) quicktime video of the rain turning some stairs into an urban waterfall. My socks, and pants were totally soaked. Well, I got on the train and head to the immigration office in Shinagawa... and since this wasnt my first time, I got the required "revenue stamp" at a convenience store before going up to the immigration office. For some reason, they wont take cash and require these special stamps but dont post any information about it. So a lot of people just wait forever and get upfront and are told they cant be helped with out the stamps, or that was my experience anyway my first time there. Today I heard some lady complaining on her phone in English about how she wasnt sure what to do but she was just waiting anyway. When she got off the phone, I asked her if she had revenue stamps, and explained what they were... and immediately like flys attracted to sugar water, I was swamped with several other inexperienced foreigners who wanted more details. I also noticed that English speaking foreigners are noisy. While I ended up waiting for about 2 and a half hours, I noticed that a baby crying in one corner and the white guy talking to his wife on the other side of the room had about the same level of vocal output. Who would have thunk it. So after the loooong wait, I go up to the counter and say almost nothing, hand over my passport and get the permit in literal seconds. You'd think it would be more efficient if it was built into my visa, instead of requiring me to wait for it. But oh well, thats bureaucracy. As I walked out of the office, the sun was beaming bright on the freshly bathed earth as if signally a movie-style change in moods.