My Views on Cities in Japan...

Japan is obviously a wonderful country. I love the language and there's a lot about this country that I love...there's also things that I really don't like but we'll save that for another time and place...

I've currently been in Tokyo since the 9th. (It's now the 15th.) All my friends have gone, basically, and I'm navigating this city almost alone. I realized the other day that Tokyo is great and all, but it's not really THAT great. All big cities are the same kind of. I can handle Tokyo for a few days but not much more than that. It's expensive and crowded and fast and it just doesn't stop moving ever for anyone. When you've been in one big city in the world, I think you've been in them all. Chicago has moments like Tokyo, New York has moments like Chicago and LA has moments like New York and all of them kind of are the same. It's like a frat house of cities or something. They can be pushy, flashy, and have attitudes. And they tend to get really drunk on the weekends. I'm not saying all of this is bad. Sometimes I need a good kick from a city but other times returning to that quiet area back home is nice.

So, I quickly realized how much I love Hakodate and Hokkaido. When you're in Hakodate, you know that you're DEFINITELY in Hakodate. It's totally it's own thing. Sure it wasn't the most "fun" place in the world. But when I'm there with sixty other students who all want to have fun, it's hard to stop us from doing so. I think being in Tokyo for this week has made me appreciate that so much more. I remember I was hanging out with my friend in Hakodate one night and we could go back to the station and go home OR we could find something to do for a few hours and take the last train back. We decided to just walk around and talk for a while. You can't do that in Tokyo that well. We walked by the ocean, through some little streets, and then we just parked it on a bench near the station and chatted for a while...

Last night I was with one of my friends and we walked around Shibuya, a really busy area of Tokyo. It was tough because there were so many people but we kind of squeezed our way around. We were offered sex and massages from prostitutes three times in one block. All we wanted to do was go somewhere calm. We found a little bench by the station to crash but it was surrounded by homeless people who were smoking/sleeping/smoking and sleeping. The streets were also sprinkled with vomiting business men who were too drunk to make the last train home. This isn't the worst thing in world, but it wasn't like a nice quiet walk and chat with a friend. Also, I've never been offered anything from a prostitute before. If I have, I really wasn't aware of it because they must have been very subtle about it. These ones... not so subtle... but what can you do.

So, I love Tokyo, for sure. But not THAT much. There are so many other towns in Japan that are better. They may not be packed with stores and restaurants but that doesn't really matter.

I also realized that as fun as Japan is, the most fun I have on these trips is because of the people I'm with. I enjoyed spending time with the people on my trip so much. Japan just became a backdrop to what I had most fun doing, hanging out with people and making friends. Now that most of my friends have returned home, I realized that it's easy to make your way around a city but it's not easy to have as much fun without them around.

I'll be home soon and I can't wait. I'm not sick of Japan but I'm excited to see people I know.

-Mike

Winding Down

So there's only one more day (today) left in this program. I'll be traveling afterwards and don't know my internet situation so I may or may not update this anymore. BUT here's the wrap up of the trip.

I had an excellent time learning Japanese even though I kind of fell off at the end. I didn't really get a break thanks to DePaul's super-late-calendar. We got out of DePaul June 14th and this program required me to be here on June 11th (leaving Chicago June 10th) so basically I just had to take all my finals early and come straight here. I could handle the work load just fine, but towards the end, I just didn't care anymore. I wanted a break. Good thing this grade doesn't transfer at all. Muah haha.

Yesterday as a special end-of-the-program-treat, my friends host mom invited me and a few people to make Soba (Japanese buckwheat noodles). It was at this awesome little house she has. Coincidentally when my High School Japanese teacher did this program this woman was HIS host mom so we chatted it up about him. Anyway I got there and they were cutting some soba. I don't know if you have ever seen a soba cutting knife...because I know I sure hadn't...but that thing is huge and SCARY. In fact the guy who was cutting the soba when I got there was missing two finger tips. I'm not sure if he lost it from cutting the soba or if he lost it some other way, but either way I was scared of the knife.


So we made some soba and ate it. Mine didn't taste very good.




Anyway, since I'm leaving I'm gonna make a list of things that I miss from home and things that I'm going to miss from here...

Miss From Home:
1) Friends n Family
2) Variety of Ethnic Foods
3) Trains that run late
4) My own bed
5) Normal toilets
6) Soap in bathrooms (No public bathrooms have soap in them and that's gross)
7) Being able to eat/drink and walk down the street at the same time
8) BBQ Sauce
9) Working
10)Being able to play a lot of music regularly

Miss From Japan
1) My friends and host family (especially Hikari and Nozomi, they are awesome)
2) REAL Japanese food
3) Trains that don't reek of excrements
4) Almost everywhere being photogenic
5) Mountains
6) Clean Air
7) No responsibilities other than getting home on time.
8) The weirdest ice cream flavors ever
9) Convenient stores everywhere
10) Vending machines everywhere

Why Did I Wake Up at 6:10am?

Why did I wake up at 6:10 this morning? Guess. I bet you'll get it wrong unless you're Japanese then maybe you'll know. The answer is ラジオ体操 = Rajio Taisou = Radio Exerise.

I walked down the street with my host sisters and host mom and went to a big park. It was there that about 60 people gathered, mostly children ages 6-10 and adults ages 40-60. Then me, of course.

This is a pretty awesome little thing they do in Japan. They play a little exercise song on the radio each morning for a few weeks at a time and everyone gets together in their community and does the little exercise. Sometimes they do them in corporations before work and such. It's a fun way to start the day. And it's also really embarrassing when you have no idea what you're doing and are messing up constantly, but it's not that bad. no one laughed at me except for my host mom.

This is a video of what it looks like. I dare you to gather the family around and do it.



and on a side note, tonight my host mom and the twins were wired. Probably because we had a guest at dinner, one of Nozomi and Hikari's friends was there, you'll see her in the video. Anyway, they decided to sing me the Alphabet a few times. They didn't know the whole thing. But it's freakin adorable. Take note at how Nozomi mentions "double-u" then "triple-u" then Hikari scolds her by saying "THERE IS NO TRIPLE U!"


My Host Family Recites the Alphabet from Mike Malarkey on Vimeo.


-Mike

Ugh...

I decided to try and shave today. Usually I don't have to try to shave, but today was different. I had my shaving cream and razor in the shower with me (Japanese showers are huge compared to American and they tend to sit down while they shower on little stools. I don't often sit, but I enjoy the vast open spaces of Japanese showers... they also often include a large mirror so you can get a full body glimpse of yourself wet and nude...fantastic) and when I pressed the dispense-button to get shaving cream out of the can it slipped and the plastic top popped off. No problem, it's easy to fix these things right? Wrong. This is where my adventures lie...

I first tried pressing the top down hard, no dice. Not only did the top not get back on but I dropped the can again and I could hear my host mom yell "Are you ok???" and then she giggled a little. Probably at the thought of my nude banging around in the shower. I decided I needed to be seated to get this sucker on. I sat down in the shower and started pushing really hard. No dice.

I propped the can in the corner and put the top on and POP it went on. It looked like it might have gone on a little bit too much or something, something just wasn't looking right. But I figured "it looks safe." a little bit of shaving cream squirted out when I got the top on. Just to get the image straight, this shaving cream is the kind that starts off as a gel then foams up later. So I push the button again and it's kinda jammed. I push really hard. Nothing. I was standing at this point so I braced it between my knees and pushed really hard and then "POP!"
the top completely broke and the entire can of shaving cream began unloading all over me and the shower. It was a big awkward green blob that just kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. I started to panic and tried to get it towards the drain of the shower but at this point the floor was starting to get covered in this green gel that was slowly starting to foam. I was amazed at how slippery this stuff is when I stepped on it. Sadly I came to this realization at the least convenient moment because I slipped and went completely airborne for about thirty seconds to one minute. I'm pretty sure I did a flip, like a full 360 degree flip. My memory is a little hazy since it went so fast, but I can imagine myself doing some kind of awesome olympic figure-skating barrel roll back flip dive spin looking thing and it looking really really cool until...errrrrr I make the whole house shake with the thud of my wet birthday-suited body. I bet they thought it was another earthquake. I bet if I turn the news on they'll be like "This afternoon, in one house in Kunebetsu, there was a 6.7 earthquake. Scientists are baffled by the fact that the earthquake only shook such a small area of land and are currently doing research on the earths plates to solve this mystery. No one was injured, although a white-wet-slightly-furry-slighty-bruised creature with very large eyebrows that spoke broken Japanese was found in the shower room semiconscious. It may have sustained injury but no one is really sure as the creature does not speak proficient Japanese. More news on the hour..."

Anyway. I'm ok. Luckily I didn't break anything (as in, the shower.)

-Michael

A Word on The Children of Japan

If you've been reading this you may know that my host sisters aren't the most well behaved children on this planet. That isn't necessarily a bad thing, it gets really tiring after a while but all kids wear your out. One thing that I've noticed is that there is no punishing that happens in Japan. It's not just my house its a country wide thing, I believe. I remember thinking this in Nagoya, though I didn't have little kids in my house, I taught English at a school with 12-13 year olds at it and they really mouthed off. Other host students often express their surprise that kids get away with anything they do here.

At times they'll be at the table and Hikari will be picking food with her hands off of other peoples plates or she'll be hitting Nozomi and the biggest punishment she gets is a verbal "STOP IT!" from my mom. But Hikari knows that is the worst it's going to get so she never stops. I don't blame her either, if I was a child and I knew the worst punishment I was going to get was a verbal warning, I'd go all out all day.

This is where we get to my opinion of the matter. My opinion is. NOT. FAIR. That was supposed to be MY childhood, where I could do whatever I wanted...

Actually, this is where I find it interesting, once kids get older I don't really see them being as crazy as I'd expect them to be. Japan does have a major problem with bullying in schools but I don't think that's completely related to this problem, I think it has more to do with the schools not punishing kids and the lack of communication between teachers and students. I think the kids not being punished has some other thing that I haven't figured out yet. I'm not sure if it's the pressure of school or something else that forces them to stop messing around, maybe they just get mature on their own.

It's really difficult to watch, though. Especially when Hikari is bugging me. For instance, she came in my room, farted on me, then threw a lollipop that she'd half eaten at me and ran out. Yes, it's hilarious especially since the lollipop stuck to my shirt...and I give her props for picking on the "weird exchange student." (Am I the American "Long Duk Dong" of this family? I think I might be...) but the mom asked me what Hikari did when she saw her bolting out of my room laughing. I told her. And she just said "Hikari don't do that!" I remember thinking "
Are you serious? That's it? I mean, yes the shirt was only from Old Navy but STILL the emotional distress this has caused me requires at least a 'time out' or a 'no dessert' warning. The stench of the fart alone deserves a 'go to your room' punishment..."

So the real question is which is the "right" way to go? This no punishment rule? or the punishment rule? Obviously you know which I favor. It's hard to say, they some how seem to straighten themselves out here somehow... but how??


Now: to answer the questions that people asked me (by leaving a comment... anyone? anyone?)...

1) what food do I want when I come home?
Answer: Something with BBQ sauce. Fruit (even though the fruit here is significantly better than at home in America). and maybe corn on the cob (which they have here too but I still want some.)

2) Who's on first?
Answer: Who's on first, What's on second, I Don't Know is on third, Why is in the left field, Because is center field, Tomorrow is the pitcher, Today is the catcher, I Don't Give a Darn is the shortstop.

3) If there was a man-eating octopus and you HAD to either throw me (Kate) or Susanna to it for food, who would you pick and why?

Answer: Luckily we've found yourself face to face a man-eating octopus. Luckily Both you (Kate) and Susanna are both women and you've found yourself in the waters of a man-etarian octopus. Luckily I, for some reason, get to be the decision maker of who goes in, so I'd throw you (Kate) in because Susanna isn't a very good swimmer. If Susanna had her floaties or her floating-pool-noodle thing then maybe she could hop in. (Just in case you don't sense the humor, Susanna is a fine swimmer.)

-Mike

A Case of the Shakes...

So I was having this dream last night, I don't remember what it was about it...but I new I was enjoying it. Then I suddenly woke up at the sound of birds SCREAMING. Then I realized I was being shaken a lot by a decently strong earthquake and my host mom was screaming "Earthquake! Earthquake!" from her bedroom. It lasted pretty long, 40 seconds. It was just over a 4 on the Richter scale, the epicenter was a 6.8 or a 6.9 which is pretty darn strong, it was pretty far from here luckily. But it's still pretty crazy. here's a link to a news article about it...
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/07/23/japan.quake/index.html

It's not my first earthquake, but it was just at that level where it got strong enough to just barely scare me. Earthquakes are REALLY bizarre. It's not like a heavy thunderstorm where right before it happens you know. You also know what's going on right when a thunderstorm happens. You'll see rain or you'll hear a big BOOM. Everytime I've been in an earthquake, my initial reaction is "who is shaking me/my chair/my bed." It literally feels like someone is just shaking your chair from behind. Until you realize that everything is shaking. Then you're like "whoa weird! HAH!" Then it turns into "fuck! What am I supposed to do? Get under the desk? Is this the one where you go in the doorway? Should I go to the basement? Am I supposed to use my seat cushion as a flotation device?" All of my emergency procedures get mixed up... then it's over. and then for the next day you are constantly checking to see if an earthquake is happening by sitting as still as you can. Surely you will convince yourself that there is kind of an earthquake happening...it isn't.

Anyway since I only have a few more weeks left here and to encourage people to leave some type of comment... I'd be more than happy to answer any questions people might have about me being here in Japan. Especially since I enjoy writing this as a break from burning my brain with Japanese and I recently haven't had much to write about...

-Mike

Karaoke 101

So, this weekend I had a horrible Karaoke experience. The people I went with made it awkward by picking songs no one knew and so we were forced to listen to them sing. Lets get one thing straight. No one's really GOOD at Karaoke. People are good singers, but there's no such thing as being "good at Karaoke." In fact, I think the better singer you are, the worse you are at Karaoke. I haven't done enough research to prove that... but I'm almost positive it's true... I'm going to explain to you how Karaoke goes here in Japan.

FIRST, lets explain the difference between Japanese Karaoke and American Karaoke... they're very different... Instead of going to a bar, getting drunk, and singing in front of everyone at the bar, you go to a special Karaoke place that has tons of rooms; you get drunk THERE and then sing in front of your friends. Smaller crowd... It's basically like renting a small party room that has a giant Karaoke Machine in it with a TV and mics and stuff. Then you flip through a computer of songs and program them yourself. You pick whatever song, you pick the key and the speed. Everyone is always embarrassed to go at first then after a couple of people have gone you start to realize "I'm SOOOO much better than that person, they pick bad songs..." so you try and pick a song and perform then someone else thinks "I'm better than THAT person" and they try and pick a song. Then you get into duets and what not and everyone tries to one up the other person by picking bad 80s and 90s songs that were number one hits... the songs get worse, the people get more drunk, and the singing gets worse... it's a vicious circle or as the Japanese call it 悪循環 (Akujunkan). Maybe it's my American competitiveness that turns Karaoke into a contest/battle, but it's all friendly because I'm a really bad singer. BUT, I don't tend to drink much at karaoke so I end up winning (in my head) because everyone gets too drunk to sing by the end.

There's a real art to picking Karaoke songs. First, throw all your morals about music out the window. When you go to Karaoke anything is fair game. Spice Girls, Hanson, Hall and Oates, Neil Diamond, Boyz II Men, you get the idea... This is especially hard for people who are serious about music. We tend to think that we know all of the "good songs" but we tend to be troubled when we get into a Karaoke booth... think of it like when you write a speech. You have to write for your audience. If you pick songs that you like but other people probably don't like, you'll kill the party. If you know what everyone picks, you'll be a Karaoke star. You're basically allowed one obscure songs per Karaoke session. If you pick two, no one will want to invite you to Karaoke ever again...EVER. There are some staples when it comes to Karaoke, ones you do almost every time. Other choices depend heavily on what that person can pull off. You don't want to do songs that are too hard for you but you don't want to do easy boring songs. Let me go through a small run-through of a typical well-paced Karaoke session for you...there are highs and lows, you rarely get through one without some type of passive-aggressive argument


1) Everyone is embarrassed to go first so someone picks something to go first. It's usually a Beatles song. Everyone half-ass sings it. We all laugh nervously.

2) Someone else picks another oldie like Neil Diamond "Sweet Caroline." No one, except the person who picked it, knows the words to the verse but everyone knows the chorus.

3) Someone decides to get "funny" and picks a Britney Spears tune, most likely "Toxic". One other person in the group will be like "WHAT?? WHO PICKED THIS?? NO NO NO! HAH! NO WAY! WHO PICKED THIS?? MIKE!! WHY DID YOU PICK THIS?" <--That person will be singing the loudest by the end. It turns out to actually work and everyone starts to get into it.

4) People are barely feeling their alcohol but start to get warmed up. Someone picks "ABC" by Jackson 5. Everyone knows this but realize it's a lot harder to sing than one thought. It's too late though because someone else cued a bunch of Michael Jackson songs.

5) Someone picks a song from the Lion King, Little Mermaid, or Aladin. Half of the people get mad, half of the people claps their hands and go "ohmygod!ohmygod!" These people were probably drama nerds in high school. Everyone ends up singing the songs by the end.

6) One person who hasn't been singing yet usually steps up to the plate at this point because they're drunk. They usually end up being bad technically but really funny so everyone loves it. Someone gets jealous and decides to one up them...

7) The jealous person picks that REM song that goes "It's the end of the world as we know it." I hate this person. This song is annoying. Stop picking it at Karaoke, no one cares that you can say the words first. You spent too much time learning it.

8) Depending on how drunk everyone is, it might be time for "Born To Run" and if it is, it's glorious. Not everyone will know the words, probably two out of the 10 people even know this song. But it's always a crowd pleaser.

9) Stop. Hammer Time.


*(If you didn't get this you're about 18 years late... watch this http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=b9nptjUs9FM)


10) Living On A Prayer - Bon Jovi. There's always some guy who has a wicked falsetto and can really nail the choruses. This song rocks and sucks so much.

11) Don't Stop Believin' - Journey. This is pretty much the slowest you're allowed to go, there are few exceptions.

12) A person takes an attempt at a Japanese song. It's a 50% chance they'll fail. Science has proven this statistic. Either way they look like they're trying to be better than everyone else and people are like "ugh..." but everyone also drunk and we all laugh and shoot each other looks like "who does this guy/girl think they ARE???"

13) Someone picked the Aerosmith song from Armageddon, someone cancels it half way through.

14) Someone cancels the Celine Dion Titanic song when the title comes up and before the music even starts. That was a close one.

15) People are getting annoyed because we keep canceling songs. But it's their fault for picking bad songs. So someone picks another Beatles to reconcile and everyone is happy.

16) This is usually when I rip through a real meaty version of "It's Raining Men." Feel free to criticize but I have yet to sing this song with a good group of people and NOT get a great reaction. It's so great when on the giant TV screen in front of a group of people it says "It's raining men, Hallelujah, It's raining men, Amen! I'm gonna go out, and let myself get ABSOLUTELY SOAKING WET!" I'm telling you people LOVE this song. Remember, throw your morals out the window.

17) The night is winding down so we pick "September" by Earth, Wind, and Fire. Everyone kinda sings it but they're all really drunk and really tired and covered in sweat.

18) Everyone is half asleep and we listen to an instrumental version of "Torn" by Natalie Imbruglia. Good choice, too bad it's an hour late... Someone says "lets go."

We would then spend twenty minutes figuring out how to pay for it at the counter. One person pays for everyone and everyone tries to figure out how much they owe them. Then they realize that someone actually had put extra money in and wants money back... ugh... I wish this was easier. But we all laughed and cried our way through a few hours of Karaoke. There are some other ones that tend to show up, but those are pretty standard choices.

I hope you now have a better idea of what to pick for Karaoke. Don't pick obscure songs. If you want to pick a Stevie Wonder song pick "Superstition" or "I Wish" or something that everyone knows. Don't pick a "Village Ghetto Land" or something else that no one else knows. Don't be afraid of picking Ace of Base, but DO be afraid of the video that someone will take of you singing it and realize you never even looked at the lyrics on the screen because you still know all the words.

Note:
Things tend to change if a Japanese person is present (even more so if many are present.) It actually tends to get more fun because the "good singers are less fun" rule doesn't apply to them. A lot of them tend to be pretty rockin singers, especially at Karaoke so they bring the group energy up.

On my cue for the next session:
Kiss from a rose - Seal
You Make My Dreams Come True - Hall and Oates
Virtual Insanity - Jamiroquai
Total Eclipse of the Heart - Bonnie Tyler
Sweet Child Of Mine - Guns n' Roses
Born To Run (of course) - The BOSS (Bruce Springsteen)



In action...

Take care everyone.

Lately...

So lately I haven't been up to anything "exciting" I've been enjoying myself a lot though. Today, I got to partake in a pretty fun activity that I think Susanna will enjoy. (Susanna is my little sister in America. She's 7. Just kidding she's like 19 or something, we always forget her age... Just kidding Susanna.)

Today was my Japanese Traditional Sweets Making class. I woke up early to go check it out. So many people signed up for this one that they had a lottery to get the actual spots... I won.

There's a real beauty to Japanese sweets. Most of them aren't that sweet which I enjoy, but then some of them are SUPER sweet which are meant to be enjoyed with macha, which is really bitter green tea. They tend to be whacky colors or shapes and have really weird ingredients including my personal favorite Anko (red bean paste.) It's so nasty sounding but so tasty. I swear if you eat it like 3 or 4 times you'll never stop wanting it. Except once my Nagoya host mom fed me a lot of Anko and butter on bread when I had the flu. I pretty much didn't want Anko for a year after that. But now I'm back in the game.

Anko is basically just sugar, it's called red bean paste but it's basically like beans that were boiled and cooked in sugar so there's no real bean in it anymore. Sometimes they leave the bean skin so it still looks like a bean, but it's just sugar. And it's delicious.

Here are the ones I made, one is supposed to look like a morning glory. Here are some pics...

This is my morning glory...



Here is my group and our Manju (it's basically just dough with bean paste in the middle)




Here's the middle of my Manju (the brownish/purple is the anko)


Here's the one the teacher made, he was a total badass (obviously. look at that thing I'd never be able to eat it, it's art.)

I brought home the flowers for my host sisters and I ate one of my two manju and brought the other home for family. My host sisters tore them out of my hands before I even said they were for them and ate them and fought over them. I guess it's nice to know they liked them. My host mom got one of the flowers in the end and enjoyed it. They gave us really good anko, so that helped...

I'll update you soon with some Karaoke info...

A Bus Trip

While I had originally planned on going to Sapporo for my "mid-term break" I decided that 1) it was too expensive and 2) I've been to a couple of big cities in Japan and big cities are all kind of the same throughout the world. SO, I signed up for the $100 2-night and 3-day trip that is set up by the school. It ended up being a much better idea since 23 other students from the program went on it as well as 10 or so Japanese students from Hakodate University. The list of things we'd do included 1) Going to Noboribetsu (a city sitting on a bubbling river of hot water/sulfer... they have a lot of Onsen) 2) going hiking/river trekking 3) Seeing a Volcano 4) visiting an Ainu village (more on this later)

Here's my review of the trip...

1) Noboribetsu was a four hour bus ride away. It was more fun with friends... but any four hour bus ride wipes you out. We got there and checked out a cute little town and hit up a really beautiful Onsen. There's no real crazy story to along with this Onsen visit, thankfully. I checked out a giant sulfer mountain bubbling with hot water, it smelled horrible. But it was cool. Here's a quick shot of it...


(Sulfur valley also called "Hell Valley") It smelled like eggs.

2) After our Onsen visit we got back on the bus and got lost for about 2 hours looking for a super market to buy our breakfast for the next morning. This resulted in everyone buy loads and loads of alcohol to drink when we got to our hotel that we were going to. We again got lost in the vast forests of Hokkaido trying to find the hotel. Turns out it wasn't a hotel at all. It was a hostel/ecology center. No one really know what it looked like except we saw a giant pile of helmets and life vests outside of it. We knew this couldn't be a good thing. We "checked in" and they told us "if you want to walk around don't go away from the lights outside of the building or else we might get eaten by a bear. Great. A bear.

The next morning after everyone was mildly hungover we had been given a choice to go for a hike or go "river trekking" I signed up for river trekking because that sounded fun and it sounded like a good photo opportunity. No one had been given any instructions on what to bring for this, so I assumed it to be a simple little walk through the creek. We put on sun screen, jeans (so not to get bitten by bugs) and then stuff. The guide laughed at us and asked where our swimsuits were. We laughed because we knew were in for deep shit. I switched into the shorts I brought along (everyone wasn't so lucky.) We were given a lunch box but were told to empty out backpacks to put it in because it's extremely dangerous to not have both hands available in case we fall. Great. Bears and now dangerous rocks.

Remember the helmets and life vests? Yep. Got some of those. And special "water shoes" that didn't fit. So we hiked in a river up to our waist for two and a half hours against the current. It was a blast. Except I was scared for my life sometimes. Other times it was really pretty. I brought a little camera and snapped a couple shots. Here I am in my awesome garb... (Check out the shoes)



We stopped and ate lunch, I forgot my chopsticks back at base camp. So our guide (His name was Mister Mister... how awesome is that?) he made me chopsticks out of these stalks. They were awesome until they cut my lips and I bled a lot, but I DID get to eat lunch like I was on a desert island... so AWESOME.

After this we left and went to our next place to stay. Hakodate University owns a litlte 'field research dorm' out in the middle of nowhere so we went there. Of course they stopped at a convenient store on the way so everyone could buy tons of alcohol. We arrived and it turned into the strangest night.

Every now and then I kind of step out of my body and look at the situations I'm in. This was one of them. I was standing in cafeteria of a giant empty dorm in the middle of nowhere on a mountain in Japan. The lights in the middle of room were off and each side were on, so the room looked kind of divided. One side had a bunch of Japanese students dancing to random pop songs and the other corner had teachers teaching students how to play Japanese tops (you wrap a string around a top and throw it to unwind the string... it's really hard.) anyway, I was looking at it. I was stnading in the middle of this thinking. "Where the hell am I?" Just one month ago I didn't know ANY of these people. We were all speaking in Japanese. We were dancing, drinking, and playing tops...in JAPAN? ON top of a mountain away from everything... where am I???

3) Next, the Ainu village. The Ainu are the "native americans" of Japan. So I guess they're the "Native Japanese." They live in Hokkaido. They pretty much have the same story where they got screwed over and have to obey the rules of everyone else and finally recently they got their own rights. The trip plan said we'd be going to an "ainu village" but we really want to "Ainu Land!" An ex-Ainu village that was rebuilt for tourists. It had a depressing bear cage that made me want to dry and then a bunch of people dressed up like Ainu people making jokes and "teaching" us the Ainu language. I was kind of offended by this part of the trip because it was just this kind of exploited amusement park where people could go and think they got a cultural experience of the Ainu people when in fact, there were no Ainu people. Just bears in small cages and people in costumes. Tourism can be a great thing and it can be such a destructive thing. I just

4) The volcano was a short trip but a pretty cool one. There was a small town that was on the side of a volcano and in 2008 it got completely destroyed by an eruption. Instead of doing a massive clean-up-and-rebuild, they were smart and they all got the fuck out of there so it wouldn't happen again. They left the destroyed city there and now you can walk by it and see it. It's very eerie and very cool at the same time. Nature was growing and taking over the city, trees grew around mangled buildings, broken cars just sat on jagged twisted streets. It was really something to see. I couldn't help but think that one day after humans no longer exist some other alien or new species will develop and find all of our city ruins covered in trees and grass, and how beautiful and creepy that will be. Hopefully we don't have to worry about that soon, but seeing this looked like what I imagined it to look like, it was a very interesting feeling... here's a little photo of it...



I enjoyed my trip and I feel very fortunate to have such great people on the trip and I feel very fortunate to have the opportunity to do stuff like this. I've also come to appreciate the beauty of Hokkaido even more. I wouldn't have gotten to experience the nature here had I gone to Sapporo. It's a very strange place compared to America it's got nice cool summer weather, big beautiful mountains, tons of farms and cows, a lot of ocean, and then also miles of wide flat plains. It's so strange. It's kind of like a sampler of all types of geography. It's like the "dessert tray" of the world. How fun.

I'd briefly like to thank my Japanese teacher Matsugu Sensei for reading and showing some people my blog website. Thanks very much! And thank you to everyone else who reads it! I'm never sure who reads this, other than my mom.

The Fan Is Spinning FAST...

So Japan, as we all know, is prone to lots of extreme natural disasters. They've got a full hand with typhoons, tornadoes, major earthquakes, fires, and volcanos.

Just to give you a brief glimpse into the bright future of this country I want to explain what I translated from a newspaper article today...

Mt. Fuji is actually a volcano that is, the Japanese so politely describe as, resting/sleeping. It's not dead, it's just resting. It erupts ever 30 years, on average. Except... for the past 300 years it's forgotten to erupt. This is starting to make people nervous since, ya know, when it DOES erupt it's going to be bad. Real bad probably.

If that wasn't the end of it, Japan has been preparing for the Tokai Earthquake. This is a massive earthquake that has a 90% chance of occurring in the next 20 years. They don't know when or where it'll hit, but it's going to hit and it's estimated to be around 8.5 - 9 on the richter scale. They're estimating lots of people dying and things like that but here's the REAL kicker...

When the Tokai Earthquake hits, if Mt. Fuji hasn't already erupted, the earthquake will surely make it erupt. Talk about a terrifying realization. The entire middle section of Japan is going to be destroyed, essentially. Tokyo, Nagoya, Kobe, Osaka... they're all at extreme risk of extreme destruction. I'm not trying to make light of a subject that is clearly extremely scary, but at the same time... everyone still goes to work. Everyone still cooks dinner. Everyone goes to movies. Everyone just does... stuff. If I was living here knowing that I'm sitting on a ticking time bomb, I'd freak out. Granted, I could be in my 40s when the thing actually occurs or we'll all be wiped out by global warming, nuclear warfare, or some disease... it's still scary.

Also on a side note. It's been all over the news how bitchy Laura Bush has been here in Japan. She's part of the G8 Entourage of Wives or something. This group of women go around and do various cultural things like Tea Ceremony and Kimono etiquette. First Lady Bush has insisted that whenever they travel anywhere she will NOT travel with the rest of the group in their fancy bus. She requires her own separate car with a personal driver so she can go on her own. Talk about making a fuss. She's the presidents wife which does not make her a fuckin Diva.

Yesterday I talked with my older sister about the G8 Summit that is happening in Hokkaido right now, pretty close to where I am now... she asked if there were protests and I said "no, Japan is too polite for things like that." Guess I'm wrong! This morning when I go to the train station the entire train station was covered in anti-Bush and anti-G8 graffiti. Mostly anti-Bush stuff. Of COURSE I show up when there are like 10 cops running around the building and they stare at me for 10 minutes until I get on the train and go to school. The cops are stopping TONS of foreigners as it is, if you don't have your passport you are immediately put into custody. They are FREAKIN out here.

Anyway... TAKE CARE everyone. Does anyone still read this? ANYONE?

I can say ANYTHING since no one reads this anymore. Today I listened to "I Will Always Love You" as performed by Whitney Houston on my IPOD. Her version is better than the Dolly Parton version (Dolly P. actually wrote the song...crazy, right?). When my friend asked me what I was listening to I lied and said "Gimme Shelter by the fuckin STONES." But deep down inside I wanted to say "I Will Always Love You by Whitney. There's so much truth in her voice in her performance, she really brought life to a song that can easily be performed as melodramatic and cheesy." But alas... I had to hide my true feelings.



-Mike

Tanabata

Today is Tanabata (it means Evening of the Seventh) is a Japanese holiday that's kiiiiiinda like Halloween. Kids go door to door and sing a short song then they get some candy. They don't dress up like goblins or anything like that, though some wear some little cute Japanese style clothes. On this day they also write little wishes/hopes/dreams on a slip of paper and tie it to a bamboo tree.

There's a story that goes along with it, I read it at school today but I kind of forgot what happened. It was basically like, the daughter of a god fell in love with this guy and they loved each other so much that they never worked or did anything. Since they were probably really annoying and obnoxiously in love together, the God separated them. When he saw how depressed they were he like "aaaaaalright, you can get together for ONE NIGHT per year." That night is the 7th of the 7th month... so for that day their wishes are realized. So... now all these kids run around singing a song getting candy and writing wishes and sticking them on trees. Sounds just as crazy as any other western holiday...

At school I wrote my little wish and tied it to a tree. Mine was lame it was just "I hope I get better at writing in Japanese." Because I really suck at that. If you've been reading this blog (which, if you just read that sentence you've been reading this blog) you know my english is pretty bad anyway...I should have wished for better english too. Oh well.

Just to show you how different the two twins, Hikari and Nozomi are, lets indulge in what they wished for... Nozomi wrote「白い家を建てて、白いドレスを着て、お姫様になりますように。」Hikari wrote...「魔女になりますように。」

Nozomi's means "I wish that A big white house will be built, I'll wear a white dress and I'll turn into a princess." Hikari's says "I want to turn into a witch." Polar opposites. Hikari cracks me up, that girl is just pure creative evil. We went to this store that had a little table with paper and crayons so kids could draw. Nozomi drew a very kid-made picture of me that said "American! Mike." on it. It was cute. Hikari drew a picture of a Japanese superhero named "Anpan Man" jumping out of the corner of the paper, it was really colorful and looked EXACTLY like Anpan Man. He was shouting something like "it's me ANPAN MAN!" then if you turned the paper upside down out of the opposite corner some evil alien creature was jumping up screaming something back at Anpan Man along the likes of "You'll never be able to beat ME!!!" It was epic for an 8 year old. She may be evil and disgusting, but she's damn creative, that's for sure.

On a random side note, I was told that Japanese people don't like sharing their towels at home with non-family members. So I brought my towel from home. No big deal right? No, It is. I get shit for it everyday. My host mom is super sarcastic and loves to make fun of me. Japanese towels are tiny, they are aobut the same size as the towels we use as hand towels. No joke. They're tiny. So mine looks MASSIVE to them. Everyone morning I walk down with my towel to take a shower and she says something along the lines of "Why did you bring a sheet with you?" or "Are you going to sleep down here? Why do you have a giant quilt?" or "I bet your suitcase is a lot lighter without that in it!" She thinks its hilarious. What a crazy lady...

Hikari and Nozomi just came home with a mountain of candy lemme go take a picture...

Hikari and the earnings...


My host mom was so proud of them...

Life in Kunebetsu II...

So things have been pretty boring this weekend. Really boring actually. I've done my best to keep it interesting. Yesterday all my friends were doing stuff with their host families so I went into town alone and just walked around a lot. This could have been risky since the G8 Summit is in Hokkaido right near where I am, Police are stopping any foreigners they see and if you don't have your passport with you, no questions asked, you go to a holding cell. Of course they'd call my host mom and she'd come and get me but it'd be inconvenient. Whatever, it won't happen to me because I bring my passport with me everywhere. Anyway, on my walk I found a camera store and a music store. Neither of them were particularly interesting, but they made good rest stops.

Today I had the option of either going bowling with friends or going to see Hikari and Nozomi perform with their wind ensemble. I decided I'd be the good exchange student and go with the family. The lesson I learned was this... sometimes there's a right thing to do and a less-right-but-still-ok thing to do and sometimes the second choice is the better choice. The concert was 15 minutes short 5 hours long. It had 16 wind ensembles from around the area performing songs. There was an intermission after the 9th group. I thought I was home free when there were only two groups left, but then they ended up performing two songs each.

For some reason, having 16 bands didn't really make things feel long enough I guess because three of the bands performed the same song. So I heard some piece, I'm not sure what it was, three times.

It was nice to see Hikari and Nozomi perform for 10 minutes of the 4.75 hours, but I gotta say. I coulda used a nice afternoon of bowling with some peers. When I'm in public with the twins they get really embarrassed by me being there and try and avoid making any type of relations to me. Today after the concert Nozomi was so embarrassed by me that she crawled on all 4s to avoid seeing me, then her friend picked her up and put her on her shoulders and they ran out the doors of the venue. One of the doors closed and the girl, with Nozomi on her back. Ran into the closed door, Nozomi started sobbing and the girl ran out, still with nozomi on her back. I'm not going to lie, I laughed. Hard. So did my host mom. That'll teach em to avoid me.

If you've been reading this blog, then you know that the twins aren't the best behaved kids on the block. The problem is that they aren't really disciplined. I'm not one to comment on parenting since I'm 22. But it's kind of a cultural thing because I've seen it with lots and lots of kids here. They do something bad and the parents say "stop" and thats where the disciplining ends. For instance, Hikari spit on me one day and the mom just goes "DON'T!" and that was the end of it. Hikari didn't care at all because she knew that was the extent of getting in trouble. Next time she bugs me I so badly want to stand up yell at her in English because I know that'll scare her. The Chucky doll also scares them, but it doesn't really prevent them from misbehaving it only stops them from misbehaving once they already started...

Well, looks like we're going to go out for hamburgers for dinner tonight. I hope we get some ice cream afterwards, I could really use something kick me into gear after that long ass concert.


-Mike

The Wonderous World of Elementary Schools...

So first to cover a few points of the past...

I performed for those kids and it was fun. No one really listened except the parents, the kids ran around and drew on the chalk boards in the room, but whatever. No biggie, I just jammed out. Then with the other teacher I played a version of "Ue O Muite Arukou" or "Sukiyaki Song" the name changes depending on whether you know Japanese or not...

The camping trip was so-so. We stayed at a hotel that was pretty nice, there wasn't much to do in the area we were in and there wasn't even that much beautiful landscape to see. We were surrounded by mountains which was nice, but they were the same mountains I always see from my window at home. At the talent show I played "Wave" by Antonio Carlos Jobim again. I enjoy that song a lot, it's kinda cheesy, but it's pretty. After that everyone got totally shit-faced drunk, the teachers didn't stay at the hotel, just the students. So everyone was blasted screaming in Karaoke and then everyone went to bed. A large number of people vomited on themselves or other people at some point. I can't say I didn't drink, but I can safely I had good control over the situations I was in, especially compared to others. It was a fun and strange trip though....

AAAAAANYWAY, earlier this summer I signed up to go on a field trip to Asahi Elementary School. Then they asked us to pick a game to a group of kids we'd be selected to play with. There were a handful of folks in my group. Then one of the HIF workers asked me to lead a song for the trip there, something easy and something in English. I picked "If You're Happy And You Know It..." it easy and there's a Japanese version so they'd be able to pick it up fast.

We got to the school and recieved handmade (by the students) name tag necklaces. There were huge, in the vein of Flava Flav's giant clock around the neck. I think the teacher made mine though because the hand writing was far too neat for a 4th grader. (I was assigned to the 4th grade class)

They led us into the gym and it immediately because the most wonderful thing I've ever done. Children were seated all around the gym and we walked through these giant hoops covered in flowers being held up by small children while an orchestral versions of music from "The Sound of Music" played. Everyone clapped and cheered, it was the happiest thing I've ever seen. in. my. life. Here is a picture of what we walked through. My friend has a video of us going through it and when he puts it up I'll put a link to it...



Then they sang us a bunch of songs, including "It's a Small World" in Japanese. Then they taught us how to do the "Hakodate Squid Dance." Squid is Hakodate's meibutsu (Famous product) it's so insanely good here. SO GOOOOOOD. Anyway then we played some games. They had my level (Intermediate IIB) battle Intermediate IIA in tug o' war. We won once, they won once. We left it at that. Then, I was told I'd be teaching the whole school "If you're happy and you know it..." and I had to explain it in Japanese to them. It's not a very difficult song to explain in Japanese. I just had to tell them the order of the commands. So... I picked "Clap Your Hands" "Stomp Your Feet" "Snap Your Fingers" and then "Smack Your Behind." They dug the smack the behind part. Anyway, it was SUPER fun and I got some pretty nice pictures of some kids having fun. The game we taught them was "Zip Zap Boing" which is a pain to explain in english, and even a bigger pain to explain in Japanese, but my 4th grade class had fun.

Last night my host dad came home early and we got to have a nice little chat about music. Turns out he has perfect pitch and can jam pretty well on the piano. They have two right next to each other so we had a nice Jam session and we kind of played off of each other. It was nice. Then at like 9:30 at night he was like "Everyone, in the car! We're going to get some snacks and then drive up to the top of Hakodate mountain and look at the beautiful night view." So... we did. And it was gorgeous. Apparently it's the 3rd or 4th more beautiful in the world... it looks like this.



That's right, I snapped that shot. Pretty darn pretty if you ask me! Anyway, stay tuned, I got a video of my host mom pretending to call Chucky at dinner tonight because my sisters wouldn't finish their dinner and wouldn't help clean up. It was hilarious and contains a lot of english...

-Mike

Why is Hikari Crying???

Why is Hikari crying?? She's pretty upset downstairs, right now. Let me explain what JUST ended...

The kids were mouthing off to my host mom saying dirty things about fecal matter, not wanting to get in the bath, and so and and so forth... They were screaming and throwing their socks at each other and me, then eventually off of the first floor indoor-balcony thing into the living room. Eventually it led the mom having to take out her secret weapon. Chucky. She has a small stuffed animal version of chucky, the killer doll from the "Child's Play" movies. It scares the twins to the point that they will sprint up stairs, sneak into my room and hide in my closet.

She took him out and they both dove behind me peeking around my back. My host mom put chucky over her face and said (in english) "Hello! I'm chucky!" they started to get more scared "I'm chucky! I am hungry! Onaka ga suita yo!" Hikari started to realize she should not have thrown her socks. "I'm chucky! Fuck Bullshit!" It sounds bad that she cursed but they really had no idea what she was saying, I'm not sure she knew what she was saying. They both bolted upstairs and into the moms room. My room and the moms room have windows that open into the house. They both look down into the kitchen (where she was standing.) So she threw the chucky doll into her window and it landed in her room. Moments later the twins bolted out screaming at the top of their lungs. Then they went into my room, but the mom had already gotten upstairs and reclaimed chucky. She cornered Hikari who immediately began sobbing and saying (in Japanese) "I'm sorry Chucky! I'M SORRY CHUCKY~!!!!!"

This made my mom feel a little bad, even though it was pretty hilarious. So she said "who wants to go to Lucky Pierrot (the santa restaurant) for some ice cream or milkshakes?" That cheered them twins up real fast. We grabbed out stuff and got in the car. Hikari brought her recorded to serenade us in the car ride. She doesn't know how to play the recorder, she just knows how to blow into it as hard as she possibly can to create a vast jump in overtones so it kills your ear drums... this started the next game for my mom. "If you play your recorded at night snakes will come!!!!"...


Getting shakes with mom...

-Miiiiiiike

People Persons...

Hakodate is an interesting place, there aren't many young people that live here, but a lot of young people visit it. Middle Schools in Japan take class trips every year to various places. Some go to Hiroshima, some go to Nara, and as I've learned, some come to Hakodate. I got on the street car here to ride downtown and suddenly I was surrounded by 12 year olds who looked like 7 year olds. They were tiny. They were decked out in some serious clothing though. They were all whispering about the "Gaikokujin" on the bus. I'm the Gaikokujin (Person from a foreign country). On finally said "Hello." So I said "Hello." back and they all go "WHOA." It happens every time. It's hilarious.

One little girl wearing a blue denim cowboy hat and a shirt that said "PRETTY GIRL KISS" all over it finally started speaking to me in Japanese. All of the grammar you learn in first year Japanese suddenly became handy. Here is the conversation written... it was all in Japanese, this is the english version....

Girl 1: What country are you from?
Me: America
GIrl 2: Ooooh, America.
Me: Where are you all from?
Girl 2: We're from Aomori, it's south of here. We're on a middle school trip, are you also on a middle school trip?
Me:....well...no.
Girl 1: He's not on a middle school trip, he's at least 35 years old.
Me: I'm 22.
Girl 2: He's not 35 years old!
Girl 1: What time is it?
Me: It's 2:45
Girl 2: What is your favorite color?
Me: I like blue and green. What's YOUR favorite color?
Girl 1: MINE is Pink. And Blue. And Red. And White.
Me: White?
GIrl 1: Yeah, white. And Purple. And Grey.
Me: Grey? Do you like all colors?
Girl 1: NO! I like all colors except black.

I'm telling you, these kids are not very good conversationalists... Anyway, at this point one of the small children was touching my camera bag and said "What's in here??" Now, this is the closest I've gotten to getting myself in trouble in Japan. I said "It's my gun." She, and EVERYONE on the street car FREAAAAAAAAAAAAKKED out. I thought it was hilarious...

Ok... Just kidding. I didn't really say that. But I really really wanted to because I knew they'd believe me. I told them it was my camera and they were like "Take our picture when we get off the cable car." But when I got off they ran away. It's ok. That girls denim cowboy hat didn't really gel with the rest of her get up. It wasn't picture worthy... or maybe it was, but just for a different reason.

If you ARE interested in seeing some of my photos feel free to browse at www.flickr.com/ohmalarkey

Other than that, there's no major news to report. I bought myself a cheap guitar. My host mom some how managed to sign me up to play at a concert at my two twin host-sisters elementary school... tonight. I'm going to play a chord melody of "Wave" by Antonio Carlos Jobim for them. Should be an interesting gig, that's for darn sure! I'm looking forward to this "camping trip" this weekend. I'm sharing a room with two of my friends and then one guy who I don't know who always has a sweaty back. No hard feelings though, I don't judge. Although, on the first day he went up to my friend Dokken (who is also in the room) and was like "Are you actually Japanese?" Dokken said "no, I'm Thai, but I'm from America..." and before he could finish the guy was like "oh... " and pranced (not walked) away. He has some pep to his step, so it'll be an interesting weekend.

-Miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiike

Hikari...

A brief moment of Hikari...

In the car on the way home from the special olympics my host mom said "Were you sisters like this when you were younger?" I had to think so I thought back to what had happened at the olympics thing were at...

It was REALLY hot and we were all sweating and I got sunburned, Hikari yells out "Mom, my BUTT itches, will you scratch my butt?" The mom scratched the top of her butt for her a little, it was the bottom of her back. Hikari yells "Nooooo mom, IN my butt, on the inside." Needless to say, my host mom was so embarrassed but couldn't help but laugh at this ridiculous request. Hikari stuck her finger up her butt and pulled it out and smelled it. Then she threatened to touch everyone in the family with it. This girl is hilarious.


Back to the car ride "No, honestly, they werent." "haha, I didn't think so. Hikari, you'll never get a boyfriend if you make everyone smell the smell of your butt on your finger..."

I do make these kids out to sound bad, they are a little tough, but they are also really funny. They like putting their barrettes and clips in my hair I'll leave a little picture for you... Here's me and Nozomi with a little bit of Hikari.

Family Fun...

So today they had a big olympics day at the school where my host brother goes. He's 12 and has some developmental disabilities. He can't really talk, he can understand you and will nod in response, but he can't really speak. He also just functions on a slightly lower level than a normal 12 year old. He's a really sweet kid though and he's always running around smiling. He lives away from home at a school then comes home on the weekends and plays around the house and outside a lot.

So he lives at this big school with dorms and stuff, they have this crazy olympics obstacle course day at the school and we went to root Yumeto ( my host-bro) on. It was a scene that I never ever thought I'd ever see in Japan. It was just hundreds of people sitting around a big track in the middle of a field cheering on these kids. They divided them up by grade. The first few grades had relay races that looked a lot like what we imagine Japanese obstacle courses to look like, just this one is for kids so it's not suspended 80 feet in the air or anything.

There was first a section where they run across a balance beam, climb over a small wall, crawl through a little jungle of strings tied in various shapes and so on. Each student on the team had a block, when they got to the end they had to place their block on a stick and each student stacked theirs on the next. The last student finished the little totem pole of blocks and then used it to fight/knock down a giant picture of a monster. Crazy, right? This is for 7 year old disabled kids and I really wanted to jump in line and do it.

Eventually it all turned into a track and field thing with high jump, track relays and stuff. It was a really great thing to see so many supportive families and what not screaming for their kid. My host mom did a team one with my host brother where they put a ball at the end of a stick and the student would step on one end of the stick and launch the ball in the air and the parent would have to catch it in a basket. A catapult looking thing...

Afterwards we celebrated with Yumeto by bringing him out to a Kaitenzushi (the sushi-go-round) type of place. It was amazing. The seafood here is so good. The lack of anything to do in Kunebetsu and Hakodate is made up for by amazing seafood. I have another story involving Hikari at the olympics thing which I'll post later after dinner.

****a brief side note****
Hikari just scared me by sneaking into my room quietly with socks on her hands and then she screamed right behind me and rubbed her socks on my face... lovely.


Here's Yumeto getting embarrassed when we were cheering him on. He quickly covered his face with his hat.

So, I Did that Onsen Thing Again...

So, yesterday my host mom said "Tonight, we're going to the ONSEN!!!!!!" My host-mom cheered, Hikari cheered, Nozomi cheered... I fake-cheered. Don't get me wrong, those onsens sure are great... ish. They do feel nice and it's a key part of Japanese culture. It's still just hard to break my American mindset of "I don't want to be naked next to you." I'm not embarrassed to be naked next to all the Japanese guys. I don't even care that they stare at me hardcore. I got used to that. What I don't like is sitting in the same bath as other people naked. Those baths are hot as fuck and there's a lot of old fellas in there; I know there's no way a little pee doesn't sneak it's way into that bath.


I knew it was going to be awkward since my host dad wasn't going to be coming, I was going into the mens side alone. uuuuuuuugh. It's weird when you have no one to follow around. First I showed up with out any soap. All the onsens I went to in Nagoya had soap and shampoo and conditioner at the showering stations. The showering stations are all open and you sit down when you shower so everyone can see you. It's a big deal to clean off HARDCORE before you get in that bath. There's a true science to it. You can start with you hair, wash it put the conditioner in and let it sit. meanwhile, scrub the rest of your body until it's red. There's gotta be a layer of soap suds on you like you've never seen before. Scrub your feet, you legs, you ass, you chest, your back... the whole deal. Then you rinse off and THEN you're ready. I didn't have any soap. So I had to buy it at the vending machine in the locker room. Do you know fucking weird it is to use a vending machine when you're naked. I'd already undressed when I realized my problem. I also didn't have one of those mini cover-you-junk-towels that they usually give out at onsens. So I had to buy one of those. So I was totally stark naked using this machine. It was a true realization of a dream, that's for god damned sure.

So I get my stuff, i showed and rinse and scrub myself til I'm almost bleeding. Then I get in the least-hot bath. It was alright. I just sat there for a while. Then I got in the bath with jets in it. That's fine. Then I got in the bath where the water was extra-brown. I'm hoping this was because it was a "tea" bath and not because of some unfortunate accident in the bath from earlier. There was only one other person in it and they were old. Maybe there were even dead. I worked my way up to the "second to highest temperature bath" (there's gotta be a better way to phrase that.) It was really hot. 110 degrees F hot. Whatevs, I handled it. I went in at the same time as another dude and he was old. So we battled it out for who could last longer (I won, he got out after like 3 minutes, I lasted like 3 minutes and 45 seconds). Meanwhile this creepy guy with black teeth talked to me. He was like (in Japanese) "So rare! It's so rare to see a foreigner in here." "yeah." "Are you here for work or school?" "School?" "Homestay?" "yep." "Where?" "Kunebetsu." "I live in Kunebetsu!" "Oh great!" "Yeah we should get together some time." "heh. heh. Yeah (Never. Never. ever. ever, sir)" "What is your address?" "Ooooh, I don't know." "Are you here alone at the onsen?" "No, my host mom is in the ladies side." "Ooooh. Ok. Do you have a ride home?" "Yes. (Are you fuckin hitting on me while we're sitting naked next to each other in a giant bath of brown water?)" "Oooh ok, well I'm going in the sauna. come on in later if you want!" "Yeah! ok. (nooooooope.)"

I went to the outdoor baths. They were alright. They had one that was called the "Walking bath" where it's a small path that goes in a circle and it's deep. It's basically like walking in a pool, except it's hot." I decided to try this out. There were a few fold men making laps in there. It went up to their neck/shoulders. It went up to my waist. halfway through my first lap I realized I was probably in some disgusting jetstream/wake of two old mens sweaty bathwater and possibly urine. So I decided to get it really quickly. Unfortunately since it was a loop I had to finish my second loop to get to the exit stairs.

I finally made it out and made a brief appearance in the "HOTTEST BATH" which is about 115 degrees F. That didn't last long, I promise you. I just had to try it.

All in all. It was awkward. It can be relaxing at times, sure. But it can also be a very awkward and not-welcoming experience. This time it was a little bit-o-both. I'll be sure to keep everyone updates on my next trip there since it's bound to happen again soon.

-Mike

Dinner Tonight...

Today I had some of my favorite conversations/encounters with my host family yet...

My host mom called me down for dinner and the conversation went roughly like this (I'm honestly doing my best to not exaggerate any of the language here at all.)

Mama: The twins aren't home from school yet, I'm starting to get worried.
Me: Yeah, it's almost six thirty, when do they usually get home?
Mama: Just around six. I hope they weren't kidnapped.
Me:I hope so too.
Mama: Do they have that in America?
Me: Of course! But it's a little more rare now.
Mama: In Asia, recently they have been kidnapping kids and stealing their organs to sell. Oh my god. What if they stole the twins because they wanted their organs!?! Do you think they did??? When it starts to get dark around here weird people come out! Should I look for them??
Me: I'm sure they're fine, do you want me to go walk down to the corner and see if I see them?
Mama: What if they're kidnapped? We don't have anything to fulfill the ransom!! There's literally nothing in the house! Do you think I could trade myself for them? I'm not as cute as them, but do you think I could trade myself? We have a lot of baked goods... that's about it. I'm going to look for them on my bike
------ five minutes later-------
The twins and the mom return
Mama: You should have heard Mike, he was SO worried about you two!

The second happening was at the dinner table...
For dinner we had chilled Ramen with veggies and eggs. Then my host mom made two giant plates of french fries (I guess kids love the same food all around the world)

Hikari:POTATOES!!!! Mike, don't eat ANY of them, please. These are all are mine.
Hikari begins to wolf down french fries
Nozomi:HIKARI! DON'T EAT ALL OF THEM THIS TIME!!!
Mama: Hikari! Eat some of your Ramen. That's gross, you're eating like an animal. Mike will think we live in a zoo.
Hikari stops eating for a brief moment to open her mouth and show her chewed food to her mom, then her sister.
Nozomi: HIKARI! That's GROSS! Now I don't want to eat...
Hikari: Good, all the potatoes are mine.
Nozomi slaps Hikari's hands and steals some potatoes and laughs. She enjoys a mouthful of ramen.
Hikari leans to one side and farts on Nozomi, she laughs as she has successfully disgusted her sister.
Nozomi stops chewing and lets the food fall from her mouth and quietly says "I am no longer hungry."
Mama laughs at them both.
Hikari continues to eat with both hands stuffing french fries in her face, only stopping to drink some tea.
Mama:You eat like a boy! Eat some Ramen! You haven't had any! you're being rude!
Hikari slams her empty cup down in front of her mom as if to say "Fill this cup up NOW!"
Mama: Say, "Please fill this cup."
Hikari slams the cup again.
Mama: Say Please fill this cup! Don't be rude! You are a little boy! Be polite!
Hikari slams the cup again.
Mama: You'll never get a boyfriend!
Nozomi: Mom, will I ever get a boyfriend?
Mama: Yes, it will be Kenichi.
Nozomi shyly smiles to herself and then quickly steals more french fries.
Hikari farts on Nozomi again and again smiles in her success in disgusting her sister.
Mama:HIKARI! Disgusting! Check between your legs and see if a penis has grown.
Hikari stops chewing and looks down between her legs.
Nozomi steals more french fries.
Nozomi shoots me a look saying "get em while you can!" I steal a handful of french fries as well.
Hikari creates a barricade around her food, including the french fries. This barricade consists o a bottle of water, cups, a pitcher of tea, and a box of tissues. She eats all but one last french fry.
I give Nozomi "the cue" I reach for the fry and Hikari quickly grabs my hand with both of hers laughing at my pity attempt to steal her gold. Nozomi goes in for the kill and steals it while Hikari is busy with me. Hikari screams. Nozomi splits the fry in half with me. We celebrate our victory with ketchup. Hikari farts on Nozomi.

I can't make this stuff up. I swear it happened and tears were streaming down my face when it was over.

Life in Hakodate and Kunebetsu

Every morning I wake up, and just look out my window. It's so strange living here. I've never lived in farm land let alone farm land surrounded by mountains and ocean. It's such a 'The grass is always greener' situation when living in a city/suburb. Growing up in Evanston was such a win-win. We had a pretty decent set up for having fun in downtown Evanston but we had the beach and downtown right next to us. There was the whole lake front and space to play. It was such a great place (Until recently when someone dumped that giant building in the middle, sorry Dad, I know you live there. But Evanston kind of sucks now because of it.) Living here it's like, surrounded by beautiful sounds, gorgeous mountains, the air feels clean and smells clean (It's kind of crazy actually, it always smells good around here and the air literally feels clean.) Then when I take the train into the city, or I'm in Chicago, there are great stores, great restaurants, and it's so easy to get around. I live in an area called Kunebetsu. There is literally nothing to do around here. There's a grocery store and some other stuff. But nothing fun really. I totally get when people live here and raise families though. It's freakin gorgeous and it's a safe and healthy place to live. Especially since if/when there's an earthquake there's space between you and your neighbor so their house won't fall on yours...

I started school today. There are three levels of Japanese you can test into. Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced. Within each level there are two levels. (Beginner A and Beginner b, Intermediate A and Intermediate B...you get the idea) I was placed in Intermediate A. But I quickly decided that it wasn't going to cut it. It was really easy. I took it easy in Nagoya and I learned a TON anyway but this is a way shorter trip I gotta step it up. My host family said I should be in Advanced A. Yeah right, I don't want to work THAT hard. I talked to the teacher and out of the 3 people in my Intermediate A class who wanted to test up... only I did. MUAH HAHAHA. I think I had a good connection with the teacher because I recognized him as a teacher from Nanzan in Nagoya while I was there. I was like "OOOH! My friends were all in your class!" and then we just chatted and he gave me the homework. So... now I'm in intermediate B and I'm darn happy.

One quick story... the other day we went to lunch at a restaurant called "Lucky Pierrot" Its a hamburger/curry/omelet restaurant. Each one has a theme to it, one's animals, one is flowers, one is jungle themed... and so on. The one we went to was Santa Clause themed. Talk about the creepiest meal I've EVER. HAD. I felt disgusting. As if we don't get enough Christmas music in the month of November-December, I had to sit through weird Christmas B-Sides from folks like Neil Diamond and Barry Manilow for an hour while I ate. There were also literally thousands of Santa Clause toys on the walls. Santa signs. Mind you this wasn't a CHRISTMAS themed restaurant, it was a SANTA themed restaurant. It was so gross and uncomfortable. Sadly, I didn't have my camera with me to take a picture of this horror show. I'm not sure if I want to endure another meal there just for a photo, thousands of little imaginary fat red and white men grinning at me while I eat really makes me uncomfortable. Maybe I can do it once for a picture, it's pretty worthy of a picture.

MAN! My room smells so good. I'll do my best to end these posts with a picture. Here's a funny picture I took of where I ate lunch today (not the santa place.) There's no way around this picture, the drawing of the Chinese man is just racist... I don't know what they are thinking...or maybe I'm racist for thinking it's a Chinese person, maybe it's supposed to be a latino person in old oriental clothing...

A Quiet Quiet Sunday...

I don't know if anyone reads this blog anymore or not... either way, I'm writing on it so... lets begin shall we?

My host family was taking the day off to go to Aomori to see a concert. I wasn't invited so I stayed home. They left at 9:00am and let's see, it's currently about 8:30pm. I've had this house to myself for a while! I haven't slept past 6:30 am so I'm getting a little run down but let me recap what I did today.

I played piano for 29012908532 hours by myself and sang as loud as I wanted. Take that.

I played on my computer. ( I learned that "Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo" is a grammatically correct sentence. Don't believe me? Highlight that and google it, it's a grammatically correct sentence.)

I played more piano.

I went for a long ass walk only to find that the farther I walk from my house the less cool it looks. That's ok though, I went to the ocean and checked that out, it was cool. The stores in my area aren't very cool though. That's ok, it'll help me focus when I have work to do.

I made dinner for myself. My host mom left me lunch (two giant Onigiri... if you don't know what onigiri is google it. Then find some for yourself because it's GOOD.) For dinner she left me microwavable curry. It might not be any class curry, but it did the job, that's for sure.

I don't have any interesting news to report other than I stopped to take a picture of some boxes this afternoon and an old lady yelled at me. I'm not sure what she said because old people are hard to understand. American old people talk slow and are easy to understand, usually. Japanese ones talk fast and don't make any sense. I was just down on one knee snapping an picture and she wanted to ride her bike by. I didn't see her waiting then she was like "BLAH BLAH BLAH!" and I was scared so I pushed her, I felt she was attacking me. She picked her bike up over her head and waved it in the air to threaten me some more. This didn't sit well with me, as we all know, I don't like to be threatened with bikes so I used... what the hell am I writing?

Here are some of my favorite quotes from my host family thus far...

We just picked up the two twins from school...
Host Mom: I'd love to live by myself now. Getting married isn't worth it.
Host Sister: Mom! But wouldn't you be lonely without dad?
Host Mom: Nah. I could do whatever I wanted to do. I wouldn't be bored. Maybe in my next life I won't get married and I'll do whatever I want...
Host Sister: You'll get lonely!
Host Mom: ... or maybe your dad and I will just get divorced when I turn 60, that's still young enough to have fun.

The twins didn't think that was funny. I did.

I was woken by one of my 8 year old host sisters yelling "お母さん！スゴイうんちだよ！” which translates to about "MOM! Oh my god! look at my huge poop!"

The two twins are such a pleasure to be around. They couldn't be more different too. One is a really girly girl and loves school and learning. The other is an artsy tomboy who likes to make mean faces at me. When my host mom said "Zip up your fly!" she said "NO! Besides, it's easier to go to the bathroom when it's down, I'd have to unzip it to take my pants off anyway." It'll be interesting to see the differences in 10 years.

Tomorrow I start school. Thank god. Anything that keeps me busy will be great.

By the way, here's the picture of the boxes the old lady got mad about...



-Mike

The Host Fam...

I'm bored this afternoon so I figure I'll update everyone on my awesome host family...

The members are the mom, dad, brother (12 years) and twin girls (8 years.) The son has some developmental disabilities and lives at a special school during the week but comes home to play on the weekends. He's a really cool kid and certainly a pleasure to around.

The mom is a really funny woman, she's very young at heart and isn't very "Japanese" in a traditional sense. She's very out going, sarcastic, and jokes a lot. When we were driving around the other day doing errands the twins were in the back seat screaming away ands he kept going "quite please, i'm driving." They'd get louder so she finally slapped on the breaks and goes "Okay! Out of the car please!!! OUT!!! OF!! THE CAR!!!" They certainly shaped up. I had a flashback to my childhood and playing "I'm not touching you." in the back seat. It's great seeing her interact with the son, I'd never experienced a person with disabilities in Japan and assumed it was a rather sensitive subject. My host mom just runs around and plays along with the song, Yumeto. (His name means Dream Person, which I think is so perfect.)

The twins, are quite a handful. I met them at the orientation party the first day. There were lots of tables full of food for all the students and host families to eat. It was a big buffet. The girls, Hikari and Nozomi ate a ton of pizza, donuts, fried chicken, watermelon, oranges, and so on. WHen they finished they both pulled out giant plastic cups from their purses and a roll of saran wrap that they stole from the kitchen. They stole 9 more donuts, oranges, tomatoes, fried chicken, and 7 pudding cups. They filled their purses with food. We got home and they poured the food out of the cups that they had filled with food. There was a lot of donuts covered in chicken grease and watermelon and orange juices. They ate all of it.

The girls also stole a bunch of paper cups and gave them to me in the car because they said they weren't sure if they had enough "normal" cups for me. Then they asked if they had to speak Japanese to me with an American accent so that I could understand it. They also told me about how they recently saw on TV that there are a lot of problems in America regarding Zombies. They were dead serious. (No pun intended) Their favorite game to play with me is "Fart on Mike." I'm gonna see if they can change that though... if not they are in for some serious revenge.

It's a very different family from my previous, which I'm glad. I wouldn't want something the same because the other one was so perfect for that. This is the polar opposite, a fast paced suburban, young household. We live totally in the burbs. It's just farm land, no stores, just houses. I'm about an hour outside of the city by train, it's interesting. The geography of the area is very interesting. If you face one direction it looks like an east coast beach town with the ocean. If you look the other way it looks like Colorado. Here are some pictures...



and the twins at the dinner table... (Yumeto, the brother let one rip...it was hilarious)

Arrival...

Let me briefly explain the trip over to Japan before I explain anything else...

I woke up on the morning of the 10th at 7:45, we left for the airport around 9:00 so I could be at the airport at 10:00 for my twelve o'clock flight. I'm terrified of airplanes, more than anyone should be. I waited around for a while, met my friends who are also on the trip (but they were taking a plane one hour after me) and we hung out until I left.

I got some anti-anxiety meds so I wouldn't freak on the airplane. These don't work for me, they never do. I'd tried them one time before. The problem is, I take it and then I get curious if it's working so I imagine the scariest things ever (airplane crashes) and see if I stay scared. I got scared, oh well, I survived.

I arrived in Tokyo at 3:00 in the afternoon I was out of customs by 3:45. On the way out of the plane I met two people. A Taiwanese high school student who had been studying in America and was now meeting his family in Japan for a vacation. His name was Chein, but he told me his name was Jim. I'm pretty sure he was a criminal. Then I met a girl who was going on the Hokkaido Program. She seemed nice, a little weird. She stopped and told all of the flight attendants how much she loved the food, then told them all of the problems she had on the airplane and how they should improve flights for the future... I guess the world does need folks like these to keep things interesting.

Being a Type-B personality, I had no idea where I was meeting the HIF (Hokkaido Internation Foundation) group. The had emailed it to me, but I'm pretty sure I deleted it before I even read it. The flight-attendent-bugging-girl knew where to go though, so I was following/chatting with her. Jim/Chein had disappeared at this point, I'm guessing they busted him at customs. The girl told me she was going to exchange some money then we'll go meet the group together, so I waited for her and then she had suddenly disappeared. I had no idea where she went. So... I looked at the arrival times and saw my friends would be arriving in one hour. I wandered for an hour, I bought some food. I found Jim/Chein who had apparently made it through customs without getting busted, probably had a fake passport, hence the "Jim" pseudonym... Then HIF freaked out and made an announcement over the loud speaker and had like 8 people looking for me. They found me and said "WE WERE LOOKING FOR YOU! WE ARE HAPPY TO FIND YOU! The next bus leaves in 3 hours so you can walk around." So I went back and met my two buddies from Chicago. We made it to the hotel at about 8. We ate dinner an then passed out around 11:00.

Breakfast started at 4:30 so I woke up at 4:00 to shower. Well, I should say I was woken at 4:00. Everyone got a free wake up call at 4:00... except it wasn't really a wake up call, the TV just turned out and started beeping really really loud and a screen flashed saying (in Japanese) "GOOD MORNING! IT'S TIME TO WAKE UP!!!!!!" We took an hour bus ride to the airport, and flew to Hokkaido in a horrible horrible horrible horrible storm. I didn't get scared. I'm so proud. We landed at 8:00 and went straight to HIF and took 6 hours of placement tests then we met our host families at 5:00. I'll update you on my host family situation a little later but lets just say that the two eight-year-old twin girls are some of the most energetic people in this world. They are also hilarious.

-Mike

Here We Go. Again.

Just over a year ago I got back from Japan and now I'm heading back to the airport for another 13 hour flight. I'm going to be living with a host family consisting of...

A mother who likes to sing, bake, and do arts and crafts
Two 8 year old twin girls named after the two different bullet trains whose hobbies include "wind instruments"
A twelve year old son
A dad

All are musicians, I can't wait to meet all of them.

In the mean time I have to worry about my plane not crashing... my greatest irrational fear.

-MIKE