I'm back!

I would like to preface this entry with the warning that I may not post one for another year but as Bobby Brown would say thats my prerogative. However, I have been feeling the itch to write again and without the lovely Black Taxi to keep me occupied this seems to be my best outlet. I think my urge to write again stems from the fact that well, I need to make snarky comments about things. Japan provided plenty of fodder for said snarky comments. I mean seriously I love you Japan but you just made it so easy. Anyway, as much as I loved all the ridiculous things in Japan, I realized I am moving to New York City, the freak capital of the world. More freaks per square mile than any other city. Like that ice skating lady who does interpretive dance in the middle of the Rockefeller center ice skating rink. I applaud her for not being constrained by society's rules and daring to look like a hot mess for all the visiting tourists from the midwest. So anyway, my point is if the mood strikes me I will write about new things I encounter that I find interesting. Or not.

Tokyo rocks

I am an unabashed blog slacker, but I have been inspired to write because I had such a wonderful weekend. I went up to Tokyo to visit my friend Kirsten, who used to live in my small town in Japan but left for the big city lights (sigh). On Friday we went to see one of my favorite groups, the New Pornographers. After the concert we waited for (stalked) the band so that I could meet the wonderfully talented women standing next to me in the picture above. If you don't know Neko Case, you don't know what you are missing. Girlfriend can sing like nobody's business. And she was super nice as well.

Japan Extravaganza Part 1

I've been slacking with the blog a bit, because I have been busy. Last month my friend Nicole came to Japan and we traveled around for a week. First we went to Osaka and met up with some of my friends. And what did we take Nicole out for her first night in Tokyo? Mexican food! Mmm, tastes like America. I think it wasn't exactly what she had in mind, but I promised her she would have the chance to eat plenty of Japanese food. The castle on the left is Osaka-Jo. It looks cool on the outside, but the inside is all modern. We also went to aquarium. I must say, Japanese people know how to make an aquarium. When you go to an aquarium, do you want to learn about lowland marsh ecosystems, blah, blah , blah? Heck no! You want to see kawaii (cute) animals, and the Japanese are all about all things cute, so you just get to look at a whole aquarium full of guys like this...awww. The next day we took a train to Koya-San, a sacred mountain for Japanese buddism. We stayed at a temple overnight, which was really beautiful. Dinner was a vegetarian meal with many different dishes. This is how big a dinner is when we have work parties. Japanese dinners are huge! The women who owned the temple came and spoke to us in amazing English, because she studied English Literature at Tokyo University, the best school in Japan, before World War II. It was not common for a woman to go there in those days. Nicole and I were exhausted after dinner and were told the only night activity to do was to walk to the cemetery and hour away. So we set out just intending to walk 10 minutes into town and back and wound up walking to the cemetery and back even though it took three hours. We woke up in the morning at six to do buddhist chanting and then did the whole walk again. The cemetery was so cool looking the daylight, full of tombstones and tall trees. Since I am going to bed now, I think talking about this trip is going to be broken up into multiple parts. Peace.

Editors Note

I didnt realize my post would be so controversial. I wasnt trying to hate on pies. I enjoy pies. In fact, no pies were harmed in the making of this blog.
Also, it has come to my attention thanks to the lovely Kate Nevens that my blog was only allowing registered users to post, so I have fixed that. Now everyone is free to enjoy my box.

I knew I would be famous some day

I have mad spoon dancing skillz and now everyone knows it. Apparently I was on the news a few weeks back after I went to the festival on the Okis. One of my students asked me today whether I had been the festival and then said that he saw me on TV practicing the dance. I wouldnt be suprised if I am now know across Shimane as "that foreign chick who spoon dances."
This Thursday was one of the best days I have ever had at school. This week there are are midterms so I don't have any classes, though that is usually par for the course for me anyway. But in the afternoon all the teachers played a volleyball tournament for the rest of the day. It was really fun and my team won second place so I got a sweat towel and mens socks that are too big for me. Rock! Way better than a normal day at school.

Pie Making-1, English-0

So here I am updating my blog since my class (the only one) was cancelled today. What class do the students have in its place? The all important home economics. Sigh. It's nice to actually confirm that I am at the absolute bottom of the school hierarchy, below home ec. Sadly, the more I thought about it, it is a lot more practical for the kids to go to home ec. I mean, when the girls are married in about two years time and their husbands come home from a long day of superfluous tunnel construction work/traffic lightstick waving and tell their wives to get in kitchen and bake them a pie, they probably won't be barking out those orders in English.

Random 70's Hotness

Gaijin-1 Nihonjin-0

Haha, I blogged about this before Himene. Anyway, this weekend I went to Hiroshima , nearest big city to me, near being a relative term since it is about 2 and a half hours away. We went to a restaurant on Sunday night and it was relatively empty since a typhoon was supposed coming. Of course we diverted the typhoon single handledly by later singing karoake homages to the typhoon and thus appeasing the typhoon gods. But back to the restaurant. There were six of us and there was a cheap set menu that two people could share. So we paired up with the intention of ordering sets. The waiter then informed us that since we were a group of six, we couldnt do sets, they were not for people in groups. "What if we split up and move to different tables? Then are we technically in groups of 2?" Himene asked. Well this really threw the waiter for a loop. He thought about it and said it was OK. So two of us moved to a different table literally one foot away and we proceeded to bitch about the absurdity of the situation. The waiter looked really confused, went away, came back, and said it was ok for today only if we sat together and still got the set. Not to knock Japanese people, but I am guessing we were the first people to ever ask that question and the waiter was just unable think that he should say we couldn't get the set even if we moved and that would have been the end of it. There is this inability here to think outside the box and deal with a problem thats not covered in the work manual you get on the first day. So thats why...we win! Foreign ingenuity rocks.