Wilderness Survival and "B" Movies

Looks like this month is ending just as busy and boring as it started. Only got one day off this week, and I spent it doing chores, so I really have nothing to say here... Guess I'll just jump right to the random stuff.

1.) Another adorable kid at work this week. She was probably 5 or 6, and she was one of the students' children. This kid sat in the lobby during a 50 minute lesson without making even a little bit of a fuss. When I finished my lesson (different class than the one her mother was in), she was sitting in the exact same spot as when I had started the class with her hands crossed in her lap. Luck had it that I had brought in some of the candy my mom sent to snack on that day, so I grabbed a pink Starburst and gave it to her. I just held it out assuming a kid that young wouldn't understand English. In response, she gave me a perfectly pronounced and very polite "Thank you", took the candy, and put it directly into her bag (maybe it was her mom's purse. I don't know). I imagine there was a conversation later in the day that went along the lines of "Mother, I was given a piece of candy today. Is it alright if I eat it?" Because this kid was that well behaved. If I ever have a child, I'll be happy if it's half as well-mannered as that little girl.

2.) I had to use my Japanese "in the wild" twice this week. Both times were highly embarrassing for me. School's out this week, so there's way more students than usual when I'm at lunch. The first occasion was just some students asking if they could use one of the chairs from the table I was at in the food court. I panicked and couldn't manage anything more than a couple of quick nods. Go me. Second time was a group of kids that were trying adorably hard to dress G. I can only assume two of them were a couple, because they were wearing matching pink and black track suits. The girl's had Minny Mouse on the back (is that how you spell Minny? It suddenly occurs to me that this is the first time I have ever spelled that name). Anyway, one of the kids started talking about how tall I was and pointing at me a lot, so I smiled in their direction. This was a cue for them to start asking me questions. I stumbled through the answers very awkwardly, but at least my mouth formed sounds that may or may not have been words this time.

3.) I have noticed an interesting occurrence. Lately, there have been a lot of small tremors between midnight and 3 AM. They're small enough that I probably wouldn't notice them if it wasn't for the fact that my space heater is kind of wobbly and makes noise with even small vibrations. They're definitely big enough that I recognize them as tremors, but yeah. I guess the plates are still grinding ever so slowly. I think it's interesting at least...

4.) You may be tired of hearing this, but Naoko is amazing. So, I was having a shitty day at work this week and, as I tend to do, was complaining about it to the people I know. One of those people was Naoko. When I got home, I saw a bag hanging on my door (I also smelled her perfume from the bottom of the stairs. I think she sprayed it to add to the present or something, but she must have drenched the freaking staircase in it. Seriously. It smelled like her perfume for the rest of the week. Adorable effort, but damn that smell was strong. Anyways, let's get back to what I was saying. No, I don't care if it was boring. Read it anyways). This is said bag.

Now, since you cannot see the entire contents, let me give you a list of what was in this container of joy. Beer, donuts, food, chocolate, an incredibly girly little Pokemon doll thing, and a card with a puppy on it and a very long message that took me way too long to translate inside. I think it bears mentioning that Naoko lives thirty minutes away and also only got one day off this week. Now, I don't wanna brag, but my girlfriend is better than your girlfriend.

That's all I got.

PS - Kudos if you understand the second part of the title and how it relates to this post.

Shabu Shabu and War Faces

Back to late posting, yay! -.- This month is... hectic. Super busy every week at work, all kinds of overtime, and my free days are mostly spent inside because of the bad weather, trying to study Japanese and recuperate from the work week. This isn't bitching so much as offering a weaksauce explanation for why my blogs are so boring of late.

This week I went to a shabu shabu restaurant with Naoko. She found out I'd never had it before and insisted that we go. It just occurs to me now that I forgot to take pictures, but it was delicious. Really, it was a lot like the nabe I had before, so it wasn't quite the "new" experience I was hoping for. Whatever, still good and different enough to be interesting. I am routinely delighted to have Naoko with me at restaurants. For the company, of course, but also for her ability to order things. When we're looking at the menu and discussing what to get, I always think to myself, "Yeah, I could probably order this stuff if I needed to. I mean, I'm talking to Naoko about it with no problems." Then the waiter/waitress comes and Naoko starts speaking something that I'm not even entirely positive is Japanese. It's similar to Japanese. It's Japanese-esque. But the words come out so fast and use so many sounds I can't recreate that it all becomes a blur and suddenly there's food in front of us. Usually it's what I thought we were going to order. Sometimes it's a surprise.

I also started to play Disgaea 4 this week. In Japanese. With kanji. I don't understand the conversations so much as stare at the screen in abject horror and resist the urge to run screaming into the night. Sometimes I get the overall meaning of what they're saying. The main character talks about sardines, promises, and sardine promises a lot. It's a learning process. Naoko says the Japanese they use is strange and difficult. I say I'm just not good enough at Japanese.

I also handed out flyers this week for work. Again. And got shafted on the overtime pay. Again. This time it was sunny, at least. There were also about 4-5 other groups of people handing out flyers... the poor students were just there to see their results for entrance exams, but first they got barraged by people shoving flyers in their faces. I felt horrible as they tried desperately to find room for our flyers while they were already holding a stack of other flyers. Yuko said they're used to it though because it happens all the time.

Random shit!:

1.)

One of my students gave me a present because she knows I like sweet food! It was decent, but I have no idea what was inside of it. Some kind of green paste with what I first thought were bits of chocolate, but were actually a seed of some sort. I think.

Naoko made me adorable rabbit cookies! Because she's awesome. She even put them in an adorable bag with Engrish on it! "Have a tea time with me." I'm pretty sure she doesn't realize that second part, or the fact that I love Engrish, but it still counts.

I have come to the conclusion that Naoko enjoys making faces out of food. Pistachios that my mom sent to me because she rocks. The eyebrows on this thing make me believe that this pistachio face has impure intentions. Probably toward your daughter. Just sayin. It looks like that kind of pistachio face.

Apparently this comes from a shrine. Naoko says parents get them for their children so that they'll grow up strong.... Parents buy penis lollipops with girl faces on the wrapper for their children? WTF Japan?!

 And now for some much-needed motivation for my six day work week. Show me your war face!

PS - Holy crap, upon review of this post I just realized that every picture involves faces even though almost all of them are of inanimate objects. That was not intentional. I officially declare this to be the war face post.

Strep Throat and Saintly Drinking

Holy crap, a blog post from me that's on time?! Impossible. So, you're not gonna believe this: I'm still fucking sick. Yup. 3 weeks now. This time, though, it's a new sickness. I got me some strep throat! I haven't had it since I was a kid, and I definitely never got it this bad then. Swallowing hurt (I can think of at least three specific people who are now going to make a stupid joke about that. It's okay, I would too. You are forgiven.). Not just food, but water, even saliva if my mouth was watering or whatever. At one point, breathing even hurt. For realsy. I wasn't able to get enough sleep for about 4 or 5 days this week because I would wake up at random times and not be able to fall asleep again because my throat hurt so bad. Insane. 

Anyways, I didn't want to call in to work so soon after last time, so I toughed it out for a bit. Pain started on Tuesday, and it wasn't until Friday that I threw in the towel. Friday started with 4 back to back private lessons. After the first one, I left a note for my head teacher (who was busy during the five minutes I had between classes) that I had to go home after my next class. Why? Well, I was rapidly finding myself unable to speak. I would randomly lose my voice during class, and when that happened I also kind of lost my ability to breathe for a few seconds. I was a little dizzy as well. But my second student was already there, and I wasn't just going to tell her to go back home, so I finished up that class too. Mayumi took my temperature and sent me to the doctor, who informed me I had a fever of 101 and strep throat. I've never had strep described to me, but apparently my case involved a throat that was "extremely inflamed and red, with white and black covering the tonsils". O.o White and black? That was enough to terrify me a little. I got five different kinds of medicine this time, including one that I have to gargle twice a day. Fun. On the up side, it has definitely helped my throat, and I feel a lot better. On the downside, when I went back to work to tell my head teacher and manager, their responses (both entirely separate from each other) were along the lines of "So it's not the flu? Good. You need to come back this evening to teach your classes. If you had the flu, you wouldn't be allowed to work." Sadly, that's barely paraphrased. Basically, I got to go home for 2 hours, then come back and teach for 2 and a half hours. With a bad case of strep throat. They were only worried I had the flu because company policy says it's too contagious to teach with. Do they realize that strep throat is about as contagious as the flu and more serious? Whatever, if any of my students are sick, it's not my fault.

Stayed home on Saturday, and Naoko already had plans to come over in the evening. I was really worried about getting her sick, but she didn't really seem to care... Anyways, there was an early St. Patrick's Day party and parade this weekend in Matsue (parade was cancelled, probably because of the quake and everything associated with it), and Naoko has been wanting to go since last year, when she couldn't go because of work. I didn't want her to miss another year because of me, and I knew she wouldn't go without me, so I put on my big boy undies, manned up, chugged a lot of medicine, and spent about 4 or 5 hours at a St. Patty's day party! Luckily it ended at about 10:30, at which point all I wanted to do was go home and drink more medicine ><

The coolest thing about the party? The location of the bar. It was in an old, historic building, and apparently it used to be a bank. This was the entrance, so I guess it's down where the vaults used to be. There was another, smaller vault inside, but it was too crowded for a picture.

There was a lot of music. Didn't get a picture of the first two guys up there when Naoko and I arrived, but the dude on the left with a shirt on his head was really into it. Occasionally he let out a really folksy shout. Awesome stuff. Also, sorry for the stuff in the way in these pictures. Crowded place, and I did NOT have the energy to get up and find better angles for these shots.

Fantastic Guinness pictures.

Violin time!

Then some Irish singing time!

Then it was harp and guitar time! These two had a little flyer on all the tables with a picture of them that was probably 15-20 years old... we didn't even know it was them at first XD

Suddenly, bagpipe!

And dancing!

Yeah, the dancing was pretty much the end of things. Really pleasant evening aside from the strep throat part of it. That's really all I got for you this week :/

Random shit!:

1.)

Wow, look at this awesome ceremonial dragon helmet. That would be an interesting souvenir to buy...

Oh. About $1,000? Yeah, never mind.

2.)

Leave it to the Japanese to make a Predator adorable.

3.) During my discussion class this week, we discussed whaling (which they later said wasn't that interesting, but they were talking way more than normal, so now I'm confused). Anyways, the resident old man was trying to theorize on why Americans felt the need to protect animals, and he uttered this gem "All Americans have cute, little pets like monkeys and dogs." Oh man, resident old man, how I wish that first one was true. 

See ya next week folks. Well, cat critics, what did you think of this week's entry?

Indubitably 

Edit: I suppose I should say something about the earthquake, and that something is that it really hasn't crossed my mind all that much. Honestly, I feel about the same way I felt about 9/11. I'm aware that it's a tragedy, and I truly do feel bad for the people who have lost their lives or homes from it, but it hasn't affected me directly in any way, shape, or form. Matsue is too far away for me to have felt anything (it happened on the day I went to the doctor, so I wasn't aware anything was wrong until I checked my facebook when I got home for my two hour break and saw all the "are you okay?" messages) and we're on the opposite side of the coast, so tsunamis aren't really a problem either. I've donated twice (both the times I've seen donation boxes), but beyond that, I don't really follow it much. Most of you in America know more about the situation than I do. I think the fact that I'm saying this in an edit about a half an hour after I posted this update says all you need to know about how much this has been on my mind.

Taco Parties and Angry Rants

Another late blog post. I need to get out of the habit of this. Whatever. I'm still sick. This cold is like some kind of freaky mutant disease. It keeps changing. After last week it changed into just a headache. Then just a full-body ache kind of deal. Now it's a horrible sore throat. It's like it threw all the symptoms at me at the same time, and now it's going to go through them each one by one before it goes away. I hope it goes away at least...

Just when you thought it was safe to go back outside...That's right, more snow again this week! The weather here just can't make up its mind.

Hung out with Naoko this weekend because it was one of the rare times that our days off matched up completely (she works a 4 days on, 2 days off schedule. That means we only have the same days off every month and a half about). Went to McDonald's and she made a french fry happy face :D

We also went to Mr. Donut, where we found more happy faces. These ones, however, are just freaking creepy.

Dear god, why would you put that on something you were selling to people? That is the most terrifying thing ever.

Well, that kind of makes up for it I suppose...

Monday was taco party time! Just as a bit of backstory, there is almost no Mexican food in this country. I've been informed that I can find some in Tokyo, but that's about it. Because of this, most Japanese people I've met have never had any kind of Mexican food. The grocery store I shop at sells some taco shells and seasoning (although they're kind of expensive), so a few of my friends have expressed interest in a taco party. Sidetrack in my sidetrack: there's a party for everything over here. Seriously. Nabe party, takoyaki party, etc... Anyway, on Monday we finally decided to go for it. We only had about 2 days of notice and it was on a Monday afternoon/evening, so I invited about 9 people thinking most of them wouldn't be able to come. Of course, this meant that all but one or two accepted. Shopping for this stuff was a nightmare. Naoko and I had to go to four different stores (thankfully, she has a car), mainly trying to track down avocados, cheddar cheese, and sour cream. We found them, but the avocados were super green, the cheese wasn't really that suitable, and the sour cream had the consistency of cream cheese. Apparently all sour cream over here is like that. I also ended up spending about 5,000 yen, or around 60 dollars.

We found this amazing statue at the second store we visited. Naoko informs me that it's a "lucky boy"... okay.

Snacks! Naoko and I actually ate a fair chunk of these ourselves waiting for people to show up. The thing was supposed to start at four... first guests arrived at about a quarter after five. Whatever, we had movies to watch.

Taco stuffs! I actually made all of this aside from the guacamole salsa myself! I know, I'm amazed too. I say guacamole salsa, by the way, because the avocados we found were too hard to make into actual guacamole. Instead, Sarah just kind of put the ingredients together and roasted them for a little bit to soften it all up. No one complained, but I don't like avocado so I have no idea how it tasted seeing as how I didn't try it. Everyone said they had a lot of fun though, and it was somewhat hilarious watching Mika trying to correctly eat a taco. At first she tried to bite into it vertically, so Mac and I had to stop her before she cut her mouth up. We told her to bit into it with her head tilted, so she tilted her head... and the taco. I think there were some other pictures taken that had actually people in them, but they weren't taken with my camera.

Warning: long rant ahead. Don't bother reading if you don't want to hear a lot of bitching.

This picture actually has a lot of rage behind it. I purposefully put off posting last night because I was absolutely fucking livid and didn't want to say something I would regret. Sleeping hasn't helped the situation much. Long story short: management bullshit. Cherry blossoms bloom for a very short time in Japan. You can see them before or after, but they are only at their peak for about 7-10 days. Naoko and I have been planning a trip to Kyoto to see them during this time period. Right at the end of it, actually, because my company has certain "blackout days" where you can't request any of your paid days off, and they fall right in the middle of this period. 

That's fine though, the 12 of April is after those blackout days, and I have the 10/11 off as my normal weekend. Naoko has the 11/12 off, so I figured "hey, that's perfect. I'll get the 12th off and we'll go." So I asked my head teacher and manager about it a week or so back. That's a month and a half of warning; well beyond the one month requirement for asking for days off. Their response was "we'll see what we can do", which set off alarm bells in my head, but whatever. So a whole week goes by without them saying anything. Finally, yesterday I just ask them about it. They told me that it's a really busy time of year and they don't really think they can give me the day off; most people can't really get days off at that time.

On its own, this is pretty annoying, but there's already a few things that made it worse for me. 1.) Why the fuck is it outside the blackout days if you won't let people take time off? Seriously. I based my schedule on your stupid fucking calendar assuming the blackout days were there for a reason. Apparently that's not the case. If it's such a busy time, you should alter the calendar to show as much. 2.) They weren't going to tell me. If I hadn't asked, they just would have kept ignoring it. For me, these escalate it to really fucking annoying.

But wait, there's more! March is a really busy month in Japan. It's the start of a new fiscal year, the school year is ending, and all kinds of things are happening. Because of that, everyone is really busy; including my school. This means they're asking me to work a lot of overtime. I'm scheduled to work on my day off in a week or two, yesterday I worked from 6 AM to 9:30 PM (had to wake up at 6 to hand out flyers in front of a high school in the freezing cold and rain, then go to a meeting in Yonago, then go to work), and I have another flyer day scheduled for the 18th. They're also weaseling their way out of paying me for this overtime in the following awesome ways: Saying I'm only working about 1/3 of the time I actually am. For example: the flyers this morning. I had to get up at 6 and didn't get back home until 9. That's three hours. They said I worked from 7:30 to 8:30. One hour. The meeting? Had to catch a train from Matsue at 10:30, didn't get back until about 3. That's four and a half hours. They said I worked 2. Part two of this "screw Thomas over" deal is them telling me to just come into work an hour later this Tuesday and next Tuesday. The meeting also partially overlapped with my normal work time, so they used that as well. So, I got to start work seven hours earlier than normal and I'm getting exactly zero hours of overtime because I get to come to work at 1 instead of noon two days this month.

Despite this absolute bullshit, I have not complained once. The way I see it, if I can help them out during a busy time, it's alright. I would still be doing the same thing even if I wasn't trying to get time off, but I'd be lying if I said there wasn't a part of me that was also thinking that they were going to be helping me with some time off, so it's only fair that I help them with some extra work. So much for that idea.

How does this all factor into the picture? Well, when I got back from the meeting, my manager had left the chips and the note on my desk. Don Tacos is something we've talked about before when I first mentioned tacos; they're a kind of chip. At the time I thought it was a pretty nice and thoughtful gesture. After my head teacher's reaction when I asked about the time off though, I see it as a cheap way to try to soften me up. They know they're fucking me over; it's really obvious from their body language and tone. Especially when my manager asked me to hand out flyers for a second day. He legitimately seems to feel bad. That doesn't change the fact that they're screwing me over though. And how do they try to make good? With a fucking bag of 89 yen chips. Yeah, I'm still pissed.

Temple Trips and Disturbing Metaphors

Wow this post is late. We're talking like Second Coming of Christ late. Damn, I'm proud of that one; sorry to all my Christian friends and family for the minor sacrilege. I have good reason, but whatever. Sorry people.

This week Thomas got sick. Oh so very sick. This is made doubly scary by Garret informing me of some crazy West Coast epidemic with everyone getting sick recently. Apparently it affects West Coasters living out of the country. So it started last Wednesday with me waking up with one of the awful headaches I get. Migraines run in my mom's side of the family for women. As a guy, I am apparently lucky enough to just get massively painful normal headaches 3-4 times a year, so I assumed it was just that. Since blinking hurt, I decided to call into work. Mayumi sensei said it was probably the flu (wtf?) and told me I should go to the hospital (because that's what Japanese people do when they're sick), but I managed to convince her it was just a headache. By the end of the day, I was feeling a little bit feverish. Figures the only fucking time I've ever gotten a cold with my headache is the one time I spent ten minutes convincing my boss that I wasn't sick and would be better by the next day. I did feel a bit better though, because Naoko insisted on being amazing and coming over to give me medicine, make a delicious dinner, and even give me a back rub. 

The next day, trying to be a man of my word, I went in to work. Boy, do I regret that. By the end of my shift, I wanted to die, and I felt even worse the next morning. Called in again with my best "please don't say I told you so" voice, and went to the hospital (it was actually a small clinic. Apparently they use the word hospital wantonly over here). The doctor actually spoke some English, so it was easy to explain what was wrong. She said I had a minor cold, which caused Mayumi to emphasize to me repeatedly that the doctor had said mild. Yeah, screw you, that doesn't account for the massive pounding in my head that I can only imagine was your sense of subtlety trying to escape from my brain and jump back on your high horse. We then proceeded to get four (!) different kinds of medicine from the pharmacy and I went home to wish I was dead for a while. The cost of the whole trip? 1,700 yen, or about 20 bucks. Holy crap Japanese health insurance is amazing. No wonder they go to the doctor for colds. 

The medicine fixed me up well enough to go to work the next day and get me through the weekend. Yesterday I felt like crap again (my medicine ran out. Also why this wasn't posted yesterday), but I slept for about 10 hours and now I just have a minor headache and sore throat.

Went drinking with Yuko and Mac on Saturday because it had been planned for a while and there was no way in hell I was letting a cold keep me away from some of the best sake in Matsue (according to Yuko). It was a really good time, and some embarrassing pictures spawned from it. Apparently I throw up signs backwards when I'm drinking. First peace signs, now the West Side sign. Whatever, that's how the cool kids do it...

Sunday, I finally roused myself to go to Teramachi, or temple city. It's a portion of Matsue with a shitload of, well, temples. I had an ambitious trek planned out to see all of it in one day. After two hours and a dead camera battery, I had done 1/3 of that, so I went shopping and went home. Warning: massive image dump ahead. Some will have comments, some will have a tiny, invisible finger made of the words "These took an hour and half to cherry pick and edit, so Thomas is tired."

The first temple I found! There were two old ladies inside that looked at me funny when I went in, so I decided to come back later.

But first I took a picture of cool acrobat lion!

A couple steps away (seriously, the temples are that close in some places), I found this.

The gate looking out, because I would have had to stand in the street to get one looking in.

Awesome tree was awesome.

The next one I went to was... busy.

That's one old dude.

He's had a lot of time to practice his serious face.

Awesome rock that I couldn't even begin to understand.

I quickly had to start deciding what parts of the temples were interesting enough to take pictures of. The little (or sometimes big) carvings near where the bell hangs or above the doors pretty much always took priority. I like them a lot.

This was on the building opposite of the one above.

Those hanging chains anchored to the ground were a common feature of the temples around this area, and I don't know why. Pretty sure I haven't seen them at other ones.

After that one, I found this tiny shrine. It was in its own lot behind the bigger ones.

This guy didn't like me taking pictures.

This guy, however, didn't really mind.

Naoko doesn't understand why I find this incredibly creepy. She thinks it's cute. Obviously she's a witch and we should burn her.

Most of the temples had cemeteries appended to the back, sometimes in a creepy, tunnel-like manner. Since everywhere was so busy, I didn't want to explore them. Worried it would bother people. But I admired from afar, dammit!

Er, guys, I know that's how you can enter it on a keyboard, but that's not how it's actually spelled...

Oh wait, this is the entrance to your school? You share a space with a fucking temple? Okay then, it's all good. You don't even really need to speak English there.

Why can't my English school be this cool?

This is the main building in the area with the English school.

It was here that I first noticed that the buildings all have seals on them, and they're not always the same seals.

A more stylized version on the roof.

This one was... not that inviting. Guess you can't enter from here.

Didn't stop me from walking around the outside and taking pictures!

The seal here. You'll see a lot of them from here on out. They fascinate me and I want to research them. Are they clan marks, maker marks, religious symbols?

I feel like I should have a pseudo-witty comment for this.

Wow, what a friendly inanimate object! (yeah, like that one)

Another Japanese Kitty for Danielle!

Looking out into the open space in front of one of the bigger temples I found.

Does anyone else think this looks like a Disney character?

This guy is much cooler.

Poor guy wants to look badass, but he can't stop drooling...

O.o

Remember when I said I liked the wood carvings? This was the best one. I'ma break it down for you in Five closeups because it's that fucking awesome.

Bottom

Middle

Top

Right side.

Left side.

Seriously. How the fuck do you get that good at carving wood?

Before I took this picture, a mom was taking pictures of her kids playing on this guy. Don't know why you need to know that.

A little side shrine.

With turtles? Money turtles?

And a moneybag mark?

Turtle at the back with a money box next to him. I think this was the greedy turtle shrine.

Back to the first temple I wanted to go to! Some broken old stuff on the ground that I liked.

Some stuff that wasn't on the ground that I liked.

The lighting is awful, but I really feel like this picture captured the feel of this building. Click on it to enlarge and get a better sense of it.

This guy wants to fight!

"Hey Guardian Lion, what it is?" "Just chillin' mang, you know what's up." Seriously. I think this is the pimp guardian.

Is it just me, or do these look like Megaman enemies? Specifically, ones you might fight on the air level in Megaman 2. Fuck that level...

Almost missed this one. It's really fucking old, and the seal at the top seems to be decayed.

The two old ladies from before were standing in front of this guy.

This very creepy guy.

He watches you while you sleep. Also, I just found out something amazing. Open those pictures in separate tabs, then move through them while adding a mental "Dun, dun, dunnnnnn." You can thank me later.

Spent the day with Yuko on Monday, but (as you might have been able to see from the temple pictures) the weather went from sunny to cloudy/rain pretty quick, so most of our plans were nixed. Instead we visited some stores and I found some more awesome Engrish that I'm not posting pictures of because it was too much work after adding 70 some-odd temple pictures.

Random shit:

1.) Last week, one of my students told me about Anpan man (all one word? I dunno). He's kind of like a Japanese super hero, and apparently he's very popular. He's really strong, and his head is made of... bread. Wait, it gets weirder. When he fights, his opponents weaken him by ripping off parts of his face and eating them. Not weird enough for you? His "father" is a baker that assists his fights by baking new face pieces and tossing them to his "son", who then shoves them back into his bread-face so they can be ripped off and eaten again.

2.) Just as a reminder of how much I stand out here, one of my students recently told me she found out I made soba. How did she find out? Her dad was there, and mentioned some foreigners came to make soba. All she had to do was ask "was one of them really tall?", and they were able to figure out it was me... the place I made soba is a 15 minute drive from where I live and teach...

3.) When Naoko and I were walking near the Matsue Art Museum, we saw a line of rabbit statues. The second to last (second? Guess it depends on where you decide the line starts) was surrounded by small shells, and we had no idea why. One of my students used to work there, so I asked her. Apparently there's a folktale that leaving a seashell near that rabbit will bring your perfect romantic partner to you. Pretty common stuff. Here's where it gets awesome: her boss made it up. He decided it would get the museum more visitors, so he made up the story, paid a vacation magazine in Tokyo to print it, and now people come from all over to leave fucking seashells around this stupid metal bunny. My student got to sit there daily telling people where the magical hare was and sell them tiny seashells when they could have just picked them up off the beach thirty feet from the statue. I love her old boss.

4.) My students keep warning me about the "yellow sand from China", and how it's bad for you to breathe. It's an actual thing, called loess, but for some reason the way they say it just sounds fucking hilarious to me. Like it's some malignant evil invading Japan. I dunno, maybe it's just me.

5.) One of my students told me I "look like a movie theater." Thanks. -.- (She later told me she meant "movie star". I think that was bs damage control ><).

Thomas' Play at Home Food Challenge, Bonus Edition: A New Challenger Has Appeared!

As mentioned above, when I told Naoko I was feeling crappy on Wednesday, she took it upon herself to come over and make sure I didn't die of a headache. Part of that was making dinner.

I'm not quite sure how to describe how her cooking compares to the other entries in the Food Challenge, but I'll give it a shot: Remember going to the arcade when you were a kid and feeling all cool because you were able to play the fighting game and beat the computer fairly often? Then that chubby dude in the faded Metallica t-shirt came in and popped in a quarter next to you, and his Cheeto-dusted fingers moved with such speed and arcane gestures on the joystick that you had to look away lest you be driven mad by some many-angled chanting? Then you looked back and your poor avatar lay defeated, his corpse ripped open and his blood used to scrawl obscene messages and comments questioning the purity of your genealogy upon your very soul? Then, as you walked away, you heard the opponents you had struggled so hard against querying what they had done wrong in between broken sobs and positing that maybe it was because they weren't pretty enough, and you had that brief moment where you wondered if you should say something or call the authorities before deciding with finality that it wasn't really any of your business? Yeah, it was kind of like that.

I guess what I'm saying here is that Naoko is kind of good at cooking.

Recipe: I don't know. Pretty sure I don't have the authority to link to dinner heaven.

Score to Date: Naoko: Win   Vengeful Food Gods: Running for the hills. Seriously, I think they threw in the towel as soon as she busted out a fucking checkered apron.

Thomas sleep now.