Fire Cookies and Hardened Powderpuffs

I'm completely overjoyed to inform you that I have almost nothing to talk about this week. I've pretty much been recovering from the energy expended on the Kyoto trip and praying for Golden Week to start already so I have some damn time to rest and catch up on some things that have been piling up.

On Sunday, Naoko and I went to check out my buddy Dustin's Green Day cover band in Yonago. We were really worried because we got there a bit late, but they started late, so yeah... They were actually really damn good. Lots of energy and some good laughs (Dustin went all out dressing in a french maid outfit for one of the songs) and quality music/singing. Downside is the venue was really small and the music was really loud... we were there for maybe twenty minutes, and we both agreed that it felt like someone was holding pillows over our ears for the next half an hour or so. There's a reason I don't normally go to concerts and the like. In other news, I feel sorry for Naoko whenever she drives me somewhere... I spend pretty much the whole trip staring out the window in silence except for when I mutter about how something I saw is beautiful every half a minute or so. I'm pretty sure I'm never going to stop acting like a tourist here.

Monday was... uneventful. Errands, errands, Japanese class, errands. Oh, Naoko proved that she's freaking amazing again. I'm planning on taking the JLPT this Summer. I thought it was a month later than it is, which means I suddenly found myself with less than a week to meet the application deadline. To apply, you have to buy an application packet from a bookstore. The only one that sells it in Matsue is sold out, and I think they told me that I'd have to go to Izumo or Yonago to get it. With my schedule, there's no way I would make it in time. I mentioned it to Naoko (while she was at work and super busy, mind you), and said I'd probably just have to take the one in Winter. Somehow she found the time while at work to look up the information for the JLPT, find the bookstore in Matsue that sells it, call them, and order a packet that will arrive in time for me to apply. Have I mentioned that I really like this girl?

Random Shit:
1.) Don't recall if I mentioned this last post or not, and I'm too lazy to look. I had to go to the mall where I sometimes buy groceries after work one day earlier in the week to pick something up that I needed for some reason that night. When I entered, there were about 6 or 7 police officers arresting... two of the teenagers who have talked to me a few times. Specifically, the dude who I think is together with the Minny Mouse girl and the guy that first started a conversation with me buy talking about how tall I was. I recall seeing them on the way back from lunch about a week ago yelling at some dude, at which point they told me they were fighting. I thought it was a joke, but I later verified (I think) that that's what got them in trouble. I really thought these kids were just powderpuff gangsters... shows how crappy I am at judging people. I am legitimately worried about how much trouble they got into though. I haven't seen them around since then, and I'm not sure if they were actually arrested. I mean, I didn't see any cuffs, but the cops were holding their arms behind their backs. Hopefully I'll be able to find out what happened if I see any of them again.
2.)

Had an area teacher's meeting in Yonago this week, and saw this at the station. It's made out of water bottles. So awesome.

 3.)

Naoko made these scrapbooks from Kyoto. I won't subject you to more pictures of what you've already seen, but they're freaking amazing. She spent all week working on them, and it really shows.

4.) Another thing I don't know if I mentioned last week: I saw Japanese boy scouts in Kyoto. They were fundraising or something. I'm still enough of a boyscout nerd from when I was a kid to recognize that they were webelos (I think that's how it's spelled, but my spellcheck is disagreeing with me). I... really thought that was just an American thing.

5.) Another AWESOME student mistake: firecookies instead of firecrackers. My favorite mistakes are the ones that make complete and total sense if you think about it for a minute. In that it's entirely understandable how the student came to that mistake, I mean.

Ummm... I think that's all. Excuse me while I put into motion my nefarious plan to sneak attack my bed. Shhhhh....

Kyoto Kimonos and Tall Americans

Alright, so, back from Kyoto and still a little tired two days later. I'm the kind of guy that, when I go on vacation, I just have a few ideas for things I'd like to do or places I'd like to go. The order doesn't matter and it's fun to do random stuff in between. Naoko is... apparently not so much. She showed up at my place the night before we left with a guide book and an hour-by-hour itinerary (okay, not quite that detailed, but close). I have since been informed by numerous people that this is the standard for Japanese women. It wasn't bad or anything, just tiring. LOTS of walking.

As always, I'm cutting out A LOT of pictures here. More than normal. Way more. Between Naoko and myself, we came back with about 850 pictures. They're not all here. Deal. I spent about 2 hours cherry picking these ones, and that's way more time than I wanted to spend. Not spending more time.

So, we left Sunday morning at some ungodly hour like 7 AM. I can't be bothered to remember these details. Oddly enough, I dealt with it better than Naoko. She slept for most of the train ride while I listened to music and watched gorgeous scenery. Her loss. She also had her first-ever tuna sandwich courtesy of me madre. Oh yeah, I also managed to do this on the shinkansen.

The baggage racks are really damn low and my head makes a loud sound when it slams into them while I'm trying to sit down. This bump will be a recurring reminder of my clumsiness throughout these photos. As a side note, here's another reason Naoko is awesome: she completely plays along with my random weirdness.  We joked around after this happened about how I was going to tell everyone I got it in a fight with five yakuza, and it only happened because I headbutted the last one. After that, I nicknamed the wound "Yakuza" and started referring to it by name. She went along with it without even skipping a beat. Seriously. I nicknamed a cut on my forward and she didn't even blink twice. Most of my friends don't even do that.

After getting off the train in Kyoto, we immediately got on a local train and went to our first stop. This is a good time to mention that I don't remember the names of half of these places. Naoko took me there, I just followed her and stared at stuff. I have no freaking clue how she got this picture. This place was packed as hell, and all of my pictures have at least one person. Obviously she's magic.

See? Always at least one person. >.>

Saw this and thought to myself "huh, I've never really seen a formation like this before. I have two soil scientists for parents that probably occasionally read this thing, maybe they'd like it?" So, is it actually something interesting, or did I take a picture of nothing special?

People actually live at this place. How insane is that? It took us like 40 minutes to walk to this point, what kind of poor mailman has to deliver to these people?

Oh no, Naoko is being squashed!

I could totally do this guy's job.

Apparently you can buy these snakes and put them in your sake to gain energy. In retrospect, I have no fucking clue why I didn't buy one. Obviously I'm an idiot.

Next, we got back on a train and went to a magical town called Arashiyama. This place is gorgeous, and I quite literally lost my breath when I first stepped off the train. I want to live there so bad. Except that there's about a million tourists there at all times apparently. I still want to live there.

After fighting our way through the crowds, we headed along a bamboo path to go to a garden and a temple. The place was once again full of people, but Naoko managed to be magic again. It's hard to see the path because she had to raise her camera above everyone's head to get the shot :(

I actually wasn't supposed to take this picture. Pictures were not allowed. In my defense, the sign saying this was facing away from the entrance on the opposite side of the room. I still feel kinda bad though. This was a huge painting on the ceiling, and apparently the eyes look at you no matter what part of the room you stand in. Naoko was amazed by this. I remember a cardboard cutout from an action movie that my friend Jimmy had when I was a kid doing the same thing, so I wasn't quite as impressed.

Some of the train stations there were pretty tiny. I though this one was small at the time, but later I saw one that literally let people off on a tiny cement divider in the middle of a busy street. WTF Japan?

We were supposed to go to Kinkakuji that day, but we ran out of time. One of my students that went to college in Kyoto said that evening is the best time to go there, so I was a little bummed, but whatever. Instead, we went to our hotel, which was a traditional Japanese style inn! 

I got to rest my feet for all of five minutes before Naoko said we were going to a castle to see everything lit up at night. It was actually really beautiful, but most of our pictures turned out like crap. Lots of cherry trees and all that.

This was like a VIP cafe on the castle grounds or something. I just like the green glow of the bamboo.

On the way back we got some food from what was essentially a bar (over 6,000 fucking yen for the meal. Most expensive bar food ever). One of our cooks/waiters made some awesome chopstick-holder origami for us.

After that it was time for a hot bath then sleep... the futons were a little bit short for me :( Naoko found this hilarious.

And now a breakfast in the life of Thomas, brought to you by Naoko's crazy ability to notice every weird face I make and demand I make it again for a picture.

Insane amounts of free breakfast food provided by the ryokan ain't got nothin on me. You're goin down, breakfast!

Oh god, why would you even pickle a plum? Umeboshi? More like Asseboshi. You're eating this stuff, Naoko.

Second wind, it's comeback time!

Damn you, last piece of tofu when I'm really full and still a little sick to my stomach from that awful umeboshi! PS - I totally ate it. Victory was mine.

Oh yeah, this was the front of our ryokan.

Suddenly, Kinkakuji! Naoko insisted that we go on Monday because I was sad about not going the day before.

This was pretty much THE spot for group photos. I think I saw about a half dozen other groups take a picture here.

Afterwards, we had some ice cream! Naoko convinced me to try green tea and vanilla mix, and I regretted it just as much as I knew I would. Oh well.

Then it was off to another temple/garden area that I don't remember the name of. It was one of the many places that we couldn't take pictures for most of. Large parts of it were closed anyway. Except for one of the buildings where we payed 400 yen a piece (about 5 bucks each) to walk around a "zen garden" that consisted of one building and a bunch of closed-off areas...

Then another bus ride! I couldn't stop laughing at this advertisement that I saw. Naoko doesn't understand why I think it's creepily hilarious. 

We got REALLY bored on the bus... it was also way hotter than a bus has a right to be. So was the train on the ride back home. Very uncomfortable.

After lunch, we went to that shop Naoko found that would let us play dress-up in kimonos. I'm still a little bit embarrassed about this, but whatever. Also not crazy about the color of mine, but it was literally all they had that would fit me. That's understandable. It's Japan and I'm a freaking giant.

I'm turning Japanese, I think I'm turning Japanese, I really think so... yeah, this is about as generic "Japan" as you can get. Except for the tall white guy.

First stop after kimono dress-up was Kyomizu-dera. Of course, it was super, super crowded. Even on a Monday afternoon. No chance of no-people pictures here.

A very nice old couple took our picture for us.

And another dude did as well. I actually almost ran into him (literally) again about a half hour later. Also, I noticed at least one person taking our picture when they thought we weren't looking and Naoko noticed another as well... that's just uncomfortable ><

Yes, that's an Obama mask. Apparently they love Obama here.

Look at the cute tanuki family. I love how the baby also has giant balls.

Your information? Get your own damn map, loser!

Oh wait, you have a Naoko. Never mind.

Indubitably, good samurai. As a side note (har har pun), why the hell is this picture sideways? I didn't save it that way. On the same topic, the weird bus picture was taken upside down, but is rightside up here. THIS IS ALL WRONG OH NO! >.> 

Hey look, it's me in an arch at a little temple we went to towards the end of the day. There was a giant statue nearby, but the place was closed :(

This is easily one of my favorite pictures that I have ever taken.

Running out of things to say... so tired... must sleep...

Around this time, it started raining. You can see that the left side of me is kind of wet. That'd be because we didn't have an umbrella at this point, and had to run from awning to awning until we found a place to buy a tiny umbrella that was not big enough to cover both of us fully. Since I was holding the umbrella, this meant that Naoko stayed dry and my left sleeve looked like I had just walked through a crowd of fourteen-year-old girls that just found out Justin Bieber died. (Haha, history joke that nobody will understand mixed with pop culture! Damn, I'm awesome!)

Even though we had an hour or two to spare, the rain kind of put a damper (har har, pun number two) on our plans, so we looked around at the stores in the station for a bit. This particular shirt gave me no end of joy. Not only does it consist of nothing but lyrics to a mediocre rock song, it's got all kinds of Engrish. Excellent.

These heads moved back and forth. They were mesmerizing. And hilarious. That one too. Not pictured: the 11th story food court (why the fuck was it on the top floor?) with restaurants in the 8,000 yen ($100 a dish price range). We ate at a much cheaper place.

And that's it. Left at 7 AMish on Sunday, got back at 1 AMish on Tuesday. Damn that was a long trip. and a long post. I'm tired. Sleepy soon. But first, random shit!:

1.) Carrying a heavy backpack all around Kyoto for a full day is not fun. My shoulders are still tied up in all kinds of knots from that.

2.) This trip really drove home for me how much I hate large groups of people. I had a great time on this trip, and I was certainly impressed by many things I saw, but nothing except the location of Arashiyama actually connected with me, and even that was only the non-tourist part. It all just felt so... artificial. There was no sense of spirituality or history at the shrines and temples, just tourists and the shops that cater to them. In terms of connecting to the locations, I got much more out of my random walks around Matsue finding random, nearly abandoned places.

3.) Naoko HATES slang. For reals. Like most Japanese, she doesn't really openly state she dislikes anything, but when I threw out a little slang I learned from friends in an attempt to sound more natural, her response was a quick and adorable "NO!". Of course, since I'm a horrible bastard, this means I now occasionally use slang just to annoy her. Really, it's her fault for being hilarious when she's annoyed.

4.) I was at work last week, prepping some lessons, when my head teacher turned to me with a serious and troubled look on her face. She had a question, you see, and it was obviously something that had been bothering her for some time. What malignant mystery was plaguing her mind, you ask? What foul quandary was haunting her thoughts? "Do you know why Americans are so tall?" It took every ounce of willpower I had to not burst into uncontrollable laughter.

5.) Speaking of my head teacher, I HATE sharing a class with her. Before the last month or so, I'd managed to get through my whole time here without sharing a class with anyone (that is, teaching from the same textbook). Recently, however, I have been sharing a class with her. Now, we have two copies of most books and two CDs as well, so this shouldn't be a problem. However, very early on the first set started to go missing on a regular basis, so I started keeping the second set in the office instead of the store room. At that point, the first set just magically disappeared. I have no idea what she did with it. It's not in her classroom, it's not in the office, it's not in the storeroom, it's just fucking gone. Now, half the time I have a class that uses these materials, I have to track her down and ask her where the hell she put them. Because she can't be bothered to put them back where they belong like every other damn person at the school does. Oh, and I get to constantly reorganize lesson folders now too. You see, when I finish teaching a class I take the 1 or 2 minutes necessary to reorganize the materials and place them back in their folder in the correct order. It's easier this way. When you teach the class, you just pull the materials out and use them one by one. Simple, right? Apparently not for her. Twice now I've been mid-class only to discover that the materials are completely out of order and some are even missing. Now I get to waste time before every one of these classes checking the folders and reorganizing them. Hooray -.-

6.) Oh yeah, the school gave me a birthday present on Tuesday. It was a nice gesture, but I'm already kind of embittered towards them, so it didn't do much to change my temperament.

7.) Weed is a big thing here. Not in that everyone smokes it, just in that I see big pot leaves plastered all over the most interesting things. Shirts on school kids, stickers on bikes, and air fresheners hanging from rearview mirrors in cars. Including the cars of numerous old people. I... don't think they know what weed is.

8.) There was apparently a pro wrestling event at the convention center near my house on Saturday night. Naoko and I saw the vans for it when we were walking back home. I really didn't know they had pro wrestling in Japan.

I feel like I'm missing stuff, but honestly, I don't care. I've spent over three hours on this post, and it's time to sleep. I need to find some way to not spend an entire evening on every one of these posts...

Obama wants YOU!... to comment on my blog so I will feel loved.

China Babies and Surprise Perfection

Alright, wow. Time to actually get this posted. Sorry as always for the lateness. Things at work are starting to calm down a bit finally, so maybe I'll have more free time. I had to cut down the number of pictures I put in this post by a LOT. Between the past two weeks, I have about 350 pictures, and it's a pain in the ass to upload them to this thing. If you're still curious when I come back, I can show you some of them ><

So, one of the first times Naoko and I hung out, we went to this 100 yen shop called Daiso (I read it as Daino at first because katakana is a bitch and Naoko still laughs at me for it ><), and we saw these little coin banks you can throw your spare change in. At the time, she mentioned it would be fun to get one and save up for a trip somewhere. We didn't grab one, and I've been looking for one off and on since then. Long story short, no dice, so the weekend before last, I decided I was going to find Daiso again. With nothing but a vague suspicion of where it might be, I hopped on my bike and headed off. Three hours later, I was about to give up when I miraculously ran into Mika out of freaking nowhere and she guided me there... that counts as a victory, right? >< Well, I picked up the bank and had some Mos Burger on the way back (it was pretty damn meh). This was the result of my Daiso trip and about an hour of trying to write Kanji and Katakana in block letters...

While I was out and about, I saw a lot of stuff that I didn't take pictures of. After finding my third random temple, I decided to take a break.

This temple had a bunch of these little statues. It took me a full minute to figure out that they were the Chinese Zodiac.

It's me!

Also, best billboard ever.

Random shit from last week:

1.) I got to talk to a crazy guy. I was at lunch, minding my own business, and he decided to pop a squat next to me and start speaking to me in (admittedly decent) English. During the conversation, I was personally thanked for both the American aid to Japan with the earthquake and the money donated by Americans. That's right, I took all your credit. It's mine now. You can't have it back.

2.)

I'm constantly amazed by how much of the Engrish I see here that is in my office. It makes me pretty smaily.

3.)

Now, ostensibly Greg here is getting a checkup for a dislocated collarbone. Really, I think he's getting his brokeback checked out if you know what I mean. Manlove.

4.)

Baby samurai gonna fuck you up.

5.)

Don't worry, me and creepy statue got your back.

6.)

Unless I'm being crushed by a super small doorway.

Okay, truncated version of last week DONE. This week. Oh man, this week. Well, first I rode the train to meet Naoko near her house so we could head to Izumo Taisha! Finally. Seriously, I've made plans with like three different sets of people to go to this damn place before now, and they've always fallen through. The train ride was... pretty uneventful, really. Here, have some pictures!

This is Naoko's angry face. It is achieved by repeatedly taking pictures of her when you know she hates it then telling her it's not safe to try to cover her face because she's driving. I have just given you the recipe for adorable. You can thank me later.

The main gate of Izumo Taisha! We actually took this picture near the end of our visit because we went in through a different gate... :D

The main building of Izumo Taisha. That rope is fucking huge. Also, sorry for my really non-photogenicness breaking your eyeholes.

You're supposed to make a wish then throw a five yen coin into one of the three hanging ropes. They're made out of straw packed super tight together. I saw one person maybe succeed while we were there. My coins just bounced off ineffectually. Naoko... well, she threw like a girl ;)

We found an almost completely abandoned side shrine! Hooray!

Hey, look! A waterfall! And a Naoko!

I really like this picture. It should be pointed out that it was complete luck that I got it. I'm really not good at taking pictures.

These were the men and women signs for bathrooms there. So awesome.

That sculpture opposite the dude? It's a wave with a metal ball on top. 

Looking up the pathway to the main gate from the shrine area. The walkway is much longer than it looks here.

Cherry blossoms!

After Izumo Taisha, we went along the coast a little bit to go to another shrine. Lots of people were out fishing. It took me a minute to notice, but there were people way out in the ocean on this tiny spits of rock. There were no boats there, and I highly doubt they swam. The only conclusion I can draw is that they walk out at low tide and just fish all day... what happens if they have to go poop?

A tiny shrine on a big hunk of rock near some docks. I can only imagine the shrine is for the kami of bird poop. Wow, two poop references in a row. My inner child is overjoyed.

Here you go dad, I finally got a decent picture of the hawks that are all over around here.

A really cool dragon carving near the side temple. Naoko found this. As well as that abandoned shrine earlier. Apparently she excels at finding things I like.

Except for this. I found this. Well, I saw it first at least. It was along the road while driving to the shrine. I even saw where we could stop and walk up an old path to it. Naoko wouldn't let me. She insisted it was too scary and that there were ghosts. It looks so cool though... :(

After that, we went to a big mall in Izumo then returned to Matsue. While driving through town, we went past Masashi's bar and Naoko mentioned we should visit him that night. I should have realized something was up, she never suggests we go to bars. Mainly because she doesn't drink. So, we played some games for a while then headed out. She was texting before we left, and refused to tell me who it was. She did the same thing when we got there. I was still oblivious. It was only when we got to the top of the stairs, where Masashi was outing outside of his own bar and couldn't even say hello to me without breaking into a big grin that I suspected something was up. He ushered me into the bar, and this happened.

I would like to make the excuse that I have never, not even once in my whole life, thought even for a second that someone would throw a surprise party for me. It kinda caught me off guard and I just stared at everyone in confusion for a few seconds. I guess their deception was also aided by the fact that my birthday was still a week away, but I'll be in Kyoto then.

They had nachos. Real freaking nachos. With sour cream and cheddar cheese. You have no idea how hard those things are to find in Japan.

This is, as always, an awful picture of me and I am 110% positive Naoko would try to murder me with a pillow if she found out I posted it, but it does a good job of showing the mood. I was glad that they pulled one over on me.

They also got me ice cream cake. Everyone involved in this endeavor has earned my eternal love through beer, nachos, and ice cream cake.

I just like this picture, to be honest.

As if that wasn't enough, they also gave me presents. They gave me an awesome party, delicious food, AND PRESENTS. Not pictured are the sweets that Sarah got for me because we ate them all.

These are the presents that Naoko got for me. That picture is fucking legit. Just sayin.

We were going to go cherry blossom viewing at Matsue Castle on Monday, but it surprise rained on us. Sorry, no hanami photos this year :(

Random shit from this week:

1.) Remember those students I mentioned before? Well, they were still on break until the start of this week, so I've seen them around a few times since then. Normally we just wave, but one day they decided to talk to me. My Japanese was better this time, which caused A BUNCH of their friends to gather around to talk. A few of them actually spoke decent English. The conversation was mostly nice, but the awkward part came at the end, when I had a group of girls on one side asking me questions like "do you have a girlfriend?" and a group of guys on the other side asking questions like "do you play breast massage?" (pronounced as "do you play blest massage?") and "do you play masturbation?". That was about the time I excused myself and went back to work ><

2.) That's not the end of the saga, though! That mall in Izumo? There's a reason I mentioned it. While Naoko and I were eating there, the girl in the Minny Mouse jacket came in with her mom and friends. I got the most awkwardly scathing look ever from her mom when I waved at her. Whatever.

3.) The adorable little girl that I gave a Starburst to was at the office again this week. I didn't have any candy, but I went out to talk to her a little bit. I was rewarded with such awesome things as her running around waving an American flag and chanting "go Thomas-kun! go Thomas-kun!" and "I love you Thomas-kun!". She also stopped mid-conversation at one point to pull a bottle of juice out of her bag and tell me she liked that kind of juice like it was very important and timely information. I almost died from cuteness overload that day.

4.) Something that wasn't cute? The dude that decided to just drop trou and take a piss right in front of the post office, on the sidewalk in front of a busy street. Okay, his pants didn't technically come down, but he definitely whipped something out of them and a stream of liquid followed suit. Luckily, he was facing the opposite way from where we were driving. Naoko got VERY embarrassed when I exclaimed loudly, "Welcome to Japan!" :D

5.) I got Little Big Planet 2 recently because I figured it's something I can get Naoko to play with me. I was right. Anyways, you can dress up your character, and yesterday Naoko discovered she could put her's in a diaper with a pacifier. This spawned a series of "soandso baby!" in English. It finally culminated in her adding a fez to it and proudly exclaiming "China baby!" You know... looking at that in text, it seems like one of those "you had to be there" moments. Whatever. I couldn't stop laughing for like five minutes, and I now have a new catchphrase.

That's... holy crap, I think that's all I got. I'm sure I missed things, and the writing is probably rushed. Whatever, it's 1 AM and I have work tomorrow. Peace.

Norse God Baby!