Crowded Tacos and Human Beans

Another week with little to say. Naoko came over and chilled for a couple of days, which was nice, but I worked both days so yeah...

On Saturday I hit up 5150 for Tacos and Motown night. The Motown was pretty much nonexistent, and the tacos were... Well, let's just say I paid 1,500 yen (about 20 bucks) for one beer and a taco bar that was almost completely blocked by people sitting in the way and wasn't that good anyway. I had one taco. But whatever. 

It was WAY more crowded than I expected. I have never seen 5150 that crowded. I didn't like it, and neither did Mac. Part of the reason I go there is because it's more chill than most bars. It did, however, give me a chance to talk to a couple of JETs from South Africa. We had some interesting conversation topics such as the fact that it is apparently rare for people to be able to recognize a South African accent (I always thought that it was normal since I can do it. I am now curious where I picked up this skill since I have only talked to one or two other South African people in my whole life), the fact that both of them know about 6 languages because of how many languages are stuffed into the same place in their hometowns, the awesomeness that is their native languages (even though they're pretty much the same, they're a different dialect. Apparently there's about 3 "root" languages in the region, so a different dialect can quite literally be a different language or just a different pronunciation. Crazy. Also, Mac and I are both unable to do the tongue click that is part of their language. I tried. I tried so hard. Nothing.), and which kinda chunky celebrity we would have sex with. What? It was a group of about six guys talking over tacos and beer. Wipe that disappointed look off your face and replace it with one of amazement as you realize that only one of our topic conversations involved sex.

Since trains stop here crazy early, Mac crashed at my place. Next day we got some grub, talked a bit, then he headed home.

Monday, I made myself proud. Which is a rare occurrence. Think back over the 7 months I've been making this blog. How many times have I been proud of myself? Yeah, I bet you're excited to find out what amazing thing I did. I bought two bus tickets. Yes, I know that's not awesome, screw you. The things that make me happy are weird and I take them when I can get them. I walked into a travel agency scared and feeling bad that I would be holding up a line full of people while I stumbled through my lines and struggled to understand the travel agent. What proceeded was a fully functional and fluent conversation wherein I didn't once find myself unable to express myself or understand what she was saying. I finished faster than the person to my right that started before me, and the tickets actually go to the place I want to go to on the time I want to go there. This is officially one of the only times I have not felt like a complete invalid in Japanese society. Oh man, that's a rant. Can I resist the rant? Nope, failed saving throw, here I go.

Extremely rare circumstances like the one mentioned above, I think the thing that is bothering me the most about living here is the way people treat me because I don't speak Japanese that well. There's this magical thing that people do when you don't speak their language: they treat you like an idiot. When you ask a question, they don't answer it directly. They start at the bottom, because obviously you aren't able to understand a simple explanation without help. For example, I might ask someone what the word "inu" (dog) means. They will then proceed to inform me that there are these things called animals, and that there are many different kinds of animals, people sometimes buy some of these animals and take care of them, and so on and so on before they finally just say "they're the animals that have four legs, a tail, and bark. People have them as pets." 

Every. Single. Step. Along this magical fucking journey to enlightenment is accompanied by them checking to see if I understand. Sometimes a nod or an "okay" will get me by. Sometimes this triggers them re-explaining what they just explained because I obviously didn't understand it. Now, it's not like this happens constantly. If that was the case, this rant would have come much earlier. Instead, it happens with just enough frequency to really get under my skin. Oh, and don't even try to say "nevermind". They won't let it go. Ever. I need to be given the gift of knowledge because me no understand words make head hurt. -.-

Everyone does it, and I am fully convinced that most hold no malice and don't even realize what they are doing. They want to help, and they are doing what they think will let them do that. They just don't realize that they're doing it in the most patronizing and infuriating way possible, and my Japanese isn't good enough to explain to them how much it bothers me and why (irony much?). My friends do this, my coworkers do this, random strangers do this, even Naoko does it sometimes. That one's the real kicker for me, by the way. The one that really clinches this as something that bothers me. Random stranger does it? Annoying, but whatever. Friend does it? Not the first time a friend has annoyed me. Naoko does it? Ouch. Okay, that hurts. The whole process just makes me not want to ask questions. It has, however, made me very direct with my students because I don't want to do the same to them. They ask a question, I'm sure to answer it like I would to someone who already knows the background info. If they need more explanation, they ask me and I give it to them. Do any ESL (English as a second language) speakers you know a favor and do the same for them; I bet they'll appreciate it.

Random Shit:

1.) Watched the new Studio Ghibli movie on dvd with Naoko while she was over (Ariete or something like that? Has it come out in the states already? It's about tiny people). The subtitles were... interesting. Absolutely flawless except for the fact that we are all apparently "human beans". Not beings. That would be crazy. What's really confusing is that one of the translators had a distinctly Western name. Maybe they were actually using "bean" in some kind of "look, they're different and don't know what to actually call us." I was talking to Naoko, so I didn't really pay much attention to the Japanese... Anyways, pretty damn "meh" overall. Nothing great about that movie.

2.)

Naoko's adorableness is apparently not limited to just me. She made this for her mom. So cute. I like how the middle one is so happy its eyes are imploding.

3.) Stopping by the convenience store with Mac on Sunday, I saw gourmet Cheetos. You better believe I bought that shit hella fast. They were also meh. I would have preferred normal Cheetos.

Parental Sneak Attacks and Revoked Mancards

Short post this week because I really don't have much to say.

So, on Saturday I was definitely expertly maneuvered into surprise-meeting Naoko's parents. It went a little something like this:

Email from Naoko: "Hey, you busy tonight?"
Email from me: "Nope, what's up?"
Naoko: "Want to get some dinner?"
Me: "Sure, sounds good."
Naoko: "Oh yeah, my parents are going to be there. And my older brother. :D :D :D :D"
Me: O.o

This was also while I was at work, so I didn't even really have time to mentally brace myself for it. In her defense, I have expressed interest in meeting them before because I can tell it's important to her, but damn, that's messed up yo.

Dinner went... about as well as you could expect when meeting your girlfriend's family for the first time and you don't speak their language all that well. Oh, to make things worse there was a big ol' vent in between us that made hearing and seeing each other difficult (we were at a yakuniku place, the vent is for the smoke). I don't think I made a bad impression though, and her brother wants to hang out with me. Also, yakuniku. Fuck yeah.

That's... yeah, pretty much it. On Monday night, I went to 5150 to meet up with Mika and study for a few hours. Yeah, that's how cool I am! I go to bars to study! You're hanging out with the big dogs now! God, I'm a sad, sad man...

Random shit:
1.) This is first because it is weighing on my mind currently in a very uncool fashion. I feel like I'm not travelling enough here. I mean, I know I've done a lot in the 7 months I've been here, but very little of it actually involved the travel I was so positive I would do while here. The only places I've been to that are more than a half an hour from Matsue are Hiroshima and Kyoto. I just... I don't know, there's like this amalgamation of factors that have all formed together to make a supermutant of "fuck you Thomas, you don't travel". Everything here is expensive, and I need to save money for things like student loan repayments and eventually going to grad school. I don't seem to have any time off, and when I do have time off, it's on the vacation weeks that EVERYONE in Japan has off (which means prices are higher and there are too many people). I can request time off, but I don't plan ahead that well, and I need to have things all set up. Speaking of planning, I'm ridiculously bad at planning trips here because I'm not good enough at Japanese to feel confident while doing it. I now have to factor Naoko into any trip I make. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind this at all, but it does make it more difficult to accomplish. I am, by nature, a pretty sedentary dude. I don't even know how I motivated myself to come to Japan in the first place. On my weekend, I want to kick back and relax. The list goes on and on. I can rationalize to myself why I haven't done it, but when it comes down to it, I've been in Japan for 7 months and I've visited maybe a half a dozen cities of any note. This bothers me.
2.)

Are you ready for another episode of "What Adorable and Thoughtful Thing did Naoko do This Week?"? You better be, cause you're getting one. At Open Mic a few months back, I mentioned off-hand that I really liked one of the snacks we were eating. Apparently, she's been trying to find some ever since. She got it for me and left it hanging on my door for when I got home. 

3.)

I really wish this picture was better, but it was taken on my camera while going home for lunch. Remember when I mentioned those low clouds before? This is kind of what I was talking about. Normally there's big hills on the horizon.

4.)

I... I ate this for lunch. I feel dirty admitting that. You see, Naoko always talks about how worried she is that I don't eat healthy, and it kind of makes me feel bad, so lately I've been making a conscious effort to eat better. I was grocery shopping on Monday and I thought to myself "well, I could buy some meat and a beer for lun- ohlooksalads." and then I grew a vagina. True story. I need to find things to do for Naoko that don't involve me revoking my already-revoked mancard...

5.) Partially as an attempt to regain some manhood and grow some hair on the ample bosom that has sprouted from my chest due to my recent girlyness, I bought some weights finally. Of course, it's freaking Japan so they cost a ridiculous amount. About 75 bucks for 40 pounds of weights. aka, twice what it should be. I need to buy some more, but seeing as how I only have a bike, I thought it wise to do that in a few trips. Maybe this weekend I'll pick some up.

Molester Chairs and Ghost Cats

This week was not overly eventful, but some cool stuff happened. Work was pretty busy as usual, but on Saturday I went to a bar with Naoko. Now, she's not a drinker, and she doesn't like clubs, but one of her work buddies was DJing for the last time at this place, so she wanted to go. Apparently she told me last week, but I forgot because of my shitty memory so I was a little caught off guard by it. Like everything here, it was expensive (3,000 yen for the two of us), and it was SUPER fucking crowded. When we first showed up, it was kind of mild. But an hour in, and it was difficult to even move through the main room. Doesn't help that the place was tiny. The actual bar portion probably had about four or five feet of space between the bar and the far wall, and there was a little side room for music and dancing (which no one was really doing). We ended up leaving early, but not before I got the distinctly uncomfortable pleasure of meeting a bunch of Naoko's friends and coworkers. They were all really excited to meet me, and a few of them even spoke some English. Problem is, we would have had trouble communicating under ideal circumstances. The bar had loud music, too many people pushing by, and alcohol. Yeah, it was tough.

Here's an awesome house-face we saw on the way to the bar. It's actually a coffee shop. Too bad, it would be an awesome place to live. Right next to the river in "downtown" Matsue, too.

The next day got all kinds of messed up. Naoko loves schedules, you see, so I went entirely against my nature and wrote out a schedule (two, actually. One if it rained, and one if it didn't) for the day. Of course, said schedule assumed I would be having my weekly DnD Skype game. Well, it got cancelled. At first I thought this ruined my plans, because my schedule didn't start until 5, and now we had all day. Luckily, Naoko solved this problem by sleeping ALL FUCKING DAY. This woman has an amazing talent to be tired all the time forever. I think she's a superhero with the worst superpower ever. Anyways, she actually said she felt too tired to do the plan I had made in the first place, so we just winged it anyways (and ended up doing most of my scheduled stuff regardless...) We went and had waffles because we both really wanted them, and they were freaking delicious in my mouth. Then we went by the department store to pick up some supplies for making pizza (more on that later) and ate ice cream. More delicious. Triple scoop delicious, actually, since they were having this insane promotion where they charge you their ridiculous amount for two scoops, give you a third for free, and act like you should be thankful you just paid six dollars for three tiny scoops of ice cream. Man, I hate prices over here. Know what makes me happier, though?

Happy chairs that are happy. Seriously, when a chair is fucking grinning like that despite having to deal with peoples' asses being all up in its grill 24/7, you know things aren't all bad. Or that chairs have an ass fetish. One of the two. Oh god, what have I done? I can never sit in one of those chairs now. Seriously, look at that picture with the idea in your head that the chair would totally get off on you sitting on it. Now ask yourself if you would willingly place your delicate, unprotected cheeks on that lustful, lime-green ass-grabber. The beady little eyes on those bastards just scream "you'll get in trouble too if you tell anyone." Right, I just exchanged being mad at money to being terrified of sex offender chairs. I'm so entirely sane it hurts.

After the chair sex den, we went to the park/temple/whatever near Matsue Castle. See, I've never actually taken a walk around there and a really wanted to. It was nice, with lots of pretty nature, but nothing spectacular. I think I might jog there once I get back into a jogging routine. The thing that really struck me was the insane number of cats there. We went around late dusk, and I think I saw around 50 cats during our visit. At first it was funny, then, as it got darker, a little creepy. They would just sit there in bunches of 3-5 and stare at us as we walked by. Most of the time we didn't even notice them until we were super close. I did manage to successfully scare Naoko numerous times intentionally and absolutely terrify her twice unintentionally. The intentional ones were just me saying random words in front of the word for ghost in the most ludicrously cheesed-up ghost voice ever. She actually finds it frightening, which I find hilarious. Because I'm an awful person. The first unintentional time she said something and I stopped and said "wait!" in mock indignation. She nearly fell over. Guess that was sign 1 she was a bit jumpy and scared (let's ignore all the times she said the place was creepy). The second time it was a bit darker and I pointed quickly to a cat and said "cat!" because it was adorable and running into the bushes. She hit me after that one.

Anyways, we got back and made pizza! See my mom is awesome and sent me this little mini cooker thing with some dough mix and pizza sauce back in like April. I'm lazy, so it took this long to make it. The pizza was good, but I didn't cook it quite long enough, so it was a bit doughy...

Random Shit:
1.)

Saturday was an interesting day. For breakfast, I had mutant eggs and toast. Not gonna lie, I was a little unsettled about eating the wonder twins egg, but I was hungry.

After that, I saw this little guy in my stairwell. He looked at me funny.

3.) Something I forgot last time. I recontracted with the company for a year last week (as was planned when I left), but first they gave me my feedback and stuff. One of the things my head teacher said to me, and I'm not kidding when I say this was a direct quote, was "No one hates you. That's a good thing." I... well, I mean, yeah, that's a good thing, but I mean really? I did got positive feedback, but that just struck me as the weirdest thing.

Resurrected Blogs and Inappropriate Metaphors

Okay. So, yeah. Been a while. What's happened since my last post? Well, not much, really. Just one of the myriad reasons for my inexcusable laxness when it comes to actually keeping you guys informed. It didn't really occur to me that this absence would bother people, but I've been contacted by a couple of people, so I'll do my best to update at a more constant rate again from now on.

Let's see, where did I leave off? I think the end of Golden Week. The last day (I think) of Golden Week, I went to Unnan City with Naoko and a few friends. We went hiking, had some delicious lunch, and visited an old iron foundry (although that term is a bit misleading. It was mainly just one building and most of the stuff was belowground where we couldn't see it.) It was really nice. I've been wanting to go hiking since I got here. I've done a few minor treks on my own, but it wasn't really what I would call hiking. To be honest, this wasn't either, but it was at least a bit closer. We went to Dragon's Head Falls, which was a little bit crowded.

I like this picture because it looks like we're tilting the earth. Makes me kinda dizzy if I look at it long enough.

Group picture, yay!

There's bears in them thar hills!

This was the actual waterfall. Nothing amazingly impressive, but it was still pretty.

I climbed up behind it and got some more pictures!

We were supposed to climb Mt. Daisen the weekend after that (or maybe two weekends after?), which would have been real hiking. I even bought hiking boots and everything. Unfortunately, this is the rainy season in Japan. This fact completely caught me off guard by the way. Anyways, we got rained out on our planned day. Oh well. Someday I'll actually get to go to Daisen. Instead, Naoko and I went to see the fourth Pirates movie. It was pretty awful, but I can console myself with the fact that I figured it would be going in. There were actually three things that were of note about it though.

1.) This was my first time going to a movie theater in Japan.

2.) The tickets cost 2,200 yen a pop (for a 3D show). That means I spent about $55 for two tickets to a overwhelmingly average movie. Wow, that hurts even more when I see it in writing.

3.) I officially felt homesick for the first time. Not the occasional little "I miss Chipotle" or "man, it'd be cool to go see my friends right now" that I get on a weekly basis. Something about Yonago, the rainy night, or the movie theater was just way too much like home. I was full-on despondent and confused for an entire evening. It was unnerving and I didn't like it. Next morning it was gone though.

Okay, I'm no sure that was the weekend before this most recent one, which means I don't really remember what I did on the weekend after Golden Week at all. I'm almost positive I sat at home and did nothing. See, this is why I need to update this thing more often. You people know how bad my memory is, why didn't you say something sooner?! Jerks...

So, this weekend I did very little as well. It was raining again on Sunday, and on Monday it was kind of misty and I swear there were huge globs of water just floating in the air. Something really cool I've noticed about this weather: the clouds here are really low. We have some small mountains (really just slightly larger than normal hills, honestly) around here, and the tops of them are covered in clouds recently. I need to remember to take a picture of it, because it's beautiful. And I need to climb to the top of one of them, because I want to be inside of a mother fucking cloud. I bet that shit's cottony as hell. Sorry... no idea where that came from. I always see the clouds when I'm on lunch break or something, so it's tough to get a picture.

On Sunday, Naoko and I did a bit of shopping, and I saw this awesome monster mask in one of the makeup shops she took me to.

Something tells me it actually has something to do with makeup, but I choose to believe that women put this on their face and pretend to be monsters. That's probably way cooler than what it's actually used for anyways.

We also visited a few thrift stores trying to find used weights (since weights here are ridiculously fucking expensive). We found no weights, but we did see some awesome stuff like "Let's Beer". I can't argue with you, box, you're so persuasive. Also, Naoko has officially confirmed there are Magic cards in Japan. Her brother used to collect them.

Just when you thought it couldn't get any better, Let's Beer Great hits the scene! What's so great about it? It's Engrish and beer combined! How was this thrift store not a smoking crater irradiated with awesomonium? Why was I not bitten by a radioactive beer bottle and turned into awesomeman immediately upon entering the vicinity? WHY DIDN'T I BUY THIS THING?!

After that, we went shopping with Masashi. He wanted me to visit a few shops that his friends owned. A couple of clothes stores, to be precise. The first one had shirts that cost 7,000 yen (almost $100) and the second one didn't have much of interest to me, but had some interesting handmade leather stuff. That being a bust and all, we went to an onsen. It's my second time being to one, and this one was much larger than the one before. It was refreshing, but once again I get really light headed. This time I actually kind of fell over, but I passed it off as saying I thought the step was lower down then I thought. I'm still distinctly uncomfortable getting naked around a bunch of people, especially since I actually knew one of them this time, but I found a couple of tricks to get over it. Trick 1: Don't really think about the fact that you're getting naked. Sounds weird, but I just kind of let the thought slip from my mind every time it cropped up, and somehow that worked. Trick 2: Don't let your eyes focus on anything, even if you think it's safe. See, the thing about an onsen, especially a crowded one, is that it is, in reality, nothing more than a steamy jungle of hairy man-dong. You can't avoid this. You're going to see some, and you should just count yourself lucky that it's not leaping from the bushes like a tiger to mangle you and leave you weeping in a corner. But we're all big kids, and seeing another man's dangly bits in passing isn't going to kill us. However, if you're focusing on something that you happen to think is a safe area and it is suddenly invaded by a flopping Donkey Kong (I am amazed an endlessly amused that that works as a euphemism for penis), that shit is kind of unnerving. Just learn to not really look at anything, and you'll be fine. I lack pictures of this visit for obvious reasons.

After that, Masashi took us to an all-you-can eat yakiniku place that only costs 1,600 yen per person (20 bucks a head. Yes, that is cheap here).

Happy Yakiniku was happy! :D

Random Shit:

 1.)

I would feel remiss in my duties as that annoying guy that won't shut the hell up about his girlfriend if I didn't remind you that Naoko is, indeed, still adorable. She drew this. Except the ghost. That was all me. She also sat semi-patiently through a DnD session I had over Skype, and drew some more pictures for my fellow nerds.

Hello from Japan!

This is Danielle. I'm pretty sure it means Naoko thinks she's ugly. Trust me on this one, I know what I'm talking about.

Here's Ryan. Apparently Naoko remembers him for having good teeth and showing her a cat.

And this... well, this is Damon. This picture was originally much more flattering, but I made the comment that he looked kind of angry (he really did). Thus, Naoko prettied him up and made him into a China Baby. The shirt is her interpretation of his zombie Mona Lisa shirt.

2.) One of my students recently informed me that she refers to me as "Tomuo" when she talks about me (wait, she talks about me? Why?). See, many Japanese male names end with "o", and "Tomu" is how you say Tom in Japanese, because you can't just end on a consonant unless it's an "n". Now, this is something I am almost 100% positive you don't know about me, but I actually like nicknames. I've had exactly three actual nicknames (aka, ones that weren't just randomly made up and used for one night) in my entire life. One was given to me when I was super young while at a playground. I don't remember where it was, why I was there, how long I was there, or who I was there with, but I know it wasn't one I normally went to. I spent maybe an hour playing with this kid there, and he decided that my nickname was "T" after expressing his amazement over the fact that I did not previously have a nickname. I know this flies in the face of the addendum I started this list with, what with the whole only being used for an hour thing, but the guy happened to be black. Yeah, that's probably racist, but I don't even care. It legitimizes the nickname. It's like getting  a clean bill of health from a doctor. Some people just have the authority to certify these things. The little homie even checked it out with his mom, who give it her approval (I'm not even joking, one of the only things I remember about this kid is he was the littlest gangster I've ever seen). The second "nickname" was actually a number of nicknames all given to me by James playing off the original nickname Eddison (yes, another exception by bundling them all into one, but they're all from the same source). Now my third is Tomuo. I am collecting these things and hoarding them like gold, because they're interesting and I can't figure out why I like them.

Huh, in retrospect this is probably the most bizarre post I've written to date. I was only paying attention to half of it, but I'm pretty sure I wrote an entire paragraph about onsen man-dong. Sorry mom.

Mineral Holidays and History Warriors

Another late post. My excuse this time? I forgot. No, seriously. I completely forgot until yesterday, and I had a bunch of things to do then. I don't have much time today, either, but I'd feel like a jerk if I just didn't post. The thing is, writing this thing is often a bit of a bother to me. I don't begrudge it - it's a nice thing to do for my friends and family back home, and I'm sure it'll be fun to read later in life - but the fact of the matter is that I get to sit down once a week and spend anywhere from 1-3 hours (up to 5 or so if I have a big trip like Kyoto) talking about all the things in my life that JUST HAPPENED. It was novel at first, but it has rapidly become a hassle. Added to that is the fact that I'm not doing much of interest every week anymore. When I first came here, every day was something new and something I found interesting to talk about. Now I'm becoming one of those egotistical pricks that uses his blog to talk about how awesome the nap he took was (I didn't take any naps, calm the hell down). What I'm saying is that I'm putting a lot of consideration into turning this blog into an "every couple of weeks and/or when something major happens" affair. We'll see.

As hinted at above, very little happened this week. It's Golden Week, which means I worked three days last week, then jumped into a seven day vacation. I go back to work for two days the day after tomorrow, then it's weekend time and normal schedule stuff. It was definitely a well-needed break, but I didn't do much. My Kyoto trip was strategically planned precisely so I didn't have to feel obligated to take a trip during this vacation; primarily because all the other people taking trips right now would have made it awful for me (in case you somehow don't know, I despise large crowds of people. They drive me crazy). I've mainly been taking care of a shit ton of errands, practicing a lot of Japanese, catching up on correspondences, and trying to find some time to actually relax. Also, I'm pretty sure I'm officially signed up for the JLPT in July. Thanks, Naoko!

On to random shit:
1.) Got to see Tor's baby for the first time a couple days ago. The little thing is adorable and incredibly quiet for a 2 month old. I'm telling you, Japanese babies are genetically coded to be more well-mannered than American kids. It's amazing.
2.)

Naoko and I visited a bookstore, where I saw this. It's actually part of a series on history that is apparently illustrated by the same artist that does work on Dynasty/Samurai/Orochi Warriors. HOW CAN YOU PEOPLE NOT LOVE HISTORY?! Seriously, this is amazing and all history books deserve this treatment.

3.) When I was doing my finances yesterday, I found a note I wrote on a receipt from lunch. Apparently, I saw a Japanese dude wearing a sweater that said "Scramento (sic) Golden State". Engrish. Love. You know the drill.

4.) I asked one of my students what the most dangerous thing he's ever done is last week. This is the same guy that does gender reassignment surgeries and always talks about getting drunk. Of course, since he's crazy and a badass, his answer wasn't something as stupid as "skydiving" (which he's done) or "bungee jumping". No, that is way too normal for him. His answer was picking up some call girls in some country whose name I don't remember but am pretty sure was in Southeast Asia and almost getting stabbed. No, shut up, let me finish. So he and his buddy went "girl hunting", and found these two hotties. They went back to the girls' apartment, where they discovered that they were call girls. Apparently this apartment was in a really bad neighborhood, and they decided to "escape" (I don't know if this means they were trying to leave without paying or if they were actually being attacked. He's one of my lower level students). The call girls were locked out of the room for some reason, but they had called for help when they realized my student and his friend were going to escape. Their solution was to jump out of the second story window into a courtyard full of what I imagine as crazy hobos wielding knives. I italicized that for your benefit. I can only hope that the EXREME nature of the text manages to absorb some of that awesome before it hits your vision orbs and makes them explode. His friend got cut on the leg by one of the members that the girls called, but they got away safely. I want to go on vacation with this guy.

5.) More bitching about my head teacher. Three separate events rolled into one here, but I'll try to keep it all short. That notebook Naoko made me? I decided to bring it in to show to my students. Almost all of them have been asking about my trip, so I thought they'd like to see the pictures. My head teacher saw it and asked what it was, so I told her. She then proceeded to tell me that it would be inappropriate to show to my students because "most people in Japan don't show pictures of their girlfriends" and my students might think I was "being too open-minded". That sounded like a load of crap to me so I showed it to my students anyways while apologizing beforehand if there were too many pictures of me with Naoko. Most of them cut me off before I could finish the apology asking to see the notebook, and all of them were completely thrilled to look at it. We're giving students feedback as new classes start this month, and I'm doing some counseling to advise them on some self study material if they want to buy it. Since motivation is a big factor in self study and they are the ones choosing to study English, I've been putting a big emphasis on asking them what they want to work on the most and combining that with my own advice. Because they're people, and their opinions matter. When my head teacher found out, she told me "don't worry about students' requests, they don't matter." Pretty much a direct quote there. On the same topic, I'm getting really frustrated with the treatment of my feedback in general. Namely the fact that it means nothing. My advice on the level of new students is always ignored, I am almost never involved in interviews, and now my head teacher is taking to doing self study counseling with my students (typically RIGHT AFTER I just finished counselling them). From what I hear, this occurred with the foreign teachers in the past as well, so I doubt it's just that I suck in this areas. If you don't want me to do that stuff, fine. Whatever. But don't make me waste my fucking time and energy if you're just going to ignore the results. So, from these three things I can conclude that my head teacher doesn't know anything about what her students will like or won't like, doesn't care what they will like or won't like, and doesn't trust the teachers working under her to do their job. Why the hell does she even want to be a head teacher? Ugh. Sorry, venting is therapeutic.

That's all folks. Don't even have a cat picture this week. Naoko is gonna be here in like 10 minutes and I still have some studying to do. Peace.

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.