2012 - picture edition

K-on! mochi/raspberry snacks

Streets of Fukuoka

Fukuoka again

Don't ask because I don't know

Samurai Blue represent!

Some overpriced supermarket

Chillin' in the dirty water

Ornament shaped Coke

Awesomely good

Sukiyaki dinner

That's a big ass bag of chips

Lawson convenience store in the K-on! spirit

Takoyaki museum mascot

Welcome to Universal

Handprints from the voice actresses of K-on!

Giant characters on stage

Creepy rabbit from the holiday parade

Osaka view

Shinkansen platform

Lights in Fukuoka

Me with Akidori!

2012 - we're still here

Welcome to a new year everybody. First of all, I guess I should congratulate all of you in still being alive. The world didn't end after-all. So for all of you reading this that actually bought into those 2012, end-of-the-world scenarios, I'm sorry you're probably disappointed at this point ya big dummy. As for me, it's been a long winter vacation that has felt even longer. Why is that exactly?

I had a pretty good vacation for the most part. I'm still on vacation actually, but it's winding down now and I'm coasting through the last days before work starts back up again. As I said previously, I spend my winter vacation in Fukuoka with a friend and we made our way to Osaka for a couple of days to visit Universal Studios Japan. First of all, Fukuoka is a cool city with plenty to do and their downtown area of Tenjin is a lot of fun to walk around. Speaking of which, I was walking downtown by myself when I was suddenly approached by a new teams that were starting right at me. The reporter asked if I had a minute and if it was okay to interview me on my thoughts of Christmas in Japan. I said, "sure, let's do it", and he proceeded to ask me questions like, "what do you think about the decorations? How does it compare to where you're from? Is there anything strange about how Japan celebrates Christmas?", etc. I basically told them that Japan has a good Christmas-feel compared to LA because of the cold weather and nice lights and decorations. It feels like a proper winter. I did say the tradition of getting a bucket of KFC chicken for Christmas dinner was a bit odd, but I wasn't knocking it. Most Japanese don't have ovens to even consider cooking a turkey or ham in. Anyhoo, it was a fun, quirky experience that I'll definitely keep in the memory bank when this adventure is over

When we arrived in Osaka, the station was insanely crowded because of snow having delayed many of the trains. People were basically stranded but we were luckily at our destination in Osaka, so talk about dodging a bullet. Universal Studios was a good time, but let me suggest, and this may seem like a big no-brainer, but I don't recommend going in the winter time. It was absolutely freezing, yet still incredibly crowded, and the lines for all of the rides were around an hour plus. I was crazy enough to go on the Hollywood Dream rollercoaster which just blew freezing winds against my face at incredible speed. Hindsight being what it is, I still had a good time. Oh, and to fill my nerd-craving for all things K-on!, they had a big K-on! section of the park that's there until the end of the year in celebration of the movie. I took some pictures but there were some hardcore nerds there with heavy duty cameras taking tons of pictures from multiple angles. Good times. I must admit, being used to the Hollywood Universal Studios, it's quite strange walking around a nearly-identical park in a different country where you sometimes have to remind yourself that you aren't home. Before leaving Osaka, walking back to the hotel, we came across some streets performers by the name of Akidori and they were awesome. I watched them perform and I was really diggin' it so I decided to buy there album from them. They were really grateful and happy to hear that I liked them, and they were cool enough to open the album and autograph it for me. Plus they took some pics with me. Really a cool experience. Here's a link to the song that really sealed the deal for me (dude can harmonize!): Akidori - Ageha

It sounds sappy, but being in a different country during the holidays was a bit harder on me than I expected. I didn't break down and sob or anything like that, but I certainly found myself pining for friends, family and familiar locations more than I thought I would. That being said, I miss you guys (not the strangers that come across this blog and happen to read it, but you're cool), and I plan to visit when the next vacation opportunity arises. I go back to work in a few days and I'm a bit stressed because I'm going straight in parent observations but if I can handle them on my first week of work, I can certainly handle them after 3 months of experience. Wish me luck and I'll be sure to post about that experience as well.

HO HO HO!

Christmas at Universal

What up?

K-on! tree

Satomi Sato (Ritsu) handprints

1,000 hits later

Thanks to everyone who takes the time to visit this blog and read my posts, that includes all you bots out there. You've all contributed to what is now 1,000 hits. Joy. I'm officially on winter vacation, which is awesome for obvious reasons. I haven't had a winter vacation since my school days, so this is certainly a welcome blast from the past. So far I'm one day into my vacation and I've used that time to do a little Christmas shopping and TV viewing. If you haven't seen it yet, Breaking Bad is a show worth checking out. I just finished season 3 and oh boy, what a cliffhanger that was! I highly recommend it. I'm also watching the current season of The Big Bang Theory, which I just started, and American Horror Story. AHS is very strange and it's really intriguing to the point where you want to keep watching to see what happens next. It feels like horror movies from the past. Old-school vibe for sure and the editing is interesting.

Enough TV nonsense, my Christmas plans are official. I'll be heading to Fukuoka tomorrow to spend time with my lady friend and I'll have my first Christmas in Japan, the way the Japanese do it; a bucket of fried chicken from KFC and Christmas cake for dessert. They don't really do turkey here, maybe it's the lack of ovens in the kitchen, but the tradition, and I'm not joking, is to chow down on some KFC chicken. KFC gets so busy at this time of year that they actually take reservations for chicken orders. The complete opposite in America where I'm pretty sure KFC is closed on Christmas with no signs of life, aside from a trash-pickin' hobo. It's certainly different from what I'm used to, but hey...when in Rome.

After that, the girlfriend and I will be heading out early, the day after Christmas, to Osaka via train. We'll be spending a couple of days there, with one of those days dedicated to fun at Universal Studios Japan. Supposedly they made it all pretty-like for the holidays, so it should be nice to walk around there and soak up all that holiday cheer. I may not be able to go home this year for the holidays, but I'm happy to still be with someone I care about this time of year and to not be working. Not too shabby right? Anyway, if I don't post before Christmas, have a wonderful holiday and I'm sure we'll be in touch (to those I know of course).

Not too shabby!

Play Santas, play!

College students parade through town.

Universal Studios in Japan is in the mood.

Maybe you thought I was kidding.

Bow before MEGA-SANTA!

Santas holding on for dear life.

Jolly fat man around town.

'Tis the season

Been a little while since my last post but hey, work comes first right? Or some such nonsense. Here we are in December and it's getting to be really damn cold here in Japan. We're talking thermal undies cold. Coming from LA, I was quite ill-equipped in the clothing area and have had to spend some dough on heat-tech from Uniqlo. For those that don't know, it's basically casual thermal wear from a major Japanese clothing store. Work has been going alright for the most part. Now that I've had some time with each of my schools and the students that attend them, I've been able to determine which of the three schools is my least favorite. Believe me, I have one. I actually just finished my week there and it was exhausting, both physically and mentally. I have to prepare my mind for some of those classes because the kids there are just out of control. When I first started this job, the hardest thing for me was being assertive with the kids. I don't like having to raise my voice and no one wants to be the bad guy. Needless to say, I've been getting better at that thanks to some of the classes at this school. On more than one occasion, I had to raise my voice and threaten to take things away from the students. Before for one particular class, three boys wanted to play with their Duel Masters cards instead of getting their homework out for me to check. I told them a couple of times to put that shit away and they nod and say, "okay, okay", but of course they didn't. So I spoke to them in a loud, stern voice with a, "I'll burn this place down" stare on my face and said, "either put the cards in your bag, or I put them in my pocket! Which is it!?". They opted for the bag. I hate that some of the classes have to be that way, but with the number of schools us native teachers travel to, as well as the number of classes and students attending, the odds are against us in that we'll be dealing with some less than enjoyable students. Sigh. Simply the nature of this beast I suppose.

On to happier news. One of my goals before coming to Japan was to see the K-on! movie as I knew it was going to be opening on December 3rd, a time in which I'd actually be here and could see it on opening day. I did just that and was totally thrilled in the nerdiest way possible. I went with my friend Takeru, who also loves K-on! and we both were pleased the movie. I know that you're probably wondering how much of the movie I understood, seeing as how there are no English subtitles and my Japanese is not fluent. Well, I was able to lump enough pieces together to get the major gist of it and even without fully understanding everything, I was still pleased. Now that's a movie! It also helped that it felt like a proper movie and not just like a long episode of the series, which some TV-show-turned-movies tend to do. So not only was I excited to see the movie, just as exciting was the fact that I could see it on opening day, in Japan and on the big screen with like-minded nerds. That's an experience I won't soon forget. I'd also like to point out that it made more in it's opening weekend than Steven Spielberg's Tin-Tin movie, which is saying something about how popular this franchise is. Truth be told, I'll probably see it again before it's out of theaters. Good times!

I have only one week left of work before my winter vacation starts and I'm excited to have some time to chill. I don't think I'll be able to fly back home this winter because it's a bit pricey at the moment but I'll have another vacation opportunity next year and I can certainly use it to return to the states. So instead, I'm thinking I'll see some other parts of Japan...maybe finally hit up Tokyo? Who knows. I still got time to decide and seeing another city is as easy as making my way to the train station.

K-on! The Movie

At the theater

Nerdin' it up!

Nerdobilia from opening night (lyrics and prize sheet with ticket stub)

Do work!

A fellow NT gettin' ready for class.

Rock me like a hurricane

So today is the first of December...welcome to it. Why is that important? Well, for this post it is because I've been sick since November 12th. I don't care who you are, unless you're terminally ill, but that is a long time for anyone to feel "under the weather." I remember it vividly, let's go back to that fateful night. It was Saturday night and I'd just gotten back from a "work-related" dinner. I just wanted to unwind a bit, so I started watching TV and suddenly felt a tickle in my throat. I thought to myself, "uh-oh, this is no good." I actually decided to get to sleep earlier than usual that night because I wanted to feel well-rested and certainly hoped that the feeling in my throat would pass. Fast-forward to Sunday morning and unfortunately the feeling in my throat had not gone away and it was in fact worse. So I began the proper full-frontal health assault by drinking as much Lemon water as possible (tons of vitamin C in that stuff), and by taking my strong American cold/flu pills. Days passed and needless to say the sickness was still with me. Now I had full-blown sinus congestion, complete with sinus headaches and when I had class on the Tuesday after this began, I had a fever (complete with sweating) and barely a voice. That last part is key because your voice is pretty much your most important tool in the classroom and I simply didn't have it (or the energy) to compete with the screamin' little ones that I had that day.

This sickness carried on throughout the week, taking on various other traits such as a runny nose and annoying, uncontrollable cough. Meanwhile, I was still trying my best to treat it. The next Saturday, the 19th, I had a team-teach day with my Australian buddy and when I got to his classroom, I blew my nose but my nostril wouldn't stop leaking. It was unlike anything I'd ever experienced before and quite frankly I was a bit freaked out because it was like brown water dripping out of my nostril non-stop. Sorry, I know that's not a pretty picture. Eventually it stopped and naturally I was paranoid it would happen again. I finished up the day and the next few days the sickness remained. It lingered. The cough was at the point where I couldn't repress it and would have this incredibly long coughing fits on the train, which was a bit embarrassing if I'm being honest. I made it through yet another week and was getting a bit frustrated at the persistence of this sickness. I was coughing up phlegm like no tomorrow and it showed no times of slowing down.

Finally, enough was enough and on my day off this past Monday, I went to the doctor to get this mess taken care of. It was an interesting experience to be sure. They put a face mask on me right away, more so out of concern to the other patients in the waiting room and instead of letting me wait with the other people, they put me in this sort of "isolation area", that was closed off. My personal quarantine zone. They couldn't know what was wrong with me so they took no chances. Eventually they called my name and a female doctor saw me. Seeing the doctor is a bit different than in America. The room isn't so private as there are tons of nurses walking back and forth behind the doctor doing various things. The doctor spoke a bit of English, asked me some questions, listened to my lungs and then sent me up to the 2nd floor to get chest x-rays. On the 2nd floor, the guy taking x-rays greeted me and was kind enough to speak English with me to make sure the process went smoothly. After that, I went back down to check with the doctor and she said there was nothing to be concerned with. She said that working with kids everyday I can probably expect to get sick more often than I'm used to, which I understood. Then she prescribed me some drugs; an antibiotic, some other pill, and a cough syrup that tastes god-awful. It's about four days of medication and I'm going into the last day. Thankfully, it all seems to be working for me and I'm feeling on the up and up again. Long story short, I miss my Kombucha and when in doubt, don't be afraid to get your butt to a doctor...no matter what country you're in. I'll leave you with a pic of me in the hospital, my drugs, and some random stuff!

I'm a threat!

LTJ - Dope man