Life in the Land of the Rising Sun

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So life has been pretty good in the land of the rising sun. I haven't had much chance to explore as I had to work an extra day last week and I've been trying to set myself into some regular routines. For instance, I run every Sunday, Tuesday and Friday. I have my Japanese Classes every Monday, Thursday and Friday and most importantly I go out for drinks every Friday night. The last one wasn't really a plan so much as it just happened. But its fun and I get to meet a lot of interesting people and learn new things about the Japanese culture. They have a drinking game based on rock paper scissors which is amazing. I also learned that they have this type of party called a Gokun. The idea is that a bunch of single girls get together with a bunch of single guys and get to know each other. It starts off at a mutual setting such as a bar and then if a couple hits it off, they head back to a "love hotel". They are actually called love hotels.

The crazy thing about Japan is that most young adults still live with their family cause rent is so expensive here. So they have these love hotels where horny teenagers can rent them for the night to get with their g/f or "acquaintances". I have yet to be to one, but really the main selling factor to me was that they have a variety of themed rooms. I couldn't really get any details about what to expect, but I have honestly considered just renting one for myself one night just to see what its like (I've been told they have heart shaped baths in there, alright). How cool. I honestly wish they had these back in Canada. When I get some pictures I'll definitely post them. The other awesome thing is that they try and make the experience as secret as possible, so there is usually no contact with hotel staff, so you select your room through a computer and you pay through a hole in a wall. How wicked. Wicked is the only word that I can use to describe my excitement for my first love hotel experience. This excitement will probably mean that I'll make some bad decisions in the not to distant future. Please send your prays in my direction that none of my choices will lead to any long term problems. As I write this I now realize my parents will probably be the first ones to read this, All I can say is that I'm sorry and I'll try to be careful.

As some of you know I had my first karaoke experience last week. It was utterly awesome. I'm not sure if all of you have had the pleasure of karaokeing with me before, but I rock. We went to this bar that had all you could drink for 2 hours for $20. Then we paid for karaoke until 5am and just rocked out. I forgot my camera that night so I have no pictures and I'm still waiting for the other pics to be emailed to me. But it was so cool. We were in this small room singing and then we had this phone that we could just pick up and order drinks. so wicked. unfortunately we all had to work the next morning so we were only there till 3 in the morning. The night was such a success we're making it a monthly event. Sort of a paycheck thing. We get money and we go drinking to celebrate. Except next time we're going to do it totally Japanese style which is: going out and drinking all night, singing till 6 am in the morning when the trains start running again and going home to sleep for the rest of the day. It just sounds so appealing just thinking about it. Anyways, my Japanese co-workers have decided that by the end of this year I'm going to have to sing a song in Japanese at karaoke, so I'll be sure to have my camera there and I'll make a video so you can all share in the blissful experience.

I have been a little reluctant to share this next event as I have received some information that is a little bone chilling. Anyways the other night as I was coming back from work I noticed that there was someone following closely behind me. I remembered just passing a beautiful Japanese women and like a young foolish and over-confident traveler, I assumed that the Japanese woman had caught a whiff of my pheromones and couldn't spare to distance herself. As I went over an over pass I took a quick look over my shoulder to find myself face-to-face with a short Japanese man in a tight shirt. Without thinking twice I took advantage of my giraffe like legs and doubled it up the stairs and kept on going. As I reached the other side and thought I was safe I could hear the sound of the man following me again. Shit, go faster, your apartment is just on this next street and no one goes down there so you'll be able to tell if he's really following you. I quickly turn down the next street only to hear the footsteps follow me. Shit, not only will this lead the mysterious stalker right to my house if I go home, but you're now alone on the street with him and no one comes down this street. Dammit. Alright, you're still close enough to the main street that if you bend down and tie your shoes he can't attack you. Shit I dont' have shoe laces on these shoes. Tie them anyways. As i bent down and the perpetrator passed, all I could do was try my hardest to close my pores and not let him catch another whiff of my pheromones. I know they drive the women crazy, but I'm not sure I'm such a big fan of this newly found effect. As i finished tying my shoes I turned back the way I came and walked back toward the over-pass. I was just about at the over-pass when I realized taht I could just take another route back to my house, so I stopped and turned back only to see the guy that was stalking me was on this street now. HOLY SHIT. At this point I didn't want him to know that I saw him coming so I turned toward the overpass to consider my options. I'm a big guy, I've been running so I'm in good shape and I've had some martial art training. Wait a sec, who am I kidding, Japanese people invented martial arts and this guy had a tight t-shirt on, so he's definitely trouble. RUN... just run... I turned back and the guy was gone. At this point, I just walked straight to my school and waited there until I felt safe and then headed home. This was too crazy. Needless to say I got home safe and sound. I think the most important thing I learned from this experience is that no matter how powerful you think your pheromones are, that Japanese women following you could be a Japanese Martial art instructor.

Now the reason that I hesitate to reveal this information is that apparently if you google my name this website shows up, so I'm not really sure who will be reading this. So basically if this guy followed me to my work he might be able to figure out who am I and then google my name get this website and read my blog.. thats just too scary for me, but I wanted to post this to let him know that I'm not scared and I'm calling his bluff the next time, I dont' think he knows martial arts. I know what you're thinking the odds are too small that he'd be reading this but remember, even paranoids have true enemies.

Recently, I went out with my fellow Japanese students for Indian food. I've always been a fan of somosa's and the one girl is Indian and she knew a good Indian restaurant. Anyways it was awesome. Such a good experience. We just let her order good food and it was such a good decision. The best part was we got to eat with our hands. Because of this, I now know that i must go to India and spend time there, the food is great and any culture that lets you eat with your hands is ok by me.

I also got invited out with some co-workers to another friends place for dinner. It was so good, she made some sushi and let me help prepare the rice. the weird thing is that they add vinegar to the rice to make it not as sticky as it normally is, go figure. It smelt potent, but tasted so good. Then it was just like a smorgus-board where you take your square of seaweed, then you place the rice on it and then whatever combination of raw fish you wanted and eat. So good. The salmon over here is to die for. She also made a korean stew/soup that was delicious. Everything was so tasty I had about 5 too many servings cause I knew I wouldn't be able to get food like this for a long time. I'll just have to be super nice to her to get her to invite me over again. Her husband was also awesome. He didn't speak much English but kept feeding us shots of sake. Me and my co-workers were shotting the sake but then later on we realized that we were supposed to be sipping it. I felt bad and at that point I'd stopped drinking so I didn't have one more to experience it the true Japanese style. I guess there'll have to be a next time. The night was an all in all 10 out of 10.

One last thing before I go, I don't think any of you honestly know how much rice I've been eating. Today I had to buy my second 4kg bag of rice and before that bag I'd finished a 2kg bag of rice. I've had 6kg of rice in the last month. How crazy is that. To give you another insight as to how much Japanese people love their rice, the direct translation for their words for breakfast, lunch and dinner are: morning rice, afternoon rice and night rice. They're obsessed. Hope you all enjoyed. Cheers

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Photos

Indian Food
Went for Indian food with my Japanese Class, it was wicked and so delicous

Indian Food
All finished, we got to eat with our hands, it was flipping amazing, I'm totally going to India

Party!
Marking Sushi, how awesome

Party
Notice the raw meat, octopus, salmon, tuna and egg, later there was some squid as well, it was delicous

Party
The cheif, she is pretty much my hero for being so good at cooking, the dinner was fantastic

Party
I was cutting the rice apparently thats how you make rice not sticky but I wasn't that good at it cause the rice turned out sticky anyways. I was sad

Party
Making a Korean Stew, it was sooo good. Thats tofu, raw pock and veggies, all boiled together to become delicious

Party
Thats the head teacher Chris and the dog, pichu (I think that was her name). He let the dog lick on the face numerous times, he said its good for you... despite the fact that this may be true, I didn't let pichu anywhere near my face

Izikaiya
Went to an Izikaiya with some friends and we got two stew to share it was amazing. Japanese food is so good.

Izikaiya
This was the other stew

Izikaiya
This is me drinking a beer and tomato juice, it was not as bad as I thought it would be. I also had a beer with ginger ale which was great and some sorta frozen drink with sake and it tasted like yogurt, so it was very good

Comments

[JulZ]

Well. I remember at Bob and Mike's combo birthday trip to nowhere in october 2005, you showed me some cool self-defense moves. I'm pretty sure you could have kicked that stalker's arts. JulZ