Look how happy I am to be wearing a mask!
Yeah, thrilled!
Best part about wearing a mask when you are sick is that you breathe into it all day, and after a couple of hours you can smell your "sick" inside of it. Fantastic.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Sick this week
I got really sick on Friday. Super runny nose and sneezing. And that is just not cool in Japan. So, had to go out and buy some protection.
Look how happy I am to be wearing a mask!
Yeah, thrilled!
Best part about wearing a mask when you are sick is that you breathe into it all day, and after a couple of hours you can smell your "sick" inside of it. Fantastic.
Look how happy I am to be wearing a mask!
Yeah, thrilled!
Best part about wearing a mask when you are sick is that you breathe into it all day, and after a couple of hours you can smell your "sick" inside of it. Fantastic.
Monday, January 26, 2009
Continuing trip stuff
Wow, it has been over a month since we went to Osaka. Procrastination, yay!
Osaka was fun because it was so over the top. Osaka is known for its good food and its tourist trap areas. Look at all this neon.
Photo by Jessica
We spent both nights perusing Don Ton Bori, the "shopping arcade," which is kind of hard to explain, but basically it is an outdoor mall. There is a roof over the street and no vehicles (except bikes, and that is a huge beef with me, fucking bicyclists riding through where there are literally thousands of people in close quarters and these douches are riding through, not even ringing a bell, I hate them, I hate them all. Worst part of Japan) but it is still outside and so feels slightly different from going to a mall. Either way, it is pretty fun, and Osaka has a HUGE arcade, about 8 blocks long and many tiny restaurants tucked away on the side streets. Unfortunately, it was pouring down rain the first night so we didn't really venture out from under the protective roof of the arcade.
Here is the entrance of the arcade area
Photo by Jessica
Here is the other entrance
(Whoops, guess it is DoTonBori, but everyone says DoN)
Photo by Jessica
The lovely buildings along the river with all the brightly lit signs.
Look how many people were here! And look at the giant animatronic crab! It is very famous and is on a lot of Osaka postcards. Yeah, big dorks we are we had to take pics of it.
Photo by Jessica (or maybe me, I am not sure)
But we are not so Japanese we had to be in the picture with it.
Oh wait, yes I am. Also, Gingerbread Latte in hand. Yum.
Speaking of which, my favorite coffee place in Osaka. Notice any resemblance to another well known US coffee chain?
Photo by Jessica
Too funny.
One of the best parts of shopping in Japan is the messed up English words and images on the clothes.
Photo by Jessica
Would you like a lovely "Slut" jacket? And some great marijuana leaf icons too!
Another great part of Osaka and DonTonBori is the "love hotels." Have I explained "love hotels?" Well, they are pretty self explanatory, but because there is no space in Japan and many many people live with their families until they are married (and sometimes afterwards) they have hourly hotels specifically for "lovin."
Usually these hotels are audacious; this one is particularly strange.
Photo by Jessica
Yup, just a bunch of heads with legs and poles through their heads.
Photo by Jessica
And salad! Ba-dahmp-bah!
God, I am such a hack.
But, we didn't just go shopping (mostly window shopping by the way, stuff is just too small in this country, maybe that is my least favorite part, that I am a fat ass and can't fit in regular size clothes), we also ate a bunch of food!
We went to my favorite restaurant, Akiyoshi. It is a yakitori place which means grilled food, aka meat on a stick!
Look at that grill and fire! Awesome. We spent 10,000 yen on two people and gorged ourselves on meat! It was fantastic. And I made Jessica eat heart. She was pissed. But at least she has a story to tell about strange food that she ate while here. And quite frankly, heart, not bad, just a little chewier than regular beef. My favorite is a chicken and green onion stick. Oh, and yaki-onigiri or grilled rice balls. I should have eaten about three of those before ordering meat so I didn't order so damn much.
Look at all these sticks!
Post gorge fest of course. And, also of course, soy sauce to dip your meat in. Jessica finished off two plates of that sauce. That girl likes her soy!
We also had a HUGE pizza!
Photo obviously by Jessica since those are my fat fingers in the picture.
Just look at the size of that monster! Wow! And only $10. Such a deal! My first stop when I come back to America, A-1 pizza. Large cheese and seasoned fries. Orange soda on the side. And a Dr. Pepper.
We weren't completely debaucherous though. During the day we went to Osaka castle.
The moat and giant wall. It is very difficult to judge just how huge this castle was by these pictures.
Photo by Jessica
Big ass gate leading into the castle.
Look at how big the doors are.
Photo by Jessica
Of course, it is a freakin' castle. Guess the doors are supposed to be used to stop invaders and whatnot. Yeah, I guess.
Also, archer slots
Photo by Jessica
The front gate to the castle led to a "massacre room" which was basically a small square where another set of doors was and more archer slots, so even if the enemy breached the other gate the castle defenders had the opportunity to kill them before they could breach to the inner castle area.
Look at the size of this giant rock.
Photo by Jessica
I believe it is something like 20 tons. Huge.
Once inside the walls there is a winding path that leads up to another inner moat (which was dry and ugly so no pictures) and to the inner tower where the king lived.
Here is the inner tower. It was hit by lightning and burned to the ground in the late 1800s and then restored in the 1970s.
There is a museum inside the tower which is kind of cool, lots of historical armor and paintings and scrolls the ruler wrote back in the 1600s. So that is pretty cool if you think about it, 400 year old paper. But, it was written in Japanese and even the English translations were boring. Plus, no photography allowed. Boo!
Some of the samurai armor is hilarious.
Note, these aren't the exact suits of armor that were in the museum, but they are pretty similar.
Several of the sets had face-plates with mustaches
The Wilford Brimley samurai.
And, my personal favorite, the one with deer antlers on the helmet.
Apparently, some samurai were rednecks too.
Here is Jessica humoring me by posing in those silly face things
Grrr! I am an angry samurai!
And now I am a more refined samurai gentleman, with silly hands.
Another thing we did was go to the aquarium, but it is now 1:30 am and I have been writing this for the past two hours, so that is going to have to wait til another day.
Oh! But before I go, another thing we did was drink a ton of Pepsi Nex. The zero calorie Pepsi soda.
Why? Not because of the taste, that is for sure. Stuff is barely drinkable. BUT, a bunch of the bottles did have these awesome little bearbrick figures on them of movie characters.
A Batman bear toy.
A super cute "Happy Feet" penguin bear. Look at his little bow-tie. So cute.
There was also a Joker one that I believe Jessica got. See if she will send me a picture.
I love that about Japan, they are always giving you free stuff when you buy soda.
Okay, that is enough for now. I have to go to bed, work tomorrow. At least I have a freezing cold apartment to sleep in. I love to sleep in a sweatshirt and knit hat. It is fantastic! Grrr.
Osaka was fun because it was so over the top. Osaka is known for its good food and its tourist trap areas. Look at all this neon.
Photo by Jessica
We spent both nights perusing Don Ton Bori, the "shopping arcade," which is kind of hard to explain, but basically it is an outdoor mall. There is a roof over the street and no vehicles (except bikes, and that is a huge beef with me, fucking bicyclists riding through where there are literally thousands of people in close quarters and these douches are riding through, not even ringing a bell, I hate them, I hate them all. Worst part of Japan) but it is still outside and so feels slightly different from going to a mall. Either way, it is pretty fun, and Osaka has a HUGE arcade, about 8 blocks long and many tiny restaurants tucked away on the side streets. Unfortunately, it was pouring down rain the first night so we didn't really venture out from under the protective roof of the arcade.
Here is the entrance of the arcade area
Photo by Jessica
Here is the other entrance
(Whoops, guess it is DoTonBori, but everyone says DoN)
Photo by Jessica
The lovely buildings along the river with all the brightly lit signs.
Look how many people were here! And look at the giant animatronic crab! It is very famous and is on a lot of Osaka postcards. Yeah, big dorks we are we had to take pics of it.
Photo by Jessica (or maybe me, I am not sure)
But we are not so Japanese we had to be in the picture with it.
Oh wait, yes I am. Also, Gingerbread Latte in hand. Yum.
Speaking of which, my favorite coffee place in Osaka. Notice any resemblance to another well known US coffee chain?
Photo by Jessica
Too funny.
One of the best parts of shopping in Japan is the messed up English words and images on the clothes.
Photo by Jessica
Would you like a lovely "Slut" jacket? And some great marijuana leaf icons too!
Another great part of Osaka and DonTonBori is the "love hotels." Have I explained "love hotels?" Well, they are pretty self explanatory, but because there is no space in Japan and many many people live with their families until they are married (and sometimes afterwards) they have hourly hotels specifically for "lovin."
Usually these hotels are audacious; this one is particularly strange.
Photo by Jessica
Yup, just a bunch of heads with legs and poles through their heads.
Photo by Jessica
And salad! Ba-dahmp-bah!
God, I am such a hack.
But, we didn't just go shopping (mostly window shopping by the way, stuff is just too small in this country, maybe that is my least favorite part, that I am a fat ass and can't fit in regular size clothes), we also ate a bunch of food!
We went to my favorite restaurant, Akiyoshi. It is a yakitori place which means grilled food, aka meat on a stick!
Look at that grill and fire! Awesome. We spent 10,000 yen on two people and gorged ourselves on meat! It was fantastic. And I made Jessica eat heart. She was pissed. But at least she has a story to tell about strange food that she ate while here. And quite frankly, heart, not bad, just a little chewier than regular beef. My favorite is a chicken and green onion stick. Oh, and yaki-onigiri or grilled rice balls. I should have eaten about three of those before ordering meat so I didn't order so damn much.
Look at all these sticks!
Post gorge fest of course. And, also of course, soy sauce to dip your meat in. Jessica finished off two plates of that sauce. That girl likes her soy!
We also had a HUGE pizza!
Photo obviously by Jessica since those are my fat fingers in the picture.
Just look at the size of that monster! Wow! And only $10. Such a deal! My first stop when I come back to America, A-1 pizza. Large cheese and seasoned fries. Orange soda on the side. And a Dr. Pepper.
We weren't completely debaucherous though. During the day we went to Osaka castle.
The moat and giant wall. It is very difficult to judge just how huge this castle was by these pictures.
Photo by Jessica
Big ass gate leading into the castle.
Look at how big the doors are.
Photo by Jessica
Of course, it is a freakin' castle. Guess the doors are supposed to be used to stop invaders and whatnot. Yeah, I guess.
Also, archer slots
Photo by Jessica
The front gate to the castle led to a "massacre room" which was basically a small square where another set of doors was and more archer slots, so even if the enemy breached the other gate the castle defenders had the opportunity to kill them before they could breach to the inner castle area.
Look at the size of this giant rock.
Photo by Jessica
I believe it is something like 20 tons. Huge.
Once inside the walls there is a winding path that leads up to another inner moat (which was dry and ugly so no pictures) and to the inner tower where the king lived.
Here is the inner tower. It was hit by lightning and burned to the ground in the late 1800s and then restored in the 1970s.
There is a museum inside the tower which is kind of cool, lots of historical armor and paintings and scrolls the ruler wrote back in the 1600s. So that is pretty cool if you think about it, 400 year old paper. But, it was written in Japanese and even the English translations were boring. Plus, no photography allowed. Boo!
Some of the samurai armor is hilarious.
Note, these aren't the exact suits of armor that were in the museum, but they are pretty similar.
Several of the sets had face-plates with mustaches
The Wilford Brimley samurai.
And, my personal favorite, the one with deer antlers on the helmet.
Apparently, some samurai were rednecks too.
Here is Jessica humoring me by posing in those silly face things
Grrr! I am an angry samurai!
And now I am a more refined samurai gentleman, with silly hands.
Another thing we did was go to the aquarium, but it is now 1:30 am and I have been writing this for the past two hours, so that is going to have to wait til another day.
Oh! But before I go, another thing we did was drink a ton of Pepsi Nex. The zero calorie Pepsi soda.
Why? Not because of the taste, that is for sure. Stuff is barely drinkable. BUT, a bunch of the bottles did have these awesome little bearbrick figures on them of movie characters.
A Batman bear toy.
A super cute "Happy Feet" penguin bear. Look at his little bow-tie. So cute.
There was also a Joker one that I believe Jessica got. See if she will send me a picture.
I love that about Japan, they are always giving you free stuff when you buy soda.
Okay, that is enough for now. I have to go to bed, work tomorrow. At least I have a freezing cold apartment to sleep in. I love to sleep in a sweatshirt and knit hat. It is fantastic! Grrr.
Monday, January 19, 2009
Yesterday I saw...
A woman walking down the street in a very manly manner. Her walk was more gorilla than lady-like. It was raining (of course) and she had an umbrella and was wearing a hat and I could tell from even far away this was not an attractive woman. But as we crossed paths it turned out it was actually a man wearing a skirt and sweater. With long stringy hair and a hat, but also beard stubble. Well, no wonder it walked like a man. Anyway it freaked me out.
Later that night, at the grocery store, I saw the Japanese Junior Soprano.
Or the Japanese Six Flags old man.
I mean, either way, they pretty much look like the same guy. Well, seeing the Japanese version was just plain awesome. Made paying $2 for a tube of Ritz cheese crackers almost worth it.
All in all, a successful day in Tsuruga.
Later that night, at the grocery store, I saw the Japanese Junior Soprano.
Or the Japanese Six Flags old man.
I mean, either way, they pretty much look like the same guy. Well, seeing the Japanese version was just plain awesome. Made paying $2 for a tube of Ritz cheese crackers almost worth it.
All in all, a successful day in Tsuruga.
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Am I jaded?
This has been weighing on my mind lately, am I jaded toward kind people or are the Japanese condescending towards me?
This is what has happened to me, many times, but it happened to me yesterday and motivated this blog. I was at the post office mailing a package with some fragile items in it. As you may know, when you mail things internationally you have to declare what is in the package (so you can never send a surprise gift overseas, unless you lie I guess) and when I told them that the package contained fragile items the two post office workers behind the counter both widened their eyes and started asking me stuff in Japanese. What were they asking? I don't know, I don't speak Japanese. But one disappeared behind the counter and came back with bubble wrap motioning towards me. I then understood the point, had I wrapped up the fragile items to prevent them from getting broken in shipment? Why, yes, I had. Now, here is the rub, were the postal workers being nice and concerned about my package arriving safely (something that would never ever happen in the states, they would just throw the box in the bin and let it go), or were the postal workers looking at me like a retard who couldn't think to make sure that the fragile items were packed safely and securely.
And this isn't the first time I have felt this way. Jessica needed a new suitcase when she went back home (because she bought a TON of stuff while she was here) and when we purchased it the cashier was insistent on showing us how the suitcase worked. As in, this is how you zip and unzip the zippers, and if you want to extend the handle you flick these two little knobs and then, THEN, you pull the handle up, and there are wheels on the bottom for you to use if you want to roll the suitcase. Yeah, thanks. Was he being nice or was he being an ass?
Do Japanese people think I am a big dumbass or are they just too nice for me and so unlike Americans that I can't understand it? Is this the culture shock that I had heard about?
I am so confused.
Also, a wonderful chance for me to put up gratuitous pictures of me making question faces.
Thank god I am wearing socks.
This is what has happened to me, many times, but it happened to me yesterday and motivated this blog. I was at the post office mailing a package with some fragile items in it. As you may know, when you mail things internationally you have to declare what is in the package (so you can never send a surprise gift overseas, unless you lie I guess) and when I told them that the package contained fragile items the two post office workers behind the counter both widened their eyes and started asking me stuff in Japanese. What were they asking? I don't know, I don't speak Japanese. But one disappeared behind the counter and came back with bubble wrap motioning towards me. I then understood the point, had I wrapped up the fragile items to prevent them from getting broken in shipment? Why, yes, I had. Now, here is the rub, were the postal workers being nice and concerned about my package arriving safely (something that would never ever happen in the states, they would just throw the box in the bin and let it go), or were the postal workers looking at me like a retard who couldn't think to make sure that the fragile items were packed safely and securely.
And this isn't the first time I have felt this way. Jessica needed a new suitcase when she went back home (because she bought a TON of stuff while she was here) and when we purchased it the cashier was insistent on showing us how the suitcase worked. As in, this is how you zip and unzip the zippers, and if you want to extend the handle you flick these two little knobs and then, THEN, you pull the handle up, and there are wheels on the bottom for you to use if you want to roll the suitcase. Yeah, thanks. Was he being nice or was he being an ass?
Do Japanese people think I am a big dumbass or are they just too nice for me and so unlike Americans that I can't understand it? Is this the culture shock that I had heard about?
I am so confused.
Also, a wonderful chance for me to put up gratuitous pictures of me making question faces.
Thank god I am wearing socks.
Monday, January 12, 2009
Aaaaannnnnnd I am back!
Been quite some time. I know how my millions and millions of adoring fans have missed me. (Okay, so Mom is bored and wants me to update)
However, it is a month's worth of updating and that is quite daunting to me. I mean, that sounds like hell. Just writing and staring at the screen for hours. Therefore, I am going to do a short update with lots of pictures from my travels and then go back and expand on stuff over the next week or two.
But first, this weekend I had the most American day ever! It started with a snowy day. Well, that isn't American, but I really like that first day of snow, everything is so clean and white. Oooh, white, white is American. A couple of my students called and asked if I wanted to go somewhere and of course I jumped on it. We (okay, they) decided we should go to Gifu on the other side of the mountains and do some stuff. So, we hop in the car and off we go.
The drive was great. The snow here is usually really really wet, I guess because the air temp is just hovering around freezing and the snow is almost rain, and the snow just hangs on the trees and covers everything. Unfortunately I didn't take my camera becuase it is a little too big to just put in my pocket, so no pics. Next big purchase, smaller camera. But it was really beautiful. Trust me on it. At one point in the drive we had to go through a one lane tunnel. Apparently the tunnel was originally a train tunnel, so it was really narrow and short and very creepy. Especially because there is a turn halfway through it and you can't see the other end of the tunnel (the tunnel was about a half a mile long I would say, not the shortest one lane tunnel in the world). There is a sign on either end, a red light/green light, but the light is about 3 minutes long and I bet some people have run that light at one time or another. Not the most nerve free two minutes of my life.
When we got to Gifu we went to Chorky's Diner!!! (Their three exclamation points, not mine) an American "50s" style diner. Sort of. They had lots of 50s stuff in there, but also stuff from the 90s like Taco Dorito bags and Betty Crocker brownie mix. And their menus had a Too Much Coffee Man comic as their background, an alternative comic from the mid to late 90s. Very strange mix of stuff. However, great hamburgers and milkshakes. Yum! The hamburger was on a croissant style bun so the bun was very light compared to the hamburger buns I normally get. And decent fries too. Which of course were dipped in the chocolate milkshake.
After our all American lunch we went to a shooting range! Well, an air rifle shooting range, but it was still pretty fun. Got to shoot giant air rifles with cool scopes to help aim and it was fun. Strange fact, no one in Japan is left handed. Well, supposedly. Jessica is left handed and she was talking about it to some people, and apparently left handed people don't exist in Japan. If a child is left handed they are taught to use their right hand instead. I find that hard to believe. In a country as obsessed with baseball as Japan is, wouldn't they want left handed pitchers? Anyway, the shooting range was set up for righties only. The stools were set on the ground to the left and the telescopes were set so you could lean over from sitting right handed to check out how you did. But, because I have a bad right eye I have always shot left and it was quite difficult for me to do. I didn't do too bad shooting, mostly bull's eyes or close to em. Whatever, it was fun as hell to go shooting and now I want to go to a real shooting range, which I don't think they have in Japan. Might have to go to Thailand one weekend, heard I can get there and back for under $500 total. Just to go shoot a machine gun. Awesome!
After our shooting adventure we stopped at a Portuguese pizza parlor, named Guto's hilariously enough, and had some delicious pizza. Big, thick sliced (at least by Japanese standards, almost thick enough to be considered thin sliced pizza in America) pizza covered with toppings. Had the meat trio with sausage, bacon, and ham. YUM! And the menu was in Portuguese not Japanese. I swear, for a minute in the pizza parlor I forgot that I was in Japan. I think it is because everyone I ever deal with speaks English and I never speak Japanese. And I wonder why I haven't improved my Japanese as much as I think I should have.
Okay so here is the quick overview of the last month.
Having Jessica here over the holidays was such a good thing for me.
Maybe not for her. Here she is looking terrified about me being near her. Notice my awesome headgear. That is my Rummy ass whoopin' headgear. I am the Japanese Rummy King. I destroy people at Rummy (well, I destroyed Jessica mightily every single game, never lost as far as I remember). One of the things we enjoyed doing was just hanging out and playing cards after a long day of work and travel (well, I worked, she traveled). It was really really nice to come home at night and have someone to just hang out with and talk to about my day. And she made me dinner a couple of times! Yay! That was really good too. Unfortunately, that meant it was my duty to wash dishes. Boo! My least favorite chore. That was probably my favorite part of her being here, having a very good friend here and simply being able to be myself and chat and make jokes and laugh and generally have a really nice time. Jessica will be the last person to tell you this, but she is a really good and caring person and it was nice to have someone here that cared about me over the holidays.
Cough cough Gay. Cough cough
This is Jessica's "can we move on now?" face. Trust me, I saw this face many times over the past month.
So, here are some of the things we did while she was here.
Saw Mt. Fuji. Now, I am not sure if you have ever heard of this mountain. It isn't very big or very well known, kind of like our own little secret place, but it was nice to look at.
Pretty darned impressive.
We went to Fuji five lakes, a touristy area near Mt. Fuji with excellent (see above photo) views of the Mountain itself. Now, I know it is called the hidden mountain, but it was just sitting out there for us to look at the whole three days (two days? I don't remember, everything runs together) without a care in the world. Damned self confident that mountain.
Here is the room we stayed in while at Mr. Fuji-san.
Traditional western room with tatami mats, paper sliding doors, one low table and futons stacked in the corner that were to be pulled out at night for sleeping. Pretty cool. Well, pretty warm actually, Jessica had the heater blasting all night long. As she said "I have been cold for three weeks, I am not being cold here." So my apartment is a bit chilly.
And we did lots of stuff there, went to a couple of caves, went to an Izakya and ate the greatest yakatori I have ever had (and paid through the nose for it) and generally did a bunch of stuff. Unfortunately, when I uploaded pics from my camera to my computer they didn't upload and I lost most of them. Most of the ones from Tokyo too. I am going to ask Jessica if I can use her photos to share. (Hey Jessica, I know you are going to read at least this entry, can I use your photos?)
The two photos I have of Tokyo both involve my jack-assery
Me drinking sake. Notice how I don't sip it. Nope, just swig it all down at once. Also, notice the long sleeved shirt. Yup, Tokyo, not a place to have a full sleeve tattoo showing. Plus, it is winter.
The first day we were there I forced Jessica to spend two hours searching for Burger King with me. This is her humoring by taking a picture. She is just so darned thrilled about being at Burger King, in Japan! Yum! I had two whoppers. The first one was just because whoppers are delicious, the second one was because I am a glutton. And that second one was hard to finish. I am not the man I used to be.
Tokyo New Year's. I got too drunk and puked and did not have a great night. Let's leave it at that. The day was fun though. Got to see all the expensive shopping areas and cool stores and freaky people and places. And we saw black people! Yay! I get so excited to see black people in Japan. Why? Obviously, I am a racist.
We came back to Tsuruga to a snow storm
First weather we hit the entire week. Pretty, but very cold and not so fun to walk in. Thank goodness for waterproof boots (thanks, Mom!) and scarves (thanks Alex's desire for Burberry! (note, I did not get a Burberry scarf, but as the first picture shows, I got one that looks similar while in Tokyo))
Then we went to Kyoto! whew, I am exhausted just writing about all we did.
The first thing we did when we got to Kyoto was to go to McDonald's for breakfast.
This was a huge treat for me since the McDonald's by my house doesn't serve breakfast and what is the absolute best part about McDonald's? Well Milkshakes of course. But besides that it is a sausage egg McMuffin. You have no idea how happy I am when I get to eat American fast food. I am such a fat ass.
Delicious! Oishi!
After that we went to Kinkaku-ji or the Golden pavilion.
It is a temple covered in gold! And since I am Japanese I had to take a picture of myself standing in front of it to prove that I was there
Yup, that is me standing in front of the Golden Temple. Sweet.
Eh. It was okay. I mean, it is neat that there is a temple covered in gold, but it isn't like you can either go in it or get close to it and the hundreds of other people there make it kind of lose it's special charm. It is no McDonald's breakfast.
Then came the best part of the trip (for me at least). We went to Monkey Park!
It's a place where you can feed monkeys! Notice how nervous Jessica looks in that picture. Why would she be nervous, the monkeys are in a cage. Nope. That cage is for people to go into so they don't get attacked by the monkeys.
Here is Jessica walking right by a monkey. I took this picture for evidence in case the monkey attacked and killed her. That monkey was giving me the stink eye and then started following Jessica up the path. It was nerve-wracking to say the least.
Here's dozens of monkeys following around the guy with food. Yeah, if you don't think that was insanity, well, you are crazier than a barrel full of monkeys (see what I did there?! Goddamn I am funny!).
Monkey Park (really should be called Monkey Mountain, but whatever) was easily my favorite thing about Japan so far. It was well worth the 500 or 600 yen admission. If you are ever in Japan and around Kyoto, I cannot recommend going to Monkey Mountain enough. They are open every day, except for heavy snow or tsunamis.
Then we went to Obama and bought Obama for Obama t-shirts because we are dorks. And I haven't uploaded those pictures yet so there is no evidence. And I am tired and have been writing this for the past two hours. Therefore, that is it for now.
All in all I loved having Jessica here. It was so nice to have someone to joke around and hang out with. And most of all she is a really good friend of mine and I missed her a lot so it was nice to see her and be around her for a month. And now, of course, I miss her all over again. Shoganai.
However, it is a month's worth of updating and that is quite daunting to me. I mean, that sounds like hell. Just writing and staring at the screen for hours. Therefore, I am going to do a short update with lots of pictures from my travels and then go back and expand on stuff over the next week or two.
But first, this weekend I had the most American day ever! It started with a snowy day. Well, that isn't American, but I really like that first day of snow, everything is so clean and white. Oooh, white, white is American. A couple of my students called and asked if I wanted to go somewhere and of course I jumped on it. We (okay, they) decided we should go to Gifu on the other side of the mountains and do some stuff. So, we hop in the car and off we go.
The drive was great. The snow here is usually really really wet, I guess because the air temp is just hovering around freezing and the snow is almost rain, and the snow just hangs on the trees and covers everything. Unfortunately I didn't take my camera becuase it is a little too big to just put in my pocket, so no pics. Next big purchase, smaller camera. But it was really beautiful. Trust me on it. At one point in the drive we had to go through a one lane tunnel. Apparently the tunnel was originally a train tunnel, so it was really narrow and short and very creepy. Especially because there is a turn halfway through it and you can't see the other end of the tunnel (the tunnel was about a half a mile long I would say, not the shortest one lane tunnel in the world). There is a sign on either end, a red light/green light, but the light is about 3 minutes long and I bet some people have run that light at one time or another. Not the most nerve free two minutes of my life.
When we got to Gifu we went to Chorky's Diner!!! (Their three exclamation points, not mine) an American "50s" style diner. Sort of. They had lots of 50s stuff in there, but also stuff from the 90s like Taco Dorito bags and Betty Crocker brownie mix. And their menus had a Too Much Coffee Man comic as their background, an alternative comic from the mid to late 90s. Very strange mix of stuff. However, great hamburgers and milkshakes. Yum! The hamburger was on a croissant style bun so the bun was very light compared to the hamburger buns I normally get. And decent fries too. Which of course were dipped in the chocolate milkshake.
After our all American lunch we went to a shooting range! Well, an air rifle shooting range, but it was still pretty fun. Got to shoot giant air rifles with cool scopes to help aim and it was fun. Strange fact, no one in Japan is left handed. Well, supposedly. Jessica is left handed and she was talking about it to some people, and apparently left handed people don't exist in Japan. If a child is left handed they are taught to use their right hand instead. I find that hard to believe. In a country as obsessed with baseball as Japan is, wouldn't they want left handed pitchers? Anyway, the shooting range was set up for righties only. The stools were set on the ground to the left and the telescopes were set so you could lean over from sitting right handed to check out how you did. But, because I have a bad right eye I have always shot left and it was quite difficult for me to do. I didn't do too bad shooting, mostly bull's eyes or close to em. Whatever, it was fun as hell to go shooting and now I want to go to a real shooting range, which I don't think they have in Japan. Might have to go to Thailand one weekend, heard I can get there and back for under $500 total. Just to go shoot a machine gun. Awesome!
After our shooting adventure we stopped at a Portuguese pizza parlor, named Guto's hilariously enough, and had some delicious pizza. Big, thick sliced (at least by Japanese standards, almost thick enough to be considered thin sliced pizza in America) pizza covered with toppings. Had the meat trio with sausage, bacon, and ham. YUM! And the menu was in Portuguese not Japanese. I swear, for a minute in the pizza parlor I forgot that I was in Japan. I think it is because everyone I ever deal with speaks English and I never speak Japanese. And I wonder why I haven't improved my Japanese as much as I think I should have.
Okay so here is the quick overview of the last month.
Having Jessica here over the holidays was such a good thing for me.
Maybe not for her. Here she is looking terrified about me being near her. Notice my awesome headgear. That is my Rummy ass whoopin' headgear. I am the Japanese Rummy King. I destroy people at Rummy (well, I destroyed Jessica mightily every single game, never lost as far as I remember). One of the things we enjoyed doing was just hanging out and playing cards after a long day of work and travel (well, I worked, she traveled). It was really really nice to come home at night and have someone to just hang out with and talk to about my day. And she made me dinner a couple of times! Yay! That was really good too. Unfortunately, that meant it was my duty to wash dishes. Boo! My least favorite chore. That was probably my favorite part of her being here, having a very good friend here and simply being able to be myself and chat and make jokes and laugh and generally have a really nice time. Jessica will be the last person to tell you this, but she is a really good and caring person and it was nice to have someone here that cared about me over the holidays.
Cough cough Gay. Cough cough
This is Jessica's "can we move on now?" face. Trust me, I saw this face many times over the past month.
So, here are some of the things we did while she was here.
Saw Mt. Fuji. Now, I am not sure if you have ever heard of this mountain. It isn't very big or very well known, kind of like our own little secret place, but it was nice to look at.
Pretty darned impressive.
We went to Fuji five lakes, a touristy area near Mt. Fuji with excellent (see above photo) views of the Mountain itself. Now, I know it is called the hidden mountain, but it was just sitting out there for us to look at the whole three days (two days? I don't remember, everything runs together) without a care in the world. Damned self confident that mountain.
Here is the room we stayed in while at Mr. Fuji-san.
Traditional western room with tatami mats, paper sliding doors, one low table and futons stacked in the corner that were to be pulled out at night for sleeping. Pretty cool. Well, pretty warm actually, Jessica had the heater blasting all night long. As she said "I have been cold for three weeks, I am not being cold here." So my apartment is a bit chilly.
And we did lots of stuff there, went to a couple of caves, went to an Izakya and ate the greatest yakatori I have ever had (and paid through the nose for it) and generally did a bunch of stuff. Unfortunately, when I uploaded pics from my camera to my computer they didn't upload and I lost most of them. Most of the ones from Tokyo too. I am going to ask Jessica if I can use her photos to share. (Hey Jessica, I know you are going to read at least this entry, can I use your photos?)
The two photos I have of Tokyo both involve my jack-assery
Me drinking sake. Notice how I don't sip it. Nope, just swig it all down at once. Also, notice the long sleeved shirt. Yup, Tokyo, not a place to have a full sleeve tattoo showing. Plus, it is winter.
The first day we were there I forced Jessica to spend two hours searching for Burger King with me. This is her humoring by taking a picture. She is just so darned thrilled about being at Burger King, in Japan! Yum! I had two whoppers. The first one was just because whoppers are delicious, the second one was because I am a glutton. And that second one was hard to finish. I am not the man I used to be.
Tokyo New Year's. I got too drunk and puked and did not have a great night. Let's leave it at that. The day was fun though. Got to see all the expensive shopping areas and cool stores and freaky people and places. And we saw black people! Yay! I get so excited to see black people in Japan. Why? Obviously, I am a racist.
We came back to Tsuruga to a snow storm
First weather we hit the entire week. Pretty, but very cold and not so fun to walk in. Thank goodness for waterproof boots (thanks, Mom!) and scarves (thanks Alex's desire for Burberry! (note, I did not get a Burberry scarf, but as the first picture shows, I got one that looks similar while in Tokyo))
Then we went to Kyoto! whew, I am exhausted just writing about all we did.
The first thing we did when we got to Kyoto was to go to McDonald's for breakfast.
This was a huge treat for me since the McDonald's by my house doesn't serve breakfast and what is the absolute best part about McDonald's? Well Milkshakes of course. But besides that it is a sausage egg McMuffin. You have no idea how happy I am when I get to eat American fast food. I am such a fat ass.
Delicious! Oishi!
After that we went to Kinkaku-ji or the Golden pavilion.
It is a temple covered in gold! And since I am Japanese I had to take a picture of myself standing in front of it to prove that I was there
Yup, that is me standing in front of the Golden Temple. Sweet.
Eh. It was okay. I mean, it is neat that there is a temple covered in gold, but it isn't like you can either go in it or get close to it and the hundreds of other people there make it kind of lose it's special charm. It is no McDonald's breakfast.
Then came the best part of the trip (for me at least). We went to Monkey Park!
It's a place where you can feed monkeys! Notice how nervous Jessica looks in that picture. Why would she be nervous, the monkeys are in a cage. Nope. That cage is for people to go into so they don't get attacked by the monkeys.
Here is Jessica walking right by a monkey. I took this picture for evidence in case the monkey attacked and killed her. That monkey was giving me the stink eye and then started following Jessica up the path. It was nerve-wracking to say the least.
Here's dozens of monkeys following around the guy with food. Yeah, if you don't think that was insanity, well, you are crazier than a barrel full of monkeys (see what I did there?! Goddamn I am funny!).
Monkey Park (really should be called Monkey Mountain, but whatever) was easily my favorite thing about Japan so far. It was well worth the 500 or 600 yen admission. If you are ever in Japan and around Kyoto, I cannot recommend going to Monkey Mountain enough. They are open every day, except for heavy snow or tsunamis.
Then we went to Obama and bought Obama for Obama t-shirts because we are dorks. And I haven't uploaded those pictures yet so there is no evidence. And I am tired and have been writing this for the past two hours. Therefore, that is it for now.
All in all I loved having Jessica here. It was so nice to have someone to joke around and hang out with. And most of all she is a really good friend of mine and I missed her a lot so it was nice to see her and be around her for a month. And now, of course, I miss her all over again. Shoganai.
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