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Golden Week 09

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Golden Week in Japan ended on Wednesday. My company’s American so I don’t technically get Golden Week off, but my schedule’s flexible so I was able to take a few days off or did some half-days. I didn’t do anything major (but I am in Hong Kong now), but Y’s on Friday the 1st was pretty awesome.

ワイズ幕張 最高

Even with just 3 or 4 people Y’s is always a good time, but this time we had about 20 or more, filling up the whole “usual counter.”

H A N A M I

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First hanami of the year, tomorrow at Chiba Park. See you guys there!

桜子爵

I really just wanted to post that picture.

Winding down December

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As strange as it seems, December and 2008 are just about over. I’ll be heading back to the US on Christmas for a week, staying in St. Louis to see the fam and plan new job* related stuff. Hard to believe the year’s this far along. Thank god I’ve only got 3 more days of work this month.

Last weekend we had a bonenkai (忘年会), the year-end party that Japanese people like to do. It literally means “party to forget the year,” probably because most Japanese people hate their lives so much they have to drink copious amounts of alcohol to forget how painful the past 12 months have been, only to get drunk in January at their new years parties to begin the cycle anew**. Our was a lot of fun though, with 25 people racking up a 100,000 yen bill (about a grand in USD) at the first party, followed by all-night karaoke. Here’s a pic I stole from Andy’s Facebook of the survivors who made it for McDonald’s breakfast at 5AM on Sunday morning:

survivors who made it to 5AM McDonalds breakfast

Since I decided to write a blog at about 1:30AM again when I should have been asleep at 11, here’s just a quick rundown of what I need to do/will do before leaving for the US on Christmas Day.

Fri 12/19 – work, then department’s bonenkai
Sat 12/20 – sleep, x-mas shopping, Goi school bonenkai, maybe karaoke with Chiba school
Sun 12/21 – x-mas shopping for real
Mon 12/22 – work, get home late, then sleeeeep because Tuesday’s…
Tue 12/23 – another BS holiday, “The Emperors Birthday!” shopping and packing.
Wed 12/24 – work, stay up all night packing
Thu 12/25 – try and scam the airline counter girl into giving me a free upgrade since it’s my birthday (25 on 25!), fly, get home and eat way good food, sleep for 2 days

*It’s pretty fishy, haHA!
**Just kidding; the Japanese don’t really drink to forget the year. They do it because they’re a nation of alcoholics.

Happy 6th of July!

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So a very late 4th of July to you all. I haven’t been keeping up with the blog recently, which I know has saddened your lives. Right. But anyway, I’ve been getting used to working a normal job, and thus living a life where I don’t get to sleep in every day, don’t get to stay up until 4AM playing on the internet, and don’t get to lay around watching TV at home for entire afternoons. Yes, I have rejoined society, if you can call it that. Not that work is bad or anything, it’s just hard to give up all the freedom I had before. But now I’m getting used to the routine, the morning commute, new co-workers, and trying to go to bed before 2AM. I’ll get more used to it soon, and won’t have to feel like a zombie going on 3 hours of sleep a night. But so far I really like this job.

Today was had an awesome Barbecue Party – partially to celebrate the 4th, partially to have a big BBQ like we did last year, but mainly just to blow things up. We bought about 7000 yen worth of fireworks yesterday at Donki, putting us in good supply for tonight’s activities. Japan doesn’t care about selling fireworks anywhere, so instead of having to go to some shady tent outside a Wal-Mart we were able to shop inside a real store with a wide selection of bottle rockets, roman candles, firecrackers, and sparklers (for the ladies of course). After a good deal of planning, we had the event today, meeting at 10AM at Inage Kaigan. We BBQ’d all day in the heat, then went to the beach at Kaihim Makuhari to do fireworks and relax. It was a great day – I’ll probably write more later and post some pictures. After that the few who were left went to Outback to eat some dinner, even though the entire time I was trying to just stay awake. I just finally got home about 30 minutes ago. I’m super tired and also very very red. Even though I used sunscreen I’m pretty sure I’m still sun burnt. Not as bad as last year, but I think by sweating like a pig all day I wore off the effect of any sunscreen I put on.

For now, I’m going to bed. Thanks to everyone who came to the party; it was awesome! Send me your pictures if you have any, especially of me with the giant 12-foot bamboo tree.

China, one week in

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I’ve been here in China for a full week now, and have already seen a ridiculous number of places. Until Friday, we’d been mainly doing work-related stuff, traveling to various cities and places to do so. The first night we stayed in Beijing, then the next morning we were up bright and early to catch a plane to Dalian. On Monday we took the train ride to hell to Tangshan, with a trip to Tianjin on Wednesday. We came back to Beijing on Thursday, thinking we were done with work, but it looks Tuesday morning we’re heading off to Shanghai. We’ve been touristing it up here in Beijing for the weekend and it’s been pretty cool so far.

The fight night in Beijing (北京) we stayed at a hotel near the somewhat famous Wangfujing area, walking around and getting our first taste of shopping and bargaining at tourist traps in China. Also we got our first taste of the air pollution and dust in this country, which is pretty bad at times. You walk around hacking and coughing like you’ve been chain-smoking 10 packs of cigarettes (which a lot of the guys here do), then have no choice but to spit all over the place (which a lot of the guys and women here do). Nothing says sexy like a woman hocking a loogie right in the middle of the road. Goo.

北京鴨 ペキン ダックWe got Peking Duck for our first meal, in a fancy-seeming restaurant. This place was the opposite of any restaurant I usually see in Japan. It was huge, brightly colored, and had several dining rooms full of pissed-off workers. In a lot of ways it felt like eating in the middle of a convention hall. It was just me and my dad, but we ordered a full duck and some cabbage soup thing. This restaurant was famous for duck, so pretty much every table ordered one. Every few minutes you see a train of chefs wearing surgical masks come out from the kitchen with carts. They break formation and head off to whichever table they’re serving, and they start to slice the duck right in front of you. Peking Duck is half fat, which I guess is what makes it so famous. Fat and skin. So the guy slices up the duck for you, puts it on plates, and you eat it by dipping the duck meat and skin in sauce, adding shredded leeks, and putting it inside a thin pancake. It’s kind of like getting fajitas, but less Mexican and no sour cream. And it’s pretty good! Really fatty, but the taste is good. You can, of course, just put less of the fatty pieces in when you roll up your duck fajitas.

More Peking Duck

The next day we headed out to Dalian (大連) via airplane. It was a really short flight, only about an hour and a half. They barely had time to serve drinks and this weird beef jerky fried sandwich thing before we had to get ready to land. Dalian is actually a huge city, famous for its beautiful beaches, zoos, and museums. We got to see none of this, instead driving for about 2 hours to a smaller island nearby, which apparently is a rapidly developing area with a lot of government support. Along the way we stopped by a restaurant that was actually a hotel/motel, and the table took up the entire room. We ate and stuff, met our clients, then headed out to the place we’d be working for a few days. When you think “lab,” you don’t think about this kind of place. Check it out:

outside the compound in DalianThat’s the outside of the complex where we were working on the fishies for 3 days. At least they had electricity. It’s a hatchery with all of the workers living on the premises. Kind of interesting to see how these people lived. I also came up with some sweet nicknames for the people there, like Transvestite kid, 2-tone hair girl, and eyebrows.

Our last day in Dalian, we got treated to a big lunch at this market-restaurant a bit closer to the city. Once we walked into the place, there were all kinds of tanks and stuff with live seafood and other animals and vegetables. Our host told us to each pick a dish. We did, but the host also had picked out some dishes. We then headed back to a private dining room. It seems the general norm for these big Chinese meals is to order a number of dishes, put them on the lazy susan turntable, and have everyone share them. No biggie, I’m used to that. What is strange, however, is the number of dishes. I don’t know if it’s just because we’re guests here or if this is what they usually do, but it seems like the equation for figuring out the number of dishes is people x 2, because there’s always so much food. When the first 2 dishes came out, I was speechless. Weird, strange dishes (to me) that must have been ordered by the host. I won’t go into detail just now, although I’ve told a few of you already. I don’t know if I’ll actually post it on the blog, because I can imagine some people getting offended, haha.

Left Dalian and headed to Tangshan (唐山), a smaller city, via train. Of course, this was a 9 hour hobo train ride from hell, which I’ll write about later. It was terrible though. There wasn’t much to do or see in Tangshan, since it’s a fairly small town that pretty much has no foreigners and no foreign tourists even. Nothing is in English anywhere, and since me and my dad don’t speak Mandarin it was pretty interesting. The coolest thing though was learning about the “board taxis,” called “bardu” or something in Mandarin. It’s pretty much a motorscooter with an army green cab attached to the back that can carry 2 or 3 people. It’s a kind of taxi but super cheap. 3 RMB (about 45 cents US) seemed to be the flat rate. Sure it’s not super fast, but it was convenient and kind of cool.

motorcycle taxi in Tangshan

Baijo burns like fireWe also made a day trip to Tianjin (天津), which was good for work but pretty boring overall. After the big meeting with businessmen and Communist government types, we went out to a local restaurant with them and had another infinity-course meal. They used a lot of local vegetables or something, and knew the owner, but it was kind of weird because we went to a pretty remote place to eat at this restaurant. And the owner ate with us! It was way good, and luckily no weird animals that I know of, except for the water bug shrimp things. They also served this Chinese liquor called baijo (白酒) which was supposedly 60% alcohol by volume but tasted more like Everclear. It was painful. Especially when the one Chinese guy across the table from me would take his glass, grunt, hit the glass table, and give you a look like “if you don’t drink some baijo right now I will kill you.” A very enjoyable party though. Communists love to give the double hand-sandwich shake, and they also wave goodbye using both hands, in case you didn’t know.

After a long dinner and baijo party, we went back to Tangshan in Golgo 13’s car as he played American rave and trance music picked out especially for us. I have a short video of this car ride that I’ll post later, just so you guys know I’m not kidding about the rave music.

Now onto the weekend of April 4-6, an action-packed three days full of events ranging from ridiculously awesome to just ridiculous. On Friday morning I headed into Tokyo to discuss a full-time position offer, and after that I headed back home to get ready for the big day. Steve checked out of his hotel and met me in Chiba, where we cabbed his luggage to my apartment, where he would be staying that weekend. That night was the first 2008 reunion at the rightfully legendary Y’s Makuhari. We had a pretty good turnout, with A-Team representatives, old friends, new friends, and of course a big grilled fish head.

Y's Mug ワイズバー 幕張テクノガーデン店We showed up before opening at 5:30, hanging out in the lobby with a decent number of middle aged salarymen, all waiting to enter paradise as well. Matsushita-san opened the place up and gave us a wave. He was telling some of the staff (Kanda students) that we’re the ones responsible for popularizing Y’s with the foreign students and probably Kanda students in general. Amazing. The place was probably busier that night than ever, since April is the start of the academic and fiscal year, meaning there were a lot of companies having welcome parties for new staff members. All of the private rooms were full, every table was packed, and even the counters were populated by tons of young Japanese workers all wearing the same suit. We weren’t able to get the usual middle counter, but I guess it was permissible this time. Steve and my friend Jini were the only ones who had never been to Y’s before, and they were both very pleased I think. It’s hard not to be.

After closing the place out around 10, we headed out towards Kaihim to try and find a karaoke place. There was a slight mishap and delay due to Steve’s glasses, but it was temporarily remedied with some 7-11-purchased scotch tape. Unfortunately, all those new company employees wanted to do karaoke as well, meaning that both King Arthur near the station and the place in the new shopping center were totally packed, and we were out of luck. We ended up cabbing to the big place near Hongo station and doing an all-nighter there. The group had been reduced to about half since a lot of people didn’t want to stay out all night. It was a fun night but the cold walk to the station at 5AM is never pleasant.

On Saturday after waking up in the afternoon we had a pretty lazy day in Chiba. We took Steve’s glasses to the Megane Super (メガネスーパー) glasses shop and they did a free and quick repair job that was of course not perfect, but it was a lot better than scotch tape. Went to Bochi Bochi (ぼちぼち) for dinner, letting Steve try okonomiyaki and natto. I don’t think he was a big fan of the natto, but most foreigners aren’t. I sure hate the stinky stuff.

Sunday was another busy day, waking up around 8AM to head to Kawasaki, which is south of Tokyo. It was the first Sunday of April, meaning that it was time for the 2008 Kanamara Matsuri (かなまら祭り), the Iron Penis Festival that I went to last year when Ari was in Japan. I didn’t think I’d end up going again, but with Macie and Steve both here, it was time to go see the giant pink penis float again. This year was very much the same as last, but it seemed like it was a lot busier. There were people all over the place, it was super crowded and still just as loud and lively as before. Konosuke had never been to this before either, and even being Japanese he was pretty surprised that such a weird, messed up event happens in his country. It was my second time and I’m still finding it difficult to believe. And hey, let’s make a quick collage!

川崎 かなまら祭り 2008 金山神社

So that was that.

Mayor of Namjatown ナンジャタウン 池袋 餃子スタジアムAfter the Penis Festival, we headed up to Ikebukuro to go to Namjatown, the “Golden Saucer” of Tokyo. In addition to the usual zones like Gyoza Stadium and Ice Cream City, there was a Cheesecake Expo going on and some other new stuff. It was great to see the mayor and the Namderbirds. Going with a big group to Gyoza Stadium is always a good idea because that way you can try a lot of different kinds of gyoza (pot stickers/Chinese dumplings). There was an awesome one made with a beef filling that I don’t think I’ve had there before. We walked around some of the amusement areas that I’ve never looked at before, and they were kind of interesting. Not interesting enough to pay for, but they were free so it was all good. After Namja we went across the street to The Lockup Ikebukuro location, giving the visitors a taste of a weird Japanese theme restaurant/bar.

So pretty much after that there wasn’t anything as special, at least with me. Macie left on Tuesday and Steve headed down to Kyoto on his own. He came back at the end of the week and left the following Saturday. I was still busy doing work and job interviews and stuff, but I was able to make it to the airport with both of them.

It was good to have visitors! It is tiring though, haha. But anyone else who’s going to come for a visit, let me know and I can help you out. I’ve got a decent amount of free time until June when I start the new full time position and have to go into Shinjuku everyday to work.

If you want to see some pictures from the places we went, there on the Pictures page.

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