Well, I've been living in Japan for nearly half a year now and I still feel like I haven't traveled much, which I guess can be expected from
working in Japan and not
vacationing here, but I'm finally getting my ass to Kyoto on Wednesday. My life and job, like so many other people, have fallen into a routine of work, eat, drink. work, eat, drink. work, drink, drink. and then perhaps the occasional pirated movie from UTorrent or an episode of Simpsons from
peekvid.com, a GODSEND of a website for anyone living outside of the U.S.
In other news, holy god does this place have delicious food. Udon. Ramen. Nabe. Yakiniku. Yakitori. Fried rice. Anything that involves miso. And hot sake that just sliiides down your throat. Now only if I had easy access to smoked turkey, Japan would be a culinary paradise. I haven't had a smoked turkey sandwich since I was in the states. But this place did the impossible: it made me appreciate and like eating fat. FAT! I used to have -- and still have, really -- such an aversion to fat, but the yakiniku izakayas grill it perfectly. Dear lord I love Japanese food.
My Japanese is still coming along. I can read and write both hiragana and katakana, but I'm just starting on kanji and boy is it a bitch. I'm accurate and fluent enough in the grammar that now I need to start concentrating on vocabulary. I can understand and express past, present, present progressive, and future tenses, both positive and negative, both casual and polite; intension; comparison; location; probable; possessive; descriptive; never/ever statements; and if/then statements among others I might be forgetting. That's right. I rule. My goal is that in December I hope to pass Level 3 of the Japanese Language Proficiency Test. At least then I can put that on my resume. or, depending on my progress, I'm not ruling out the possibility of staying here indefinitely. I do have some issues with this place, but overall I love this place. If "in vino veritas" is true, then I'm certain about two things: 1) Japan is awesome and 2) I miss my friends something fierce.
My British flatmate Charles continues to ooze all sorts of awesomeness while our OCD, socially awkward, and probably-autistic Californian otaku flatmate Scott continues to make us go cross-eyed with bloodlust. He recently quit his job and we're secretly hoping he doesn't find another one just so we can kick his ass out. I've been sitting here for about five minutes thinking about how to end this paragraph without turning it into a rant and I can't, so I'm just gonna stop here with a list of offenses if anyone's interested:
SPOILERS! (Click to view)
1) Entering bedrooms, without the courtesy of knocking, in order to reach the balcony at any hour, regardless of whether I just might happen to be busy doing something private in my room.
2) Thinking that it's an emergency and that the toilet's broken when the plug in the tank doesn't close, and also forgetting to jiggle the handle, causing the water to run for hours at a time.
3) Leaving dirty paper towels all over the damn place when the garbage is two feet from the table.
4) Not drinking any alcohol. or eating meat. or vegetables. or fruit. It's all pasta for this boy. everyday.
5) Leaving said pasta unattended while cooking, thereby increasing the chance of it to boil over and make a big fucking mess that I sure as hell won't clean up but he sure as hell won't clean up because it would require getting his hands wet.
6) Walking ON his heels and ONLY his heels on the wooden apartment floor.
7) Sounding like everything he says is snide and sarcastic when it's just that he has no clue how to talk to people.
8) Leaving his space heater on when he leaves the apartment, thus increasing the chance of the whole damn apartment to burn down.
And the most heinous offense of all......
9) NOT washing his fucking dishes, but instead rinsing them and then drying them with the same goddamn paper towel he just used to wipe his mouth. Although the dishes are supposedly communal, I absolutely refuse to clean and use the same dishes he uses.
All attempts at re-educating him proved to be futile.
I suppose I should probably post a few of the two million photos I took of my continuing adventure in Japan. Enjoy a few of 'em.
People:
SPOILERS! (Click to view)
Whetting my whistle at Heaven's Door, a bar with a 3000 vinyl LP record collection, from which the owner randomly selects the music for the night. No requests allowed and it's the best damn bar in town, and I suspect, the country.
Sarah the Canadian and my British flatmate Charles eating chocolate-covered bananas at the popular Penis Festival.
Me, Margot, and her friend....Suzuki (?) at the one time I ever did karaoke and not had a drink. Alcohol and karaoke go together so well that it just doesn't feel right when one isn't accompanied by the other.
Miyuki and Haruka. friends. yep. And yes, 98% of all Japanese people make the peace symbol while having their picture taken. But those from Osaka also like to stick out their tongue, but lord knows where they picked that up.
Satoko, Yurika, Mako, and Keiko. All staff from my eikaiwai but the two on the right are the only ones with whom I work directly.
The whole gang. playin drunk Twister. on Christmas. so this is what college was supposed to feel like.
Jeff from one of the Carolinas, Youko the branch staff, and Charles. Jeff has the uncanny mutant ability to appear and unintentionally disrupt any conversation I have with anyone of the female persuasion in a public setting. Honest to god, he's a stand-up bloke, but it's bewildering how many times this has happened.
Apparently Japanese people like to puff up their cheeks when they're mad? It's more humorous and cute in my opinion.
oof. Youko has an adorable smile, which, to be totally honest, is incredibly difficult to find in Japan. Somewhere in America there's a depressed failure of a dentist who would make a killing here.
Places and Things:
SPOILERS! (Click to view)
Nagoya Towers. aka Home. -sigh-
Me and
xPenelopex at The Site of Reversible Destiny. I bought a t-shirt that said "We Have Decided Not to Die." .....awesome.
Charles and Scott having a duel on top of Invalidenstrase.
A Shinto shrine hidden away, like so many a shrine, on a small street next to a busy one. Only in Japan can you take a 50-minute drunk walk home at 3 AM on a busy street, take a turn on a completely dark street where all falls silent and be awestruck by the silence and beauty of a shrine.
Nagoya castle. complete with an outside elevator.
a guard building of Nagoya castle.
A shrine that depicts various stages of life and interpretations of death. and a cute li'l sign suggesting that visitors should clean up after their dogs.
The Osu Kannon Buddhist temple
The Osu Kannon shopping district
...yeah...
A sign depicting an alien spaceship with a star of david and a swastika from the "Raelian Movement" (which it says at the bottom). It sits atop a brothel near my apartment, so I suspect that the brothel is merely a method for the aliens to cross-breed with humans. yeah. think about it.
The giant carved penis from the Penis Festival! A parade was had and free sake was given freely to the masses! And there was much rejoicing! Especially and abundantly from the dumbass gaijin fratboy community. Shit do I hate gaijin. I don't blame the xenophobia here.
There's also a festival where a man, wearing only a loincloth, shaves his entire body and goes running through the streets. Everybody else is encouraged to chase him down and give him a good ol' slap. I don't know whose idea it was to have a hundred people chase a naked shaved man down the street in hope of slapping him, but it sounds like loads of fun to me.
I guess that's about all.
I'm off to sleep.
-sleep-
<3 kim