I have a saying that goes: "An hour's sleep is an hour wasted." If that is anything to live by, this weekend was pure magic.

It began after school on a friday. I was wrecked from the week's teaching (or in my case, not teaching much... but I was still exhausted), and I came home as soon as I could to take a nap. I very rarely nap. I wasn't destined to take one this day either. Soon after I had taken my pants off and went to bed, my doorbell sounded. It was my neighbour, who we shall call, say, "Timbo". He loudly announced it was "beer o'clock". (I technically had no beer, but "wine o'clock" doesn't have the same ring to it.)

My original plan was to go to basketball practice, and get a few drinks at a local bar before sinking into the best sleep imaginable. Perhaps, due to my sleep induced vulnerability to suggestion, "Timbo" managed to convince me to instead travel to Takaoka, the closest decent town, to go to some bars and check out a Brazillian club where girls can enter for free if they wear short skirts.

Soon, it was "gin & tonic from a litre bottle o'clock", as we caught a last train to Takaoka. This trip was the worst idea ever. The first bar was full of people, but there was conveniently a free table next to the other token group of foreigners. This phenomenom is referred to as "being put in the Gaijin Corner". It happens Japan-wide. You will always be put next to the other foreigners, despite our mutual dislike for each other.

The next stop was the Brazillian club, which was closed. Plan B was a different club, but this was completely dead. Infact, the whole city was dead. If we had of wanted to go out in a dead city, we could've stayed in Tonami. We did meet 2 guys who offered to buy us a beer, presumably because we were interesting. I can milk my foreigness for beer. Only, once we sat down, they patted their pockets and said they hadn't enough money. Then, one guy started showing signs of unstableness, and he kept touching our thighs. "Timbo" and I knew what we had to do: run. We threw our share of money at them and exited the bar sprinting away like there were police dogs chasing us. We took another walk to confirm that Takaoka city was officially closed, and hailed an expensive taxi back home.

Finally, after 3am, I drowned in my well deserved sleep.


At 7am I was rudely awakened by the alarm of "Timbo"'s cellphone which he left behind in my apartment. At 10:13, I was permanently awoken by a peppy message "lets go to the beach". So, 5 of us drove out to the deserted beaches of Toyama bay. It is not summer yet, but this May weather feels like a hot New Zealand summer to me. It was a brilliant day, despite the state of the beach. The Japanese appear to have no concept of "keeping a beach clean". I swear, 7 metres away from our spot, was a toilet brush. A toilet brush! I didn't sleep at the beach, but this was almost as relaxing. I also attained a satisfying sunburn. Yes, in my eyes, summer is here already. The water was also filled with jellyfish. I didn't mind. It's summer. We had a good swim together.

After dinner, I went to some friends' house to help them light a bonfire and get told off by their neighbours.

After that pointless ordeal, I was sober driver to go to a reggae club night in another neighbouring city. Even sober, it was a good night out, but this may be slightly skewed because of contrasting this with the previous night. I wanted to get home around 2am, the reason for this being: I had a basketball tournament to star in. I ended up being 4am.
My alarm was set for 6:30, on purpose.

This basketball tournament was part of the Toyama prefecture City Government Sports Day. Various sports were played, and as the city ALT, I was asked to play for them. The guys from City Hall are gold, so I agreed. Apart from one other young guy, all other teammates were over 30 years old, unfit smokers, and played about once per year. This all equated to me getting only one 5 minute substitution over the three games. Since the level of basketball was lower than I usually play, this wasn't so much of a problem, and it was more fun to get my teammates involved. I mean, they only play once a year. I did though, accidentally score 27 points in the 2nd game.

The final, (yes, we made it to the final) was a tough game. Everybody was completely nailed by this time, and the opponent's best player and I cancelled each other out. We ended up with a halftime score of just 15-15. This may have been the ugliest half of basketball ever witnessed. But we pulled away in the 2nd half, en leu (*french) to becoming the Toyama Champions...of the 6 city councils that entered teams...Well, at least it's something.
Sorry for the long detailed explanation of the whole weekend, but I was simply re-creating the extreme feeling of needing sleep.

Of course, it wasn't over yet. We had to celebrate becoming the Toyama Champions (of the 6 city councils that entered basketball teams). This involved a lot of beer, and sake, and I also vaguely remember drinking shochu. Usually the term "free drinks" in Japan is a euphamism, but I wasn't allowed to pay. It's a great group of guys, and I was happy to hear that since we came in the top 2, we will enter our team into a tri-prefectural tournament in August.
Remember, this was a Sunday night, and I possibly don't remember coming home, supposedly at midnight. Sleep had finally caught up to me, but with 4 periods of teaching 6 and 7 year olds in the morning, I couldn't catch up with sleep.

I think I finally proved my theory wrong.

Filling the void, again.

When things in life seem futile, many turn to alcohol. Not I. I fill the voids in my life with things. Glorious, materialistic things. A few months back, in the midst of winter, I set about building a bar in my apartment. Then I turned to alcohol... Things seemes to be going well at the beginning of a glorious summer. . I really enjoyed coming home, but once there... something, something didn't feel quite right. I needed to find the purchasable object that would make it all okay again.

Phase A
This idea came to me when I was at the Tulip Festival. Tonami is billed as "the flower city", so I thought to myself: "Since I am in the Flower City, why don't I buy myself a flower?"... okay, that came out wrong... But I did have a plan. The very next week (I was kindof busy that week...) I went and treated myself to 25 kilograms of dirt. I love retail therapy! Now, like most apartments on the 3rd floor, I don't have a garden. I do have a balcony, and that is where I set up a flowerbed, and a series of pots. Over the last two weeks, I have been taking great care of them, and I am now the proud, single dad of baby lupins, sunflowers and cosmos. As a plan to impress girls, this is deeply flawed. But it is good feel responsible for something other than myself.

Phase 2
Going by the philosophy of "do in Tonami as the Tonamians do" by growing flowers, I am also "doing as the Japanese do"- by growing rice. I will not get into the finer details of how I came into posession of the rice plants, for it is something I am not proud of. I will say, however, that "Operation Rice-Get" occured past midnight. I've said too much already... So, alongside my flowerbed, I have a small rice field, complete with the mud and dirty, insect-filled water. unfortunately, "Operation Tadpole Drop" was unsuccessful. I wonder if this year will be a good harvest...
I feel the flowers and rice have made me feel closer to the heart of the Japanese and Tonameese mentality.

Phase 3
Undeterred by the failure of "Operation Tadpole Drop", I decided to go up one level. Pets! On the scale of difficulty of keeping alive, interestingness and originality, Goldfish are near the bottom of the pet scale. They sit somewhere between worms and sea monkeys. Still, for someone who grew up with a cat, dogs, goats, turtles, goldfish, tropical fish, birds, guinea pigs, rabbits, eels, lizards and once had a monkey stay over for a weekend, having a pet of any sort is a must. Most goldfish, in my correct opinion, look like failed genetic experiments. This is because they usually are. Comets though, while plain, are acceptable pets, and I chose two groovy clownfish coloured ones. They are named Kami, and Kaze.

So, while I did fill thevoid in my life with materialism, buying (and stealing) living things to take care of makes it slightly less sad. I am investing in life. And if that fails, at least I can take comfort in the knowledge I have a fully stocked bar in my apartment.

"Let's make a smily school"

English speakers in Japan love all the places where Japanese make blatant mistakes in their clumsy attempts to use English, not dissimilar to this here sentence. There are websites for Engrish, but it is much more satisfying to find your own examples. The criteria of good Engrish are, as I see it: Blatantness, Nonsensicality, Public Coverage, Accidental Innuendo.

Blatantness.

This photo was taken at a Pachinko Parlour (note: Pachinko is a form of "gaming". Gambling is illegal in Japan, so Pachinko parours get around this red tape by making it impossible to win). This building is on a main road, 5 minutes from central Kanazawa (a city of half a million).

Nonsensicality.

This is self explanitory. Or not... I don't get it. Neither should you. This is usually the result of a tragic marriage between an incompetent English speaker, and a dictionary. Try take these rules at a club seriously.

Public Coverage.

This is the scale of the mistake. The bigger the billboard, the better. Often related to blatantness.

Accidental Innuendo.

This is the most satisfying variant of Engrish, when nonsensicality starts to mae sense, only not in the way it was intended. But really, why does there need to be an English poem on the packet of disposable womens underwear? That is asking for trouble.

There is an unspoken agreement between foreigners living in Japan, to not correct these mistakes. At times, these are our only source of enjoyment. This is an especial double standard for English teachers, and especially those employed by the government, such as myself. We are supposed to correct English, but this would strip us of the everyday pleasure of laughing at incompetent others...

At the same time, engrish also pisses me off. First of all, why does everything need to be written in English? English isn't an official language, and no-one really speaks English fluently. It's purely because of fashion. Yes, you've most likely seen japanese fashion, combining schoolgirl uniforms, with superhero costumes. (for both genders). Perhaps you also read the (true) recent article that began: "Japanese poodle lovers have been fleeced into buying what were described as 'cleverly trimmed sheep'.

It's fair to say that am a disliker of fashion. Just the idea of people liking something because others like it too. It is so hollow, and this should never be applied to a language. As soon as you start learning a language to be fashionable, you strip it of all its worth, all its true meaning.
When I arrived at my Junior High School, there was the slogan "we make an active school". While not fitting into any of the 4 engrish categories, per see, it is still a meaningless shell of a sentence, destroyed by non-english speakers and dictionaries. The dewey-eyed youth I was, I wanted to change things. I vowed to make next year's slogan sound less retarded. I hereby present the new slogan:

"Let's make a smily school"

This is tragic. The typo is theirs, not mine. They came to me with a Japanese motto, and asked me to translate it; starting with "let's" using the word "shine", and making it easy to understand for everyone. It was tough. I came up with "Let's make our personalities shine bright". I wasn't happy with it, but it was certainly an improvement on last year.
The next day, I got asked by an art teacher to comment on another slogan: "let's make smile". Not even Shakespeare could rescue such a ridiculous sentence. I told him it sounds stupid. "let's making smiling"?, he suggested... "let's make a smile"? Although this was (accidentally) gramatically okay, this was hardly a slogan for a school I wanted to be associated with. He listened to my suggestions, and thanked me profusely.

Now, I am staring, in dismay, at a handout that explains the process that was made in choosing the new slogan. My original suggestion was "too difficult", "wouldn't it be better to have one that is easier to understand?" Therefore, for the next year, our slogan is "Let's make a smily school".

It's slap in the face really, since the reason I am in Japan is to teach what Japanese teachers cannot: natural English. Another ALT rightly pointed out that this slogan would maybe be suitable for a dentistry school. (although one sometimes doubts whether these even exist in Japan...). It's frustrating because I would like to think I make a difference, but if I can't even keep Engrish outside my school, it reminds me that I'm simply an item of fashion.

I think, first, this picture needs a little bit of explaining... It's one of my more prized Engrish items, which I got after a trip to Osaka during Golden Week. I think it is supposed to say "taste". If New York is the "big apple", then Osaka would be the "big teste". Literally, Osaka means, "the big slope", and figuratively, any road or train track to Osaka feels downhill. It is such a nice change from Toyama. Like, when I was meeting my host sister at Osaka station. Even with cellphones, it took 30 minutes to find each other. I love the possibility of getting lost, and that is hard to do back in Tonami.

Of course, I was treated to the hospitality of my brother, always convenient. Also, we took a road trip to his old host family in Okayama. Literally, this means "hilly mountains", whereas Toyama means "bountiful mountains". I was pleased to see that this was even more countryside than back home. My brother lived there for a year. so, I met his host parents who were wonderfully nice, and had an unbelievable 200 year old house. It has a stone wall around it, with an inner garden. It looks like a castle. The sliding doorways are a convenient 170cm meaning I could never live in such a house. For me, living there for a week would be like going for 12 rounds with Mike Tyson.

Next door, we visited the Temple. The temple folk also plied us with food and drink. This is true countryside. Back at the host families house, two separate neighbours came by to drop off surplus vegetables. It is such a cute lifestyle. You know, I complain a lot about living in countryside Toyama, but perhaps maybe, it isn't countryside enough.

My brother and his host father, overlooking the hilly mountain countryside.

Of the other adventures, the most noteworthy was going to Osaka port with my host sisters and their friend. It was on the last day of Golden Week, Children's Day. It wasn't perhaps the best day to go to a museum, a ferris wheel and an aquarium. The museum was of the surrealist painter, Dali. He's relatively popular in Japan, and holy crap. There were queues of people infront of every single painting, drawing and photo. It isn't such a problem for me, with the height advantage, but I cant imagine what everyone else was going through. Museums are tiring enough, let alone Dali, who was deliberately mysterious artist.

The Ferris wheel took over 30 minute's wait. This gave me time to ponder the sentence on the ticket: "The Tempozan World's Largest Giant Wheel". (in England, they are usually called "big wheels", although I feel that sounds like a monster truck wheel). Some quick research revealed that at 112.5metres, it is a full 50 metres from being the largest. But it was a brilliant clear day. Lunch also required a 25 minute satnd-in-line.

And if you thought that was bad... the Aquarium was busy to the point of being not fun anymore.

Despite all this, it was a brilliant day. It capped off a really good holiday, which I really needed. I came home to Tonami that night, and for the first time after coming back to Tonami after a holiday, I wasn't down about it. It might have been the warm weather. It might have been the relaxed atmosphere. It might have been the beer. I don't know. It was great having the Teste of Osaka, but it was good to be home.

As the proverb proverbialises:

(Japanese) People travel travel the world (but mostly other parts of Japan) during Golden Week, but come home to find their gold rush.