Fool of Suprises.

Today's edition is not written by a stupidly bored guy sitting at his desk. No, today's edition is just written by a stupid guy sitting in some internet cafe in a large, strange city at 2am.

It all started after school. Fridays... the day of promise. This weekend, the excursion is to Osaka. Yes, I am keeping true to my "get out of Toyama as much as possible" scheme. Chances are, if you have half a brain (i.e. you know the difference between 'your' and 'you're'), you will know at least these two Japanese cities: Tokyo and Osaka. Osaka is a big city. It's basically joined onto Kyoto and Kobe to form a carpet of population across the middle of Japan. Enough geograpy. (Please, don't quote me on this, its not like I'm a teacher)

The main reason for coming to Osaka is because my brother happens to live there. Another English teacher in my city was coming down too, so I caught a ride. I tell, you, although I am stuck in some seedy internet cafe in a strange metropolis, I do feel very lucky to be alive. I'm not saying my friend is a bad driver. No, exactly the opposite. For 3 1/2 hours, he navigated the highways in his barely road-legal pathetic excuse for a car, amongst the insane kamakaze Japanese drivers who were obviously trying to kill us.

So we arrived. I met my friends' host family. They were very nice. Too nice infact. I blame this whole situation on their niceness. The plan was to go to my brothers' place tonight. They all looked up the train times on the internet and their cellphones, discussed it in detail, and gave me a foolproof itinery to get to my destination. First, they took us out to a bar/restuarant.

So that was all good and well. The time quickly came for me to leave. I apologised/thanked them (in Japan there is little distinction between a thank you and a sorry), and went to the station. The foolproof plan turned out to be proof that I am a fool. The train I was supposed to catch was right there... The sign was not what I expected it to be. I watched it go away and waited for the next one. Normally this is fine, but not when you are planning to catch the last train...

So, naturally, I missed that train, and I found myself in a large district of Osaka, lugging my bags aroundm wondering what the hell I was going to to do until the morning... My first thought was a capsule hotel. As my Tokyo experience told me, they aren't so bad. However, the guys at the convenience stores knew of none. I came across a building with large writing in English "NIGHT INFORMATION". It was night. I needed information... The guys inside told me they were closed. This seems to happen often in Japan. They apparently don't like to lock the doors,instead preferring to make an awkward situation. Still, I asked them if they knew of a capsule hotel. Perhaps it was just a way to get rid of me, but they said there was none...

The saviour came when I saw this 24 hour internet/comic cafe. I paid about 30$ new zealand (US20) for 5 hours in a room with a computer, TV, and most importantly, a big comfy leather couch. It is much cheaper, and more fun than a stupid Capsule hotel. The night hasn't turned out so badly after all. And now, I will finish with a quote. I don't have a source, I'm sorry.
Nothing will ever be foolproof; they will always make a better fool.

Sorry to be all suspenseful about how the festival performance went. I made a late starting lineup change, opting for a different song that had less risk of public humiliation on the account of my voice. It was much easier to sing.... the drawback was that the song contains more than three chords. Infact, it contains six! This proved to be my downfall, as during my performance, I played the wrong chord, and stopped. I'm not much of performer, so I wasn't really aware that you are supposed to pretend like nothing happened. Not me, I apologised, and started again from the chorus. A "do-over"... How childish is that? I then managed to "do-over" my mistake, stopping in exactly the same spot...

But overall, seeing the song was about 4 minutes long, I played probably 3 and a half of them without a mistake. If I was a professional basketball player, and I shot over 80%...

But that's not why you called. Today, I want to recount the adventures from the previous weekend. It was a long weekend, and that is a good opportunity to leave Tonami. The buses to Tokyo were all booked out, so it was time to enter the mysterious world of the JR train sytem... Leaving Tonami at 6pm, changing onto a full express train... The trains really do move, it is just unfortunate that between Toyama and Tokyo are these little things called the Japanese Alps. Anyhow, after an hour or so, all of a sudden, the train came to a halt. With my rapidly improving Japanese, I was able to pick out a lot of the announcements that were to follow. The first announcement was a very hesitant Japanese man. He struggle with the following words: "human body accident".

If you have been to Japan, you'll know exactly what this means. The explanation goes, that because of the Japanese fighting spirit, of always working your hardest, never saying your own feelings and always being submissive to your superiors, many people throw themselves infront of trains. I had heard this story many times before, and I might have possibly been on a train before that had to wait for the tracks to be cleaned up after such an accident. (just at that time, I couldn't understand the announcements).

This time, was a little different. The next announcements told that the police were coming, that this train was now a crime scene. From the train windows you could see all the emergency service vehicles, and workers walking up and down the tracks with torches. They really couldn't put humpty together again. It was all pretty unbelievable. It ended up being a 90 minute delay, which in effect, made us miss the changeover onto the bullet train to Tokyo. Luckily, JR held it up for us, and I did end up making it to Tokyo.

However, by that time it was already midnight. That night I wanted to try the infamous "capsule hotel". You may have heard of these. Because of the crazy land prices in Tokyo, they have these hotels which cram as many people as possible into the available space, which ends up resembling a coffin. I didn't feel like I was in a coffin, as much as one of those liquid filled pods in which the robots on the matrix breed human beings. It was odd. However, once inside, it was more like a high tech tent. There is a radio, a clock, a pair of slippers, some PJamas, Towel, and even a TV (with the option for pay-per-view... We all know what that means...). In the morning, they also provide showers, so in all, I will not dismiss capsule hotels.

Anyways, it was a fantastic weekend, yada yada yada... I'm sure you'd rather hear about how I was brought home by the police...

Disclaimer: the following story is completely out of chraracter, and I do feel very stupid. I am also not advocating alcoholism. But its really quite a funny story... No really useful braincells were harmed in the making of this story.

So it was a sunday night, just as I arrived back in Tonami. I had a day off the next day, so I was rather keen to go and have a few drinks. However, there was absolutely nothing open. Every bar we went into was closed or closing. This called for drastic measures... There is a karaoke place a reasonable distance from the town centre, but they are known to be open until late, and they have all you can drink... Yes, the infamous, reckless all you can drink. That was the end of me. Next thing I know, Im being woken up by 4 policemen. I am sitting against the side of a buliding alongside the main road. It is 8am, and probably half the population of Tonami saw me sleeping there on their way to work. Poor lady who worked at that building. She arrives, and sees an enourmous foreigner sleeping right by the door. She calls the police, who decide that 2 police officers wont be enough. Anyway, I go into the police car, which was the moment I realised I had no shoes on. The officers were very nice though, and they gave me a ride home.

I feel completely stupid about the whole thing, especially because noone at work has said anything, and I'm sure word must have spread. Also, do you know how hard it is to find shoes my size around here? I have no defence, except for that, usually all-you-can-drink places have very watered down drinks. I have decided though, as an act of redmption, that for the next month, I am giving up drinking while in Tonami.

I have trips lined up for the next 2 weekends.

Crash and Burn, it's a Festival

The word "festival" isn't often heard within the safe borders of New Zealand. Or, if it is, it would sound something like: "The Jazz music festival, see a concert every weekend". In general, New Zealanders are very unfestive. We are too laid back to give a..... care....There are really no events which can be called a proper festival. Sure, every year, when the Canterbury Crusaders (For the lucky people who don't know, this is a rugby team) win, all people from Christchurch celebrate being asses. Also, we have the Santa Parade when the streets are closed for a couple of hours to let a few cars with big advertising signs to drive through. Santa also makes a quick appearance.

I was in a Santa Parade once. It was not long after my under 14 basketball team became the South Island Champions. We were sponsored by a milk company, so we all wore our milk-boy track pants and jacket and dribbled a basketball behind the milk van through the streets. If you are wondering how this is relevant to a Santa Parade, I'm not really sure... I guess this milk company could supply you for the milk you leave out for Santa on Christmas eve...

So, in conclusion, New Zealand is not very festive. In this sense, Japan is New Zealand's evil twin. Or, good twin... I don't know, I haven't thought this through. It was just a bad way to say that there are many festivals in Japan.

There are many festivals in Japan. This sounds pretty good, and it usually is. Last time in Japan I went to many, and already this time I have been to many. There was a very famous one in my prefecture a few months back. "famous" in this case, means: "so crowded, it just isn't fun anymore". There was a crazy inpenetrable mass of people climbing up the mountain. It was a gauntlet of stall selling one of three different types of food. Mobs of very old, but deceptively strong, tiny, women wearing hats, were shoving and prodding me and anything else in their way, for the whole 4 hours I was there. I imagine it to be a similar experience to being in a locust plague. The only calm moment I got was in an already-full port-o-loo.

So that was fun. On the other end of the scale was a festival outside a convenience store. It wasn't a famous festival, and had exactly one stall, which sold the same three types of food.

And then we have the phenomenom of School festivals. I teach at two different elementary schools, and they both wanted me to attend their festival (both on the same day). It was on a weekend, but sure, a festival sounds like fun right? It was really quite lame. It might have been better if I wasn't so blatantly snobbed for the whole day. It was another of those moments when I realised how much of a freak I am. Its funny for a few moments, but very tiring for a whole day. It was definitely a festival, as the same 3 types of food were on sale. There was also a performance by every year group. The very young children put on a play. There was a lot of elbow nudging, which made it fun enough to watch. The middle students did tricks like bouncing basketballs, hula hooping, gymnasticsing, and unicycling, which gave many (fulfilled) opportunities for the kids to fall over. This was a crowd favourite; Japanese people love to see others publically embarrassed. The older kids put on a play, which went off without any mishaps. It is therefore, not worth continuing to talk about it.

This weekend is my main school's festival. These last two weeks have been very hectic. the schedule has been shuffled around so much, usually at the expense of my English classes. The pile of paper on my desk is growing at an unusually fast rate, and I'm finding myself completely alone in the staffroom more frequently. Everyone does seem to be very busy though. Everyone except for me. I think they are taking this festival very seriously, something which this New Zealander can't be trusted to do. (because its all so stupid!!! but funny). I have on my desk, a full written transcript for the festival's opening ceremony. It is all there, right down to the spontaneous banter. The festival is also notable for a few other reasons.

• I have to go to school on the weekend. I even have to teach some classes Saturday morning. Good luck trying to keep their attention...
• I am performing. They have a slot for me on stage to sing and play a song with my guitar.

This is a serious concern. For many reasons.

1. I am rubbish at guitar. I know a total of just three chords,and I dislike punk music. This is a bad combination.
2. I sound okay when I am playing on my own, or when the other people listening are drunk. The families of the students may be drinking, but I really need the majority of people to be drunk. Any ideas on how to get 177 kids drunk, please let me know!
3. I am not a performer. The largest group I have played to is one of my classes at school, and at least half of them were sleeping.

Most likely, it will be a complete disaster which will destroy the good image I have on the basis of being a foreigner. I have decided to a song by the Exponents, because they are a New Zealand band, but mainly because this song has three chords. I just might be able to pull it off. I do, however, have a secret weapon: the ability to produce "R" and "L" sounds. To a Japanese person, this is like Mongolian throat singing. I might be okay... I hope. At the very least, that will be 5 minutes where they cannot snob me. If, in the likely event I do crash to earth like a comet, I know I will at least be a crowd favourite. A publically humiliated foreign Mongolian throat singer. What a show that would be!

Anyhow, tune in next time to find out if I have any shred of dignity left after my performance.

Where did everyone go?

You know those moments when, all of a sudden, you realise you are completely alone? No, I'm not being symbolic and talking about being homesick. I'm talking about when I'm at school at my desk, performing very important tasks such as sharpening pencils and consuming lunch, and I look up to see an empty staffroom.

Last week, I finished my school lunch. I remember it clearly. It was Chinese style food. Don't get me wrong, I like Japanese food, I really do. Even though most of it sortof tastes the same. After a few days of Japanese food, Chinese food is a revelation. After licking the inside of the bowl clean, I stood up to put away my dishes. I heard the creak of my chair as I stood up. The staffroom was empty. It turns out that most of the students and teachers went to a modern dance recital. So, I had the whole afternoon on my own.

A few days earlier, just after cleaning time, the same thing happened again (unfortunately, without the chinese food). I was just curious where everyone had gone. Then I heard some clapping coming from the direction of the courtyard. All the teachers and students were there, lined up, wearing white gloves. A thought crossed my mind that they were going to be an angry mob, tracking down the minorities... that would be me. But I deciphered the hieroglyphs on the staffroom blackboard, and it was apparently an angrry mob collecting sweet potatoes. From the staffroom window I watched the them all go to what I know know as the school vegetable garden.

This is happening all too frequently. I have mentioned that I seem to be treated like a pet (only no-one ever throws a ball for me). This is quite common for the token foreigner at a school. There is the perception that:
A) We won't understand. (never mind that we may have studied Japanese before)
B) We don't need to know.
C) We just want to do the work, and go home right when school finishes.

I guess all arguments have some element of truth, but they are also very stupid. Some people say the reason the token foreigner is never told anything is because Japanese teachers are very busy. I don't buy this argument. Because I know they see me as a pet. Feed me daily, take me out for a walk every now and then (I'm good with children), and make sure there is water available. Okay, I'm sorry, I'm not being very serious. I don't mean to make fun of my colleages. I know they work very h...oh look, school has finished. I'm going home.