It's the final countdown

And now an annotated addition of the famous song by Europe where even the footnotes have footnotes.

We're leaving together,                 (me and my ego)
But still it's farewell                       (to reality (in favor of my own), about as persistent as throat cancer really)
And maybe we'll come back,        (Someday, but for they moment I'm enjoying my gumdrop castle while cackling maniacally)
To earth, who can tell ?                (Or earth, whatever)
I guess there is no one to blame    ('cept Nixon)
We're leaving ground                    (More in a metaphorical sense, though I would like point out this is a 100% natural, non-drug induced high, excluding Japan itself)1
Will things ever be the same again? (Yes!)

It's the final countdown...                (As opposed to the not-quite-final countdown and the this-ones-for-practice countdown)

We're heading for Venus                (We mean Venus, Texas known as Gossip prior to it being confirmed that people actually want to live in Texas (those poor, poor bastards). Though it is the opinion of this blogger that if your town "boasts" a population of 910 then one should not call attention to fertility issues. Editor's note: the opinions published herein are those of the author alone and Blogger.com by no means wishes to imply that the citizens of Venus are Texans  infertile.)
and still we stand tall                      (Me, 6'4'' My ego: defined by s^x where s is the maximum size science is capable of measuring (s>1) while x is there to is there to to represent current state of awesome (x>1) and to make me giggle like a school girl when I say the equation out loud (s to the x))
Cause maybe they've seen us         (They, quite an ambiguous term, allow me to explain, no there is no time, let me sum up: Administrative Command, Amphibious Forces, Pacific Fleet Subordinate Command or ADCOMSUBORDCOMPHIBSPAC)
and welcome us all                         (I will not make a joke here as I have nothing but respect for our sea forces, as I myself have contemplated naval affairs on many occasions)
With so many light years to go        (Light year: a normal year who has been watching it's girlish figure
and things to be found                    (Been playing hide and seek with Jimmy Hoffa. The dude is really good at this)
I'm sure that we'll all miss her so.    (No, Jimmy is not a woman. He did, however, spend a few years in prison which, as you might imagine, led to gender lines blurring)

(Repeat chorus and steep until the proper concentration of awesome is reached)

1: Japan should note be taken in doses exceeding 100 milligrams and never more than twice a day. In case of accidental overdose, please contact physician. Know side effects include: naruto headbands, obsession with children's card games and believing that saying daisuki (love) and kawaii (cute) equates with being Japanese

Friends, Romans, countrymen. Lend me your corvettes. No? No one? Well it was worth a shot. Anyhoo, I'll be leaving land of the rising sun in about 2 days. So here in nostalgic celebration is those pictures I promised you around two months ago (again, blame Nixon). Here I present to you Spring Break 2011 with someone with better hair than Carson Daly (have you looked at me? I'm fabulous).

First, I'd like to thank all the beautiful women in my life.

There's her

And everybody loves a blond

Not everyone can pull off canary yellow, but she makes it work

And who could forget these hot young firecrackers

And lest we judge only on appearance (you chauvinistic pigs, you), remember that each of these fine young damsels are from Tokyo University, the Harvard of Japan. That means they will grow to be tomorrow's respected and dignified leaders.

My team that kicked ass and took names in the competition which you readers have forgotten about and which I won't bother to explain 

An delicious barbecue. You'll not that, as I and the rest of the people around the grill are distracted by the camera, Akio (the craft devil to my left) takes advantage of the situation and heads for the choice morsels.

The guy on the right is Kiba, our director whenever the teacher isn't around. Kiba is a chemistry student who happens to have his own anime alter-ego

Now for those of you who can't read Japanese (Philistines!) the cat is saying "I am Mr. Kiba". What's interesting to note that instead of ending with the tradition -san (mr.) it ends with nyan which includes includes the Japanese cat's onomatopoeic "nya". That is the English equivalent of "meow". To understood the subtleties of this particular linguistic phenomenon one must view it it amongst its contemporaries such as the one here. Apologies on the quality of link, but historical artifacts are rarely properly maintained.

Here are a few more of our illustrious leader's alter ego.

So, yes, the choir is every bit as manly as you imagined it.

In recent news I took a break for two weak due to catching ill. The doctors said it was kimatsu testo syndrome. It has been known to strike young people around this season. This illness is characterized by a number of both physical and psychological symptoms. Examples include: heavy sweating, shaking, the inability to focus, procrastination, the shunning of society and screaming at the sight of the word bug spray spelled out in kanji. If you want to do your own research on this illness you will probably have more luck finding it under its English name of "final exam" syndrome.

I would like to take this time to define the machine "puri kara" or "pretty colors" in relationship with Japanese society. Their American equivalent has been seen at Amusement parks around the states in the form of those little photo booths that girlfriends drag their boyfriends. Once inside, the male of the species may employ several defenses against this emasculating ordeal such as the looking "badass" or at the very least "uninterested". These defenses, however, do not work when applied to puri kara. The machine automatically airbrushes your skin and tints your lips the perfect shade of whipped. Additionally, it artificially enlarges your eyes anime style which only emphasizes the "deer in the headlights" look the males are no doubt sporting. Why do I bring this subject up? No reason. There are absolutely no incriminating pictures of me that will see the light of day. No  sir!

So yes, my days in Japan draw to a close and now I must bid a fond farewell to all the friends I made. This will be the last post on this particular blog so I hope you enjoyed. Maybe I will start another one to due with law school. Maybe.

What a glorious feeling I'm happy again

Another week gone by and scant few left in my stay in Japan. Looking forward to seeing the family and a few friends when I return home, but still like being here. Anyways, here’s the update.

The weekend before last was my choir concert which was well and good in and of itself. That is to say, it was indoors. There seems to be two things in Japan that are out to get me as seen in previous posts: the weather and the curving roads that make it difficult to get a feel for direct. So, yes, the rain fell like no other on that Sunday. This was really sad because Tokyo University was having a festival that day complete with more booths than you could shake a stick at. Luckily, I have acquired an umbrella and use it. The problem being that with my height and the wind, everything from the waste down ends up soaked no matter what I do.

Me and my friends spend the day dodging in and out of building and visiting the booths for whatever victuals we can find. I had a really decent okonomiyaki for only 300 yen. I also sampled their French toast which is really more of a desert here and is served with ice cream. We also got to stop by a stage that was set up for the express purpose of hosting a cappella performances. The day was finished out at a nomikai (drinking party) just like every other Sirobara event.

So what did I actually end up doing this week? Well, not a whole lot to tell the truth. I’ve been trying to catch up on my studies and this means staying indoors and avoiding the above 80 degree heat. I did, however, visit a cold stone creamery today. The employees even sang for the guests while mixing the ice cream. For those of you who remember Columbus’s Cold Stone, they managed to keep up the singing for about one entire day before becoming mute again. Not here in Japan. I am always impressed with how good the customer service here is compared to the states.

So to make amends for not too much happening, I have pictures!!! And more on the way as soon as I get the password for Sirobara’s website (the camping trip pics).

The bus back from camp, we had a wild time

Hmm, if this were a real women I'm not sure I'd take that as a compliment or rush her to the nearest emergency room

Bond, eat your heart out!

Next week: more pictures (fingers crossed)

Papa-ooma-mow-mow

Okay. I`m not seeming to get enough free time to sit down and write this blog in one go this week so we`re going to take a piecemeal approach starting with an amusing anecdote about my walk to school this morning.

As I might have mentioned previously, it takes me about 30-40 by foot everyday to get to the train station. This route takes me through the park so I at least get to enjoy the scenery. I`m am walking around, minding my own business when I feel a sharp pinch on the top of my head. I immediately look up to see a crow flying off, looking slightly abashed for mistaking my nice full head of hair for, I don`t know...a toupee? Crows have always been associated with mischief and perhaps it was this crow`s little prank on an aging society. Speaking of aging, I thought I was too young to worry about crow`s feet. Said crow crow and a companion of his follow me down the street for a little ways, perhaps exchanging in snarky comments about me and my admittedly somewhat poofy hair. Finally, they left me alone after persistent use of my dirtiest looks.

Kick off your sunday shoes

I didn't update last week due to a Japanese midterm I was studying for. Apologies.

As per usual my weeknights have been pretty bleh. So let's skip straight to the juicy weekend material.

Weekend 1: What we have here is a weekend of nigh perfect weather. This my be one of the few ones left as we are getting into the rainy season and it just breached 80 degrees during last week. I was determined to make the most of it. Sirobara dominated my Saturday, but nothing too exciting happened this time. Sunday, however, I went for an outing in the park for a intercultural event my local community center was hosting. The day was themed around a scavenger hunt of local emergency relief locations (actually more fun than it sounds). We were split into teams of around 5 people and given a set of questions and a list of locations. The questions were really easy if you found the location. For example, we had to record the name of a museum we passed by.

The tricky part was twofold: 1, there was a location where we were given any questions to answer. We were just told to memorize it and we would be quizzed later. Due to my cheatin...err..quick thinking, I took photographs of everything for later review. We managed to get 100% on this one. The second difficult part was the time limit of 90 minutes. Every minute over or under was points off our score. Trouble was we weren't told that the time limit was 90 minutes. We were simply told that it existed and not to hurry too much. Long story short (too late) my team took 5th place out of around 16 teams and were rewarded with a flashlight each. I have no idea what the grandprize was as none of the winning team opened their's then. The other prizes were handed out to everyone in the top 5, 7th place (lucky number 7) and second to last place (a sort of well, at least you weren't those guys prize). Sucked to be in 6th place.

After the scavenger hunt people were invited to an all you can drink yakiniku (think bbq chicken shishkabob) restaurant to celebrate another successful year. God I love chicken. Here I ended up having several weird conversations with my drunk hosts including the finer points civil law. It took me about 5 minutes to figure out what we were discussing. One of my limited vocabulary doesn't tend to know the Japanese words for tort and district court of the top of one's head. However, I don't think I embarrassed myself too much once I got the gist of the conversation.

Weekend 2: We (shirobara) again went out drinking. And when I drink, I drink a lot...of orange juice...and tea. Which brings me to the topic of the sexist bathrooms present at our usual dive. The is no boy's room. There's a girl's room and a unisex toilet. This means that not only are us guys jockeying for position with our own sex, but also the opposite one when attempting to relieve ourselves or puke in private. One may argue that girls take longer in the bathroom and thus could use the extra option. Additionally, the male constitution has evolved an ability to "hold it" while those of the female persuasion seemed to have given it a skip. However, my clients (my bladder and those of my fellow members of the unfair sex) will seek to prove that it is for these very reasons that we should be afforded our own private bathroom. Firstly, us men, on average, down more beverage than girls do. Be it a point of pride or a matter of weight ratios (insert Holy Grail reference here), we make sure our livers are put in there places (or, in my case, whatever part of the body absorbs vitamin C). Our famous skill of waiting it out is not a failsafe, but rather the default mode. That is too say, when we gotta go, we gotta go. Just ask Tycho Brahe (a scientist whose bladder exploded while waiting to be excused from the table). Therefore ladies, it is not just a matter of convenieve for us men, our lives are on the line when we are forced to wait.

The next day we went to Sweets Paradise. Imagine, if you will, a typical buffet. Fairly low quality food, but a metric ton of it. There were about 50 different dishes to choose from. There was spaghetti, Japanese curry, some sandwiches. That's 4. The rest were sweets. I'm surprised I got out of the restaurant before having a diabetic attack. I can't even begin to describe have the things I ate. I tried to sample one of everything that looked good, but in the end my strength deserted me (heh).

There was also a drink bar with my favorite Japanese soda, Calpis. This frothy white beverage may leave residue on the upper lip akin to that of a milk mustache. This is colloquially known as being pis faced or pised for short. Along with the drinks there were a number of additives including peach flavoring. Thus, I would like to introduce the world to Peach Pis (working title until I can come up with something ruder).

To top off the weekend I scored…a goal…in soccer. Yeah, after Sweets Paradise we wanted to burn of at least a few of those stubborn calories. Most of the players were amateurs (myself included), but there seemed to be one person there who could juggle the ball with his feet. From this I extrapolated that he had played on a team at some point in his life. With some fancy footwork he could bring down the staunchest opponent. And by that I mean bash them in the head with the ball. He took out one of the female players and nearly myself using the tactic (to be fair they were accidents, I think). The game itself was really fun. It's been forever since I played and getting back into it was very refreshing.

So there you have my two weekends in a nutshell. See you next week.

Feed them on your dreams

            Welcome to this special Mother’s Day edition of Japan Travel Diaries. How is it special? Well for the first time in a while we have pictures (a few). Also it is special because of this: Mom, I love you. There, you don’t get me to publicly announce that and therefore embarrass myself just any day of the week. Chris, Connie go hug your mother or I’ll kick your teeth in. Seeing as my siblings don’t actually read my blog (those ingrates) and myself being in Japan, I must rely on Mom and my extended family to deliver the message and, if necessary, the corporal punishment.

            Additionally I want to send my love out to all the other mothers out there in my family or otherwise. Have a happy mother’s day. Well, technically it was a few days ago (do to technical difficulties) so I hope it was a happy day.

            On a much less important note: me and my magnificent ego (who sucking it up today). I did not update last week so you can be sure I have plenty to talk about. Most interestingly was my Sirobara Choir camp. Last week was Japan’s Golden Week, a entire week of naught to do but get drunk and twiddle our thumbs (surprisingly hard while inebriated, or so I’m told). Japan likes to end its holiday on Friday and celebrate with classes, which is done to ensure we don’t get too comfortable with freedom.

            So, what do we do for camp? Here’s a hint:

            We hoof it up to Nigata, who hasn’t been informed that it’s well into springtime yet and embarrassingly come to the party in its winter’s best. Well, actually it was in fairly crappy winter attire. The kind were the snow is on the ground here and there (hard to tell from the picture), but has solidified into a single icy mass that makes creating a decent snowball an annoyingly difficult task (although, I’m sure those on the receiving end of this solid chunk of ice appreciate the effort).

Our lodge in all its glory

Asked for a room with a view. Should have specified of what...

            We arrived about an hour late so we decided to skip the first practice and go straight to dinner much to none of our dismay. Dinner itself was an outside barbeque which was all well and dandy except Mother Nature (who, unfortunately I cannot profane due to the holiday) decided it was time for a downpour. Luckily, we did have a large tent over our respective grills (eight in total) and simply stayed as far away from the outer rim as possible. The food was absolutely delicious. I told one of the other members that it was the best thing I ate since coming to Japan and I wasn’t just being polite. What it consisted of was various meats and vegetables simmering away while we waited to dunk them in the sauce (slightly different from American BBQ). Akio (a bass section leader) tried to eat most of the meat himself, but there was really plenty to go around. I stuffed myself and, right when I thought we were done, they put soba noodles and various seasonings on the grill and started mixing everything together. I probably should have stopped eating at that point, but it was too good to pass up. My stomach would hate me for the rest of the night.

            When we all were done eating, we had about four hours of practice before hitting the hay. What I really wanted to try was the public bath at the place we were staying (a ski lodge). It might sound odd, but there is nothing more relaxing after a long day than an oversized tub heated to the brink of my level of tolerance. That and, after 4 months of only showers, the change was welcome. However, it was not in the cards as I had roughly 10 minutes to clean myself (which is done before one enters the public bath) before my roommate returned and needed the key.

            The second day we all (mostly) rose bright and early for morning exercises. Breakfast consisted of miso soup and fish, which amounted to the two things I least wanted to eat early in the morning. Must get myself some real American breakfast food, with extra grease.

If you can't tell from the picture this pan of curry is about the size of a small pony and equally delicious

            The next 8 hours (with the exception of an all you can eat curry lunch) was devoted to practice. And so we did. This can be mind-numbingly boring because we mostly review the same three songs we’ve been practicing for a month. I can’t wait for some new material, but it isn’t ready until June.

            After dinner (seafood again), we gather together to play games. All the part leaders put on costumes and put on a skit. The point of the games was to determine the country that the princess, played by a girl named Roki (I had Eye of the Tiger stuck in my head thanks to this), would study abroad in. Each country was a play on the name of the actor/actress. For example, we had Michi be Michi Mouse and Jackie be Micheal Jackie.

This is tenor (my section) leader Mark...frightening, no?

            The first game was a relay which our team managed to fail miserably at. But we pulled out of last place after the trivia section (in which I was no help at all). The next section we had to find all the letters on the back of the opposing five teams backs and rearrange them into words. We had two 3 minute sessions to due this in. This was really fun because you were attempting to hide your letter while looking at others.

           For the final game, we had a skit contest. We had to invent a love story between a guy and a girl on our team. The trick was the guy played the girl’s part and vice versa. This was complete with costumes (a Chinese dress and judo outfit for our team). When all was said and done, our team pulled out in first place.

            To celebrate, we sung songs for the next three hours (which puts us at 3 AM). For those of you doing the math, that puts us at about 15 hours of singing for two days. That, and when we finally got back in Tokyo we had a 3 hour karaoke marathon. Woot!

            Okay, its past midnight here so I’m gonna wrap up. There will be a lot more pictures coming from the camp as soon as my friends upload them (which may take weeks). I will do a review of them when I get a hold of them.

            God help me if the first titular song reference that popped into my head wasn’t Mother’s Little Helper by the Rolling Stones. The one I actually used doesn’t refer to mothers directly, but I think it strikes the proper tone. That and it’s easy enough that my mom should get it.

Technical Difficulties: Will try again tomorrow

But that doesn't mean my eyes will soon be turnin' red

Okay, I promised photos last time, but, do to intrigue and cell phone issues, they are not going to be here this time round. Apologies. And away we go.

What can I say about last week? Busy? Oh, heavens yes. Entertaining. Sometimes, other times mind blowingly dull. They say god looks out for drunks and fools. Apparently this doesn't apply to those who are stubbornly idiotic. My story begins Saturday morning as I awoke to the pitter patter of raindrops on the window pain. Saturday, as you well know, is my Sirobara Chorus practice. It is located near center Tokyo and usually takes about an hour and a half to go to. My conundrum was this: I didn't have an umbrella. I didn't want to buy an umbrella. Why? Because I'm a man and it comes with the territory, that and not asking directions (which we'll get to later).

We haven't hit monsoon here in Japan (technically we never do), but the weather was doing its level best to convince us otherwise. The sheets fell in droves and then would suddenly stop. I can only assume these pauses were to scout my position and allow my hopes to rise for a brief instant before drowning them in the next downpour. I decided to capitalize on their bravado and make a mad dash for the local trainstation. If I could only make it their I would be able to plan the next stage of attack while the clouds, for all their bluster, waited impotently outside. I timed my exit, and with an eye on the sky I wove my way through the sparse Saturday traffic to my destination. Safe again, I thought about giving the sky another bird to occupy its time.

There are two stations I could take to get to Tokyo University. The long way around would practically leave me at its doorstep to skip merrily to class. The shorter trip cost 30 yen less (about 35 cents), but would involve me navigating unfarmiliar roads by foot and would take about 15 minutes under the best of circumstances (I have walked to but never from the station).

If Daniel should try the new route and save some pocket change, turn to paragraph 7

If Daniel should play it safe and caugh up the extra dough, turn to...well I already said I was stubbornly idiotic.

So yeah, Ochanomizu station. Stepping outside, I struggle to place the landmarks. From somewhere above mother nature watched as I picked a roads, travelled a few hundred yards down it only to backtrack. She knew she had to bide her time as I could always take the train to the closer stop. I finally hit upon a route the seemed proper and began down it. Slowly at first, so as not to arouse my suspicion, droplets began to rain down from above. It was only enough to hasten my step and not drive my back to the station. By the time I had caught on to her ploy, I was halfway between the station and what I thought to be Tokyo University (it wasn't). With only a meager understanding of my location and precious time before practice ticking away, I was an easy target for the heavy artillary. I dashed hither and thither, under this overhang and the next doing my level best to keep dry and figure out where to go next. Finally, I had to cede victory to the sky and weathered the storm as I while I found a reliable street map. Dripping wet, but on time, I arrived at practice.

Well, at least I wasn't with the American first term student who were sight seeing in Kamakura this weekend. I believe around this time they were on Enoshima (described in a previous blog as Hyrule), which left them completely open to the elements. (Damn, the Song of Storms is an instrumental so no referencing it)