Nuances in the English language, a pain to teach and explain. It requires thinking outside of the square, a higher level of application of your knowledge of a language to fully grasp. One day a Japanese English teacher said this to one of our friends which he sent to my phone.
Blog Members,
i was just told something interesting by a pleasant teacher that i like(female):
ﾞThanks [Nathan], you always fill my gap”
the phrasing caught me so off gaurd, i couldnt even laugh. im just beaming right now
When out for an evening in one of Japan’s major cities, much as in other countries, you have a very important decision to make: Do I the last train home (usually around 11:30pm – 12:30am depending on train line and station) or do I take the first train home (around 5:00am – 5:30am)? This decision will shape not only your evening, but more than likely the next 48 hours.
Last Saturday, I was drinking with some friends in Yokosuka. Apparently I made a poor choice and what should’ve been a quick drink escalated into chaos.
Now I’ve been known to enjoy (and often advovcate) impromptu chaos, but by the time 5am approached, I was reasonably worse for wear and in dire need of my bed. Luckily I live only 15 minutes from where I had been drinking, so I headed to the station and confidently stepped on the first train…
The following dialogue chronicles my reaction to when I awoke 4 hours later to find myself on the outskirts of Tokyo and a considerable distance from my home. After a Darth Vader-esque “Noooooo!” (or “Do Not Want!!!!” depending on your preference), I felt compelled to email Chau from my phone and voice my displeasure. Chau was his usual helpful self.
A – 9:06am:
I HATE first train so much. A
C – 9:06am:
from where?
A – 9:10am:
anywhere
i live 15mins from yokosuka. I am still not home.
i want to kill. A
C – 9:11am:
maybe you can thwart the zombie apocalypse with your anger.
A – 9:15am:
I will thwart your mum with my anger.
why the f**k do those useless c**ting train staff not wake ppl up!? they all need to be raped. savagely. by an unclean lion. for 8 days. covering Golden Week. with a comb. while their very disappointed parents and disaffected children watch. A
C – 9:19am:
unfortunately I am unable to empathise lying in my comfortable bed warm under my duvet at home. life is warm
[After sleeping and missing my stop again]
A – 10:08am:
I hope u drown in ur own warmth. I just got home. from a 15 f**cking minute journey. I want everyone to die. especially u. A
C – 10:10am:
[A variety of smiley faces and love hearts and other lameness]
A – 10:20am:
lol worst person ever. A
[I am now safely back at home and asleep in bed]
C – 11:41am:
yup. hope this message wakes you up
[After several hours sleep and waking up to feeling like my brain was broken]
A – 17:18pm:
ur mum woke me up. A
C – 17:19pm:
I woke up on your mum
A – 17:20pm:
lol touché. A
As you can no doubt imagine, Sunday was an unreasonably awful day.
You come to Japan planning to stay here for one year, time slips by and slowly one year creeps into two, then two creeps into “I don’t know when.” For most part this reason is due to the relatively easy, active and drunk lifestyle we have been provided with by our job. To kill boredom during the day, emails are sent back and forth to each other. One day our company sent an email reminding all teachers that:
An instructor shall avoid personal association with students. He must not, for personal reasons, meet with any student, outside of the school environment/premises.
Associating with students outside of the school environment may cause the student to form improper ideas about the association. It may also leave damaging perceptions with people within the school community, such as students, teachers, school officials, PTA members and others living in the neighborhood. Teachers and assistant teachers should not be seen to show any favoritism towards any students.
After seeing this email I immediately accused my friend of committing this offence and went on to question him about it. Below contains the telephone banter between us.
that email maxceed sentabout socialising with students was directed at you wasnt it?
LOL! i actually was afraid for a second when i read that. then i remembered no students have my contact info and there’s nothing about my job on facebook or anything.AND most importantly, i havent done anything.
bu i did write a poem to ******Aoki as part of a fax on monday. and i thought the email was gonna scold about how we act toward staff during office hours or somethin. it was hilariously cheesy and came off the top of my head like a minute b4 i faxed my for. i’ll email u a copy
here we go, hold back ur tears.
Her name
is Aoki.
The blue tree that
standing strong in the wind
maintains its beauty and
bears the sweetest of fruit.
The End.i think she might fall for me
i cried before i opened the mail. i wonder if you cracked the steel expression off her face.
i got caught drinking beer and smoking walking from school to the station. luckily the email didnt mention alcohol
i wonder too, but ice cold Aoki prolly cant b cracked.
lol, damn! how were u caught?
they said hello
drink in hand, lol, excellent.
whachu doin now? done?
i wish. have to record tests. dying for a onecup…
Usually our weekend escapades go unchronicled, as we generally have very little memory of what happened. However, last weekend I actually made an effort to get some pictures etc of what we encountered during what proved to be yet another adventure-filled weekend.
I don’t remember all the details exactly, so I will just stick up the pictures etc that I have and explain what is going on – if indeed that is possible or necessary.
It's "on like Donkey Kong!"
I can’t help but feel that picture speaks for itself. This happened on the train from Yokohama to Tokyo; just after enjoying Happy Hour at TGI Fridays in Yokohama. I have no other pictures from Friday night and very little memory of what happened. No doubt it was great though.
Final Fantasy XIII... in a can...?
Concerned that people don’t realise how much you love Final Fantasy? Well look no further. No you can have Final Fantasy goodness coursing through your body.
Now this young man truly is a machine. This was in Don Quixhote in Akihabara. Every step earned him a ‘great’ or ‘perfect’. I can only aspire to one day be this talented – but preferrably at something useful or cool; though I’d probably settle for Guitar Hero. He really put his heart and soul into this effort too – he had built up quite a sweat by the end.
Gloomy Bear speakers. Nuff said.
I ofcourse have my nerdy impulses – otherwise I wouldn’t have been in Akihabara (I also wouldn’t be writing a blog for that matter). Gloomy Bear is my major weakness. I won 3 of these in a row – each on the first go. What the guy in the above video is to Dance Dance Revolution, I am to crane games with Gloomy Bear toys. In case you’re wondering – no I didn’t keep 3 for myself.
The Mammoth Curry - 1Kg of awesome
Chau found a curry place in Akihabara that sold a 1kg curry for the very reasonable price of 880yen. He also insisted that we put cheese on it for an additional 100yen. This thing was an epic mission of feasting. Below are the results – my plate is on the left and Chau’s is on the right. As you can see, he won the challenge. I was defeated by a biological compulsion to stop eating. Mine had a lot more cheese in it though [on the back foot].
Ok, the next 2 pictures are NSFW so I will keep the thumbnails small and you can just open it up if you want more of an eyeful. We were showing our friend one of the many disturbing (and large) porn shops in Akihabara. Just genuinely questionable stuff everywhere.
Behold the wonder of the inter-racial dildo – fun by yourself or to share with a friend – and also the highly worrying life-size dolls, some of which are modelled on what I would say are small children, but are marketed as ‘mini-women’. I mean, one of them was dressed as ‘little red riding hood’. Still, I guess if you’re paying half a million yen for one, you want it to be just right.
As a final point, I think it’s only fair to say that Akihabara is a truly bizarre and unusual place – home to weird characters from across the globe. It’s like a Mecca for perverts and geeks. As such, it can’t be used as a basis for a view of all of Japan. Japan may be a little unusual in some ways, but Akihabara is a beast all of its own.
Ok, so you’re one of the big 3 phone companies in Japan. You’ve set up a stall in Akihabara train station – Akihabara being the Otaku (geek) Mecca of Tokyo. How do you effectively market these phones? Robots and cute girls in PVC outfits – that’s how. Boom! Job done.
We’ve been a bit sparse on the old posting recently. You know how it is – crazy, high-flying lifestyles and what not. Anyway, steps will be taken to rectify that in the near future. It’s only now that my brain has even vaguely recovered from last weekend’s capers and already we find ourselves at the foothills of the next one.
In any case, here’s a quick glimpse of the area around Yokohama station for your viewing pleasure – just to give you a vague idea (or not) of the area that I happen to spend a fair amount of time.
Dictionary.com defines the word dumb as:
–adjective
1. lacking intelligence or good judgment; stupid; dull-witted.
I saw something on the train the other day going back from work which made me think that a new entry should be added to the dictionary. A lady was doing her make up on the train, skilfully I might add, as many Japanese do. While trains in Japan are quite smooth, they are not completely smooth and do travel at fast speeds. In addition to her make up she was trimming her eyebrows with a pair of scissors. On a moving train. On a fast, and bumpy moving train. I was gob smacked and was glad that I was not as dumb as that person.
Just a quick couple of pictures. I was picking up some bits in Yokohama yesterday and came across a couple of interesting sights…
Monster hats
My hat will eat your soul
I really want one of these hats – but then again, I really don’t.
Condom characterisation
Which are you? Smart boy, Super Big Boy or Mega Big Boy?
Call me strange, but I can’t bring myself to buy condoms with animals on the front. I like to keep members of the animal kingdom out of the equation when it comes to sex – I find that’s usually a safe policy that I would also encourage others to endorse. Also, it’s clear what you’re saying about yourself with regards to the horse and the elephant, but what exactly is going on with the eagle condoms? I mean, Smart boy? Maybe it’s giving the message of “Hey – I might not packing a freakishly large elephant penis, but hell – I can calculate Pi to 50 decimal places, no problem”. Either that or it’s to allow people to use very lame lines about ‘swooping in to get their prey’. Still, each to their own right?
The Daiso is a big chain 100yen shop (aka Pound Shop in UK or Dollar Store for the people who like dollars). It’s a very handy place for pretty much anything you could need and also home to the odd amusing spectacle if you have your eyes open – as demonstrated with the Lame Gloves previously posted.
Here are a couple of interesting notepads I came across whilst picking up some stationary…
So close yet so far
Those crazy kids and their delicious drugs
Found this gem in the booze section of Don Quihote. Can only assume that it’s like a ready-made Eggnog, that doesn’t need refridgerating. I both really want and really don’t want to try this stuff. It’s probably innevitable at this point. Will do a video when we finally cave and pick some up.
For when you need a stiff drink and some pancakes all-in-one.
chaumai
andokun
