I Remember Halloween

(Bonus points to any true fiends out there who catch the reference)

Halloween has long been my favorite holiday although this has posed a problem for some time now. You see, once one is past the age at which it is acceptable to go door to door trick-or-treating, it's difficult to find the appropriate venue in which to exercise the desire to dress up in a costume and conduct one's self in a manner befitting the manner of dress adopted. Well, this year I was in luck as there were no shortage of events for those of us in the Hachinohe area.

On Saturday, the Hachinohe International Relations Association put on a haunted house for over 400 local children with the help of area JETs. I'm not quite sure who was responsible for the decor of the "house" itself (located in the spooky basement of a department store) but I must say, it was quite well done. Unfortunately, I was too busy scaring children to get any good photos but with any luck, the world's laziest blogger Matt will eventually stop resting on his laurels and post video footage of the house. At any rate, we scared children nonstop for almost three hours and although it was rather draining, it was ultimately a good time. I spent most of my time scaring in the room immediately adjacent to the entranceway and I can personally attest to the fact that a good number of kids entered the house only to run right back out the entrance, oftentimes in tears. We scare because we care, guys.

Afterward, AJET organized an after-party of sorts at "Jammin," a reggae bar. And were they ever serious about reggae there. Not only did they play exclusively reggae music and serve Red Stripe, they also created a faux beach, replete with sand, in the back of the bar. By far the most interesting touch, however, was the speaker cabinet pictured below, which appeared to be constructed entirely from car speakers. I think I mentioned to someone that there was no way that they could all be hooked up but after testing this hypothesis by holding my hand up to each one I was able to determine that they were actually all operational. Of course, it sounded like shit.

Anyway, I've probably lost your interest already with all of these boring words, so it's time to show off some of the best costumes I encountered over the course of the night:

Matt Cosnett as a terrifying, homemade scarecrow:

Random Japanese guy as some sort of ghastly samurai:

J.P. as the four-armed, three-legged mad scientist (this gets my vote for best in show):

And who could forget the Misawa twins as American G.I. and American G.I.'s pregnant Asian girlfriend? Not me. Especially since (as you can see in the photo) Ryan very nearly burned down his house by attempting to quickly dry his shirt by placing it directly on his heater. Nice one, Ryan.

Anyhow, with my partying appetite fully satiated, I was able to spend Halloween day teaching Halloween lessons at two of my schools. At the elementary school where I teach most often, they had all the first graders prepare costumes out of household items prior to my arrival. I must say, I was quite impressed (and really regretted not bringing my camera). After the introduction of some Halloween lore and vocabulary, we had a fake trick-or-treating session in the gymnasium.

My second lesson of the day was at the kindergarten. Well, actually, it was at what the vice-principal kept referring to as "the old man's house," which I eventually figured out was a retirement home across the street. I guess they figured that the residents of the home (who were described to me as "old mans") would be entertained by watching a tall, dark foreigner speak English in front of a bunch of screaming three and four year olds. At the very least, the children were entertaining, if for no other reason than the fact that they too were all wearing great costumes. Even the vice-principal went all out and sported an awesome home-made Jack Skellington costume!

While at the home, one of the workers approached me and asked me something. I didn't understand what she said, so I asked her to repeat it. "Where are you from?" she asked in perfect English. "Oh, I came from America" I responded, in Japanese. She shot me a frustrated I-already-knew-that glance and asked "Where in America?" "Chicago," I replied. "Oh," she said, "I studied in Colorado for two years." I didn't really know how to respond to this. Probably because what I really wanted to say was "I'm sorry."

Oh Burn!

It is often said that rice farming can be detrimental to local air quality. In America some states have even gone as far as to pass legislation to help alleviate this problem. The reason for this is that in most areas of the world where rice is grown, the climate only allows for one season's worth of harvest. Afterwards, farmers are left with a field full of rice straw, which is generally burned to prepare the land for the next season. Well, with the bitter cold of winter quickly approaching (as anyone in Aomori can tell you), most of the numerous rice fields in the area look like the one above; dotted with cones of straw quietly awaiting the torch.

And I Thought That They Started Selling Christmas Early In America

For a country that doesn't even really celebrate Christmas, they sure do get an early start on the merchandizing here. I guess when you don't celebrate Thanksgiving, everything becomes completely arbitrary. Am I the only one who thinks that all this rampant commodification divorced from religious significance detracts from the entire reason we celebrate Christmas in the first place-the birth of Santa?

Synthesis

I guess I forgot to tell you guys about my new toy.

Jack and the e-stalk

Move over Jamie Patterson. I'm sure you must feel like a big man knowing that you're the only internet superstar in Aomori prominent enough to inspire stalker-like behavior among your fans. I can just see you, strutting down the streets of Noheji, waving to the passing schoolgirls and adoring obaasans alike. You smug bastard. Well folks, today I too ascend to the rank of Aomori internet celebrity, thanks to the following stalker-like email:

< ali_the_riot_girl@XXX > to me
More options 8:44 am (9 hours ago)

hi. my name is Alisha.
i found your blog when i searched the word "aomori shimoda mall".
i'm from tokyo, and i'm staying at my friends house in misawa now.
my friend suggested me to go to the mall in shimoda, but i don't know how to get there from here. i don't know where i am located actually. i'm at higashioka misawa 3chome. do you know how far it is from my place?

i'm so bored!!!! my friend will not be home till 10:30pm, and i have nothing to do. even the Lawsons, it takes 15-20walk for me to get there.

will you tell me how to get to shimoda mall?
and is it fun place?
or do you know any other nice place to visit?
actually, i don't have my car here, so i can't go further just by myself.
if you don't mind, will you tell me if there is something fun here?

LOVE,
Alisha

While the actual content of this email is somewhat irrelevant, I would like to draw your attention to the closing signature. That's right: LOVE. While I may love the creator of the original hamster dance as much as the next guy, I can't say that I've ever been inspired to such dizzying heights by a mere blogger (BTW, John Darnielle is more than a blogger, so he doesn't count). In light of these recent events, I urge all of my fellow bloggers to take the following stalking questionnaire. You may think that you're not at risk because you're not a real celebrity (notice the subtle reference to bloggers at the end). You would be wrong, my friend.

Support Our Troops

Last night I decided to celebrate my freedom from British tyranny a little early by heading up to Misawa, home to a large American Air Force base. Misawa is well known in the JET community for its English-friendly bars and restaurants as well as the base itself, which promises, among other things, a Taco Bell for those civilians lucky enough to get inside.

Our night started out innocently enough with a trip to the Global Kitchen, where I had the closest thing I've had to enchiladas (or any Mexican food, for that matter) since my last trip to the fabled Los Mariachi's. However, the night soon took a turn for the worst as we found ourselves wandering six-deep into a G.I. bar on the main drag. Stories abounded of Misawa local Megan having been mistaken for an actual Japanese person and being yelled at to take off her pants by the defenders of freedom, so I would be lying if I said that our intentions were pure from the get-go. Upon entering the bar, we were greeted by a karaoke rendition of Radiohead's "Creep" being sung by two servicemen. To say that it was bad would be an understatement, to say that they weren't even singing anything remotely close to the vocal melody would be more accurate and to say that it made me wish for the sweet release of death would give you a better idea. Well, both Ryan and myself take matters involving Radiohead pretty seriously and we weren't about to let this sacrilege go unpunished. So immediately afterward, Ryan put "Creep" back on and we decided to show them how it's done.

Now, Ryan actually bats for both teams and I don't really carry myself like the most heterosexual guy in the universe, so I shouldn't have to tell you the types of taunts we received up there while struggling to do our best to keep up with Thom Yorke's eunuch-like capabilities. As much as I'd like to tell you that all American military personnel are glorified frat boys with machine guns, there were a few cool people there who cheered us on and invited us to sing with them. However, unless most of those guys were actually British and simply liked talking about cigarettes loudly, they didn't really seem to enjoy our performance. So of course, this only steeled our resolve to sing more songs and continue baiting them. As I recall the last song ended with us yelling taunts back at them into the microphone before turning tail and running out of the bar with our lives intact. Never forget.

Globalization, Manifested

As busy as I've been recently, the one thing that I really like about my job is that I'm able to get a lot of reading done. I always have a few minutes of downtime between classes at the various schools I go to and while this normally isn't enough time for me to focus on studying or anything quite so involved, I can usually manage to read a chapter or two over the course of a day. I'm currently reading Naomi Klein's No Logo and despite the fact that it's probably unhip to like a book that was trendy five years ago, it's still a good read and remains a seminal text on branding and anti-corporate activism within the last decade.

Well, ironically enough, I was sitting in the teacher's office at Koyuu Elementary school a few days ago reading that very book when I was summoned by a first grader to eat lunch with his class. When I got there, a kid with a Nike t-shirt leaned in and asked me, "Mehan-Sensei, which do you like better at McDonald's, the hamburger or the fillet O' fish?"

Here's another mildly comical anecdote: the other day I had to be at the school fairly early in the morning so my supervisor drove me instead of the usual office lady. We get in the car and the minute he turns on the engine, the radio starts blaring a Lil Jon song. For the entire car ride I sat there biting my lip to keep myself from laughing while my supervisor drove stone-faced, seemingly unaware that he was pumping the crunk at full-volume. Yeeeeah!

Monkey Gone To...Shimokita?

How many tired and painfully unfunny monkey puns can I work into this post? Does anyone wanna wager a guess? On second thought, maybe I had better just get on with the show and stop monkeying around.

The Japanese Macaque, commonly referred to as the snow monkey, is one of Aomori's indigenous treasures. The variety found in Shimokita is actually the Northernmost naturally occuring primate in the world (excepting, of course, human beings and Canadians). Despite the fact that they are technically classified as a "threatened population" they proved shockingly easy to find in the mountainous areas surrounding Hotokegaura. Can you find the monkeys in the photographs below, a la Where's Waldo? I swear, this isn't just some cheap attempt to obfuscate the fact that I was unable to get close enough to the little bastards to take any decent photos.

Sea Change

I suppose it's quite odd if one thinks about it: I'm living on an archipelago, in a town that sits on the sea, yet I hadn't seen the ocean yet. I had actually been out on my bike a number of times before with the intent of finding the beach but had only returned home disappointed and somewhat confused as to how the largest thing on planet earth could be so elusive. Since looking at an aerial photo of Momoishi, I had actually resolved to set out and find the damn thing once and for all. Unfortunately, I haven't had much in the way of time as of late; a problem that's compounded by the fact that the encroaching winter and Japan's refusal to use daylight savings time have conspired against me to usurp the day before I've even left work. That's right, it's already pitch black by 5:00 pm and it's only October.

But alas, I digress. I did actually make it out to the sea at long last but not in the fashion that I had initially envisioned. On Sunday, before leaving Shimokita, we headed up to 仏ケ浦, known as the "Buddah Rocks" in English. They came highly recommended by one of my office ladies although I really couldn't see the appeal based on how she described them to me ("some rocks close to the sea"). Anyway, I couldn't have been more wrong in my assessment. This was not only the most majestic locale I have visited yet in Japan, it is quite possibly one of the most idyllic areas I have ever seen in my life. The sun was shining, the water was a perfectly translucent blue-green-it almost seemed too perfect to be real. Of course, my simply talking about it won't make it any more real for you; on paper it's just a bunch of pointy rocks by the sea that are said to somehow resemble Buddah. So hopefully, the following photographs will help carry the burden of proof for my seemingly hyperbolic statements.

Shimokita, Ho! The Mysterious and Ominous Holy Ground of Osorezan

This past weekend Charlie Mac and I made the trek up to the Shimokita peninsula, the most northern point on Honshu, for an AJET event (in the Aomori map to the left, it's the "axe handle" coming out of the northeast coast of the prefecture). The main draw was a trip to Osorezan ("mount fear"), rumored in Japanese mythology to be the entrance to hell and one of the holiest sites in Japan. An active volcano, the mountain is visited by scores of pilgrims who come to pray for the souls of children and other loved ones who are believed to be in a state of limbo.

The entrance to the mountain is guarded by six statues of Jizo, the Bodhisattva who apparently vowed to protect those who were relegated to hell. He is said to dress as a monk, so as to hide dead children in his robes from demons.

The entrance consists of a simple gate that beckons visitors to enter the temple complex at the foot of the mountain. After paying five bucks, that is.

I'm not sure exactly what the custom is regarding the drinking of the temple water (being demonstrated here by Charlie Mac) but I must say, it was quite refreshing.

Upon entering you follow a path through the complex, passing under a series of gates. At the end of the path is a shrine and a path leading up into the mountain.



This is what you see when you look inside the window of the shrine. People walked up to the shrine, threw change into a small box in the window and prayed before entering the mountain proper.


Being an active volcano, Osorezan has a landscape befitting of the entrance to hell. Crevices in the earth spew forth mostly sulfurous gases (seen below), pools of various liquids bubble audibly and the completely barren landscape communicates an almost tangible sense of foreboding.

In some places where a black, tar-like substance bubbled out of the earth, people left offerings of coins.

The mountain is dotted with small shrines like the one pictured below. Most of them are covered with some sort of offerings to the departed, ranging from clothes to food to...

Pikachu! This was especially funny because the Pikachu doll sat at the foot of a statue where it lit up and made noise whenever someone got close enough to set off its motion-sensor. Sacrelicious.


Below, you'll see a few of the varieties of water that occur naturally on the mountain. The first shot is of a cloudy, white pool that we found. Below that is one of the many small rivers that flow with yellow water; the result, no doubt, of the extremely high levels of sulphur found at the mountain. They've even set aside a small pool of yellow water for visitors to stick their hands in. It was very warm. Osorezan even boasts a few small onsens where you can bathe in the mountain's natural hot springs.



Eventually, we reached the foot of the mountain on the other side, where we were greeted by a picturesque beach and an excellent view of fall in progress.


Here's a final view from the top of a neighboring hill of the temple complex at Osorezan.

After this little adventure I was able to embark on yet another: my first visit to an onsen (technically meaning "hot spring" but sometimes used to refer to public bath houses). While the original plan was to go to Yagen, a "real" onsen, we ended up going to a bath house run by a hotel in Mutsu, which was much closer to our cabins. In case you're not familiar with the Japanese bath house, I'll give you a quick run down: you strip naked, take a shower, spend as much time as you want in the available baths and sauna and then take another shower on the way out. While I may have found it a little strange to go au natural with a group of my friends, the public bath is a completely mundane scene for most onsen-goers (evidenced by the middle-aged men who lied around naked on the floor). Anyway, this particular onsen had the following baths: the really fucking hot bath, the really fucking cold bath, the tolerably hot outdoor bath and the electric bath in addition to a sauna. Yes, that's right, the electric bath. A series of plates in the bath pump a current into the water that is supposedly good for your muscles. When I first got in, I didn't feel anything, so Charlie advised me to stick a part of my body closer to the plate. When I held my arm up to it, I felt a sensation like a thousand needles pricking my arm all over. Then my fingers started moving involuntarily. From what I hear, this type of stimulation is actually not very good for your central nervous system.

Finally, we finished off the night in high JET fashion, preparing ourselves for another day of exploring the peninsula the only way we knew how; by prefacing it with a late night of karaoke.

The Teriyaki Boyz and A Bathing Ape

During lunch today, while watching my favorite afternoon tv show, いいとも! (the celebrity game-show), I made a rather serendipitous discovery. Today's celebrity guest was Nigo (pictured above), Japan's hottest fashion designer and creator of the highly fashionable A Bathing Ape brand. He was wearing an oversized watch, huge rings on each hand, a clock around his neck and a huge necklace bearing the words "TERIYAKI BOYZ". And they were all literally encrusted in diamonds. He then opened his mouth to reveal that he had diamonds all up in his grill, as well. Now, I think that it's ridiculous enough when someone like Juvenile dresses like this. But at least in the case of an African-American rapper, there is a legitimate socioeconomic reason for why such a garishly ostentatious show of wealth might be desirable. In the case of someone like Nigo, this fashion appears completely divorced from context and only serves as a parody of the rampant materialism that drives the world's second largest economy.

Anyway, I decided that I needed to find out who these so-called Teriyaki Boyz were. Turns out, they're something of a hip-hop supergroup, consisting of members of bands like Rip Slyme and m-flo and helmed by none other than Nigo, who fills the position of DJ. Will he exclusively use diamond-encrusted turntables to craft what will undoubtedly be the most expensive loops known to man? This remains to be seen. Perhaps, even more interesting, however, is the fact that Nigo is good pals with Def Jam mogul and self-proclaimed "best rapper alive" Jay-Z. This may have something to do with the fact that the Teriyaki Boyz have managed to ink a deal with the venerable hip-hop label and plan to release their record stateside on November 16th. OMG! Now, normally I would be inclined to think that if Russell Simmons were dead, he'd be rolling in his grave at the mockery Universal has made of one of America's pioneering hip-hop labels. That's if it wasn't for the list of guest producers involved: Ad Rock (Beastie Boys), Pharrell Williams (The Neptunes/N.E.R.D), DJ Shadow, Dan the Automator, Cut Chemist and Daft Punk, among others. Okay, so clearly they've given this some thought (i.e. thrown large wads of money at some of the best producers in the world). But will America ever be able to accept a bunch of blinged-out Japanese wiggers? Have we already forgotten the horrible marketing mistake that was Jin? It's an interesting experiment and I suppose that after that Linkin Park collaboration, Jay doesn't really have much to lose in the way of cred anyhow.

The Hotel California

Today at Momoishi middle school, one of the English teachers asked me to explain to her the difference between "the" and "the" (pronounced like "thee"). I did my best, despite the unexpected nature of the question and my unfamiliarity with what may or may not be an actual rule of English grammar. I soon found out the source of this strange question when the teacher admitted to me that "Since I was a child, I always wondered why they sang 'the' in the Eagles' song 'Hotel California'. Now I know."

As I was teaching a class at that school today, I noticed a particularly troublesome student was pointing at my neither regions. At first I thought he was after my keys but it wasn't until after I understood what he was saying that I realized what he was on about: "foot-long". Oh my.

Culture Day

(Click photos to enlarge)

This past Friday was what they call "culture day" for Aomori JETs. Held in Aomori City, the goal of the event is to educate all JETs, old and new, on the local culture of the prefecture in which we live. It turned out to actually be a pretty cool event, not counting the fact that it presented yet another excuse to see the bright lights of the city and generally cavort with my comrades.

Upon arriving in Aomori, I was greeted by quite the sight for sore eyes. Indeed, local technophobe Leo proved to us all that he is alive and well, emerging from his internet-less, cell phone-less cave, possibly to forage for food. What's more, he presented himself in the finest of attire, perhaps the most hilarious "engrish" shirt that I have seen yet:

They let us select what workshops we wanted from a list, so luckily I didn't have to threaten my (already precarious) masculinity by making stamps or candies or any pansy shit like that. My first workshop involved a crash course in the Tsugaru shamisen, an instrument that I've always been curious about. It turned out to be surprisingly similar to a guitar or any other stringed instrument for that matter; so much so that when I broke a string I was able to fix it myself and thereby avoid being reprimanded by the elderly shamisen master. He was actually pretty (unintentionally) funny-take for example this choice quote: "The drum of the shamisen has the best sound when it is made from the hide of either a dog or a cat. Unfortunately, they don't make many shamisens like that anymore because people nowadays think those animals are too cute."

My next workshop was kendo. While we were able to practice using shinai, the real fun was when the two badass dudes below busted out their katanas for a demonstration.


Finally, I attended a zazen meditation workshop. We did two sessions of twenty minutes each, roughly half of the normal time normally allotted to a session. If we moved, the priest hit us with a paddle. I fell asleep during the first session. What can I say, I was relaxed.

Afterwards, Matt, Leo and myself set out in search of all sorts of trouble. Luckily, we happened upon the Aomori Plaza Hotel, which offered us single rooms for $50 a night and was located right on the main drag. If you're ever in Aomori on a budget this place comes highly recommended; Matt even claims that they serve the best complimentary Western-style breakfast in Japan (which I, lamentably, slept through).

Really the only amenity in which this place was lacking was complimentary television (if you even consider that a necessary amenity). Talk about Pay Per View! (cue laugh track)

Well, after securing lodging for the night, all that was left to do was hit the town. We eventually made it to Akhbar's famous (among JETs, anyway) Indian restaurant. Here we encountered such luminaries as Aomori's only internet celebrity, Jamie Patterson. I had to curb the urge to ask for a autograph.

Our next stop was the ritzy bar of the Aomori Grand Hotel-the place that we can only afford to stay at when someone else is footing the bill. The bar was really nice and afforded a great view of the bay bridge, I regret that I was unable to capture a suitable photo to prove this. The bartenders (rightfully) made fun of the three foreigners who walked in and ordered three Guinness.

The skyline of Aomori is dominated by two huge structures that sit on the bay: the Aomori bay bridge and ASPAM, the triforce-shaped, official tourist welcome center for all of Aomori prefecture. Both are illuminated at night and the color of the projected light seems to change every hour or so. Sorry for the streaking on the second photo, it was unfortunately taken from the observation deck of ASPAM while it was raining outside.


This is a pretty self-explanatory photograph.

In Japan, gambling is illegal. However, as with most things (prostitution, anyone?), people have managed to cleverly subvert the anti-gambling laws. The most famous example of this is probably the inexplicable national pastime of pachinko. However, there are plenty of other ways to "gamble" without really breaking the law. Most arcades devote roughly 50-75% of their floor-space to curious machines where coins are inserted into a slot with the hopes of dislodging other coins so that they might fall out of a slot into the player's hands. These are similar to the types of token machines that one might encounter at Chuck E Cheese's albeit far more elaborate. Somehow, Matt and Leo managed to get addicted to a particular dinosaur variant of this game. The t-rex pictured occasionally vomits coins into the playing area of lucky individuals. Seriously.

On the train ride back to Shimoda, Matt decided that we weren't terrifying the other train passengers enough with our foreignness, so he decided to put on his halloween mask a little early.

After a brief stint in Hachinohe, the mystical journey ended in Shimoda, with a deeply satisfying meal at Papageno's, the "Italian" buffet. I use quotation marks because last I checked, hash browns and chicken nuggets, while delicious, were not Italian, per se.

That's unimportant though, because as any good American knows, a buffet is defined by only one thing: make your own sundae.

Finally, just for Mark Baffa, a photo of the enormous Gundam robot section at Jusco. Note that not only is Jusco a department store (as opposed to being a toy store) but also that this section consists of 5-6 full aisles and is always full of people ranging from the ages of three to thirty. The last photo is of the largest Gundam they sell, apparently a 1/24 scale model of the imaginary robot on which it is based.

The Great Experiment: Japanese 2nd Graders vs. Indie Rock

Don't let my relative silence on the topic of teaching fool you; I do intend to abuse this privileged position to the fullest extent possible. I have realized the almost limitless potential that these children hold as human guinea pigs, ripe for whatever sort of experimentation I deem appropriate. I can only hope that future generations benefit from my hard work and sacrifice.

This week, I decided to perform my first such experiment: exposing elementary school students to external aural stimulus and recording the results. Of course, I was absolutely dying to push these children to unnatural limits-what would a 2nd grader's reaction to the Locust be like? Or Wolf Eyes? While these are, indeed, pressing questions, I decided to play it safe this time; if not to avoid the risk of children diving out of open windows then to see how the teachers would react to the alien sounds that would emanate from their classrooms.

Thus, I decided that the initial experiment should consist of mostly tame, inoffensive indie rock. At the last minute I included one hip-hop song purely out of guilt (I wouldn't want to bear the responsibility of creating entire classrooms of rockists) but did so without altering the general vibe of the proceedings. Anyhow, my goal was to select 10 tracks that can be seen as "classic" in some sense while still offering some sort of sonic variance. Thus, the decision to select Pavement's Dave Brubeck tribute over a more well-known cut, etc. Finally, I threw that D-Plan song on there because I thought they would find it pretty funny. Heh. The final tracklist:

1. Yo La Tengo - "Autumn Sweater"
2. The Smiths - "This Charming Man"
3. Neutral Milk Hotel - "In The Aeroplane Over The Sea"
4. Pavement - "5-4=Unity"
5. Death Cab For Cutie - "Photobooth"
6. Radiohead - "Everything In Its Right Place"
7. A Tribe Called Quest - "Jazz"
8. My Bloody Valentine - "Sometimes"
9. Ryan Adams - "To Be Young"
10. The Dismemberment Plan - "The Dismemberment Plan Gets Rich"

I then taught the kids five simple emotions in English (happy, sad, mad, silly and weird) and the structure "This music makes me feel ________." Finally, I turned on the CD and asked them to write a sentence using that structure for each track. The results, culled from three classes of roughly 35 students each (which I have processed into easy to read pie graphs), appear below by track:











As you can see, Yo La Tengo was overwhelmingly chosen as the happiest track while Radiohead received the largest number of "sad" votes (somewhere out there, Thom Yorke is reading this and actually smiling). Unsurprisingly, The Plan walked away with the award for silliest track, Pavement's take on white boy jazz was the weirdest and My Bloody Valentine induced a surprising amount of anger. All in all, I feel as if the experiment was an overwhelming success and everyone had a good time of it. Well, everyone except for this kid:

(By the way, if any other JETs want to try this activity with their students, I can email the worksheet I made which features phonetic katakana pronunciations as well as a Japanese explanation of the target sentence. Let me know.)

Old Habits Die Hard

While the following may come as a bit of a shock to those of you who look up to me as a veritable God of cool, I must confess that I do have a few decidedly un-hip skeletons hiding somewhere in the back of my closet. One of these little-known facts is that I was what you might call a "video gamer" during my high school days. While I managed to kick the habit for the most part during college, I suspected that I might experience a relapse out here in the barren landscape that is Aomori. Well, despite the fact that I own a device capable of playing games, I haven't actually used it in that capacity more than once excluding the first day I bought it.

Last week, Charlie Mac took me up to Geo, a video store in Misawa, to peruse the selection of used games. You see, most brand new games in Japan retail for $70-80 USD, so it's really not very economical to buy games new unless you have some dire need to possess a game as soon as it's released. Anyhow, I happened to find a copy of my beloved Soul Calibur 2 for ¥2500 which turned out to be quite the wise purchase, not only because of the fact that it's a great party game but also because, serendipitously enough, the game is almost entirely in English (with the exception of some of the menus).

Well, this past weekend I had Matt and Charlie Mac over and we had ourselves an olde time video gaming party. Of course, the ordering of pizza is integral to such an event so despite the fact that none of us had the requisite courage to actually call the nearby Pizza 10.4, all three of us did go down there in person and somehow managed to have some pizzas delivered to my apartment. In retrospect, a good time was had by all and I was able to again enjoy video games in a way that I haven't since my once nightly residence in Mark Baffa's basement. For now, Soul Calibur sits back on the shelf but I'm sure I'll bust it out again the next time someone comes over. As they say, the soul still burns...

A Horse Is A Horse, Of Course, Of Course

There was a lot of excitement at my office today when a van showed up in the parking lot, selling the rare northern delicacy that is basashi. In case you're not familiar with basashi, it's slices of raw horse meat, served cold and eaten with soy sauce, wasabi or both. I didn't have my wallet on me, so I was unable to partake this time ("He'll buy some next week," one of the office ladies assured the horse meat lady) but I think it was for the best. Don't get me wrong, I'm all up for trying new things while I'm here and I think that if someone can eat meat, there's really no reason why they should shy from specific types of meat just because it's deemed socially unacceptable (well, maybe within certain bounds). However, it's going to take me a while to work up the courage to put something in my mouth that looks like raw beef. Wiiilbur!

Espresso!

(Click to enlarge)

I guess I probably see a lot of cars here in Japan that would be considered 'funny' by American standards. However, there are so many keicars on the road that I don't even bat an eyelid when a 6-foot long van sporting ground effects and underbody lighting rolls by. However, the Honda Espresso (pictured above) is something special. As far as I've seen, it's the absolute smallest sports car known to man. Need a sense of scale? Simply look at either the 16 oz. water bottle on the dashboard or the license plate. No, those aren't oversized novelty items, people. While this particular photo was taken in Sapporo, there's actually one of these in the parking lot of the local pachinko parlor from time to time, although it has managed to elude the grasp of my camera thus far. I'm not sure exactly how the boys in the design department at Honda came up with this thing but my best guess is that the idea was borne out of a sincere desire to combine the two badass machines pictured below:

Sapporo Part Three: The Chocolate Factory, Sans Charlie

(Note: clicking on any of the photos in this entry will allow you to view an enlarged version)

After an exhausting first day wandering deliriously through the streets of Sapporo on almost no sleep, we began our second day, deservedly enough, by sleeping in. Thus, it wasn't until the early afternoon that we began our day's quest: to travel to the outskirts of the city to find the famed the Shiroi Koibito park and chocolate factory.

The trains in Sapporo are, like all trains in Japan, very clean and timely. However, there's something unsettling about the trains in Japan, something that you can't quite put your finger on. Leave it to Matt to figure it out, though. "You know what makes Japanese subway trains different from all the other subway trains in the world?" he asked me. "No, what's that?" I replied. "They don't smell like pee." Oh yeah, that's what it is.

The Shiroi Koibito park was opened in 1992, to celebrate the Ishiya Chocolate Company's most famous product, the Shiroi Koibito (literally, "the white beloved ones" or "white lovers"). Two flat cookies with white chocolate in-between them, these tasty little bastards have become something of a symbol of Hokkaido, Japan's number one producer and consumer of chocolate. As a matter of fact, the Shiroi Koibito is seen as the obligatory omiyage (gift that you give to co-workers after you have traveled somewhere) for those who go to Hokkaido, which was made quite apparent by the droves of middle-aged Japanese people who dutifully bought large omiyage sets in the gift shop.

When you first walk into the park, you're greeted by a huge European-style courtyard replete with fountains, castle spires and what is quite possibly the world's most annoying song sung by animatronic chefs (this has, of course, been documented quite brilliantly by Matt).

Remember in the early 90s when everyone got all paranoid that the Japanese were going to use the strength of the yen to buy up all of America's landmarks? Well, despite what you might have heard, it appears as if the preserved corpse of Abraham Lincoln is actually owned by a Japanese chocolate corporation. Who knew?

Japanese Oompa Loompas look slightly different than their American counterparts.

These ranked among the stranger chocolate sculptures featured in the factory. They also had a fully-operational chocolate helicopter on display. Okay, not really.



If you are a huge dork like me then you would have also thoroughly enjoyed the toy museum section of the chocolate factory (it was actually supposed to be a general museum of the 20th century although it was comprised mostly of toys and other small items). If you look closely at that Astroboy picture, you'll notice that he's actually called "Atomboy" here. Much like Godzilla, Atomboy became a means for reliving the horror of the atom bomb through the discourse of popular culture. And like Godzilla, these "offensive" undertones were all but edited out when the show was exported to America.

Matt got really sick while we were at the chocolate factory and while we were walking back to the hotel from the subway, he actually had to stop to vomit in the park. Luckily, he was able to find the perfect souvenir to commemorate this occasion.

Our last meal in Sapporo consisted of the heavenly Freshness Burger. Why don't they have these in Aomori? Because God hates me, apparently. Not only do they have the best burgers and onion rings that I've had yet in Japan, they had fucking MGD on tap. On second thought, it's probably better that I don't have one nearby. Otherwise, it would probably be Miller time more often than not.

Afterwards, we went out into the city one last time, looking for something that we couldn't name but eventually found at a small "blues bar". We briefly looked at the menu and were convinced by the promise of a "performance" at 10 pm as well as pints of Guinness (for the equivalent of just under $10 USD). When 10:00 finally came around, a tall, black man came into the bar, put on a cd featuring the likes of Michael Jackson and R. Kelly and proceeded to sing along. Despite my initial disappointment, Matt astutely pointed out that this was, in fact, rhythm and blues. At one point during the performance, I leaned over to Matt and said "I'd love to hear this guy's story." Well, luckily for us, he came right over to our table after his performance. "Hey, how you guys doing, I'm Willie, from San Diego!" Turns out, he was doing a show in Tokyo with some touring group when he was offered a gig by a club owner in Sapporo. That was 10 years ago and he's still here today. And now you know the rest of the story.