Booty followup

So... I just got this email:

In case you're wondering, I did in fact go celebrate with her. We celebrated a few times that night, and then again in the morning. All the celebrating left my abs pretty sore, but other parts of me felt dandy. Celebrating is fun. I recommend it.

Good work, my anonymous buddy. That there is some good, clean fun.

I'll return us to our regularly scheduled PG programming soon. Until then, you can feel free to block this this post out of your memory, and claw out your eyes.


hugs,

me

Interlude: Textnanigans

I have to share something with all of you. Short, sweet, but so brilliant.

A friend of mine has a penchant for dating nice Japanese ladies, most of whom are rather friendly, and some of whom are rather insane. I don't really know where he finds said ladies, but he seems to have a talent for either finding the mad ones or bringing out the madness in otherwise very normal people.

Anyway, one of my favourite side effects of this habbit is a stream of mostly hilarious text messages, the best of which he forwards on to me.

For the most part, I just chuckle, but this one merits sharing:

"i got HIV test result today. im clean. come celebrate with me".


That is all. I now return you to your semi-regularly scheduled program.


Huh? What's that? Did he? I don't know. But I'm going to send him this link, and he can surely leave an anonymous comment to answer that burning question for all of us.

/heh. burning.

Thailand: Part 1 - Its about Thai-me

First and foremost, I would like to apologize for the terrible, horrible, awful-osity that is the title of this post.

Ok, now to minor matters.


Being Late

I know I said tomorrow... but what I really meant was... you know... the time schedule you use when your mom tells you to "come on in! its time for dinner!" and you say "ok, I'll be there in five more minutes"... and you really mean FIFTY five more minutes, or at least, as long as you can go before marches right out there, mister, and you just wait till I get my hands on you...

um... yeah. you know. that kind of I-swear-that-never-happened-to-me kind of childhood way.

Those kind of five minutes.... that kind of tomorrow.


Travelling with Brent 101: preparedness schmeparedness.

Um... so I went to Thailand. And it was swell.

I'll share just a brief anecdote to start us off and we'll do the rest... um... tomorrow.

We'll fast forward through the madness that is my traveling style... you can surely imagine. I do research on the places I go inasmuch as finding them somewhere on a globe and confirming my flight. Sometimes, if I'm in a good and/or bored mood, I might go so far as to book my hotel, but I do kind of enjoy just showing up in a place and seeing where I end up. Having done this in both Paris (where I don't really speak the language and everyone automatically hates you because they think your American... or they just hate you because thier Parisians and they hate everything....um... yeah.. ixnay on the idetrack-say, hey?) and in Amsterdam, where getting high and watching people fuck on a rotating bed is frowned on by the cops/general populace to about the same degree you get frowned on when you don't cover your mouth while yawning. Which... made it ... hard to find a hostel... room?

Ah, shut up brain, or I'll stab you with a Q-tip.

So anyway, I didn't book shit. I just ended up there with the name of a hotel from my co-worker and a vague idea that I wanted to chillax and see some stuff.


385 Long Lost Brothers

I actually didn't pull in until close to ten or eleven, so that meant that my "sightseeing" was pretty much a taxi ride and wandering around through the streets of bangkok being crazy. Met some cool folk, and found out that I actually have 385 brothers that I didn't know! In fact, all of them are pushy thai salesmen (which, yes... if you know me well, you may not be surprised to find out). So, every time someone wanted to shake my hand, suddenly it was like "My Brother!! and they then try to physically man-handle you into their store.

Of course, don't you think that my 385 brothers were big believers in customer service or whatnot once you were in their 385 stores, but boy oh boy did they ever work hard to get you in the door. The price of any one object is actually dependent on an interesting scale called "how much can I pull out of this foolish, foolish white boy". I noticed this when someone tried to charge me 1900 baht (about $50) for three t-shirts. I laughed in his face without a moment of hesitation... so his grin slipped a bit and he offered them for 190 baht each ($5)... I ended up haggling him down to 150 a shirt (because playing games with people's livelihood is a lot more fun once you realize that if he's really going to lose the money he's trying to save for his poor, sick grandma, he isn't going to sell you shit. So...bargain as hard as you feel like).


Think Pink.
So, the next day I met Sophie, my comrade in textbooks and sketchnanigans (and fellow veteran of many a Tokyo coffee shop) at the airport. She came a day later than me for mundane and unfunny reasons that I shall not even bother with, because talking about someone else on MY blog would open an entire can of non-inflating-my-overlarge-ego worms that no-one wants a part of.

So anyway... I picked up Sophie and we hightailed it to a tailor to get fitted into some custom threads. Which we will come back to.

But..if..., um...ever... a friend of yours tells you that he wants some new shirts in a certain silk fabric, and you find that fabric only in pink, and your other friend tells you that he'll look gay, and even there is nothing wrong with looking gay, well, except for that kind of false-advertising, sending the wrong kind of message kind of way...then maybe you shouldn't go ahead and ignore the girl-advice and buy your small-town Canadian friend a custom tailored pink silk shirt for the dance bar. Just so you know. I heard about something like that happening, so... you just watch out. If ... um ... you're ever in Thailand looking at ... pink silk shirts.


Ok. its nearly 5 am as I finish this, and I am trying to catch up on my sleep debt, rather than run up a massive balance that resembles my Visa card. So...

If you can read this line, I haven't edited out the typos yet. Sorry. If grammar/spelling are important to your blogging experience, please return at a later date.

Or don't, cause I'm leaving that line at the end, and you already burned at least five minutes of your life that you'll never get back. Sucker.

Thailand! - Photo Teaser

So, today was a rather grumpy day at work. Not that anything bad happened (in fact, it was a cheerful, albeit busy day), but rather because as of about two days before, I was wandering around a hilarious tropical paradise, sunning myself on the beach, and and doing a lot of declining to ride in a small, ill-defended go-karts that somehow manage to attain 85 km/h through congested streets and back alleys.

Yes, thats right folks, I went to Thailand. A place full of sunshine, cheap knock-off products, delicious food and lots of men dressed like women. And me. What could possibly go wrong?

Apparently a lot. Who knew?

Um.... anyway... thats another story, for another blog on another day. Or. um... tomorrow's post, anyway.

I'm going to take a day and put my thoughts in order (read: prho chra sch tin ace shun) but I thought I'd aim to amuse with a few of the photos I snagged along the way.



1) Chuck Norris-iquin!





2) VW Bar-bus






3) 8' tall hand-built metal scuplture...of the Predator.... in a clothing store.




4) Drink, Don't Drive... floors 81 through 120. (Note the subtle difference of emphasis from the North American version "Don't Drink and Drive")





I'll be back in the shenanigan saddle tomorrow to recount the following Thincidents:

1) The Accidental Full Body Aloe Incident

2) The Case of The Falsely Erect Towel

3) The Lady Boys Attack!

4) No, I don't want a !#$&!& Tuk-Tuk: secrets of bargaining with locals 101

5) "Your friend, man... she talk too much"

6) Custom Zoot Suit!

and much more.


And now a short message from our always candid sponsor:

Don't Drink and Ride

This past weekend, Erica, one of the other teachers I met at my Vancouver training session, came down to visit Tokyo. Since she is from a rural buttfuck-nowhere (I think its litterally translated from Japanese as "honourable place for unsolicited rear coitus that is lacking the regular train service", but I'm still sometimes fuzzy on that translation stuff) town, she was very interested in seeing the big city.

Anyway, also in the same training session were Patrick and Sophie, who also work and live in this wonderful place. This weekend ALSO happened to be Sophie's Birthday Party Celebration. Most of all, though, was the stunning (seriously, in a city of 30 million odd people...) coincidence that 40-odd other teachers from my company were ALSO booked into the same restaraunt for a drink-fest following a massive scavenger hunt party.

Suffice to say that Newcomer to Tokyo + Friends Birthday + Scavenger Hunt Party is a recipie for drinking at least 3 cocktails of moderate strength, and an excuse for a few more beyond that.

/ I'd like to point out that the last Scavenger Hunt party left me with a black eye for a week.

Anyway... so... here are a couple of shots of Erica and Sophie that nicely demonstrate two points in the drinking where I was able to hold the camera-phone.



In this first picture.... lets call it between 2 and 4 drinks... Sophie is 20% Japanese (two fingers sign, which she hates and will be very displeased if she ever finds out that I've shared this) and Erica is cheerful and clearheaded!






In picture #2, we are well into the evening. We can see here that Sophie has in fact become 55% Japanese, as she is holding a karoke microphone AND is making the peace sign. Erica, on the other hand, is now blurry and no-headed.

This also clearly demonstrates the fact that I am on the road to disaster on the evening in question.




Above, picture #3, is an actual picture of "The Road To Disaster", or more accurately, where it leads to in the Tokyo area. In this specific case, it is the first thing I saw at about 10 am from the window of the train.

Unfortunately for me, I had parted from the rest of the crew and boarded my train. Being, well, recently moved into a new apartment, I am rather unfamilliar with the trains leading there. Further conpounding this error-in-the-making was the fact that I was, sadly, not lucid enough to recognise the aforementioned unfamilliarity and opt to consult any high tech devices, such as my cell phone map, signs or other people.

Therefore, I boarded the (WRONG) train, and proceeded to fall quite soundly asleep, for about three hours.

Yes. For Three Hours.

This photo was actually taken in an area of Chiba, which is on the east side of Tokyo (My apartment is in the south west, by the way). It actually took me two hours by express train to get home for noon (still quite heavily intoxicated) and promptly sleep through the latter half of my weekend.




Thank you, thank you... I'll be here all month. Try the veal.


% of friends I expect would find this funny: 96
% of Aizicks who are reacting with amused encouragement: 0

New Apaato 2 - the NEW Apaato

Hey All... here's a short one with some pics of the new place.

I'm more than open for poster suggestions (heh.. and other stuff....) Even if Dave is the only who suggests, and I can find said suggestion, I'll put it up.

From the Entrance... this is my "kitchen"... which is about the only downside - I'm now down to a single burner, which also doubles as my... counter??? yep. thats it... a sink and about a one square foot burner/counter. Oh well. Not much cooking happens here anyway - eating out is almost the same price!






View from the door side. I'm sure you can see the minor improvement in living conditions. While I'm still moving, you might notice little things like the absence of mouldy, disgusting walls and a ratty floor.




Here's the view back towards the door from the other side...

These pics were all taken like the ones in the other apartment - by holding my camera in the corner. So, not huge by any North American standard, but not too shabby for 30 min from one of the busiest cities in the world.




Not too shabby, I say.

New Apaato!

So, I finally convinced the company to move me to a new apartment. It wasn't that the old one was overly small, or that it was in a bad location...

Ok, fine, it was small even for a Japanese apartment...seriously... With my bed stretched across the shorter length, I had just enough room to fit my 6.5 foot bed across the entire place... even folding it in half left me without a quarter of my living space.

Then again... I could walk to work in about 11 minutes, and while Noborito isn't exactly known for being a clean, thriving pseudo-urban setting, it did have (as my appaato-predecessor Nick said) "character". And I do realize that commenting on a neighborhood with good character, is kind of like setting your someone up with a "nice guy/girl with a great personality" (for any j-folk: these are euphemisms for "ugly and not very exciting")

What really got me though, was the mould. Not only did it grow on my shower, and move to some of my toiletries, but it migrated quite readily to one of my futons.

This was indeed the final straw. So, with my best intention not to disturb the wa (harmony) of my sweet employer, I put in a nice call to head office.

/background sidebar - one of the head managers seems to have taken a shine to me... she's really quite nice, but she's taken to saying things like "brent-sensei, you're soo funny" at meetings.

SO... anyway, I called the office, and lo and behold, who should answer, but the very same manager.

K: (Japanese Phone Script - "O Denwa arigato gozaimasu. Eikawa no (School). Ko koshi K-San de gozaimasu..." .)
B: Hello, its Brent Sensei from Noborito
K: He-LLO! Brent Sensei! How are you?
B: Oh, I'm doing just fine... how are you?
K: I'm great! Who are you looking for?
B: Well.. you actually. (I'm such an ass... but I'm a smooth ass now and then)
K: Reallly? What can I help you with?
B: Well.. its about my apartment... there's a small problem.
K: (anxiously) What is it?
B: Well... you see, its the mould...
K: The ... mould?
B: Yeah... I was ok with the mould in the shower, but now its moved to my futon, and I'm starting to get a bit sick. so.... I was wondering if we could, you know...look into a new apartment??
K: You have mould on your futon?!?
B: Yeah... its been growing there for a bit now.
K: Oh my God! We'll find you something right away!
B: Well, actually.... Chuck Norris Jr. Sensei (some names have been changed to protect the guilty, the innocent and those in between that control my next raise...) has already picked out an apartment in Kuji..
K: Really? We'll look into that right away!
B: Thank you so much K-san. I really, really appreciate it.
K: No problem. We'll have that fixed up right away.

... So... not only did they find me a lovely new apartment (about twice the size, and brand new... with free internet access)... but they also booked and paid for a moving company. This might not seem like a big deal, but its definitely against company policy to lay out this kind of cash.

Total time elapsed between that phone call and when the moving company showed up at my door: 8 days.

Not bad, considering you usually have to plop down mad deposits, key money, bribes, hookers-and-blow allowances and everything else under the sun to get a new apartment.

Here are some shots of the old hell hole. I’m still snazzing up and unpacking at the new joint, but I’ll put up some pics soon.



This pic was taken with my back in the corner.


Opposite corner.

Weird Shit

There are no words.




A SERIOUSLY crowded train.



More from the same Nambu Line. This was friday night - last train. Man there were a lot of drunk people on this train. so many drunk people that it was very, very difficult to breathe, and about 10 people would be forced out of the doors each time they opened. The pusher guys with the white gloves were out in full force.

SWEET.

Its the Engrish Roundup... part 2 of many!!

So, here are some great examples of disastrous attempts at English... enjoy.




mmmm... sinnamon. so evil. Good thing they also serve "chocolate tip", in case you need some african american lovin, (but not too much... just the tip)





There are no words for this....

at least... none written by me. I'm sure a bevy of texting fourteen year olds could pull off a simmilar effort given ten minutes and some sort of "idol" contest to scream about.






The Thanks Price isn't bad... ITS' DEMO! Unfortunately, Smiles cost the bloody earth.




A noble effort, but they managed to miss both the US and the Canadian Spelling. Very Flarvorful.




I don't know why, but this is my favourite. sorry... Flarvourite.




mmm.... frozen latte froat.
I just wish they'd said "ratte", like they do in person when I try to order a soy latte.

Which is, I have to say, bloody hard. YOU try pantomiming "I'm lactose intolerant". It's really not that easy.

To disabled people: Up Yours. With love, Japan.

So, for a long time I have had the feeling that the Japanese have done a lot to make life better for people with physical limitations. All of the traffic lights are audible and practically every train station or other place has a wheelchair ramp or elevator. As with many major cities, some museums here have recreated many famous art works in 3d relief, so that they can be enjoyed by visually impared patrons.

The blind, I thought, had fared the best of all. Everwhere in the city, on every sidewalk, in every public buiding and in every train station, there are strips of raised material - lines for directions to walk in, and dots/bumps to indicate some sort of change, such as a door or a step... or even the edge of the train platform (which has its own unique pattern at many stations)... its really brilliant - I saw a blind woman using her cane to follow the lines... directions are easy... (eg - how many more entrances before I turn left?)

My feelings about the way some Japanese folk care for the disabled took two hits recently... one was a news article, the gist of which was this:

A brand new hotel included (as is mandatory) a number of wheelchair accessable parking spaces near the entrance. They called in the inspectors, and received their permit. Later, it was discovered that, with the permit safely secured, the hotel went along with its original plan: expanding the lobby. So where does this expansion go? why, on top of the wheelchair parking, of course! And re-paint the lines... pshaw. who uses them anyway? Nobody...right guys??

See... the next one, mind you, is better seen than written.

(especially since I've received muchos flack for not having enough photos from a certain son of abraham, who shall remain nameless.... *TALL*, Richmond-Hill-Living, and nameless.)



Have fun finding your way to the elevator in our store, you silly blind people!!





Yikes.