Hairy head of hair

Normal life is resuming and let me tell you, it sucks to be at Nishi Chu. Sort of. Mainly it's so boring I could eat a live squirrel. Today was especially boring, I think because I had such a good time in Kyoto with Claire and she told me about London, which sounds mainly fun. Ironically she hates her job too. Nevertheless, it was a reminder of good times outside Japan and it was just so good to see her that I guess I realized how much I miss home.

Dan has a blog too, and it's a million times cooler than this one. He writes about books he's reading. Funny that it's attached to his family's auction house website.

I got a haircut today and played the game of "I'll nod my head and say 'okay' in frustration while you (the hairdresser) tell me what you're about to do to me. And I don't understand a word you're saying." It's amazing how a little thing like a haircut can drive home the point that I am next to retarded in this country. It's no wonder that practically every Japanese person studiously avoids and shuns foreigners. We can't speak! I think this feeling I'm experiencing is called "culture shock", and yes it can occur six months into a stay in Japan. I know because they showed us a nice graph of our future mental stability during orientation in Tokyo, and it took a dive after six months. Welcome to crazyville. Population: root two.

I'm tempted to put up a picture of myself with my new head of hair, but I realize that would be too many pictures of me on the blog. I guess I just love showing everyone my picture. Look, it's me. The hairdresser really wanted to give me spiky hair. He asked three times if I wanted it and I told him no each time. He kept showing me pictures of Japanese guys with weird feathery hair and saying {I have no idea what he said} as if I wanted to have a weird Japanese haircut. I saw a picture of Colin Farrell and indicated that. Yes! A good-looking white person. That's who I want to look like. People inevitably choose a good-looking model, even if the model's hair and the person's hair are completely different. I actually considered indicating a bald photo J Timberlake before I came to my senses.

The Great Kyoto Protocol, Starring Claire G and Tony B

THEN we went to Kyoto on Monday. I was late getting going, as is my wont, but we got there before noon, and headed directly for the temple. It was actually a bit of a temple complex, rather than a temple per se. We followed the guidebook directions to walk up a hill for ten minutes but after only a minute we saw the temple. How strange, we thought, and were about to enter when Claire suggested that we walk further up the hill because maybe that wasn't the temple. Maybe that was just someone's house. And it was. And we did. And there we were, walking up the hill, taking side-paths and running into German tourists who took good pictures of us, and Japanese tourists who took bad pictures of us. Who knew? They're both supposed to be good at photography. I think Claire was getting a little annoyed by my need to document everything in photos. I got that feeling when she threatened to kill me if I took another picture, and then started making jokes, saying I should ask the same Japanese girl to take our picture again moments after she had just done so. But she'll be glad I got them later on, especially since my camera has better resolution than hers. Heh heh. (But hers is lighter and smaller.)





We walked through a sort of village of shops on the mountain-side, very picturesque (and I've got the pictures to prove it!) with narrow uphill streets, terraced to accomodate the mountain slope. Many of them offered pickled delights, and many of those offered free taste tests. This is common in Japan. Claire started strong with the samples, but eventually the pickles won. She was bested by Japanese pickles; there were just too many. And there was also an omiyage shop with sweets on sample - usually there are many more such sweet shops as I recall from Veronica's mochi-sampling predilictions - but there was just one this time. An old man was sitting behind the counter offering cinnamon cookie shards and a bowl of mochi (a sweet rice flour pastry). As soon as he saw us he pulled away the bowl of mochi so that we couldn't have any! So later when we were coming back down the mountain I made a point of asking him directly for a mochi sample, and then took two. Ha!

At the temple we drank blessed water that has now imbued us both with eternal life. Also, Claire had a sesame ice cream cone that tasted like tahini.

Due to the size of the tahini cone, Claire wasn't that hungry for lunch. But we ate it anyway, of course. This was back down the mountain in a nice, second-floor woody atmospheric restaurant. I got some bowl of noodles and Claire got some bowl of noodles. But while my bowl had soup, Claire's was a bowl of snot. Don't worry Claire! Not all Japanese food is gelatinous!

Later we wandered through the old imperial palace grounds, but the palace was closed to the public. It was mainly dead grass and giant gravel promenades, and was about as exciting as sanding wood. LUCKILY we then decided to go to Karaoke, where I proceeded to make an off-key fool of myself and Claire proceeded to complain that her voice wasn't doing what she wanted it to even while singing like the freaking Vienna boys choir. She sings good. As Nick would say.

Check out the bizarre lyrics... apparently they're wrong. Claire likes to sing the Claire song to herself a lot.





Today morning's breakfast: Spidey-grip on pumpkin-bean-yam granola.


We got home late and took a cab from the station (thanks Claire!) and then Claire did her email and now she's in TOKYO!!!! I look forward to seeing you in Osaka on Saturday!! Or was it Sunday?!

Claire is in my kitchen....

Claire is even now leafing through a Lonely Planet Japan guide - which she probably thought she could avoid by having friends who already know the scene living here but she never counted on me. She arrived yesterday morning and my place was still a mess because I thought she was coming in the evening! Ooops. Let me tell you how good and strange it is to have a friend from Toronto here in my Nagahama kitchen. Last night Adam and Kristen the aussies from upstairs came by to visit and I had a weird moment when my Japan friends were talking to my Toronto/London friend. I guess Claire is really my Toronto friend, not my London friend until I can visit her in London. That's silly.

We've decided to visit Kyomizu-dera, the holy water temple in Kyoto instead of Kinkakuji, the Golden temple. This is based on Veronica's recommendation. I've seen the Golden temple and liked it a lot but I've never seen Kyomizu-dera.

Well we had better get going so that we don't miss our 10:15 train! I'll update more later...

Scorpion-free since 1983

There are no scorpions in my apartment, but there is one spider. It bit my head while I was exhaustedly napping one after-school afternoon. And I am not a nappper. That's why I think the spider just got angry that I was sleeping out of turn. You should be safe Claire, as long as you don't sleep out of turn. Veronica was scared of it but then I told her that the bites were just itchy, that's all. So then she was okay with it and she didn't get bitten - right V?

So, Claire is coming on Sunday. !!!!!! That's so soon and awesomely amazing! Even though I should be cleaning my apartment, I'll actually be going to Kusatsu to drink fine Starbuckian coffees and teas of the world with Veronica and Mike today after school. Tomorrow I'll lounge around in Ishiyama for a while, and maybe - possibly - go to the "dress as a sexual fantasy" costume party. I really don't want to dress as a sexual fantasy and then hang around with other English teachers. I believe that is lame. And so, if I do go, I shan't dress at all.

Claire - what time does your flight get in to Kansai airport? Do you know what train you'll likely be on? Keep me posted!

Old glasses, new glasses

Me in Thailand with my old glasses!


Me in Kobe with new glasses!

I am chubby

Yes, it's true. If my sister will freely admit it in her blog, I'll do so in mine. And this is coming from two people who have decent metabolisms (metabolisisms, metaboli). I blame it on the weather and the months of November, December, January and February. And a little blame to October, too (hallowe'en bastardry...!). Please note that I still have the small plastic jack-o'-lantern that was filled with candy on my desk four months later. Yesterday for Valentines day my neighbour gave me chocolate. And so did the woman whose job it is to follow the bad girls around the school and gently suggest they do the right thing.

Is this a good story idea: Anthony and Veronica hang out in her apartment and are visited by unlikely people and events which eventually build to some sort of existential climax? Sounds kinky. Where does one put the question mark in a sentence like that?

Afternoon Raid on Nishi Chu (that's my school)

The raiding party came in the cold light of late afternoon. Most of us were semi-asleep at our desks when the clamour of voices shattered the calm. Our vice principal rushed into the hall to investigate; in a few minutes he returned and addressed us in as stentorian a tone as he could muster: "Some students from South NagahamaMiddle School are in our school. I don't know where they are or what they're doing, but let's all pull together now and solve this problem." He sounded worried but determined. These were bad kids. Kids whose attendance records read like rap sheets, and who seldom scored above 50 percent in aptitude tests. Clearly, they were a force to be reckoned with. Kyoto Sensei (vp) and Muratta Sensei, the perennially sleepy blunderer of English class, located and neutralized the threat with aplomb, I am sure. Peeking through the hall window with Nick - who had narrated the call to arms for my ignorant ears - I saw the two teachers guarding our gravel driveway, and three or four middle school students milling about on the sidewalk sheepishly.

Once calm had returned to the temple of learning, I returned to watching downloaded tv on my laptop.

Yuki Ga Sen (Part Deux)

THEN what happened was this....
I looked around in the snow for what seems like forever. Actually it must have been about an hour. Some friends helped me to look for a bit. We were kicking snow with our sodden shoes, trying to uncover the hidden treasure as it had snowed since the battle royale. (All battles are better if they're royale, and I help to make them thus). Eventually I gave up on the search and went inside, demoralized.

The next day I asked my Kyoto Sensei (vice principal) if I could go to a glasses shop in the afternoon, which was free. He commandeered a car; or rather he commandeered a driver for his own car, one Goi Sensei of the crazy tree. Nick also came along, despite an ongoing dispute between the two of them about Goi's ex-girlfriend. A jolly trio we made, but we were united on one front at least: the desire to be out of Nishi Chu. We visited first one, then another glasses shop. I distrusted the aesthetic advice of these two, but I depended on it because I distrusted my own aesthetic tendencies even more, which oscillate between the dully conservative and the gaudily bizarre when shopping alone. At last I settled on a pair of frames whose Timberland imprimatur recommended them to Nick, hard- core rapper that he is. Their ultra-cheap price tag recommended them to me. The optometrist beckoned to me and I sat in the seat of automatic eye judgment. They use a machine that figures out your prescription by watching the eyes focus on displayed images. Very impressive. Then I went to the industrial revolution-era round glasses apparatus with removable lenses, looking like Johnny Depp in Sleepy Hollow with his inspection headgear. At least I hope I looked like Johnny Depp, but I suspect I looked like Anthony Boylan with funny, round, lever-bristling glasses on.

To make a long story short (too late!) I got some glasses, and walking home in the snow with Nick he spotted my old pair partially hidden in the snow outside our building. They were embedded in an icy tire track, having been completely RUN OVER by a car, and were preserved from destruction by their icy casing. Amazingly, they were only a little bent at the arms, but otherwise unharmed. Now I have two pairs of glasses; a back-up pair in case I lose one in a battle royale.

Yuki Ga Sen [The Snowball Fight]

A couple of days ago it snowed big, soft flakes of snow all day. It was perfect packing snow, with lots of moisture. Coming home from school, I saw many of the foreign teachers outside the apartment that most of us share - the Highlife Morii. Monjun and Myles were there, and I winged the first snowball at Myles. It soon developed into a battle royal when T.R. (Theodore Royce, of all names!) and Colin joined, and then Jennifer took the cowards position on the second floor balcony above the fray. As punishment for this cowardly act and unfair tactical advantage, Myles took the top half of her stunted, two-ball snowman and hurled it at Colin. Fortunately the weight of the snowboulder was too much for a proper throw, or it would have instantly killed Colin instead of smashing upon his back of fearful defiance. Ha ha!

My main strategy of attack was the multiple scoop, rapid winging of snowballs, in which I stoop close to the ammunition and try to keep up a barrage of snowballs so that my opponent doesn't have the chance to aim properly. This works best at medium range and if you're too tired to aim carefully, which I was. It was quite effective against Myles and I felt no qualms about pelting him, because he knows Judo and he likes to make mother jokes from SNL. Myles then came after me and I ran to avoid the inevitable fury of his judo, but we ran out of driveway (the driveway in front of the Highlife was our staging ground, and it is about 40 metres long) so I slowed up, and he tackled me. I was unharmed.

Once we were too exhausted to throw snow at each other we all gave up and went inside. My pants were soaked, as were my shoes, my jacket, and my backpack, which I had been wearing all the while. I stripped and turned on the kerosene heater, even though I was radiating heat myself. I turned to getting a snack and checking my email, but I didn't have my glasses on. I looked in the usual spots and they weren't there, and immediately thought I had lost them in the snowball fight. You see I had taken them off and hung them one arm over the neck of my sweater so that I could see, because they were covered in ice from a head shot. Maybe they had fallen into the snow... I looked through my apartment carefully just in case. Twenty minutes later I went out into the snow with a flashlight to work against the dying light. But the flashlight was a cheap one I had picked up in Chiang Mai, and the batteries were dying.

To be continued...