You are Disoriented. Blackness Swims Toward You Like a School of Eels Who Have Just Seen Something that Eels Like a Lot.
"You know, it's at times like this, when I'm trapped in a weightlifting gym with a man whose odor knows no boundaries, and I'm about to die of asphyxication, that I really wish I'd listened to what my mother told me when I was young."
"Why, what did she tell you?"
"I don't know, I didn't listen."
The past week's gym experiences have been difficult on me, but I think I'm finally ready to share what I pay 89 bucks a month to put up with.
The Konami Sports Club is open 6 days a week, and I try to go each of those days unless some fun and exciting plans come up. And since I started going there in September, I've noticed one simple thing.
People are insane.
It's so bad that I can categorize the different types of insanity in the gym. And of course some people deserve a category all to themselves.
I apologize if any of these events are considered normal, I just know they are funny to watch. And some not so funny.
The first category is attire. Notable mention goes to all the people with engrish on their clothes, or wear a towel on their heads, or have radioactive shoes, or the old guys in spandex shorts. But the gold medal winner goes to the average aged/sized guy who wore both spandex shorts, with a spandex training bra type thing that showed off his stomach. It was... wow. He'd get beaten up within seconds anywhere besides, and the police would come, but wouldn't charge anyone, saying there was just cause for the beating.
The second category is reserved for people whose exercise habits are, well, more unique than they should be. There's a lot in here.
First we have the hip hop dance class, filled with usually older people, some overweight, in which one of the dance moves is, well, a hip thrust ><. Also, one guy weight trains using a hip thrusting move. Plus many of the other "hip-hop" moves are very amusing, because they are being done by older japanese people and not young rap artists.
Related to innuendo-type exercises, we have the old guy who uses the tensor band thingy... to do... well, an up and down arm motion that just looks wrong. Very hard to do weights when he's in your field of view.
There's another old guy I saw yesterday, on one of the machines for the lower back, he was lifting up his t-shirt and rubbing his belly with both hands while he exercised.
There's another old guy who does literally thousands of crunches in a row. Like 1.5 a second for over 10 minutes. He either has abs of adamantium or he doesn't know what he's doing.
One stretch that a lot of people do resembles a cockroach... lying on their back flailing their arms and legs in the air.
And one poor younger guy, who is super super thin, who spends tons of time on the bike machines. He looks almost anorexic and yet he continues to use the bikes. I feel bad for him, but nothing I can do.
As far as gold for this category, gotta hand it to the tensor band guy who never fails to... well... creep me out.
But the gold medal for "Oh God!" at the gym goes to the guy on Friday. It was impossible to do any sort of weight training around him, he smelled so bad. But the weirdest thing was that his odor travelled a long distance but only very close to the floor... so bending down to do hyperextensions nearly killed us, even if he was far away. He gets a category all to himself.
What fun adventures await me tonight? I'll find out... after measuring more teeth.
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
"You Just Steer, Ok!"
Summertime is gone, I miss it so much
My board lives in my garage
Waiting for that snowy season
And again I will slide!
They finally drained the waterways in my area of the city to prepare for winter. It now looks eerily like Route Kanal... In fact, my neighbourhood could easily pass for City 17, decrepit buildings, rust, power lines. All I need is a crowbar.
On Sunday I completed the self-hazing ritual required to become a snowboarder. Which means as I write this, most of my body, especially my arse and knees, are in pain. Note to self: Don't learn to snowboard on a Sunday, for Monday mornings equal painful meetings. Also don't learn to snowboard the day before going to a rock concert.
Tons of fun though, I went solo to a hill about 2 hours away (2 trains, a bus, and a gondola). I was a little worried at the bottom of the gondola, as there was 0 snow at this point, but halfway up, everything turns instantly to white, it was kinda cool. As for the hill itself... tiny. I imagine about the size of COP if I had ever actually been there. Pricy too, 4000en (40 bucks) for afternoon pass (I slept in, had breakfast, long travel time), but 4500 for a board rental. Plus transportation, which luckily wasn't too bad thanks to seishun 18.
Snowboarding itself, fun and painful, as everyone knows. It was my first time on a board, and did better than I thought, but I had low expectations. But very fun! My knees hurt. Maybe I'll go next Saturday too, to use up my last Seishun 18 ticket.
I've Got Soul, But I'm Not a Soldier!
Can we climb this mountain, I don't know
Higher now than ever before
I know we can make it if we take it slow
Let's take it easy, easy now, watch it go!
We're burning down the highway skyline
On the back of a hurricane that started turning
When you were young
Aww man, Killer's concert last night! It was at Namba Hatch, surprisingly easy to find. The concert hall is excellent, quite small, so everyone has a good view of the stage... kinda like the Mac Hall Ballroom where I saw The Music, only the hall is way newer and modern and cool. I can't wait to see Bloc Party there, but I gotta get to the very front middle somehow :). Unfortunately, while waiting for the band to come out and play, they had a Johnny Cash cd playing... add the fact that the band came out 20 minutes late, and I got a full hour dose of Cash... that's waaay too much cash for one little man to handle!
But the Killers themselves were really good, they played all the best songs and none of the bad ones, with plenty from both their albums. They seemed slightly uncoordinated between songs, no smooth transition and fancy lightshows like Coldplay, but that's ok. And they saved the best song for last... All These Things That I've Done, woohoo! Of course he tried to get the crowd to sing along at the Soul part, but of course, that was largely unsuccessful with a mostly Japanese crowd ><.
Well... back to a lovely Tuesday morning of teeth measuring.
Summertime is gone, I miss it so much
My board lives in my garage
Waiting for that snowy season
And again I will slide!
They finally drained the waterways in my area of the city to prepare for winter. It now looks eerily like Route Kanal... In fact, my neighbourhood could easily pass for City 17, decrepit buildings, rust, power lines. All I need is a crowbar.
On Sunday I completed the self-hazing ritual required to become a snowboarder. Which means as I write this, most of my body, especially my arse and knees, are in pain. Note to self: Don't learn to snowboard on a Sunday, for Monday mornings equal painful meetings. Also don't learn to snowboard the day before going to a rock concert.
Tons of fun though, I went solo to a hill about 2 hours away (2 trains, a bus, and a gondola). I was a little worried at the bottom of the gondola, as there was 0 snow at this point, but halfway up, everything turns instantly to white, it was kinda cool. As for the hill itself... tiny. I imagine about the size of COP if I had ever actually been there. Pricy too, 4000en (40 bucks) for afternoon pass (I slept in, had breakfast, long travel time), but 4500 for a board rental. Plus transportation, which luckily wasn't too bad thanks to seishun 18.
Snowboarding itself, fun and painful, as everyone knows. It was my first time on a board, and did better than I thought, but I had low expectations. But very fun! My knees hurt. Maybe I'll go next Saturday too, to use up my last Seishun 18 ticket.
I've Got Soul, But I'm Not a Soldier!
Can we climb this mountain, I don't know
Higher now than ever before
I know we can make it if we take it slow
Let's take it easy, easy now, watch it go!
We're burning down the highway skyline
On the back of a hurricane that started turning
When you were young
Aww man, Killer's concert last night! It was at Namba Hatch, surprisingly easy to find. The concert hall is excellent, quite small, so everyone has a good view of the stage... kinda like the Mac Hall Ballroom where I saw The Music, only the hall is way newer and modern and cool. I can't wait to see Bloc Party there, but I gotta get to the very front middle somehow :). Unfortunately, while waiting for the band to come out and play, they had a Johnny Cash cd playing... add the fact that the band came out 20 minutes late, and I got a full hour dose of Cash... that's waaay too much cash for one little man to handle!
But the Killers themselves were really good, they played all the best songs and none of the bad ones, with plenty from both their albums. They seemed slightly uncoordinated between songs, no smooth transition and fancy lightshows like Coldplay, but that's ok. And they saved the best song for last... All These Things That I've Done, woohoo! Of course he tried to get the crowd to sing along at the Soul part, but of course, that was largely unsuccessful with a mostly Japanese crowd ><.
Well... back to a lovely Tuesday morning of teeth measuring.
Thursday, January 11, 2007
My Brain Always Rejects Attitude Transplants
I've got a hunger, twisting my stomach into knots
That my tongue is tied off
my brain's repeating, "If you've got an impulse let it out"
But they never make it past my mouth
Our youth is fleeting, old age is just around the bend
I can't wait to go grey...
I'll sit and wonder, of every love that could've been
If i'd only thought of something charming to say...
This is the sound of settling...
For some odd reason, every time I'm in a meeting, I end up wishing I was Gambit (X-Men). I dunno why Gambit specifically, maybe it's cause I have my pencil in my hand and a strong desire to throw it at something, or perhaps someone. If I were Gambit, I could charge it up, throw it at the lights, and end the meeting early, yay!
Last week I had 3 hours of meetings in a row on Thursday, followed by 2 days in a row of Accordion Afternoons...
In other news, another one of the Prophecies of Link have come true! Byron encountered Mr. Dictionary on the weekend. I burst out laughing when Byron told me... nearly every white intern at the company has been caught by the guy now, always asking us to edit his dictionary. If Byron read my blog, he'd have been prepared for it!
Last last night I dreamt that I was looking for a washroom in Egypt, and eventually that my friend had a sarcophagus in his house. This apparently means that the friend I dreamt about is keeping secrets from me... I'm watching you! I can't remember what I dreamt last night, but it was even weirder.
I applied for 19 summer internships at 7 companies yesterday. Though to be fair, one company offered the same job 6 times (I suppose they need 6 people), so I applied to the same job 6 times ><.
And I already recieved a rejection letter from IBM's Extreme Blue program!! Hurray! Though I think it was an auto-mail from the US program, likely because I'd need sponsorship to work in the States, and they don't wanna do the paperwork.
If anyone has any suggestions for companies to apply for, anywhere in Canada, let me know... I got a few more companies to apply to, and if nothing, I'll probably consider alternate plans for the summer.
Weekend was extremely exciting, I went shopping, bought some clothes, souvenirs, and peanut butter. On Coming of Age Day I went to the archery tourney I read about, but nobody was there, so I went downtown, only saw a couple girls in kimono (which were pretty, but there weren't enough of em), so I went back home. Where I read 550 pages of Angels and Demons in one night. Keith lent it to me, I liked it better than Da Vinci Code. Though it felt like the author was plagiarizing his own material... the structure of both books was almost identical. Gonna go teach myself to snowboard hopefully this Saturday, then got the Killers concert on Monday.
I wish I was surfing right now...
I've got a hunger, twisting my stomach into knots
That my tongue is tied off
my brain's repeating, "If you've got an impulse let it out"
But they never make it past my mouth
Our youth is fleeting, old age is just around the bend
I can't wait to go grey...
I'll sit and wonder, of every love that could've been
If i'd only thought of something charming to say...
This is the sound of settling...
For some odd reason, every time I'm in a meeting, I end up wishing I was Gambit (X-Men). I dunno why Gambit specifically, maybe it's cause I have my pencil in my hand and a strong desire to throw it at something, or perhaps someone. If I were Gambit, I could charge it up, throw it at the lights, and end the meeting early, yay!
Last week I had 3 hours of meetings in a row on Thursday, followed by 2 days in a row of Accordion Afternoons...
In other news, another one of the Prophecies of Link have come true! Byron encountered Mr. Dictionary on the weekend. I burst out laughing when Byron told me... nearly every white intern at the company has been caught by the guy now, always asking us to edit his dictionary. If Byron read my blog, he'd have been prepared for it!
Last last night I dreamt that I was looking for a washroom in Egypt, and eventually that my friend had a sarcophagus in his house. This apparently means that the friend I dreamt about is keeping secrets from me... I'm watching you! I can't remember what I dreamt last night, but it was even weirder.
I applied for 19 summer internships at 7 companies yesterday. Though to be fair, one company offered the same job 6 times (I suppose they need 6 people), so I applied to the same job 6 times ><.
And I already recieved a rejection letter from IBM's Extreme Blue program!! Hurray! Though I think it was an auto-mail from the US program, likely because I'd need sponsorship to work in the States, and they don't wanna do the paperwork.
If anyone has any suggestions for companies to apply for, anywhere in Canada, let me know... I got a few more companies to apply to, and if nothing, I'll probably consider alternate plans for the summer.
Weekend was extremely exciting, I went shopping, bought some clothes, souvenirs, and peanut butter. On Coming of Age Day I went to the archery tourney I read about, but nobody was there, so I went downtown, only saw a couple girls in kimono (which were pretty, but there weren't enough of em), so I went back home. Where I read 550 pages of Angels and Demons in one night. Keith lent it to me, I liked it better than Da Vinci Code. Though it felt like the author was plagiarizing his own material... the structure of both books was almost identical. Gonna go teach myself to snowboard hopefully this Saturday, then got the Killers concert on Monday.
I wish I was surfing right now...
Saturday, January 06, 2007
I Refuse to Answer that Question on the Grounds that I Don't Know the Answer.
I wish the world was flat like the old days
Then I could travel just by folding a map
No more airplanes, or speedtrains, or freeways
There'd be no distance that can hold us back.
So this is the new year…
Wow, lots to write about… too much almost… so I’ll do my best to be brief, if possible.
Last Friday I got kicked out of my dorm for the week. So I went to JJs, to practice my awesome Dance Dance Revolution skillz. Then I decided that that was a stupid way to spend the week, and went to meet Keith in Tennoji and headed to Kyushu by ferry.
As it turns out, ferry is only slightly better than the night bus. Each passenger (unless they pay a fortune for upper class), gets a sleeping area of about 3 feet by 7 feet, with a blanket and an uncomfortable pillow. This sleeping area is located in a room filled with 39 other sleeping areas, occupied by drunk people, screaming children, and very loud snorers/sneezers. Ferry food is also quite unpleasant, but it is interesting to note that in the Ferry buffet, there was raw chicken sashimi. I can’t even think of how much I’d have to be paid to eat raw chicken from a buffet, on a ferry, but it would be astronomically high. “Please! Just inject me with salmonella right now!”
After the (relatively) short 12 hour ferry ride, we arrived in Beppu, then left almost right away for our first destination, Mt. Aso. Mount Aso is a live volcano that is currently smoking from the crater. Because of 4 eruptions tens of thousands of years ago, the volcano collapsed, forming a special type of crater called a caldera, which is 18-25km across, with a 120km circumference. Not quite as impressive as Yellowstone Caldera, but still cool to see. Looking from Aso Station, you could see an almost vertical rock wall in the distance with a plateau on the top, very neato.
Anyway, we had lunch at Aso Station, then took a 40 min bus ride up the mountain. Though you can take the gondola up to the crater, we walked it. It wasn’t a bad walk, but we were hoping for more hiking trails to go on. But the crater was cool to see.
Headed back down the mountain and to our hotel, had KFC for dinner, looked on the internet for stuff to do in Fukuoka, and went to bed.
I could almost cover Fukuoka in one paragraph. It was pretty dead when we were there… coulda been because of new years though. We went to Canal City, a large mall with stores, arcade, theatre, restaurants, hotel, etc. Stores were very pricy for the most part. We saw a magician perform too, but he wasn’t very good, other than his balance, but I must say it was interesting to hear Robert Miles played on loud speakers while watching a cheesy magician in a mall in Japan. We attempted to look for a bar/club for new years, I had heard Tenjin was the happenin’ area, and assumed we wouldn’t need instructions to find the nightclub street. I was wrong : (. Tenjin was dead, and we ended up walking to Canal City by accident without finding anything decent. We had dinner, went back to the hotel to recover, got directions, and headed back out at 10 to midnight.
We found the nightclub area, it looked like a miniature Roppongi, pretty dirty, lots of foreigners, etc. The only club we found, Sam and Dave’s, was packed, charging 3000en (30 bucks) and it was well past midnight… so we gave up and went back to the hotel.
We went to the Fukuoka Castle Ruins the next day, then went to Fukuoka’s most famous temple for the new years celebrations, hoping for lots of girls and kimono, but really finding neither. It was more like Gion Matsuri, billions of people all moving in a large blob towards the temple. Not a lot to see, but the temple guards had facemasks to protect them from people throwing their go-en coins. Had Fukuoka ramen for lunch, then went back towards our hotel. At this point we had given up on Fukuoka, decided to find billiards or an arcade or something to kill time for the rest of the day, and had dinner at Kaiten (Conveyor Belt) Sushi.
The only other interesting point was we had the traditional new years breakfast at our hotel. It was not bad, mochi soup, veggies, very strong fish eggs, etc. Keith was expecting it to be a lot weirder, haha. After breakfast we left Fukuoka and took a 4hr train ride to Beppu.
Beppu started off as a bit of a drag… our hotel was ok, we had our own bathroom and separate beds, but it was pretty old, not nearly as nice as the Kumamoto one. We ventured off to look for one of Beppu’s famous onsen. The first one we passed by looked like a house, so we moved on. The second one we found after traveling through the shady area. It was in a very old Japanese style building, and was known for its sand baths, where you pay to strip naked and have attendants shovel sand on you. That part was closed, so for 100en we checked out the normal bath, and were kind of surprised. There was one small concrete tub crowded with naked guys, and a small bucket shower area. It was like my dorm, only older, dirtier, and more crowded. We decided to keep searching.
After a long walk, and us being a bit depressed after our past few days bad luck, and it raining out, we finally found a decent, modern sento. I think this was where our luck started to improve. The bath was good, had a hot, an aroma, and a cold sauna, the cold water baths, the jet baths, and the electric baths, which I don’t understand, but I suppose some people enjoy getting an electric shock while they are naked in a public bath.
We had a feast (as Keith put it) at an isakaya place for dinner. We got everything from pork skewers to fried rice and noodles to kimchi stirfry, plus large ice cream sundaes for dessert.
The final day was the best, if a little short. We rented bikes, 900en for 5 hours, with little motors on them to assist with acceleration or climbing hills. We made our way halfway across the city to Beppu’s famous Jigoku, or Buddhist Hells. Toured the Mud Hells (bubbling mud pits), Sea Hell, Mountain Hell (with a zoo), Crocodile Hell, Devil Hell, White Pond Hell, Dragon Hell, Red Hell, and Geyser Hell. Most of them were impressive, with a few duds, but cool to see. Photos on webalbum, with more to come once Keith posts his. We raced back on our bikes so we wouldn’t get charged for extra time. Ate lunch quick, went to the onsen that looked like a house for a quick shower. It was worse than the sand bath place, but at least less busy. Then we caught the bus for the ferry terminal and got on the ferry for home.
The second ferry was a lot longer because it wasn’t direct… made stops at Oita, Matsuyama, and Kobe… so 17 hours total. We met a grad student from China and talked to him for a bit, Keith managed to finish his book, Angels and Demons, I finished my Asimov book, I watched Donnie Darko and some really really bad Japanese TV (more on that later), and had a very uncomfortable sleep. Makudo pancake breakfast in Tennoji, then it was farewell to Keith and off to my dorm.
Overall, the trip was decent, the places I expected to be not so good (Mt. Aso and Beppu) turned out to be the best, while the place I thought would be exciting (Fukuoka) was a drag. But at least we had some good days in there, and ended on a high note. Thanks again Keith for coming with, otherwise I’d have been very very bored haha.
So Japanese TV – What I saw on my vacation to Kyushu.
A show in which 3 guys pretend to be corpses in a morgue. The police officers would be examining the bodies, and kind of torturing them, smacking their heads, pouring hot wax on them, sticking things up their noses, etc., to see if they would react. And when the cops laughed at the “dead” guys’ reactions, other cops would come in and give the cops a spanking with large rubber sticks. At which time the whole thing would repeat. For 30 minutes.
A competition in which the goal is to sprint and get underneath a falling ball before it reaches the ground. Imagine spending your life training for that sport :P.
On the ferry I saw a show with a topless black girl with a chest big enough to belong in Jerry Springer’s hall of fame, a guy that had burning towels placed on top of him, a dating show where the guy had to choose a girl based on video footage of their chest and stats on their body sizes, and 2 guys fingerpainting, nude, in a field, and NOT using their fingers o.O.
Ok, dream diary time, just to scare everyone off now that my post is almost over. Correction, scare everyone off that is still reading after the Japan TV section. I had a few very vivid dreams over the holiday. The first involved my friends on a roller coaster… one managed to get out of his safety device and onto the track, then was using his ninja running and jumping skills to chase the coaster car to try to get back in before it went down the hill. Only he failed, and managed to derail the coaster, and we all fell in the river below.
In the second dream I was a reporter, and the producers of the Daily Show promised an advance copy of America: The Book to the reporter who could best tell them why we must “put an end to celestial violence”. Now I don’t have any clue what this dream means, but you gotta admit, celestial violence would make a good name for a rock band.
The day before the third dream, we discussed whether there were lockers in Beppu Station. That night, I dreamt that we did find lockers, and then the next day, my dream turned out to be true. I think it was a premonition, let it be known that I am psychic.
The fourth dream was creepy… it involved: Killer bees (“No! No Bees!”), the monster from Lost (though this coulda been the same as the bees), a dead body (this definitely came from Dan Brown’s book, Angels and Demons, which I was reading before I went to bed), the evil man-eating plant thing from the safari game we played in Fukuoka, and I also remember a bag of bananas, a street vendor, something about Harry Potter, and a red high heeled shoe.
Any dream interpreters out there? I need serious help.
I wish the world was flat like the old days
Then I could travel just by folding a map
No more airplanes, or speedtrains, or freeways
There'd be no distance that can hold us back.
So this is the new year…
Wow, lots to write about… too much almost… so I’ll do my best to be brief, if possible.
Last Friday I got kicked out of my dorm for the week. So I went to JJs, to practice my awesome Dance Dance Revolution skillz. Then I decided that that was a stupid way to spend the week, and went to meet Keith in Tennoji and headed to Kyushu by ferry.
As it turns out, ferry is only slightly better than the night bus. Each passenger (unless they pay a fortune for upper class), gets a sleeping area of about 3 feet by 7 feet, with a blanket and an uncomfortable pillow. This sleeping area is located in a room filled with 39 other sleeping areas, occupied by drunk people, screaming children, and very loud snorers/sneezers. Ferry food is also quite unpleasant, but it is interesting to note that in the Ferry buffet, there was raw chicken sashimi. I can’t even think of how much I’d have to be paid to eat raw chicken from a buffet, on a ferry, but it would be astronomically high. “Please! Just inject me with salmonella right now!”
After the (relatively) short 12 hour ferry ride, we arrived in Beppu, then left almost right away for our first destination, Mt. Aso. Mount Aso is a live volcano that is currently smoking from the crater. Because of 4 eruptions tens of thousands of years ago, the volcano collapsed, forming a special type of crater called a caldera, which is 18-25km across, with a 120km circumference. Not quite as impressive as Yellowstone Caldera, but still cool to see. Looking from Aso Station, you could see an almost vertical rock wall in the distance with a plateau on the top, very neato.
Anyway, we had lunch at Aso Station, then took a 40 min bus ride up the mountain. Though you can take the gondola up to the crater, we walked it. It wasn’t a bad walk, but we were hoping for more hiking trails to go on. But the crater was cool to see.
Headed back down the mountain and to our hotel, had KFC for dinner, looked on the internet for stuff to do in Fukuoka, and went to bed.
I could almost cover Fukuoka in one paragraph. It was pretty dead when we were there… coulda been because of new years though. We went to Canal City, a large mall with stores, arcade, theatre, restaurants, hotel, etc. Stores were very pricy for the most part. We saw a magician perform too, but he wasn’t very good, other than his balance, but I must say it was interesting to hear Robert Miles played on loud speakers while watching a cheesy magician in a mall in Japan. We attempted to look for a bar/club for new years, I had heard Tenjin was the happenin’ area, and assumed we wouldn’t need instructions to find the nightclub street. I was wrong : (. Tenjin was dead, and we ended up walking to Canal City by accident without finding anything decent. We had dinner, went back to the hotel to recover, got directions, and headed back out at 10 to midnight.
We found the nightclub area, it looked like a miniature Roppongi, pretty dirty, lots of foreigners, etc. The only club we found, Sam and Dave’s, was packed, charging 3000en (30 bucks) and it was well past midnight… so we gave up and went back to the hotel.
We went to the Fukuoka Castle Ruins the next day, then went to Fukuoka’s most famous temple for the new years celebrations, hoping for lots of girls and kimono, but really finding neither. It was more like Gion Matsuri, billions of people all moving in a large blob towards the temple. Not a lot to see, but the temple guards had facemasks to protect them from people throwing their go-en coins. Had Fukuoka ramen for lunch, then went back towards our hotel. At this point we had given up on Fukuoka, decided to find billiards or an arcade or something to kill time for the rest of the day, and had dinner at Kaiten (Conveyor Belt) Sushi.
The only other interesting point was we had the traditional new years breakfast at our hotel. It was not bad, mochi soup, veggies, very strong fish eggs, etc. Keith was expecting it to be a lot weirder, haha. After breakfast we left Fukuoka and took a 4hr train ride to Beppu.
Beppu started off as a bit of a drag… our hotel was ok, we had our own bathroom and separate beds, but it was pretty old, not nearly as nice as the Kumamoto one. We ventured off to look for one of Beppu’s famous onsen. The first one we passed by looked like a house, so we moved on. The second one we found after traveling through the shady area. It was in a very old Japanese style building, and was known for its sand baths, where you pay to strip naked and have attendants shovel sand on you. That part was closed, so for 100en we checked out the normal bath, and were kind of surprised. There was one small concrete tub crowded with naked guys, and a small bucket shower area. It was like my dorm, only older, dirtier, and more crowded. We decided to keep searching.
After a long walk, and us being a bit depressed after our past few days bad luck, and it raining out, we finally found a decent, modern sento. I think this was where our luck started to improve. The bath was good, had a hot, an aroma, and a cold sauna, the cold water baths, the jet baths, and the electric baths, which I don’t understand, but I suppose some people enjoy getting an electric shock while they are naked in a public bath.
We had a feast (as Keith put it) at an isakaya place for dinner. We got everything from pork skewers to fried rice and noodles to kimchi stirfry, plus large ice cream sundaes for dessert.
The final day was the best, if a little short. We rented bikes, 900en for 5 hours, with little motors on them to assist with acceleration or climbing hills. We made our way halfway across the city to Beppu’s famous Jigoku, or Buddhist Hells. Toured the Mud Hells (bubbling mud pits), Sea Hell, Mountain Hell (with a zoo), Crocodile Hell, Devil Hell, White Pond Hell, Dragon Hell, Red Hell, and Geyser Hell. Most of them were impressive, with a few duds, but cool to see. Photos on webalbum, with more to come once Keith posts his. We raced back on our bikes so we wouldn’t get charged for extra time. Ate lunch quick, went to the onsen that looked like a house for a quick shower. It was worse than the sand bath place, but at least less busy. Then we caught the bus for the ferry terminal and got on the ferry for home.
The second ferry was a lot longer because it wasn’t direct… made stops at Oita, Matsuyama, and Kobe… so 17 hours total. We met a grad student from China and talked to him for a bit, Keith managed to finish his book, Angels and Demons, I finished my Asimov book, I watched Donnie Darko and some really really bad Japanese TV (more on that later), and had a very uncomfortable sleep. Makudo pancake breakfast in Tennoji, then it was farewell to Keith and off to my dorm.
Overall, the trip was decent, the places I expected to be not so good (Mt. Aso and Beppu) turned out to be the best, while the place I thought would be exciting (Fukuoka) was a drag. But at least we had some good days in there, and ended on a high note. Thanks again Keith for coming with, otherwise I’d have been very very bored haha.
So Japanese TV – What I saw on my vacation to Kyushu.
A show in which 3 guys pretend to be corpses in a morgue. The police officers would be examining the bodies, and kind of torturing them, smacking their heads, pouring hot wax on them, sticking things up their noses, etc., to see if they would react. And when the cops laughed at the “dead” guys’ reactions, other cops would come in and give the cops a spanking with large rubber sticks. At which time the whole thing would repeat. For 30 minutes.
A competition in which the goal is to sprint and get underneath a falling ball before it reaches the ground. Imagine spending your life training for that sport :P.
On the ferry I saw a show with a topless black girl with a chest big enough to belong in Jerry Springer’s hall of fame, a guy that had burning towels placed on top of him, a dating show where the guy had to choose a girl based on video footage of their chest and stats on their body sizes, and 2 guys fingerpainting, nude, in a field, and NOT using their fingers o.O.
Ok, dream diary time, just to scare everyone off now that my post is almost over. Correction, scare everyone off that is still reading after the Japan TV section. I had a few very vivid dreams over the holiday. The first involved my friends on a roller coaster… one managed to get out of his safety device and onto the track, then was using his ninja running and jumping skills to chase the coaster car to try to get back in before it went down the hill. Only he failed, and managed to derail the coaster, and we all fell in the river below.
In the second dream I was a reporter, and the producers of the Daily Show promised an advance copy of America: The Book to the reporter who could best tell them why we must “put an end to celestial violence”. Now I don’t have any clue what this dream means, but you gotta admit, celestial violence would make a good name for a rock band.
The day before the third dream, we discussed whether there were lockers in Beppu Station. That night, I dreamt that we did find lockers, and then the next day, my dream turned out to be true. I think it was a premonition, let it be known that I am psychic.
The fourth dream was creepy… it involved: Killer bees (“No! No Bees!”), the monster from Lost (though this coulda been the same as the bees), a dead body (this definitely came from Dan Brown’s book, Angels and Demons, which I was reading before I went to bed), the evil man-eating plant thing from the safari game we played in Fukuoka, and I also remember a bag of bananas, a street vendor, something about Harry Potter, and a red high heeled shoe.
Any dream interpreters out there? I need serious help.
Friday, January 05, 2007
Mom and Dad Say I Should Make My Life an Example of the Principles I Believe In... But Everytime I Do, They Tell Me to Stop It
Note to Readers: This post is a week late; I wrote it last Thursday, and parts may not be relevant anymore, but may still be amusing. I especially like the bit about the horse. Also important to note is that my webalbum has my pictures up for my Kyushu trip, and my New Years blog will be up… by Monday at the latest.
Second Note to Readers: This thar be my 50th blog! That thar be half of a hunnerd, arrrrr! Congrats to me, avast!
Oooh, last day before a full week off of work, yay! And that makes it desk cleaning day too. Which is probably good, I got teeth coming out of my ears! Well… not MY teeth… and not literally, thank goodness. But there are still a substantial number of teeth on and in my desk. As well as the collection of post it notes from work people that I’ve been saving since July. Pieces of wire, ear wax, and other fancy stuff. Well, fine, no ear wax, but there’s a bit of peeled skin in my drawer from the week of pain following Okinawa >< gross. Ooh, my learning objectives sheet! Excel graphs: Ten thousand saw I at a glance, and billions of food coupons. I gotta spend those. Holy crap there's a lot! Well, my hands are now black from all the dust in/around/under my computer. Sandpaper?!? When did I ever use sandpaper!? Rusty Kleenex, interesting… But this is a good example of Japanese office telepathy in action, everyone starts cleaning at exactly the same time!
And now back to work.
Well, the last day of the work year in Japan is good news for me. But first I’ll recap the events of the past week. Umm… Friday I went down to Wakayama with Jen, it was Keith’s birthday and so we were gonna go clubbing. So of course when we get there, the club is closed, even though the calendar says there’s an event scheduled for that night. We ended up playing ping pong and pool at Wakayama JJs instead. Stayed at Keith’s for the night, at lunch with him the next day, then went home when he went back to work.
Sunday, I went to the gym in the morning, then we went for all you can eat yakiniku in the evening. When we got to the place, there was a 2hr wait! Christmas Eve, what did we expect… so we put our names down, and try to look for another place… an hour and a half later with still no luck, we went back to the yakiniku place ><.
Work on Christmas Day, I was surprised how under-celebrated it was after all the decorations and lights. I went to Dylan’s place for a small Mexican Christmas dinner. Dylan’s a friend of Anton and Jen, the party was fun, but I had to leave early to make curfew, and so I missed Love Actually :(.
By Boxing Day Christmas decorations were virtually gone, it was weird, like Christmas never happened… which it barely did. I got some good gifts in the mail from my family though, which was very nice, including some money from my grandparents and great aunt, which was very much appreciated. And I got a bonus (or maybe taxes back) on my paycheck yesterday, can’t complain about that either.
Well, over the past 2 weeks (3 now) a lot of my fellow CJPers have returned home to Canada. Anton, Boon-hau, and Tongxin have left in the Kansai area, and more elsewhere in Japan. No more crazy old man adventures with Anton /cry. I’ll miss you guys, it’ll be a lot different here without you, but keep in touch and I’ll see you back in Canada! CJP Reunion Party Ohhhhh Yeah! Or you guys could come visit me in Calgary! Pffft >< Yeah right.
Mmm, one more night of dorm showers, then it’s… a night on a ferry… and then 4 nights of private showers!!! And then… a night on a ferry… and then dorm showers… That’s right, kicked out of my dorm tomorrow afternoon, and the trip to Kyushu begins. The plan is the same as before, except I’m taking the ferry instead of night train. Should be interesting, I’ll take pictures.
Still busy planning my post-Japan life, job searching for this summer and even looking at the school year and summer beyond. Applied for few more jobs this week, I wish I knew when they were hiring though. And if nothing else comes up, I’m considering doing a working holiday in Australia for 3 months in the summer! If anyone knows anything about working holidays… or Australia… or the cane toads that are taking over the north… let me know!
So yeah, no more blogs till probably Jan 7 or so, but there’ll be a big update then with tons of pictures yay! Happy New Year everyone!
Note to Readers: This post is a week late; I wrote it last Thursday, and parts may not be relevant anymore, but may still be amusing. I especially like the bit about the horse. Also important to note is that my webalbum has my pictures up for my Kyushu trip, and my New Years blog will be up… by Monday at the latest.
Second Note to Readers: This thar be my 50th blog! That thar be half of a hunnerd, arrrrr! Congrats to me, avast!
Oooh, last day before a full week off of work, yay! And that makes it desk cleaning day too. Which is probably good, I got teeth coming out of my ears! Well… not MY teeth… and not literally, thank goodness. But there are still a substantial number of teeth on and in my desk. As well as the collection of post it notes from work people that I’ve been saving since July. Pieces of wire, ear wax, and other fancy stuff. Well, fine, no ear wax, but there’s a bit of peeled skin in my drawer from the week of pain following Okinawa >< gross. Ooh, my learning objectives sheet! Excel graphs: Ten thousand saw I at a glance, and billions of food coupons. I gotta spend those. Holy crap there's a lot! Well, my hands are now black from all the dust in/around/under my computer. Sandpaper?!? When did I ever use sandpaper!? Rusty Kleenex, interesting… But this is a good example of Japanese office telepathy in action, everyone starts cleaning at exactly the same time!
And now back to work.
Well, the last day of the work year in Japan is good news for me. But first I’ll recap the events of the past week. Umm… Friday I went down to Wakayama with Jen, it was Keith’s birthday and so we were gonna go clubbing. So of course when we get there, the club is closed, even though the calendar says there’s an event scheduled for that night. We ended up playing ping pong and pool at Wakayama JJs instead. Stayed at Keith’s for the night, at lunch with him the next day, then went home when he went back to work.
Sunday, I went to the gym in the morning, then we went for all you can eat yakiniku in the evening. When we got to the place, there was a 2hr wait! Christmas Eve, what did we expect… so we put our names down, and try to look for another place… an hour and a half later with still no luck, we went back to the yakiniku place ><.
Work on Christmas Day, I was surprised how under-celebrated it was after all the decorations and lights. I went to Dylan’s place for a small Mexican Christmas dinner. Dylan’s a friend of Anton and Jen, the party was fun, but I had to leave early to make curfew, and so I missed Love Actually :(.
By Boxing Day Christmas decorations were virtually gone, it was weird, like Christmas never happened… which it barely did. I got some good gifts in the mail from my family though, which was very nice, including some money from my grandparents and great aunt, which was very much appreciated. And I got a bonus (or maybe taxes back) on my paycheck yesterday, can’t complain about that either.
Well, over the past 2 weeks (3 now) a lot of my fellow CJPers have returned home to Canada. Anton, Boon-hau, and Tongxin have left in the Kansai area, and more elsewhere in Japan. No more crazy old man adventures with Anton /cry. I’ll miss you guys, it’ll be a lot different here without you, but keep in touch and I’ll see you back in Canada! CJP Reunion Party Ohhhhh Yeah! Or you guys could come visit me in Calgary! Pffft >< Yeah right.
Mmm, one more night of dorm showers, then it’s… a night on a ferry… and then 4 nights of private showers!!! And then… a night on a ferry… and then dorm showers… That’s right, kicked out of my dorm tomorrow afternoon, and the trip to Kyushu begins. The plan is the same as before, except I’m taking the ferry instead of night train. Should be interesting, I’ll take pictures.
Still busy planning my post-Japan life, job searching for this summer and even looking at the school year and summer beyond. Applied for few more jobs this week, I wish I knew when they were hiring though. And if nothing else comes up, I’m considering doing a working holiday in Australia for 3 months in the summer! If anyone knows anything about working holidays… or Australia… or the cane toads that are taking over the north… let me know!
So yeah, no more blogs till probably Jan 7 or so, but there’ll be a big update then with tons of pictures yay! Happy New Year everyone!
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