Lesson learnt: Never go to USJ during Golden Week

The post is a bit late but i need to clear up some space on my fone for all the pics ive taken lately so what better way to tell u about my trip with mika to Universal Studios Japan. While i was in kobe mika had the idea of going to USJ. I agreed with her and recommended that we shouldnt go on the weekend as itll be packed. U would think it would make a difference, but it didnt! It was a beautiful hot day but i couldnt enjoy myself from the time i saw the line to get into the place. We patiently waited for an hour to pay for our tickets in (5500yen........bloody rip off) and waited almost half an hour just to get thru the main gate. From then, the place was packed with people and mika was fart arsing around with various shit. U couldnt walk in a straight line, it was that busy! And those bastard little kids kept walking around not taking any attention to where they were walking. You'd think someone of my stature in Japan would be the one dodging people but i was. I respect Japan but when it comes to be crowds, they can be so rude and ignorant its not funny. We then decided to go on the Spiderman ride because i hadnt yet been on it coz it wasnt there when i had last been to USJ. After walking thru the masses, we got to the line for the spiderman line only to see a sign saying "From this point it is a 185 minute wait!!" WHAT THE FARMER BROWN.....?!?!!? knowing it was gonna be like this anywhere we went we jumped in line and tested our patience to the extremes........it was hell! hehe. after waiting for three hours, we enjoyed our 5 minute ride helping spiderman catch the baddies!!! it was really worth the wait (SARCASM!!). by that time is was way past lunchtime and we were starving and decided to grab a bite....but no matter where we went it was over an hour wait for food so we decided "fuck it, lets just go on another ride and not think about food for awhile." so we then went to line up for the Jurassic Park ride since Mika had never been on it before. And i kid u not, we waited for 4 whole fucking hours to ride that thing. By the time we got off that, it was 7pm and getting dark so we ganbare'd and had some dinner before going to see the new Peter Pan show they have going recently. We couldnt see shit as people had been sitting down in the good seats for a few hours before the show started. fact. all u could see was Peter Pan flying around like a gay parrot saving his boyfriend Wendy...hehe. Didnt take many fotos of the park as we were literally in line all day. In the end, we only managed to ride 2 rides and piss each other off because we were both frustrated by how mental it was. There had to be at least 50,000 people there and that is just bullshit coz the only people benefiting from it is USJ themselves by ripping off everyone charging 60 bucks a pop for 2 rides and a shitty show! anyways, enjoy the pics.....

This is one of many pics of us in line. We appear to be quite sane for the time being.

or maybe not!

There were times when i wanted to this......

....and there were times where we bored shitless.

There were times where i had to do the usual boyfriend thing and walk into a shop full of pink.........

.....and there were good times like this!

Overall, we both managed not to rip out each others hair and made the best out of a shitty situation.

a chicken?!?!!? in kobe?!?!?!?!!?!

After leaving the hotel after the recontracting conference in kobe(will post more on that later), flinty, paul and i got out of our taxi in the middle of the city at one of the city's busiest stations, only to be confronted by a chicken standing by itself in amongst all the people. "what the hell is a chicken doing in the city?!?" we thought, so we took a couple of fotos (cheers paul for the fotos) to in celebration on such a find.
flinty and myself absolutley stoked about our find

the boys doing a lovely chicken dance! i still cant believe some dickhead would walk their chicken in the MIDDLE OF THE CITY! the owner had a shirt for it and everything

Summersonic Musical Festival 2006

So finally got my ticket to and am looking forward to going to Summersonic in Osaka during the middle of August for two fun-filled days of beer and great bands! The line-up kicks arse. Check it out!
Day1:
Linkin Park MUSE
My Chemical Romance Fall Out Boy
Ellegarden Massive Attack
DJ Shadow Artic Monkeys
TOOL AFI
The Cat Empire Beat Crusaders
etc......

Day 2:
METALLICA!!!!!! DEFTONES!!!!
Hoobastank Zebrahead
Daft Punk The Charlatans
The Rapture The Flaming Lips
etc.......

The line-up is so much better than the line-up for the Fuji Rock Festival and is cheaper too. I'm going with a couple of the boys who work here in Kochi with me, so it should all be good tunes, good booze and good times!!!

Dont believe me? Well check out the website: www.summersonic.com

fushimi inari shrine

During Golden Week i managed to go to kyoto again, but this time i went somewhere i havent been before. It was the Fushimi Inari Jinja. Its pretty much a large hill with a whole bunch of different shrines and u can spend a 2-3 hours walking around the entire grounds. The pathways have these red TORI that u walk under for most of the way and i have to say that it was quite cool. anyways....enjoy the pics
This looks like to two fotos in one but its actually two paths

The start of the pathway leading up the mountain

same as above

The new Kami City BOE can be described simply in one word.....

ANAL.

Everything now has to be done by the book, yet noone yet knows the rules properly yet. I now have to fill out a sheet everyday (as well as swiping my timecard in and out) that says what time i arrive at school, if i eat spewshoku (school lunch) at school, and what time i leave. This form is to be signed by the school. It is completely anal and a little bit Nazi. I have to go to a lot of schools at different times of the day so having to do this all the time is becoming quite a pain in the arse.... Its also stopping me from having my long lunch breaks which noone here has thankfully found out about yet.
My Junior High School had a cry today coz i didnt go directly back to school after i went home for lunch and they wanted to make sure they signed me out. The reason why i didnt go directly back to school was so i could quietly prepare for my primary school classes for friday and monday so i stopped in at the BOE to do that before having to return to my JHS.

It's anal i tell ya!

Japan is far from internationalised

As it is my job to come up with banter at the start of every class at my junior high, today i asked the 2nd and 3rd years, "if u could go ANYWHERE in the world, where do u want to go?" As per usual, there was a big silence and a lot of answering in japanese before i said speak (fucking) english. I then asked some kids individually and out of all the places they could travel in the world they only wanted to go to Osaka or Tokyo. Only one kid made it out of Japan and said he wanted to go to America so he could meet Ichiro Suzuki (a pro baseball player for the Seattle Mariners who is, you guessed it, Japanese). This is yet another example of the ignorance of Japanese people to the outside world. The only people who seem to be getting internationalised in japan are the foreigners working here.
Also today i read somewhere that the Japanese government has passed a bill through the Diet that all foreigners that come into the country must be photographed and fingerprinted in order to minimise the threat of terrorism. I dont know if any other country has taken these controversial steps but to me, a foreigner in this country who is not in any way a terrorist, being treated that way because you arent of Japanese nationality is complete utter bullshit! Prime Minister Koizumi can do various things which i wont mention on this blog. sorry to be bitching but its just how i feel at the moment.

Funny things seem to keep happening in the inaka in Japan

Last night i decided to kick back for a bit after work and watch some Japanese TV. During the commercial break for some programme where some old bitch thinks she knows everything and tells gullible Japanese people how to live their lives, an add came on and the product was called Fetus Lotion. Now it isnt pronounced properly ( not like feetus ) but in japanese it was フェイティス・ローション. Of course i immediately pissed myself laughing at this.
And today, after finishing one of my classes at Odochi primary and returning to my BOE, the people there told me that someone had stacked their car in front of my house in the storm drain. Therefore, I had to go and check it out for myself and take a picture. And here it is:

I have no idea whose car that is but that is my local policeman checking everything out and directing the few cars that actually need to drive past.
I have no idea how this person got his car like that but it just proves how shit Japanese drivers are. dumbasses

The Tosa-ben Musical performances and certain people who like to tap dance by themselves

Sorry for the lack of posts lately! Though i plan on catching up with what ive been doing the pass few weeks. Towards the end of last month we, the Genki Seinenkai, made up of other JETs throughout Kochi finally performed the musical that we had only been rehearsing from early february. The first weekend was the most nerve-wracking as we had our first performance in front of a live audience, and it just so happened to be near where i live so many people came down to visit. Even Mika came along to support everyone, and had enough patience to sit through 3 performances (although i did see her having a little snooze during one of the scenes). Everyone did a top job considering we were hungover on the Sunday especially! The next weekend was the most tiring (22-23rd April) and ive only recovered from it coz of Golden Week. We caught a bus the night before and toured through western Kochi on Saturday, and had some surprisingly big audiences thanks to doug and dans great PR work (well done boys). Then on Sunday, we still had another 3 performances to do, the last being in Kochi City (and the most important). We all ganbare'd and managed to get quite a good reaction out of the audience. Kochi City's performance was probably the most nerve-wracking coz there were heaps of people there. But we managed to pull it off quite well and have some fun along the way. All in all, it was great to finally finish and it made most of us forget about the gruelling hours and weekends we had all lost to genki! I made a lot of new friends out of this experience, travelled around Kochi and surprised myself that i had actually taken part in a musical. All in all, we estimated that we raised about $5000 to go towards the international exchange program for Kochi Prefecture's kids to be able to study abroad. Knowing that made it all worthwhile........(i know it sounds cheesy....blow me)! hehe
To embarass myself even more, here are some pics i stole from andrew's website (sorry mate).
Though im sure it wont be as embarassing as when i see myself on TV this week dancing like a bastard and getting interviewed in japanese.

Here are the 7 Samurai of Yamauchi Antony ( from left to right: Happy, Grumpy, Doc (me), Sneezy, Bashful, Dopey, and Sleepy). So the Japanese could understand what we were we all wore a sign on our costumes saying what what our names meant. Mine was Teacher/ Doctor.

Oh no!!! Grumpy's Choking on a piece of mochi. Whatever shall we do?

I know! Lets suck it out with a vacuum cleaner! Brilliant writing!!

Mr Dan Lochman as Nagabana (translation: long nose) and the other star of the show, our the camel!

Kneeling in front of one of the Lords of Japan about to receive Kochi Prefecture. This bit actually caned my legs. Its simple! I cant sit like that. Japan must like pain or something.

Me getting the attention of an old granny and asking her if she knew of any architects that could build Kochi Castle.

See it wasnt really an old granny but Pak-san, one of the extras.

A sword fight against Dopey who was so stupid he forgot his sword. comedy. this was actually part of a dance we had to do called 'Samurai Soul'.

The two main characters Yamauchi Antony and Chiyopatra. Honestly, theres nothing sexual about this but she actually wasnt supposed to do this......she only did it for fun on our last performance in Kochi City.

A few of the samurai and i listening into someones conversation, just before Antony would propose to Chiyopatra.

Yes, there i am in the red shirt dancing like a bastard to 'Walk Like an Egyptian'.

The whole cast at the finale! YOO HOO!!!

Here's a closer look of our final finale in Kochi City!

I couldnt help but put this foto in. Can you see the Japanese guy in normal clothing? He was a volunteer who helped us with our Japanese pronunciation. Unfortunately, nobody can stand this guy and we have nicknamed him the TAP DANCING FUCK!!! To explain, he always came to our rehearsals and would bring a huge tray full of shit into the gym, including his pair of tap shoes, with which he would wear and practise dancing by himself while we reahearsed. It was so fucking annoying! I swear he wore those shoes anywhere. He even tried hip hop dancing along with the girls in his tap shoes which was comedy! He alos took it upon himself to ballroom dance with an imaginary person as well. Six words people: HE IS A TAP DANCING FUCK!!!! (apologies for the language there but its true)